Winchester History Journal | Issue 2 | Common Time 2021 by wincollhistory

Winchester History Journal

Features

Common Time 2021 Issue 2

From the Editors:

Welcome back to the second issue of the Winchester History Journal. We apologise for the tardiness but Mocks slightly got in the way of our intended release date. Nevertheless, we have an absolute treat of an issue for you, including articles on mainstream topics such as German Unification and the October Revolution, and niche areas such as the Book of Kells, Delftware, Highland Clearances and domestic service. This will also be our last issue of the WHJ before handing over to a new editorial team in VI Book 2.

Bismarck: Myth or Mastermind?

Jonty Nottingham (I) The Great Debate – The October Revolution: Popular Uprising or Coup d’État?

Toby Bowes-Lyon (K) & James Hunter (K) 20

‘The Very Shrine of Art’: Illumination in the Book of Kells

Edward Thomson (Coll.) 25

Vietnam and Hollywood

William Goltz (Coll.) 28

Culloden and the Clearances

Toby Bowes-Lyon (K) 35

The History of Things: Delftware and Global Trade in the 17th Century

Guy McEwing (G)

Jonty Nottingham, Sebastian Ellis and Jerome Wilton 37

The Decline of Service in the 20th Century

Jamie Mackinnon (I) 39

A Visit to the DPRK

James Hunter (K) Front Cover:

This Month in History

Anton von Werner Proclamation of the German Empire

Older or Younger?

Interestingly…

From Winchester

Book Review: The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1786 by Gordon Wood

Painted and given to Bismarck in 1885

Seb Ellis (D) 45

(Not so) Historical News Stories

Crossword

This Month in History 25 years ago, Australia’s worst massacre in modern history occurred when 35 were killed in Port Arthur, Tasmania. 50 years ago, the USSR’s Salyut 1 was launched, becoming the first ever manned space station. 75 years ago, the League of Nations met for the last time, and was formally dissolved. 100 years ago, Vladimir Lenin announced the USSR’s New Economic Policy.

Older or Younger? Are the following explorers older or younger than Christopher Columbus? Leif Erikson Ferdinand Magellan Yuri Gagarin Sir Francis Drake Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Ranulph Fiennes Marco Polo James Cook

Answers to previous 'Older or Younger': Queen Elizabeth II LEDs - younger Chocolate Chip Cookies - younger LASERs - younger Etch-a-sketches - younger Frisbees - younger Colour TV - younger Ford Mustangs - younger Slinkys – younger Dinosaurs - older Dark matter - older

Interestingly… Igor Stravinsky was born before Brahms had completed two of his four symphonies and died after the Beatles had split up! During WWI, Romanian officers above the rank of major were authorized to wear eye shadow into battle. Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, uses fingerprint evidence in The Sign of Four - eleven years before the police began using them in real life in 1901. In the 17th century, Cockneys were also known as 'eaters of buttered toast.' In 1911 nuclear physicist George de Hevesy suspected that his landlady was bulking up his meals with leftovers. He proved it by sprinkling radioactive material over his supper and detecting it in another meal a few days later. In 1328, London’s Guild of Pepperers was registered as ‘grossarii’, i.e. those who sell in bulk, or ‘in gross’. This word would later become ‘grocers’, which means that originally grocers sold pepper. An 'article' is a 'regulation wooden seat in a Toys.'

From Winchester Douglas Page (Coll.) Following the governing body’s recent announcement, ‘Winchester College in the 21st Century’, which begins the process of introducing girls and day-pupils to the College, I have looked at the history of aristocratic bias at Winchester. This history can be told through documents, pictures, and paintings. For a different perspective, including a Deb. Soc. debate from the 1950s on co-education, you can watch a video I made on the topic through this link:

portraits can be found in the Master in College’s dining room – the thirteenth was last seen on the art market in 1963.

bit.ly/wincollbias. The statutes, written in 1400, just after the foundation, are relevant to this inquiry. Rubric 2 stipulates that the scholars of the College must be ‘poor and needy.’ Perhaps because of this, aristocratic bias has never been a severe problem at Winchester.

Sir Robert Burdett – One of the 'Gentlemen Commoners' – by Isaac Whood

The Founder’s Statutes of Winchester College A notable exception to this lack of aristocratic bias arises through a footnote to Rubric 16 of the statutes. This footnote made provisions for ‘the sons of noble and influential persons, special friends of the said College, up to the number of ten,’ to be ‘instructed in grammar within the same college, without burden upon the aforesaid College.’ This footnote allowed fee-paying commoners to attend the school. The number of commoners waxed and waned over the years, peaking at a substantial number of about 100 in 1412, not matched until the 18th century. John Burton, the headmaster, commissioned 13 portraits of commoners by Isaac Whood in the 1730s. The collection of paintings is entitled the ‘Gentlemen Commoners,’ and twelve of the thirteen

The numbers of commoners at the school had shot up in John Burton’s years: from 46 in 1727 to 111 in 1732. Winchester had never seen so much blue blood since 1412. Burton perhaps was commemorating this through these portraits, which can be likened to Eton’s 52 leaving portraits, although they were painted whilst the subjects were still boys in the school. Since the Amicabilis Concordia between Eton and Winchester, they have acted alike, often in unison, on many occasions. John Burton’s ‘Gentlemen Commoners’ was an example of this, and so was the decision to make Latin non-compulsory in the Election and King’s Scholarship Examinations in 1968. The revised exam format is similar to the current system. Candidates had to take four compulsory papers and at least three optional ones. The primary difference between then and now is that either French or Latin was compulsory then, rather than Science now. 4

The change was brought about after the governing bodies of both colleges asked the headmasters, Mr Anthony Chenevix-Trench of Eton and Sir Desmond Lee of Winchester, to revise the exams to attract more students from state schools. As Latin is often not taught at state schools, compelling candidates to be proficient in the language narrowed the field of entry considerably.

George and Sarah ‘Mrs Dick’ Richardson

Master in College’s Dining Room looking East commissioned by George Richardson. Five of the Gentlemen Commoners can be seen hung unusually high on the far wall. George Richardson, a former second master, is particularly relevant to this topic. Or rather his wife, Sarah, commonly known as ‘Mrs Dick,’ is. She brought ‘warm draughts of humanity into the austere lives of the scholars’ and often overshadowed her husband. Rubric 45 of the statutes forbade women to hold jobs, or even set foot, in the College. The only exception to this rule occurred when a washerman could not be found, in which case a washerwomen could be allowed to enter, and only then if she was old or ugly enough to not arouse suspicion.

The words of the speech are lost to time, but numerous articles were written about it. Mr Richardson championed the mixed system, speaking about the beneficial role girls might play in the education of boys and declaring that he was a convert to it. He, having made the speech in 1899, boldly asserted that in less than 50 years, some of the great public schools of England would be mixed. His influence was probably important to the continuing prevalence of this debate, just as women like Mrs Dick kept it in the College’s consideration. Thus, throughout its long history, Winchester College has largely evaded bias. The progressive George and Sarah Richardson were undoubtedly important in the College’s journey leading up to the recent announcement, and the Gentleman Commoners are a sharp reminder of Wykeham’s aims to help the poor and needy.

Mrs Dick struggled to be accepted into the monastic society of the College. She was allowed to do what she pleased throughout her own home, but her offer to help in the College kitchen was politely turned down. Mr Richardson, in his valedictory or retirement speech, made the first call for co-education at Winchester. The call has been repeated time and time again, especially since Winchester’s sister foundation, New College, Oxford, decided to admit girls in 1965, and was answered recently by the governing body.

Introduction Following the settlement imposed on her at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Germany remained as a loose confederation of thirty-nine independent states under Austrian hegemony for more than half a century. Yet by 1871 the established European order had been shattered, with Austria excluded from a new lesser-German Empire (Klein Deutschland) dominated by Prussia. The question is – what best explains this? Although the ‘Borussian Myth’ propagated by German nationalist historians such as Heinrich von Treitschke has led Otto von Bismarck to become a quasi-mythical figure, interpretations of this centralEuropean cataclysm are in fact varied. Hagen Schulze emphasises the role of the German national-liberals, arguing that ‘without the diffuse but nevertheless legitimising power of the unification movement there would have emerged not a German Reich but a Great Prussia’. Others have focused on the prevailing economic circumstances, with J.M Keynes arguing that ‘The German Empire has been built more truly on coal and iron than on blood and iron’, and A.J.P. Taylor acknowledging that ‘it might well have been the iron force of economic power rather than the bloody victory of war which forced the decision’. Yet Jonathan Steinberg argues that Bismarck was ultimately the architect of a unified Germany, as he masterminded ‘the greatest diplomatic and political achievement by any leader in the last two centuries’. There is, however, no doubt that Bismarck was only able to have such a revolutionary impact because he was aligned with powerful material and ideological forces. The national-liberal movement gave vital impetus to the national idea, whilst industrialisation, the economic integration provided by the German customs union (the Zollverein), and the economic weakness of France and Austria gave Prussia a military advantage and aided the eventual political integration. Yet neither the national-liberal movement nor a common market was capable of politically unifying Germany alone. Whilst they may have been necessary conditions, it was Bismarck’s realpolitik approach to Prussian foreign policy and unique ability to see potential in the configuration of economic and ideological circumstances that was the sufficient cause. Bismarck’s genius allowed him

to use Prussian militarism to destroy the AustroPrussian ‘Deutscher Dualismus’, win the struggle for central-European supremacy, and create a dominant new state with Prussia at its head.

The German Reich, 1871-1918

Part I: National-liberalism It is easy to dismiss the role of the national-liberal movement in unifying Germany, but it provided a useful bedrock of national sentiment from which Bismarck could attain the office of MinisterPresident and launch his campaign to unify the German states. The movement spread across Germany during the nineteenth century, confined largely to an educated middle-class who began to reject the concept of dynastic, semi-feudal and absolutist states in favour of a national community. But before 1848, events orchestrated by the student national-liberal fraternity, the Burschenschaft, failed to have a significant impact. These included the burning of conservative writer August von Kotzebue’s book at the 1817 Warburg Festival, his murder in 1819, and the 1832 national-democratic Hambach Festival.

The Hambach Festival, 27th May 1832, by Hans Mocznay 7

However, the national-liberals came close to politically transforming Germany in 1848, despite facing overwhelming opposition from across Germany and Austria, and in the face of repressive measures like the 1819 Carlsbad Decrees, and the 1832 Six and Ten Articles. 1848 saw widespread pan-German protests and rebellions, the establishment of a National Assembly in Frankfurt, and an elected assembly in Berlin. Yet whilst the events of 1848 did show the inherent vulnerability of Austria’s hegemonic position, the opportunity provided by Metternich’s fall from power and the March Days in Prussia was ultimately squandered. This is emphasised by Jörn Leonhard, who argues that ‘after an initial phase of apparent coherence (the movement) soon disintegrated … due to … different experiences and expectations, and a dichotomy of social projections’. This dichotomy led to intense internal division, as indecisive ideologues argued over the form of a future German state, and the gulf between the urban liberals and rural peasantry became clear. The executive weakness ultimately meant that little progress was made at either the Frankfurt Parliament or the Berlin Assembly, allowing the reactionaries to recover and reverse many of the concessions which they had previously granted.

Cheering revolutionaries in Berlin, March 19th 1848 Fundamentally, however, the national-liberals failed in 1848 as they could not find a German state willing to challenge Austrian hegemony. King Frederick Wilhelm IV regained his nerve in the autumn of that year, dissolving the radical Berlin Assembly and issuing a watered-down constitution that reasserted his ultimate authority. In 1849 the Prussian army forced the dissolution of the Frankfurt Parliament, with the king refusing their offer of the Imperial Crown of a ‘Klein Deutschland’,

and purportedly describing it in private as ‘from the gutter’ and ‘disgraced with the stink of revolution’. Although 1848 could have been a political watershed, it only served to show that the nationalliberals could not unify Germany without the intervention of Prussia, the only state capable of challenging the pervasive Austrian influence. Yet the idea of merging Prussia with a liberal, constitutionalised Germany under the ‘revolutionary’ Frankfurt Parliament was anathema to Frederick Wilhelm IV. Whilst he may have been tempted by the 1850 Erfurt Union of federated German states, the king and his conservative advisors ultimately shrank at the prospect of war with Austria, rejecting the national-liberals and accepting the revival of the German Confederation with the ‘Humiliation of Olmütz’. The events of 1848-50 showed that until Prussia’s attitude towards Austria shifted, and she was prepared to use her military power to challenge Austrian hegemony, the national-liberals could achieve nothing. The national-liberals remained a powerful force within Prussia in the post-1848 era, and arguably saw some success after Wilhelm I’s regency initiated a moderate liberal ‘new era’ in 1858, but they increasingly served only to be exploited and manipulated. The formation of the German National Association (Nationalverein) in 1859, which sought a liberal ‘Klein Deutschland’ and exerted significant influence in the Prussian parliament, did, however, set the context for the budgetary deadlock over War Minister von Roon’s army reforms, and therefore Bismarck’s appointment as MinisterPresident. Even Bismarck would later admit that the national-liberals provided a sentiment of national unity, and that ‘although German unity was not to be established by parliamentary decisions … liberalism did exercise a pressure on the rulers which made them more inclined to make concessions for the Reich’. Yet ultimately, the national-liberals would go on to play little real role in the 1860s, particularly as the Nationalverein found itself in crisis over the Second Schleswig and Austro-Prussian Wars. Prussian victory in 1866 and the subsequent indemnity bill marked what Schulze sees as a ‘fateful year for liberalism’, in which liberal opposition to Prussian absolutism was undermined by patriotism, and the 8

Nationalverein split decisively in two. The support of the pro-government National-Liberals under Eduard Lasker and Rudolf von Bennigsen certainly aided Bismarck after 1866, isolating the sociallyliberal Progress Party and easing Prussia’s subordination of states like Hanover and Bavaria. However, the movement was forced to sacrifice its wish for a liberal Germany in favour of the cause of national unity, and to play a subordinate role when it had once been expected to lead. This is perhaps best put by Schulze, who acknowledges that events during the 1860s ‘showed up the nationalist movement as strong on noise but powerless’.

Rudolf von Bennigsen, founder of the German National Association

Part II: Coal and iron? Despite little having been achieved towards political or territorial unity until 1864, Germany was already highly economically integrated. In the aftermath of the Vienna Settlement, the 39 German states managed their economies independently, with hundreds of internal customs barriers and restrictive tariffs, including 67 within Prussia alone. However, economic integration progressed rapidly, with the Prussian Customs Union abolishing internal tariffs in 1818, and the Middle German Customs Union following suit a year later. This process was rapidly furthered with the creation of the Zollverein in 1834, a tariff-free customs union of 18 states and 23 million people that encompassed all major states except Hanover and Austria by 1844. The abolition of internal tariffs and the creation of a common external tariff system was highly effective, creating a linked national market that dynamised the German economy.

Borussian historians have long argued that the Zollverein was deployed by Prussia specifically to undermine her enemies, developing economic interdependencies that exacerbated the socioeconomic differences between Prussia and Austria and strengthened German resilience against French aggression, while simultaneously reducing the economic independence of the smaller German states. Whilst this is questionable, with Prussia’s initial aim being economic rather than political, the Zollverein’s potential as a political instrument had certainly become clear by the 1850s, as its position as a substitute for the nation state created a favourable environment for further integration. The Zollverein, therefore, was one of the most important German institutional developments of the 19th Century, particularly as it provided a vital link between the North German Confederation and Southern Germany in 1866-71, helping to foster a more favourable impression of Prussia that aided later annexation. John Bowring’s 1840 report to the British Parliament made this clear, writing that the Zollverein had spread ‘a sentiment… of national unity… and the sentiment of German nationality’. However, whilst the Zollverein may have furthered Prussian economic dominance, and crucially excluded the backward Austrian economy, it certainly didn’t make German unification inevitable, creating what Katharine Lerman describes as a ‘common market rather than a national economy’.

The growth of the Zollverein

Yet it was not just German economic integration that aided unification, but the power of the Prussian economy itself. The acquisition of the coal and iron rich Rhineland and Westphalia in 1815 provided Prussia’s emerging industrial sector with raw materials, and industry grew significantly from the 1850s onwards after an investment boom. The Commutation Law of March 1850 formally abolished feudalism and serfdom, moving Prussia rapidly away from an estate-based rural society towards urban industrial areas, with 55% of the population living in towns and cities by 1858. Railway construction began in earnest after 1835, with the network spanning 18,560 km by 1870 and providing vital cultural and economic links between distant German states. Friedrick List described the railways as ‘a firm girdle around the loins of Germany, binding her limbs together in a forceful and powerful body’. Indeed, both List and Schulze have argued that there was a symbiotic relationship between the railway network and the Zollverein, with Schulze calling the relationship ‘the one strong bond uniting the nation’ after 1848, and List describing them as ‘striving each towards… the unification of the German tribes’. Whilst the direct political implications of railway construction are questionable, there is no doubt that they were a vital component of Prussia’s economic power- particularly when used for troop mobilisation. Railway construction was in part guided by likely locations of troop deployment, and by 1856 Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the Prussian General Staff, was able to move forces quickly across the country using a detailed timetable devised by his predecessor von Reyher. This proved invaluable in both 1866 and 1870, with trains able to move 500,000 troops to the French frontier in only three weeks during the FrancoPrussian War. By 1860 the Prussian economy produced more coal, iron and steel than either France or Austria, shifting the economic balance of power firmly in her favour, whilst an advanced military industry led by Alfred Krupps produced high-quality armaments in the Ruhr. These weapons, including the revolutionary breechloading Dreyse Needle Gun, easily outmatched French and Austrian armaments until the French adoption of the Chassepot in 1866.

Dreyse Needle Gun However, it was not just Prussia’s economic dominance that aided unification, but Austria’s weakness, as their backward economy declined due to a conservative and protectionist approach that feared technological and industrial innovation. Despite Austrian Minister-President Prince Schwarzenberg having warned as early as 1851 that Austria’s continued exclusion from the Zollverein would make it difficult to maintain hegemony in Germany, Vienna still failed to perceive Prussia’s economic threat. While Prussian exports grew, Austria’s shrank, with the liberal Franco-Prussian free-trade treaty of March 1862 termed by Abigail Green as an ‘economic Königgrätz’, excluding Austria from the German common market for good. Nevertheless, economic factors should not be exaggerated in their importance. Large-scale industry was still limited to a relatively small number of states, with only 20% of the workforce employed in the sector, and output still dwarfed by Britain. Ultimately, neither Prussian economic dominance nor German economic unity could politically unify Germany on their own. Instead, a catalyst was needed – one that was found in Bismarck.

Part III: ‘The Iron Chancellor’ The national-liberal movement and the integrated might of the German economy may therefore have been necessary for unification, but it was Bismarck who was able to exploit the circumstances to unify Germany through Prussian militarism. Whilst Bismarck remained uncompromisingly hostile to democracy, he always saw nationalism and the military pursuit of Prussian hegemony as compatible with the maintenance of Prussian autocracy. As a ‘white revolutionary’ who had witnessed the chaos and near formation of a liberal Germany in 1848, Bismarck understood, as he wrote in 1866, that ‘if 10

there is to be a revolution, then we prefer to make it than suffer from it’. He was therefore able to circumvent the iron grip of ideology and dogma and use his revolutionary means solely for conservative ends. However, there is no doubt that his job was made easier by what Bruce Waller describes as ‘the avarice, stupidity, indifferences or connivance of the major powers’. Bismarck was able to capitalise on the inconsistent diplomacy of Napoleon III and outmanoeuvre a system in Vienna that oscillated between a desire for dualism and one for domination, and that had begun what Roy Austensen argues was ‘an ill-fated Austrian offensive in Germany that would ultimately lead to the defeat of 1866’. However, it remains clear that Bismarck had a strategic objective when he became MinisterPresident, laying this out in his famous ‘Blood and Iron’ speech of September 1862: ‘Germany is not looking to Prussia’s liberalism, but to its power…. The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions – that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by blood and iron.’ While this was not as bellicose as some historians have later claimed, nor was Bismarck’s strategy as long-planned as he would later claim in his memoirs, this speech nonetheless presented a clear and concise vision. Bismarck would exploit all available opportunities for unification, whilst allying the Prussian monarchy with the national-liberals on terms that left him in control. This was to be one of his greatest achievements, insisting throughout his time in office that, as Henry Kissinger puts it, ‘nationalism and liberalism need not be parallel phenomena. They could be separated, and traditional Prussia play a national role’. Bismarck’s diplomatic prowess was to be showcased when the Schleswig-Holstein question flared up in 1863-4. The question was of such complexity that Lord Palmerston, British Prime Minister at the time, is reported to have said that ‘only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.’ Nevertheless, Bismarck quickly saw the issue as a chance to present Prussia as the champion of German interests. Although

aided significantly by the diplomatic isolationism of Britain, he had already quelled Russian opposition by adopting a benevolent attitude during the 1863 Polish Revolt. Therefore, Bismarck was able to draw Austria into a quick and decisive war against Denmark. The Second Schleswig War proved to be hugely significant, described by Otto Pflanze as a moment ‘where a single personality, by his capacity to manipulate the forces within his grasp, influenced the course of history and the lives of millions’. After the war, at the Convention of Gastein, Bismarck was successful both in gaining control over Schleswig and Saxe-Lauenburg, and in making Austria’s new administration of Holstein look, as Waller argues, ‘egotistical and foolish’. The war also began to reveal the cracks within the Nationalverein that would eventually rend it in two in 1866, as while the nationalists may have celebrated what they perceived as the liberation of Schleswig-Holstein, liberals could only abhor the way it was achieved. Yet perhaps Bismarck’s greatest achievement of 1864 was the loss of Austrian prestige in many of the lesser-German states. With Austria isolated from its traditional support base, Bismarck could exert pressure on her until she declared war in exasperation in 1866.

The Battle of Dybbøl, Second Schleswig War, by Wilhelm Camphausen In the period between 1864 and the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck continued to showcase his skill at exercising Prussian foreign policy and at manipulating the antagonisms of his enemies. Knowing that Austrian Emperor Franz Josef would continue to refuse to relinquish hegemony in Germany, Bismarck successfully manipulated Austria further into diplomatic isolation. At Bismarck’s successful 1865 Biarritz meeting with Napoleon III, France was pacified through the hint of territorial gain – something that would later prove elusive. The support of Italy was gained in 1866, whilst Britain’s political isolation and 11

Russia’s continued enmity towards Austria over their stance during the Crimean War secured their neutrality. Perhaps most crucially, Bismarck worked to shift attitudes towards Austria within the Prussian Junker elite and his king, writing in a letter to Wilhelm I that ‘hostility towards Prussia has become the chief, one might say the only political aim in Vienna’. His final masterstroke was to come in declaring a motion for universal suffrage in the German Confederation in April 1866, perhaps paradoxically using the power of democracy to outmanoeuvre an outraged Vienna and Middle Germany into war. When Bismarck’s tactical war did break out, he was able to present Austria as the aggressor, with, as Steinberg puts it, the ‘stupefying ineptness’ of Austrian Foreign Minister Count Mensdorff having given him justification. It was Bismarck’s manipulative diplomacy that had made it clear that whilst Prussia was fighting a noble war for equality in 1866, Austria was fighting for her imperialist primacy. Franz Josef had made a grave mistake in trying to defend Austria’s overextended empire, with his lack of compromise in either Italy or Germany making the loss of both inevitable. As Moltke would later say of the war in 1866 ‘Austria’s centre of gravity lay out of Germany; Prussia’s lay within it’. Yet whilst Bismarck’s skill was instrumental in provoking a war on his own terms, and to an extent winning it - with his alliance with Italy forcing Austria to send 100,000 troops south - it was the power of his army and the weakness of Austria’s that led to victory. Bismarck had long warned that Prussia would ‘have to fight for (its) existence against Austria’ as both nations ‘ploughed the same disputed acre’. The Prussian army, therefore, had been extensively reformed after 1858 under the leadership of War Minister von Roon. The introduction of a mandatory three-year active service conscription allowed for the creation of 49 new regiments and enabled the Prussian coalition to wield a mobile army of nearly 500,000 in 1866, and 1.2 million by 1870. This was in stark contrast to an Austrian army whose budget had almost halved between 1860 and 1865, and whose use of the ‘obsolete’ Lorenz Gun

in 1866 has been described by Frank Zimmer as ‘one of the most disastrous miscalculations in the history of the armaments industry’. Arden Bucholz argues that in 1866 Prussia’s modern, bureaucratic attitude to war was pioneering in its ‘disciplinebased, institutionalised knowledge’, directly enabling her to win decisive battles like Königgrätz and Sedan. Steinberg similarly describes the ‘Old Prussia’ going into battle with ‘new technology, transportation, weaponry and communications’ against opponents who severely underestimated them and mistakenly believed in their own military superiority. However, while this military power led to victory on the battlefield, Bismarck’s genius in 1866 came not just in the creation of a unified North German Confederation, but in his moderation at the Peace of Prague, when he acknowledged that he ‘had to avoid wounding Austria too severely’, at risk of her becoming an ally of France. Kissinger summarises this perfectly when he writes of Bismarck’s ‘doctrine of self-limitation’, and that ‘he was as moderate in concluding his wars as he had been ruthless in preparing them’. Yet, on the same day that Moltke’s army won at Königgrätz, Bismarck further cemented his domestic dominance by crushing the liberals in elections to the Prussian Parliament. A surge of patriotism increased the number of conservative seats from 35 to 136, and the Nationalverein finally rent itself in two in ignominy.

Schlacht bei Königgrätz (Battle of Königgrätz), by Emil Hünten

Bismarck’s ruthless and manipulative diplomacy was to be showcased again in the years before the Franco-Prussian War. He was aware post-1866 that unifying the North German Confederation with the southern states would require challenging France. However, his later assertion that ‘I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the construction of a United Germany could be 12

realised’, should be questioned, as he had initially hoped that this could be achieved with friction alone. When it became clear that friction alone was not sufficient, Bismarck’s skill at exploiting contemporary events for his own means was exemplified by the Hohenzollern Candidature, a Franco-German spat around who should take the vacant Spanish throne. Although perhaps partially pressured by the actions of national-liberals, particularly in Baden, Bismarck knew that the Candidature would cause sufficient outrage in France. Bismarck’s success was not just in inciting French reaction, but simultaneously inducing German indignation over the issue, in the hope of presenting southern Germany with a threat that required a unified response. His political masterstroke, however, was to edit the ‘Ems Telegram’ and publish it in the Berlin Press, making King Wilhelm’s rejection of the French request for a long-term guarantee against a future Hohenzollern Candidature seem final. Whilst the Duc de Gramont, the French Foreign Minister, certainly made a grave error in asking for such a guarantee, (without which the war may have been avoided), Bismarck nonetheless knew how to exploit the mistake. He had again expertly used the circumstances presented to him, with the altered telegram acting, as he put it, like a ‘red rag upon the Gallic bull’. The violent anti-Prussian reaction that followed in France was therefore an essential and expected component of Bismarck’s strategy. It was this reaction, acting alongside Napoleon III’s mounting frustration since miscalculating that Austria would win in 1866, that forced the French Emperor to declare war. This played perfectly into the hands of Bismarck, who could now present the war as an attack on all of Germany. Bismarck’s careful diplomatic manoeuvring was, therefore, able to acquire a perfect casus belli which could galvanise united German action. Although the might of the German military coalition was certainly aided by what Taylor describes as the ‘gross defects of the French Army’, German victory in the Franco-Prussian War was made inevitable by a slow French mobilisation, with the subsequent heavy loss at Sedan crippling their command structure. It was ultimately this rapid German victory that, as Green argues, ‘acted as a

national catharsis, paving the way for German unification in 1871’.

Conclusion Bismarck, therefore, was no myth – but a mastermind. By 1871, he had achieved what those imbued with the revolutionary fervour of 1848 had proved unable to – a unified ‘Klein Deutschland’ under the hegemony of the Prussian House of Hohenzollern. Yet great men can only succeed if they can exploit the circumstances of their time, and Bismarck’s brilliance as a statesman showed in his ruthless, yet measured, diplomatic approach. When he became Minister-President in 1862, the national idea was firmly in the hands of a movement whose liberalism was anathema to Bismarck’s concept of an autocratic united Germany. It was his acute statesmanship that showed that it was possible to unify Germany whilst preserving the autocracy of the Prussian system, and that the paradox that Prussia could only do so by allying itself to nationalliberalism was only apparent. There is no doubt that Bismarck was aided significantly by the Zollverein, the domination of Prussian industry, the vast railway network, and Prussia’s technologically and doctrinally advanced army. However, the way in which he used those factors to achieve his strategic objective of a united Germany was in no way predetermined. Bismarck was certainly right when he spoke about ‘blood and iron’, for it was the economic and military power of the Prussian state that won the wars of unification, but it was ultimately his own mastery of international diplomacy that enabled that power to be directed effectively. Bismarck often liked to quote the phrase ‘flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo’ – ‘If I cannot move the Gods, I will turn to the Devil’. This explains his true genius – that he didn’t just have a vision for Germany, but an unwavering will to impose it on others, using any means necessary. The tragedy of Bismarck’s genius, however, was that his 20th century successors forgot the patient preparation that had made unification possible, and the moderation that had secured it.

Toby Bowes-Lyon (K) The time has come to rethink the October Revolution. In the West, the view of the revolution as a coup d’état, forcibly carried out by a minority party, has been shaped by both the Cold War and the dominance of historians such as Richard Pipes. As such, it is the product of inherent Western bias, representing a fallacy that is engrained in the very nature of post-Cold War society - one that is both outdated and entirely inaccurate. To truly understand the October Revolution, one must examine three fundamental principles: the wide and growing support base the Bolsheviks benefitted from in 1917, the increasing radicalism and militancy of the workers, sailors and soldiers, and the broad social changes in Russia that characterised the first two decades of the 20th century. If one combines these factors, it becomes clear that the Bolsheviks had far more support from the masses than Richard Pipes would have us believe, and that without this support they would never have been able to seize power at all. The surge in support for the Bolsheviks over the course of 1917 is well-supported by statistics (see Figs 1.1-3). These, quite frankly, are hard to argue with, and very clearly show a rapid rise in Bolshevik support, particularly in the ‘Citadels of the Revolution’, Moscow and Petrograd. From a party of just over 8,000 in 1905, the Bolsheviks grew to a 340,000-strong force in October 1917, which included 60,000 party members in Petrograd alone. This suggests that the Bolsheviks received far more than a mere modicum of support; they were in fact undeniably popular, and increasingly so. Though admittedly less popular in the countryside than in the cities, Lenin’s policy of ‘Land to the Peasants’ won many peasants over, whilst support from the Left SRs further boosted the Bolsheviks’ foothold within the peasantry. The demands of the peasants became more and more radical throughout the summer of 1917, with 237 land seizures in July alone (often organised by the mir as a whole, which had retained its importance despite Stolypin’s reforms), the murder of countless landlords and petitions for land redistribution flooding into the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks’ policy of land distribution was exactly what the peasants wanted, and the majority of those who did not actively support the Left SRs or the Bolsheviks did not actively oppose them. As such, the sweetener of the Land Decree was successful, giving the

Bolsheviks sufficient support in the countryside to make Lenin’s dream of a popular uprising a reality. Meanwhile, in the cities the image is even clearer. With dire food shortages, rapid inflation and no hope of a brighter tomorrow, the Bolsheviks were able to accrue considerable support as the only simultaneously anti-war, anti-government and proSoviet party. Soviet popularity in the cities skyrocketed in 1917, and, as such, when the Bolsheviks seized power in October they did so with a significant support base amongst workers and soldiers. This allowed them to form the Red Guards, who were crucial in the takeover, and it also allowed them to seize power without sparking violent revolt on the streets of Petrograd. The very success of the October Revolution thus stemmed from widespread support amongst key groups, most notably factory workers, soldiers and of course the Kronstadt sailors (most famous thanks to the part played by the Aurora). The extent of this support is unquestionable, despite the results of the Constituent Assembly elections. This latter piece of evidence should be taken with a pinch of salt, both as the SRs were split at the time, meaning the Bolsheviks could rely on support from many Left SRs, and as the Bolsheviks won the vote in the cities by a large margin. What was crucial in October 1917 was the support from within Moscow and Petrograd, as the revolution relied particularly on urban workers. Support in the countryside was secondary, but the comparative lack of Bolshevik votes in the countryside does not mean October 1917 was not a popular revolution; it merely highlights the distribution of the Bolsheviks’ popularity, which in total was sufficient to make the October Revolution a mass uprising. What is more, data regarding the lead-up to the revolution is far more relevant than data obtained after it - this is a debate about the nature of the revolution, not its aftermath. What counts is the surge in Bolshevik popularity in the cities before the revolution, not their collective popularity after. Thinking of October 1917 as merely a coup d’état also implies that the radical policies of the Bolsheviks were entirely distinct from the thoughts and feelings of ‘the proletariat’. This was not so. In many ways, the Bolsheviks responded to pre-existing radicalism amongst the workers and soldiers, rather than creating it. They reacted to the simmering, allconsuming discontent across the whole of Russian 15

society. This discontent had significantly increased in magnitude after the Lena Goldfields Massacre, before eventually being directed afresh at the Provisional Government after the dire failure of the June Offensive. The July Days were a clear expression of how radical Russian society had become (eyewitnesses suggest the protesters numbered close to 500,000), and how eager it was for change. All the Bolsheviks had to do was to tap into this popular sentiment, for example by supporting, at least publicly if not privately, fullscale rabochii kontrol (workers’ control). What made October 1917 a popular uprising was that the Bolsheviks and the workers were very much ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’. Of course, many did not know that by supporting the Bolsheviks they were also supporting the creation of a monolithic one-party state, but thanks to Lenin’s carefully worded speeches they were none the wiser. This alignment between Bolshevik policies and the reality of public sentiment can be supported by Bolshevik dominance in the radical Petrograd factory committees, as well as their later dominance in the Soviets, which truly were ‘created by the people for the people’. The Bolsheviks were able to acquire this dominance not merely by force or connections, but by a framework of policies which ordinary Russians were eager to get behind. The Provisional Government failed to provide workable alternatives, and the Mensheviks’ tacit support of the government and the war, as well as their desire to mediate between workers and their ‘bourgeoise employers’, alienated many. Only the Bolsheviks offered a conduit for the expression of the growing unrest in the cities, and indeed in the countryside. By providing this conduit, the Bolsheviks were completely in tune with Russian workers. They were not simply a minority party taking the initiative but were instead a popular party fulfilling the vox populi. In this way, the Bolsheviks were responding to social changes which had their roots decades before with Witte’s policy of industrialisation and modernisation. As the population of Moscow and Petrograd boomed and the importance of state industry continued to grow (for example, the state controlled two-thirds of Russian railways by 1899), the nature of Russian society gradually started to change. Fairly high literacy among the urban workers turned the cities into breeding grounds of rapidly disseminated revolutionary ideas, whilst the

economic consequences of Witte’s reforms took their toll on the peasants in particular, as they were heavily taxed, both directly and indirectly on goods such as salt and kerosene. When coupled with the inherent weaknesses of Tsarism and the leadership qualities of Tsar Nicholas II, as well as the growth of the middle classes, the inevitable result was the beginning of the increasing radicalisation and polarisation of Russian politics. Social change in Russia therefore had its origins well before Lenin came on the scene, even before the publication of ‘What Is to Be Done?’ As such, October 1917 was the culmination of the wider long-term development of Russian society, not simply a one-off coup d’état. Therefore, the October Revolution was undoubtedly a popular uprising. The Bolsheviks would not have been able to seize power as smoothly as they did without substantial support from the workers, soldiers and sailors. Their popularity is well supported by statistics, and even though they were less popular in the countryside, their land policy nonetheless gained enough support to be a force to be reckoned with. The Bolsheviks were thus merely the agents of a broader, sweeping revolution, which had been facilitated by modernisation and by the blunders of the Provisional Government. They acted upon worker sentiment, not against it, and hence represented not only their own interests, but also the interests and desire for change of many ordinary Russians. The tragedy, of course, was that the revolution Lenin achieved was ultimately destroyed by Stalin. Lenin may have constructed many of the apparatuses of terror which Stalin later used, but the authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks’ first few years in power was, on balance, a necessary response to circumstances. Without terror and repression there is no way that the Bolsheviks would have survived, or indeed thrived, as successfully as they did. Lenin thus had to adapt to keep the ship afloat, using terror not because he wanted to but because he had to. Stalin would later use terror in a completely different way, building a state which would have horrified Lenin. Stalinism, therefore, was most certainly not an inevitable product of Leninism. The October Revolution was thus indeed a genuine workers’ revolution, but, thanks to Stalin, what the workers had fought for was never achieved, the consequences of which are still felt today.

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2

Figure 1.3 17

James Hunter (K) During the over 70 years of Communist rule in the USSR, the Bolshevik’s seizure of power in October 1917 was often revered as a glorious popular uprising in which the common man overthrew the bourgeoisie provisional government and established a socialist utopia. However, to discover the true nature of the event we must look beyond the Bolshevik rhetoric and Soviet propaganda. Behind the mythical status and vivid imagery that future Soviet historians and spin doctors would present, the truth of the ‘revolution,’ is very different. In fact, the true nature of the change of power was the simple collapse of a pitiful and crumbling Provisional government which was ousted by the opportunist (although admittedly talented) Bolshevik conspiracy. The Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 was a simple and bloodless coup d’état which was highly likely to have been supported by the scheming Germans from the shadows. Ultimately the coup d’état was orchestrated by a vociferous yet small minority of Bolshevik fanatics, displaying all the traditional markings of a simple putsch.

been scheming since his inclusion on the Military Revolutionary Council (MRC) on October 9th 1917. The immediate revolution on the 24th was a typical regime change. During the coup, Trotsky directed the Red Guards to seize strategic vantage points and communication centres. It was not popular revolutionaries who seized the Winter Palace, but the Bolshevik’s very own Red Guards. A prearranged signal brought the Battleship Aurora into the River Neva (Surely if this were a spontaneous popular uprising ‘muscle’ wouldn’t have been needed to clinch victory?).

Battleship Aurora docked in the River Neva. Battleships do not often spontaneously enter cities!

Sergei Eisenstein's 1927 film about the 1917 revolution demonstrates the later Soviet campaign to create a cult of ‘popular uprising.’ The Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 displayed all the markings of a coup d’état whilst their planning demonstrated qualities of a textbook putsch. Lenin had always wanted to overthrow the government - demonstrated by his publication of the ‘April Theses.’ In this publication he outlined the Bolshevik desire to oust the provisional government. His military mastermind, Trotsky, had

Power fell to the Bolsheviks in a speedy coup d’état. The post-revolution consolidation of power highlighted the ruthless and premeditated Bolshevik conspiracy. During the session of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lev Kamenev informed the delegates that the Bolsheviks were now the supreme authority in Russia. Kamenev (a Bolshevik) read out the list of fourteen members of the new government all of whom were Bolsheviks or Left SR's. Chief amongst them was Lenin. The proceedings of the 27th of October demonstrated that the Bolsheviks were not put into power by an impulsive people’s revolution, but by their own scheming. The surgical coup d’État simply highlighted the October Revolution’s premeditation, with the events simply camouflaged as a popular uprising by the conspirators. The revolution was carried out under false slogans and pretences in a seizure which ultimately displayed all the markings of a coup d’état. The Bolsheviks were a significant minority before and after the revolution. The October insurrection was a regime change, actively supported by a small (albeit noisy) minority of the population. The 18

Bolsheviks always lagged significantly behind the Social Revolutionaries electorally. In the August 20th municipal elections of Petrograd, they only got 1/3 of the votes - despite Petrograd being a Bolshevik hotbed. They also had undue, omnipresent, influence in the Soviet, due to many workers and soldiers who had attended in March no longer participating. The Bolsheviks performed poorly once again in the nationwide Constituent Assembly election of 25th November. Gaining 23.3% of the vote and 183 seats, they straggled far behind the SRs, who received 36.7% of the vote and 324 seats. The Constituent Assembly elections of November further highlighted the fact that the Bolsheviks were a minority. The revolution simply could not have been a popular uprising if they were a minority. The word ‘popular’ implies widespread support. The Bolsheviks did not have this backing, demonstrating the contradiction of the ‘popular uprising,’ fallacy.

therefore, was in a minority position in a minority party. The Bolshevik’s comparatively dismal performance in elections both before and after the revolution, combined with significant Bolshevik opposition to the planned coup, emphasises the lack of popular support, thereby reinforcing the invalidity of the ‘popular uprising,’ argument. The Bolshevik’s seizure of power in October 1917 was, therefore, a well camouflaged coup d’état. Only with later Soviet spin did it turn into a legend of popular uprising. The true nature of the revolution was a bloodless deposition of the Provisional government by a Bolshevik conspiracy. The Bolsheviks were a minority party before and after the coup d’état, thus demonstrating the lack of popular support. The immediate revolution bore the markings of a textbook putsch. Premeditated and planned months in advance, this was not an impulsive people’s revolution, but a strategic military plan which surgically seized Petrograd, Russia’s capital. Instead of the people, the regime change was orchestrated by Trotsky’s own Red Guards. Ultimately, the true nature of the October Revolution was a traditional coup d’état orchestrated by a conspiracy of Bolshevik fanatics.

Further reading: The Constituent Assembly election results Furthermore, many members of the Bolshevik Party were against the coup itself. On the 11th of October, Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev (two central Bolshevik party members) published an article arguing that it would be a mistake to attempt to overthrow the provisional government in the current circumstances. They stated: “Is the Russian working class in such a position now [to overthrow the Provisional Government]? No, and a thousand times no!” This impassioned article demonstrated that a popular uprising was unlikely, and that there was significant opposition to any coup d’état. Lenin,

Christopher Reed, War and Revolution in Russia, 19141922: The Collapse of Tsarism and the Establishment of Soviet Power. Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution. NN Sukhanov, Russian Revolution 1917: A Personal Record. John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World. Albert Rhys Williams, Through the Russian Revolution Dominic Lieven: Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia. Robert Service, The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution.

Museums have been closed to the public for most of the past year. Many have been working hard to allow the public to sample their treasures online instead. It’s certainly better than nothing. But when lockdown ends, the object I most want to see was once described as ‘the very shrine of art’ - The Book of Kells. So, what is the Book of Kells? What is it for? How did it come to be produced? How was it produced? And what does that tell us about the period that produced it? Context, History and Purpose The Book of Kells is regarded as Ireland’s greatest national treasure and the pinnacle of Hiberno-Saxon art, a style unique to Britain and Ireland which emerged around 600 AD. A gospel book from the 8th and 9th century, the Book of Kells is set apart from other works of its time by the great quality and quantity of illumination found within it. The name comes from the monastery at Kells, set up by monks from Iona fleeing Viking raids. It is thought that the work may have been started on Iona and finished when the monks relocated. But what makes the art of the Book of Kells distinctly Irish? The answer to that question lies in Ireland’s geography: its position as an island on the edge of Europe. As Ireland was never invaded by the Romans, the Celtic style of art was not replaced by Mediterranean forms. Thus, they were able to develop ornamentation to a new level of intricacy and perfection in pre-Christian times, and this continued under the patronage of Celtic monasticism. Since the arrival of St Patrick, Ireland’s Christian communities had grown into centres of scholarship and learning. Irish monks then set up communities elsewhere in Western Europe: in Burgundy, Switzerland, and Italy. There are many accounts of monks travelling widely between Ireland and the continent. Such interactions created the conditions for a fusion of artistic traditions, producing a style of art now known as ‘Insular’ (the term derives from insula, the Latin word for ‘island’). The Book of Kells is the best surviving example of this Insular style, which synthesises local Celtic tradition and foreign inspiration gathered from the continental monastic outposts and contacts: Celtic spiral motifs, Germanic intertwined animals and birds, and Mediterranean plaited ribbons.

Insular majuscule, the script used, was unique to the Irish church of that time, and is characterised by wedge-shaped serifs, as seen in this example.

Although it was once believed to be the work of St Columba, who was known for his creativity and talent as a scribe, it was in fact made considerably later. Indeed, it may have been created to coincide with the building of a new shrine for the saint, or for the bicentenary of his death. It is likely that the Book of Kells was not actually designed to be a bible for regular use, due to its lavish illumination - which enhances its beauty, but can often make the text harder to read. Flaws, such as on folio 146v (seen below), where words have been omitted and had to be added at the bottom of the page, and folios 218v and 219r, where the text was repeated, show that this was intended for display; fluency is reduced, but the mistakes and additions do not detract from the beauty.

By the fifteenth century it was placed among the relics near the altar, and some believed that it had healing properties – possibly a by-product of its association with St Columba. The book will have been kept either in a decorated box called a book shrine or in a treasure binding – a wooden cover decorated with jewels. It was the valuables surrounding the book that led to its theft in 1007. After it had been found stripped of its covering, it stayed in Kells until the mid-seventeenth century, when it was sent to Trinity College Dublin for safekeeping. The book was rebound multiple times: first in 1742, then disastrously by George Mullen in 1826, who washed the manuscript, then flattened it, causing much of the colour to be lost. He then painted some of the margins white and filled some flaws in the vellum. Finally, he trimmed the uneven edges so that they could be gilded, losing parts of the illumination. The book was then rebound in 1874 and 1950, and it is the 1950 binding of each gospel into a separate volume that we have today. 21

Materials and Techniques Some folios of the Book of Kells were never completed, and these show how the scribes prepared built up areas of illumination with guidelines drawn in iron gall ink, using straight edges and pairs of compasses as well as freehand drawing. This ink was also used to mark boundaries and where to put colour. The example below, from folio 30v, shows a lion devouring a bird - which has not been fully coloured - and straight lines marking a border which would probably have been filled with interlacing. To form the complicated interlace patterns found in the Book of Kells, the artists used a grid to keep the spacing correct, although there is no evidence of it here.

Vellum was an important component of the Irish economy at the time the Book of Kells was written – with the book itself requiring around 160 calfskins. Unlike many manuscripts of its time, the Book of Kells does not use gilding: instead, orpiment (otherwise known as arsenic sulphide), a highly toxic yellow pigment, was used for its brilliance. Lead oxide was used for red, and although it was once thought that lapis lazuli was used to create the blue pigments, woad, which was available locally, was used instead. A unique feature of some Insular manuscripts is the inclusion of “carpet pages” – pages with pure decoration, which generally appear before each Gospel. In the Book of Kells, only one remains, prefacing Matthew 1:18, but others may have been lost. Another method of highlighting the start of a section of the text was through the use of decorated initials; this is thought to have originated in the Insular tradition before spreading into mainland Europe. The use of expensive materials and lavish illustrations served to emphasise the importance of

the message contained within the book, whilst also showing the wealth of the order that produced it. Themes The combination of Christian and non-Christian motifs reflects how Christianity and local Irish culture were being drawn together at the time. As there are no marginalia – notes of their thoughts written in the margins by the scribes - the images unrelated to the gospels (such as the mice) may have served the same purpose, allowing the artists to have express their own artistic freedom.

To remind the reader of the continuity of the Gospels, the four evangelists all appear together, around a cross at the start of each Gospel. Each gospel was also prefaced with a “portrait page”: a picture of its author – although only the portraits of Matthew and John now remain. Matthew holds his book in his left hand, and is enthroned, surrounded by the symbolic forms of the other evangelists. On his throne, to the left and right of his head, are two lions for Mark, whilst on the left and right of his throne are the bull and eagle for Luke and John. These symbols come from the Book of Ezekiel: ‘they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.’ Unsurprisingly, the cross appears throughout the book of Kells: on the carpet page, on the pages with the four evangelists, such as that of Matthew, as well as smaller decorations at the end of lines, and 22

throughout the Passion sequences of the gospels. During this period, the cross was “the devil’s mousetrap” according to St Augustine, and so was used at church boundaries and monastic enclosures. Here we see a lozenge quartered to form a cross as the first letter of ‘omnia’.

Another set of decorative motifs comes from the eucharist. First, the bread. This detail from folio 48r shows a rat stealing a communion host while being chased by a cat. (A similar motif, this time with two mice and two cats, appears towards the bottom left of the Chi Rho page.)

Then, the wine: on folio 285r a blue chalice spills over with vines that create the border for the page. In Jesus’s genealogy in Luke, a figure sits with a chalice above the name Abraham (abracham), linking Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, and Jesus’s sacrifice of his blood. In John 15.5 (f. 334v line 11) the artist has filled the first letter of ‘Ego sum uitis uos autem palmites:’ (‘I am the vine; you the branches’) with vines.

The lozenge is another important motif because it represented the word of God, or logos (λογος), and its four corners represented the contemporary

understanding of the cosmos, with ‘four angels at the four corners of the earth, with the four winds of the earth’ (Revelation 7.1). The lozenge appears on the Chi Rho page at the heart of the monogram of the name of Christ, as well as on the arms of Matthew’s throne. Many different animals also appear within the Book of Kells, such as lions, fish, snakes, and peacocks, which followed many beliefs set out by the Physiologus, a 4th century Greek book of animal lore. The lion represented the house from which Jesus was descended, Judah. Atop one of the canon tables, Jesus is seen between two lions, which referred to the two Testaments, the Transfiguration, or the Crucifixion in Christian exegesis. Examples of lions can be seen on folios 144v, 124r and 130r. People once believed that peacock flesh did not decay, and so peacocks in the Book of Kells may represent Christ’s incorruptibility. Here we first see Christ as a man, and he is flanked by two peacocks.

Above and to the left of ‘generatio’ on the Chi Rho page, there is an otter who has caught a fish, which may represent the eating of the bread as part of the Eucharist, or the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Also, as this page consists of a symbol for Christ, the artist has chosen to include other symbols of Jesus, such as the ‘ichthus’ as well as crosses and lozenges. Cats within the illumination mostly provide a practical and possibly ludic function, catching the mice that the artist has let loose among the pages, as seen on the Chi Rho page, where two cats have trapped two mice at the bottom of the page. The labour-intensive process and painstaking attention to detail within the illumination show how creating the Book of Kells was a symbol of devotion. The artists would not only have needed to be creative and skilled, but also to have a deep understanding of the text that they were decorating. The number of images leads us to believe that this was an object to channel faith, and a way to bring understanding of the Gospels to a wider, and possibly illiterate audience.

In this digital age, it is a privilege to be able to study the pages of the Book of Kells online, but every year many people travel to Dublin to admire the original work. Perhaps only an encounter with the manuscript itself can allow us to appreciate fully the true scale of this masterpiece, and how the intricacy of this Insular art functioned as a gateway to the divine.

Further Reading Work | Book of Kells | ID: hm50tr726 | Digital Collections (tcd.ie) Exploring the Book of Kells - Online Course FutureLearn (a free account is available) https://uk.accessit.online/wnc01/?serviceId=Exter nalEvent&brSn=18432&brKey=1983406315 https://uk.accessit.online/wnc01/?serviceId=Exter nalEvent&brSn=2192&brKey=1824099448 The Book of Kells (thamesandhudson.com)

The idea of what a Vietnam War film should be is today something so fixed that its clichés can be seemingly summed up in only three short words: ‘back in ‘Nam’. Helicopters, booby traps and hippies versus overzealous patriots, the vision of Vietnam presented in American cinema exists in an ecosystem of tropes and themes, inseparable from how the War itself is viewed today. These very tropes, however, mask the question, which is the focus of this essay, with preconception: how does American cinema react to the inescapable ending of all these visions of Vietnam – failure and withdrawal? From the earliest era of Vietnam films, dominated by such jingoistic efforts as John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968), to the now-classic insanity of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), this question proves itself to be a useful lens through which to view the reaction of American cinema to the events of the Vietnam War. The most obvious place to begin is with The Green Berets, the first film to depict dramatically the events of the Vietnam War, which even predates America’s withdrawal. Prompted by John Wayne’s own personal visit to Vietnam in 1966, which inspired him to make a film to combat what he saw as the American media’s bias against the War, the film exists in a strange twilight of American optimism where it has no need to even address the possibility of failure. What is perhaps most useful about The Green Berets as compared to other films of the Vietnam War is that it serves as a perfect reference point as to how Americans wish they could have viewed the conflict in an ideal world, of victory over Communism. Produced in collaboration with the US Military, who provided all of the military equipment and uniforms necessary, in addition to allowing for the film to be shot on the Fort Benning military base in Georgia, it feels today like a cheap piece of propaganda, signalling at any possible moment the virtue of America’s struggle. The plot is almost frustratingly obvious given the film’s aim. A sceptical reporter comes to Vietnam to accompany the grizzled Colonel Mike Kerby (John Wayne) and to see the action of the war first-hand. He is converted to America’s cause over the course of 142 minutes of straw-hats, helicopters and ‘gook’ raids. Certain characters exist for no other reason than to act as signs of American benevolence, such as the orphan child Hamchuk, who is taken in by the soldiers of an American base under constant threat of VC

attack. His character arc is painfully predictable; he forms a close bond with one of the soldiers, the mischievous but likeable Sergeant Petersen, who is killed in action at the film’s conclusion. Distraught at his failure to return, Hamchuk is inconsolable until John Wayne emerges to take him under his wing, strolling along a suddenly apparent beach into the sunset, telling Hamchuk, ‘you’re what this is all about.’

John Wayne as Colonel Mike Kerby in The Green Berets The visual aesthetic of The Green Berets is crucial in presenting Wayne’s idealised vision of the Vietnam War: it feels like a World War Two film. The weapons on display might be sparkling new, heavily reliant on the newly introduced M16 rifle pointedly on display in this extended-length recruitment drive, but every other aspect of the set design feels more at home in The Battle Of The Bulge (1965) or The Longest Day (1962) in that Vietnam itself is only ever very loosely implied. Filmed in Georgia, the VC emerge from the woods, not from the jungle, while seemingly only one faux-Saigon set was ever produced, with the same single street reused three times from different angles across the film. This lack of anything particularly Vietnamese can border on the comical at times, with the character of Colonel Cai, for example, an ARVN liaison defined by his obedience to the will of the American characters, scripted to speak in an entirely insensitive form of broken English, the cringeworthy joke ruined only by the perfect English accent of the actor playing Cai. If The Green Berets had only ever become a critically-panned last gasp of the John Wayne style of film making, panned by critics such as Renata Adler for having been ‘completely incommunicado, out of touch’, its story would be merely an amusing one. Knowing, however, how successful it was, grossing over $80 million within three months of its release, and the amount, therefore, of young men it might have 26

driven to enlist, it quickly becomes much more insidious. The Green Berets exists in a haven of assumed American victory and righteousness, an idealised vision of a Vietnam war without defeat. The critic Ronald J Glosser observed that ‘there is no novel in Nam, there is not enough for a play, nor is there really any character development. If you survive 365 days without getting killed or wounded, you simply go home and take up again where you left off.’ There is no easy narrative from Vietnam, and all the films which followed were forced to confront this issue in the stories that they told. Michael Cimino’s 1978 film The Deer Hunter, the next chronologically among the films that I have looked at, creates a more effective character arc, and rationalises defeat by examining the War as something symptomatic of issues found in the American mainland. As three friends from dysfunctional working-class families from the dysfunctional working-class town of Claireton Pennsylvania are sent off to war and ultimately ruined by their experiences, the focus of the film is not so much on their actual experiences of combat, but on what those experiences mean relative to how, and if, they can continue to lead vaguely normal lives afterwards. The film begins with a 51minute-long wedding sequence, dripping with sweat and cheap lager, but also a sense of naivety, as three drunk, laddish friends harass a lone soldier at the bar, pestering him to know what the war is like while also displaying pride at their own enlistment. War, it seems to them, is an escape from their hometown, just as the act of hunting, the central motif of the film, is. This escape, however, will come to ruin them, as one is permanently disabled, another killed in a game of Russian roulette in Saigon, and the neurotic but seemingly heroic Sergeant Mike Vronsky, played by Robert De Niro, left to suffer awkwardly through the consequences. The motif of hunting takes on a seemingly pacifist angle as the film runs on, from a noble pastime in the mountainous idyll of rural Pennsylvania to an act which Sergeant Vronsky cannot bring himself to continue, climactically letting a cornered deer escape in the film’s fourth act. It may not be a perfect piece of anti-war filmmaking, especially in its depiction of the Vietnamese people in a cruelly inferior manner

that would not have been out of place in The Green Berets, but at the time it was an important film in dealing with its subject matter. It was seen as subversive by major studios, prompting the president of Universal Studios, Sid Sheinberg, to deem the film ‘poking a stick in the eye of America’, with particular reference to the film’s ending: following the funeral of the last of Sergeant Vronsky’s friends to return from Vietnam, the remaining characters sing a slow and almost ironic ‘God Bless America’, finding fault in a nation, not an army, defeated. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Palme d’Or-winning film Apocalypse Now takes an entirely different approach towards rationalising Vietnam than The Deer Hunter, avoiding questions of blame and responsibility by depicting the War as a ‘bad trip’, a chaotic nightmare in which the worst of men could realise their darkest dreams. Coppola himself described Apocalypse Now as having been not so much a film about the war so much as it was having used ‘the war as a backdrop’, allowing him to make the most of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as his source material. It is not a strongly ideological film, neither criticising nor supporting the reasons for American involvement in Vietnam, but instead takes much of its force from exploring how different characters react to the trauma of war. From the belligerent bravado of the insane Lieutenant Kilgore (‘Charlie don’t surf’) to the primeval kingdom founded by Colonel Kurtz, the film confronts the viewer with visions of insanity certainly not in fitting with how the US government would have wished to portray the war (unlike with The Green Berets the US military was not at all willing to support Apocalypse Now), but it is never forced to examine the American defeat as The Deer Hunter does. It is understandable why the film avoided major controversy considering the need to recoup its $30 million budget, but that is not to say that it is entirely apolitical. Coppola still manages to shock the viewer with insanity he depicts, shaming the viewer for getting swept up in the Ride of the Valkyries madness of it all. Defeat, however, remains irrelevant, far from the harsh domestic reality of The Deer Hunter and the jingoistic naivety of The Green Berets.

One wonders that such iniquities could ever have been permitted in any Christian country, much more so in Great Britain, which has done so much for the amelioration of subject races and the oppressed in every part of the world, while her own brave sons have been persecuted, oppressed, banished without compensation by greedy and cold-blooded proprietors, who owed their position to the ancestors of the very men they were now treating so cruelly. Alexander Mackenzie, The History of the Highland Clearances (1883)

An introduction to the Clearances The Highland Clearances represent a deeply traumatic watershed in the course of Scottish history. Their impact continues to be felt keenly today, with their scars engrained, at least to some extent, in Scottish national consciousness. As a result of them, the Highlands and Islands are one of the most sparsely populated regions in Northern Europe. Across the landscape one can still find the ruins of crofting settlements, their presence denoting the demise of an entire way of life. Crofts can still be found in some areas, but they are few and far between. The clan system no longer exists in practice as it once did, and traditional agricultural practices such as the runrig system have slowly died out. In short, the Clearances irrevocably altered the very fabric of Highland society. What caused them and where the blame should be allocated remain hugely contentious questions. The debate rages on and remains unresolved to this day, with a marked lack of consensus among historians. Nevertheless, Mackenzie’s History of the Highland Clearances remains an undisputed classic. The extract above, though very much a product of its time in terms of colonial attitudes, gives a sense of the tragedy of the events, as well as the sheer brutality employed in the eviction of some tenants. Estimations as to the numbers that were evicted vary widely, though a figure of between 120,000 and 180,000 is most likely. In addition, a similar number of Highlanders (around 70,000 between 1760 and 1800 alone) are thought to have emigrated in the century between 1760 and 1860. The Clearances thus involved an extensive programme of Highland depopulation, the causes of which merit the consideration of all.

The impact of Culloden The Battle of Culloden, famous as the last pitched battle on British soil, was the death knell of the Jacobite cause. In less than an hour, the British Government army, under the leadership of ‘Butcher Cumberland’, brought a crushing defeat upon the head of the ‘Young Pretender’, Charles Edward Stuart. Bonnie Prince Charlie, as he is better known, managed to flee, first ‘over the sea to Skye’ and ultimately to France. However, the Jacobites were finished, and their defeat had serious repercussions for Highland life. It is worth noting here that although Culloden is often portrayed as the climax of the aged-old antagonism between the English and the Scots, this is not entirely true. There were Scots on both sides, and French and Irish regiments also fought. It was a far more complex battle than it might first appear.

The Battle of Culloden, April 16th 1756. Engraving by Luke Sullivan At the close of the battle, some 1,500 Jacobites lay dead, compared to just 300 Government troops. For their support of the Young Pretender, ‘Butcher Cumberland’ ruthlessly punished the Highlanders. Jacobites were rounded up from the local area and either killed or sent into slavery, whilst the wounded were mercilessly executed, or left to die of exposure. The Butcher’s revenge, however, did not stop there. Having seized the estates of leading Jacobites, what followed was a thorough suppression of Highland culture, which aimed to dismantle the clan system. The Act of Proscription (1746) sought not just to destroy the military might of the Jacobites, but also to attack the very basis of Highland cultural expression, with the bans on Highland dress (including tartan) and bagpipes being particularly infamous. For Parliament, the aim was to remove as many sources of Highland identity as possible, as well as controlling Highland education, thereby quenching the fire that they believed had led to the ’45. Highland culture was seen by many not just as backward and barbaric, but also as inseparably 29

connected to the idea of rebellion. By taking away their identity, it was believed that the Highlanders could be brought into line. The particularly punitive nature of the Act of Proscription can also be traced to the relative failure of the Disarming Act (1716), which had been introduced following the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion. The Jacobites were able to launch another rebellion just thirty years later, suggesting that the disarmament of the Highlands had not been effectively carried out. The Act of Proscription sought to rectify this mistake, both through enforcing the disarmament programme with a ruthless attention to detail and going a step further in undermining the roots of the Highland culture. It was the Heritable Jurisdictions Act (1746), however, which would seal the fate of the old clan system. The aim of the act was the extension of ‘the influence, benefit, and protection of the King’s laws and courts of justice to all his Majesty’s subjects in Scotland…rendering the union more complete.’ In practice, this involved crippling the power of the clan chiefs, taking way their right to dispense justice within their clan and thus shifting the balance of power in the Highlands in favour of the Crown. This had irreversible consequences for the Highlands. Whereas before the clan chiefs essentially had a monopoly on justice in their region and could call upon their clansmen to fight for them, this no longer held water. From the clan chiefs’ point of view, the clan system no longer made any sense. The clan had previously functioned in almost feudal terms, with the four rungs of the ladder namely being the clan chiefs, the tacksmen, the tenants and the sub-tenants (including the cottars, the lowest of the low). Now that the clan chiefs had neither weapons nor judicial or legal power over their subjects, the system gradually broke down. The success of the clan system had been interconnectivity, with the clan chiefs providing security and a way of life, and the clansmen providing the military means to safeguard the interests of the clan. After 1746, the clan chiefs increasingly thought in terms of the economic exploitation of the land, as the advantages brought by the interconnectivity of the clan no longer existed. Many tacksmen, faced with spiralling rents and pressure from the chiefs, chose to abandon their former way of life, resulting in a ‘brain drain’

from the Highlands. Meanwhile, on the estates forfeited by Jacobite supporters and given to outsiders, the first of the ‘agricultural improvements’ were carried out, such as the introduction of sheep, drainage of the land and intercropping. Fuelled by self-styled ‘agricultural consultants’, this would in time pave the way for the transformation of the Highlands.

The Last of the Clan, by Thomas Faed A clear line can thus be drawn from Culloden to the Clearances. The repressive measures introduced following the battle were the catalyst for the destruction of the clan system, which had endured for hundreds of years. Clan chiefs increasingly became dissociated from their clan, and the whole concept of a ‘clan’ became hazy. This caused the clan chiefs, who were increasingly seen as landlords, to reconsider the best way to reap profits from their land. Though seen as an oversimplification by some historians, the cause of the Clearances was undoubtedly principally economic in nature. What the aftermath of Culloden did was to take away the military advantages of having a large number of tenants, thereby turning the question of how best to use the land into a purely economic one. This was a key psychological change: the tenants were now seen as economic assets rather than as clansmen. Arguably, this made the Clearances inevitable. The importance of other factors The Industrial Revolution The start of the Clearances in around 1760 also coincided with the beginning of a period of rapid social and economic change in the form of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout Britain, the shift from an agrarian pre-industrial society to a postindustrial society dominated by secondary industry came with profound social changes. Urbanisation 30

increased in speed, whilst workers’ movements, more efficient agricultural practices and the division of labour began to emerge as dominant themes. In many ways, the revolution enhanced class identity, particularly within the working class, and thereby gradually converted British society from a vertical, feudal-esque and patronage-driven society to a classbased society made up of horizontal social strata. As a result, it has been argued that the Highland Clearances were simply a product of the Industrial Revolution. The clan system was very much feudal in nature, its demise coincided with the gradual development of a ‘horizontal’ British society from the ashes of a vertical one. As a result, the Clearances at least partially fit into the big picture of late 18th century Britain, thereby suggesting that the clan system was simply another victim of the last days of British pre-industrial society. The Industrial Revolution, moreover, led to the spread of ideas about agricultural productivity and the maximisation of profit, meaning landlords were more likely than ever to reconsider how to best use their land. This process began with pioneering landlords such as Sir John Sinclair, who was fuelled by contemporary ideas about ‘improving’ agriculture. The result of this was that landlords such as Sinclair began considering in earnest the possibility of redistributing their tenants to new coastal settlements to make way for sheep. The Industrial Revolution also led to the rapid development of Scottish industry. Glasgow became an industrial centre, producing everything from paper and soap to textiles, most notably cotton. Meanwhile, the population density and spatial concentration of factories within Edinburgh also increased, with the resulting photochemical smog contributing to its nickname ‘Auld Reekie’, whilst Dundee famously embraced jute, jam and journalism. The result of this rapid industrialisation and urbanisation was the creation of a huge source of employment. Many of the evicted crofters thus came to the cities to find work, whilst others left voluntarily in search of a better way of life in Glasgow or Edinburgh. The fact that the reality, dominated by cramped conditions and cholera, was disappointing is irrelevant; the fact remains that industrialisation motivated large numbers of Highlanders, with or without coercion from their landlords, to move into the cities.

Glasgow’s Old Town Hall, built in 1737 The Napoleonic Wars Another economic stimulus for the Clearances was provided by the Napoleonic Wars when the British government placed significant import tariffs on soda imported from Spain, which was an ally of Napoleon at the time. Soda ash was a source of sodium carbonate, a vital raw material both in soap manufacture and in the textiles and glass industries (as well as a glaze for ceramics). As a result, intensely high demand was built up, and the tariffs on the soda ash meant that the impetus shifted to obtaining the sodium carbonate from kelp. Kelp is additionally a source of saltpetre, which was used to produce gunpowder (vital in a time of war), and potash, an important fertiliser. Consequently there was a boom in kelp production, and Scottish kelp was in higher demand than it had ever been before. This demand for kelp gave the landlords an economic incentive to redistribute their tenant populations to the coast (with the kelp industry generating ‘£500,000 in western Scotland alone’ in its peak year), which thereby started the first wave of the Clearances. By moving their tenants to the coast, the landlords obtained a two-fold advantage. They cleared the interior so that sheep or cattle could be introduced and they shared in the profits of kelp production. Many crofters thus had to adapt to either working in kelp harvesting and smelting or fishing along the coast, often being provided with patches of land too small to practise subsistence farming on. In time, this led to deteriorating socioeconomic conditions in the coastal crofting villages. The conditions worsened at the end of the Napoleonic Wars when the lifting of tariffs led to an absolute decline in the demand for Scottish kelp. This in turn motivated many tenants to emigrate out 31

of the Highlands altogether, as well as the second wave of the Clearances. The rapidly changing economic landscape produced by the Napoleonic Wars thus without a doubt contributed to the causation of the Highland Clearances.

Crofters burning Kelp on the Isle of Harris

Population dynamics and famine Population growth in the Highlands put further pressure on both the land and the landlords. When once a rising population would have been seen in terms of military might and repute, it was increasingly seen by landlords as a burden in the late 18th century, both due to the breakdown of the clan system and the reduction in the amount of rent many tenants were able to pay. These pressures were compounded by successive years of poor harvest, and most acutely by the Highland Potato Famine (1846), which was caused by potato blight. Though not as devastating as Ireland’s ‘Great Hunger’, the famine made crofting life, already grimly difficult, even harder. The result was a further wave of emigration from the Highlands, accompanied by more evictions, particularly in the Hebrides. In some cases, landlords paid for the emigration of their tenants (to Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada), whilst others had to pay for it themselves. The passage to Canada, for example, was notoriously hard, with many not surviving the journey, but the extent of the famine, as well as increasing competition for land due to the population growth, was sufficient motivation for many. The famine, coupled with the decline of the kelp and linen industries provided a stimulus for both tenants to leave of their own accord, and for landlords evict tenants.

The role of opportunism It may be stressed that the Clearances were ultimately a product of opportunism, both on the part of the lairds and on the part of the men who advised them. Of course, most infamous among the latter was the triumvirate of Patrick Sellar, William Young (who had been engaged by the Sutherlands after his successes on the Inverugie estate) and James Loch, namely the factors and estate commissioners of the Sutherlands. The debate as to where the primary blame for the horrendous Sutherland Clearances should be placed is obviously a contentious one. Arguments may be made about the relative importance of the Marquess of Stafford (later the 1st Duke of Sutherland), or his wife, Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland. Elizabeth certainly seems to have had played a more active part than her husband in the management of the Sutherland estate, which spanned almost a million acres. What is clear, however, is the opportunism of men such as Sellar. Intent on ‘improving’ the Sutherland estate for his own personal gain as much as the gain of the Marquess, Sellar personally oversaw many of the Clearances, directing the burning out of some of the townships, and one could perhaps even go as far to say that he was a mastermind of the scheme.

Patrick Sellar Sellar certainly did well out of the sheep that replaced the tenants (there were over 120,000 sheep in Sutherland by 1820). He was granted large tracts of land by the Marquess and died a rich man. Sellar was a formidable character, behaving with absolute impunity and predictably being honourably cleared by an Inverness court in 1816 after being tried for culpable homicide (most famously during the Strathnaver Clearances, when Sellar ordered that the Chisholm home should be burnt down despite the fact that William Chisholm’s bedridden mother was 32

still inside). Indeed, the year 1819 became known as bliadhna na losgaidh (‘the year of the burnings’) though responsibility for these later atrocities lies more in the hands of Loch than Sellar. Mackenzie wrote of Sellar and Young: Their very names had become a terror. Their appearance in any part of the country caused such alarm as to make women fall into fits. One woman became so terrified that she became insane, and whenever she saw anyone she did not recognise, she invariably cried out in a state of absolute terror, “Oh! Sin Sellar!” or “Oh, there’s Sellar.” The adject cruelty of these men was thus founded principally on opportunism and business acumen; they hoped to use their influence for their own personal gain. That is not to say that men such as the 1st Duke of Sutherland should not be apportioned some of the blame for the Clearances, but it does mean that the role of their subordinates should also be taken into account. The role of the clergy In many cases, clergymen played a notable part in convincing the crofters that their eviction was ‘God’s will’. In exchange for this, many were reward by the lairds, receiving large holdings of land and gleaming new churches. Some church ministers even ordered some small-scale clearances themselves to increase the amount of land in their possession. Religion played a major part in the lives of many of the tenants, meaning many did indeed listen to their church ministers when they said they would face damnation if they did not ‘go quietly’. As a result, the support of the clergy helped to facilitate the Clearances; the local ministers suffered from avarice as much as any of the estate factors. One notable exception to this rule was Reverend Donald Sage, who included an eyewitness account of the horrors of the Strathnaver Clearances in his memoirs, Memorabilia Domestica: At an early hour of that day Mr. Sellar, accompanied by the Fiscal, and escorted by a strong body of constables, sheriffofficers and others, commenced work at Grummore, the first inhabited township to the west of the Achness district. Their plan of operations was to clear the cottages of their inmates, giving them about half-an-hour to pack up and carry off their furniture, and then set the cottages on fire. To this plan they ruthlessly adhered, without the slightest regard to any obstacle that might arise while carrying it into execution.

Inherent weaknesses The Highland way of life was also inherently fragile. Crofting was an extremely tough life, involving meagre subsistence farming and a daily struggle to both produce enough food to feed the family, despite often infertile soil, and to pay rent to the tacksmen. This way of life was thus highly susceptible to extreme weather, famine and of course was entirely dependent on the clan system continuing to bring benefits to the clan chief. There was also a long-term tension between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders, which most famously manifested itself in the Glencoe Massacre.

The Massacre of Glencoe, by James Hamilton For a Highlander, life revolved almost exclusively around the clan, which provided shelter, food and security and dispensed justice. This system thus had inherent weaknesses, as it depended on the survival of the glue holding the clan together and involved a way of life so difficult and feudal in nature (even simply the annual task of harvesting peat was backbreaking work, usually taking two or three weeks to gather the supply) that it was particularly vulnerable to the sweeping social changes of the late 18th century. The importance of Culloden in light of the other factors On balance, one should be careful not to overestimate the importance of Culloden in causing the Highland Clearances. Even before Culloden, fractures were beginning to emerge in the clan system. The long-term distrust between the Lowlanders and the Highlanders was evident both in catastrophes such as Glencoe and James I’s infamous tactic of ordering the clan chiefs away for extended periods of time in order to undermine any rebellious plans they were forming. Though the Gunpowder Plot may have made King James wary, he was probably also naturally paranoid. 18th century economic pressures (with notable disasters including the Great Frost of 1709, the South Sea Bubble and the Crisis of 1772), and the changing lifestyles of the 33

clan chiefs, also put pressure on the clan system. Clan chiefs and lairds increasingly wanted more opulent lifestyles, spending more time in London and on the Continent, and expanding their homes. Dunrobin Castle, for example, was significantly extended and remodelled in 1785. Clan society increasingly also began to exist on two planes, with the clan chiefs enjoying a life so luxurious that it was entirely remote from the daily hardship of their tenants. Economically and socially, the clan system was thus under threat long before Culloden. The Clearances were thus caused primarily by the fracturing of the inherently weak clan system, which was accelerated but not simply caused by Culloden. The social consequences of the Industrial Revolution in many ways sealed the deal, as the booming industrial centres encouraged urbanisation, providing much needed employment for the displaced tenants. It is also important to note, however, that voluntary decisions also contributed to the Highland depopulation, in addition to the lairds clearing their tenants off the land. The Sutherland Clearances were thus an extreme but unique example, rather than a general rule. The allure of a better life in Britain’s colonies, or in the industrial capitals of Scotland, also motivated many to leave of their own accord. This process was completed by the Highland Potato Famine, but famine was ultimately only a short-term instigator of the Clearances. Their real roots were the gradual breakdown of the clan system during the course of the 18th century, coupled with the accelerating effect of post-industrial class reorientation. These two causes combined; the Clearances were the devastating consequence. Blaming the Clearances purely on the aftermath of Culloden is thus convenient, but not accurate. It is convenient as it fits the broad Scottish trend to blame the English for their misfortunes, in this case for the Act of Proscription and the Heritable Jurisdictions Act. These merely accelerated, however, a process which had already begun. It is also important to question whether there is such thing as a historical inevitability. To describe something as inevitable is easy in hindsight, but ignores the importance of chance, as well as one-off decisions and unexpected occurrences which could well change the course of history. To describe the Clearances as inevitable after Culloden would be a grave error.

The ghosts of the Clearances still haunt Scotland today, and their legacy lives on. Sheep can still be seen walking along the road in Strathnaver, though the decline in their numbers is self-evident. Ruins of old crofting villages, including the township of Grummore described by Reverend Sage, can still be sought and found. Dotted across the landscape lie signs of the past, such as Syre Church (built in 1891 to replace the old church at Strathnaver), Sellar’s former house, infamous clearance sites such as Rosal, or contemporary memorials such as the Emigrates Statue in Helmsdale. Evidence of the lives of crofters relocated to the coast can also be found in the remains of Badbea (one of the villages created by Sinclair), whilst the village Bettyhill was created for a similar purpose and named after Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland. In other words, it is impossible to visit Caithness and Sutherland in particular without encountering the Clearances, as I can personally attest. Their memory lives on, and so does the controversy surrounding them. ‘The Mannie’, a statue of the 1st Duke of Sutherland towering over the local area (it is on the hill known as Ben Bhraggie), has suffered extensive damage from graffiti, with language like ‘monster’. There was even an extensive campaign to tear it down. More significantly, some consider the Clearances to be an early example of ‘ethnic cleansing’, though the validity of this claim is questionable. It is thus clear that the Clearances remain as sensitive and divisive a subject as ever.

Further reading: The History of the Highland Clearances (Alexander Mackenzie) The Highland Clearances (John Prebble) The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed (T.M. Devine) The Making of the Crofting Community (James Hunter) Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances (Eric Richards) Memorabilia Domestica (Donald Sage) Gloomy Memories (Donald MacLeod)

Delftware, or Delft Blue, is a term used to describe the tin-glazed earthenware that emerged in the city of Delft in the Netherlands in the 17th Century. It was known for using Chinese designs and templates, and provided pottery of great quality, but at a much lower price than that of Chinese porcelain. The arrival of Oriental porcelain into Europe was extremely important to the growth of Delftware, and both the emergence and the significance of Delftware in 17th Century Europe are useful studies. Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, a Dutchman who travelled to India with the Portuguese, was the first person to write about porcelain in China for audiences in the Netherlands. He described pieces that he saw in Goa, as so perfect that “no crystalline glass can be compared to them.” While Van Linschoten certainly got many traders excited about porcelain, traders in the years after did not access it legally, and nearly always resorted to piracy. Companies like The Dutch East India Company (VOC) gained their first hauls of porcelain by capturing foreign ships. For example, The VOC seized the 1500-ton Portuguese carrack the Santa Catarina off the coast of Singapore. She was such a rich ship that her sale proceeds increased the wealth of the VOC by more than 50%. The huge amounts of Ming Chinese porcelain taken from the ship led Chinese pottery to be known in Holland as “Kraakporselein”, or “carrack-porcelain” for many years.

The piracy increased to such levels that the Dutch had to set up direct trading links with the Chinese if they wanted to keep a constant supply of porcelain into Europe. Yet the Chinese put great restrictions on the trade. Dutch traders were forbidden to travel to China. They were forced to collect the porcelain from Batavia (now Jakarta), a Dutch trading outpost. The Chinese emperor also required merchants to pay homage to him in order to maintain their trading agreements. This, as well as the death of the Wanli Emperor in 1620, meant that the supply to Europe was interrupted, and the price rose dramatically. European Potters saw an opportunity to produce a cheap alternative to Chinese porcelain. This new tin-glazed earthenware technique was used all around Europe, but it was perfected in Delft. This success is often attributed to the quality of Dutch clay, which allowed potters to refine their technique and make finer items, and to the easy access that potters in Delft had to Chinese originals from the VOC. Chinese porcelain was already very expensive, and the shortage drove up the price, but Delftware provided a cheap alternative for porcelain. This provided the middleclasses with access to near replicas of goods that only the richest could afford. Delft potters were also ready to innovate, with the creation of earthenware teapots to prepare all the tea that was brought back to Europe by the VOC. Delftware shows the appetite for Oriental goods in Europe because it shows that people were looking for a cheap alternative to the expensive and poorly supplied porcelain. They wanted the beauty and respect that came with porcelain, but at prices that most professionals could afford. The appetite was certainly there, as 33 factories operated at the height of Delftware, and they were able to provide accompaniments to the other goods, such as silk, tea, and spices, which came from the Orient, but for a better price.

‘Armorial Dish’, by Willem Jansz. Verstraeten, c. 1645-55

For Comparison: ‘Windswept’ Meiping, Ming Dynasty, Mid-15th Century

In 1900, over a third of all working British women were employed in domestic service - yet by 2000, that number had dwindled to statistical insignificance.

Servants at Curraghmore House, Ireland In 1900, women in service lived in a wide variety of conditions. Most were in employment as maids-ofall-work in middle-class households, dealing with a never-ending variety of general housework. At the grander, Downton-Abbey-esque end of the scale, large country houses could employ over forty servants. In 1900, much of Britain relied so heavily on cheap domestic labour that one Edwardian aristocrat, unable to work out how to open a window by himself, reputedly had to throw a log at it to overcome his problem. For many, as reflected in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning Remains of the Day, a life in service was perceived as respectable and desirable. However, life for those servants was very hard, particularly for the maids-of-all-work, working seventeen-hour days never to be seen or spoken to by their employers. The butlers and footmen would at least get to see the people that they served. The abundance of cheap labour also stifled innovation in the domestic world, as things could continue to be done in the same way that they always had been.

Servant’s bells at Dunster Castle

However, after World War I, servant numbers began to fall dramatically for the first time, with the percentage of working women employed in the sector falling below 20%. The middle class began to live without servants, whilst the press promoted servant-free living. Grand country houses similarly had to cut back on the number of servants. There was another dramatic fall after World War II, with the percentage of working women employed in domestic service falling to below 5% by the early1950s. The great country houses generally became servant-free, with their place often taken by laboursaving devices. The names of many of these products paid, and continue to pay, homage to the world of servants. For example, “Marigold” yellow rubber washing-up gloves pay homage to the lot of a faithful maid. By the 1960s, the idea of large numbers of full-time servants seemed to be something out of a country house novel. However, service was sustained with part-time cleaners and nannies.

Electric bell box at Wightwick Manor There are many reasons for this dramatic decline. Large numbers of women had gained experience working in shops and factories during the war and began to move away from domestic service towards better paid jobs with less demanding lifestyles. The remaining servants wanted better, equivalent pay and pensions, otherwise they would find better work elsewhere. Employers also needed them less with the emergence of domestic appliances. Many male servants also, killed in the World Wars, were therefore unable to return to work in service. Ultimately, these changes reflected aristocratic and imperial decline, as well as wider social changes of the sort described by Anthony Sampson in his Anatomy of Britain (1962).

The DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is better known in the West as North Korea. The isolated ‘Hermit Kingdom’ is best known for its nuclear ambitions, ruthless dictator, and militaristic rhetoric. The name conjures up images of troops marching uniformly in a military parade whilst gargantuan missiles are driven through the streets of Pyongyang. Its latest nuclear missile, the Hwasong-15 is estimated to be capable of travelling 13,000 kilometres, giving North Korea the ability to strike large parts of the USA, as well as South Korea and Japan. Two million KPA (Korean People’s Army) troops are stationed on the South Korean border, just over an hour’s drive from the South Korean capital Seoul.

KPA troops march past the Kim-Il-Sung square, Pyongyang North Korea isn’t the ‘typical’ tourist destination. Your visit will be heavily monitored and staged. You will be constantly accompanied by several minders, who make sure you see and photograph only the selected monuments and museums. Minor misdemeanours and misdeeds will be harshly punished, recently demonstrated in the case of Otto Warmbier, the American student who was sentenced to 15 years hard labour for attempting to steal a poster. Despite the sinister geopolitical backdrop, around 4,000 to 6,000 tourists trickle in each year. The majority are directed to the highly developed capital of Pyongyang. Known as the ‘Dubai’ of North Korea, Pyongyang boasts a metro, several skyscrapers, and many grand monuments. However, outside the tightly controlled perimeter of the city there is a highly different North Korea. It has been nearly five years since I entered the North Korean town of Sinuiju. Sinuiju had only opened to tourism in 2015, so there was a good chance that I was the first ever western child to visit the city, at least in living memory. Sinuiju is the sixth largest city in North Korea, with industry including iron manufacturing, paper, textiles, and cosmetics. It is a vital artery for trade with China, with almost

95.7% of North Korea’s trade passing through it and over the Sino-Korean friendship bridge.

Sino-Korean friendship bridge. Bombed during the Korean War Based around the old city of Uiju, Sinuiju means ‘New Uiju’. The city hosted an anti-communist Christian revolt in 1945, which Kim-Il-Sung supressed personally. Due to its close trading and military links to China, the city sustained heavy bombing from the USAAF during the Korean war, with 95% of the old city was flattened. During the war, Kim-Il-Sung moved his government to Sinuiju after the fall of Pyongyang to US forces. The skies above the city, known to US pilots as ‘MiG Alley’, saw some of the fiercest aerial combat of the war, with dogfights between US F-86 Sabre and Soviet MiG 15 jetfighters. Today Sinuiju hosts an airbase of the KPAAF (Korean People’s Airforce and AntiAirforce), populated by decades-old Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle bombers.

IL-28 Beagle bombers on Sinuiju Airbase

An abandoned Ferris wheel can be seen across the Amnok river from Dandong in China.

When first crossing the Sino-Korean friendship bridge, I was understandably nervous. At the border checkpoint, swarms of armed North Korean troops milled about. The previous day, I had seen several blue huts lining the side of the river, each with a machine gun position. Our passports were taken, and our cameras checked for any incriminating photos by a stern guard clad in the KPA uniform. From the coach, we could see the distinct portraits of former leaders Kim-Il-Sung and Kim-Jong-Il hanging over the checkpoint – a staple image of North Korea. This was a stark reminder that we were in a different world. The first thing that strikes you about Sinuiju is the absence of traffic and highrise buildings, both of which are abundant across the river in Dandong, China. The roads were nearly empty, notwithstanding the many bicycles used by the population, with most walking and some even roller skating. Children perform for us at Sinuiju’s main school. Many of them perform in the Arirang Mass Games in Pyongyang.

Bronze statues of Kim-Il-Sung and Kim-Jong-Il outside the Pyongan Pukto Museum of The Revolution The first attraction we were taken to see was the two statues of Kim-Il-Sung and Kim-Jong-Il outside the Pyongan Pukto Museum of The Revolution. Here, I met my minder/guide Ms Hong, an amicable student who spoke English very well. After handing over a plentiful sum of Chinese Yuan, I was invited to lay a floral wreath in front of the statues, walking up sheepishly to the statues and bowing before laying down the flowers. We then headed into the museum, where photography is forbidden to ‘preserve’ the precious artefacts. These ‘artefacts’ consisted largely of memories of their ‘Supreme Leader’, including a microphone, a pair of slippers and a quilt all once used by Kim-Il-Sung during his revolutionary activities. Epic portraits of the revolution adorned the walls. Strolling through the museum, I did, however, note the distinct lack of visitors. Whilst Ms Hong informed us about the history of Kim-Il-Sung’s activities, not once did she mention his name without using the pronouns: ‘Marshall, comrade, eternal president.’

The next stop was a school. Driving through the city, many of the walls are plastered with militaristic posters praising the revolution – apparently all drawn painstakingly by hand. Outside the school, the portraits of Kim-Il-Sung and Kim-Jong-Il were hung proudly, with the words ‘Comrades Kim-IlSung and Kim-Jong-Il will be ever present with us’ in large Korean characters underneath. Having walked through the school (which is free thanks to the socialist policies of the government) and seeing students hard at work studying, we were treated to a special performance. Many of the students perform in the Pyongyang Arirang Mass Games, in which tens of thousands of synchronised dancers tell the story of the Korean revolution. After the performance, I was once again called on to hand out flowers, this time to the performers – with the giving of flowers seen as a very important sign of respect in the DPRK.

A student was practicing on the traditional Korean Gayageum.

Front View of the school. The text reads: ‘Comrades Kim-IlSung and Kim-Jong-Il will be ever present with us.’ The next stop on our tour was an art gallery. The walls were covered in intricate paintings, depicting scenes from the revolution and the lives of the great leaders. Afterwards, we were given the chance to buy souvenirs – and I was rather surprised when I opened the first page of the book I bought called ‘’History of the DPRK on stamps’’. The inscription read “The heroic Korean people had cropped the feathers of the US imperialists to win a great historic victory in the righteous Fatherland Liberation War, which was directed by the Great Marshall Kim-IlSung against the US and their satellite forces.” The stamps and pages were filled with glorious scenes from the revolution and the many new construction projects pioneered by Kim-Jong-Il.

The next stop on the tours was the Sinuiju cosmetics factory, said to be the largest in the DPRK, and visited by both Kim-Jong-Il (1999) and more recently by Kim-Jong-Un (2018). The products have become so popular domestically that the factory has even opened a shop in Pyongyang to provide residents of the capital city with its famous “spring scent’’. Outside the factory stands a large mosaic dedicated to Kim-Jong-Il’s visit.

The mosaic both when I visited and when Kim-Jong-Un visited. The guides were very proud of this factory - saying that it produced first rate cosmetics for the Korean people. They were very keen to emphasise how when shaping the soap into moulds, the chippings would be melted down and re-used, and not thrown away. This tied into the North Korean policy of ‘Juche’, the emphasis of ‘self-sufficiency.’ Unfortunately, I was not too interested in cosmetics, but when outside and in conversation with some of the North Korean drivers. I was extremely surprised when they asked me about Brexit! In a guarded manor, we discussed Britain’s exit from the EU. I was amazed that such information was widely known about in the DPRK!

The ‘Juche’ concept pioneered by Kim-Il-Sung emphasises self-sufficiency.

A mosaic on ancient Korean history.

The last stop on the tour was the Sinuiju folk park. The park boasts activities such as shooting, swinging, and boating, as well as containing a mosaic on Korean history and several traditional pavilions. The park also appeared to be well used by the locals, each of whom sported a badge with KimIl-Sung’s face on it.

Overall, I found Sinuiju to be a pleasant town and the experience fascinating. The people were warm and hospitable (even the border guard practised his limited English with us on the way out). The sights were not on a typical tourist’s itinerary, but they were each interesting in their own way. Although the tour was most likely highly choreographed, it was still fascinating to see daily life in North Korea and experience their culture. Moreover, it was interesting to see a town outside developed Pyongyang (where most tourists visit). We must acknowledge that there are two sides to every story and that there is more to North Korean culture than is often portrayed in Western media.

Sinuiju folk park is frequented by the locals.

Book Review: The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 by Gordon Wood Seb Ellis (D) In this comprehensive account of American political thought and its evolution between the writing of the state constitutions in the late 1770s and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787, Gordon Wood traces and attempts to explain the formulation of an entirely ‘new conception of politics’ which took place in the period 1776-87. Wood’s study is informed by deep immersion into contemporary sources. He does, however, acknowledge that these sources are not necessarily representative of a wide range of views, with some accounts and personal libraries more likely to be preserved than others. However, this skew is negated by Wood’s acute awareness of this obstacle and his deep study of the events of the period, both of which lead him to a nuanced use of the sources that does not overly rely on them. Wood illustrates that the state constitution writing of the late 1770s sped up the changes in American political thought that had begun during the colonial period, which resulted in a crystallisation of an American conception of democracy. This conception was classical and strongly influenced by the political ideas of the Enlightenment. It was based predominantly on the supposed virtue of ‘the people’, allowing their sovereignty to extend deeply into legislatures and state government. The Federal Constitution of 1787, on the other hand, took a more realistic view of ‘the people’, seeing them, as they were, as a population of individuals and groups competing for their own interests, often at the expense of the interests and rights of others. It created a republic based on compromise, in which no one interest group could take full control. This ‘new conception of politics’ showed a departure from Enlightenment political thought. While American government retained superficial similarities to those conceived in the Enlightenment, with three branches, a bicameral legislature with upper and lower houses to represent different echelons of society, and influence from contract theory, Enlightenment ideas acquired a new meaning in America. The idea of the people’s sovereignty and the social contract, for example, were altered significantly. According to Wood they became more consistent with American society and culture, though he does not explain exactly what that is.

Wood’s primary explanation for the striking change in political spirit between the state and federal constitutions is what he calls the ‘democratic despotism’ of the late 1770s and 1780s. Since the people’s sovereignty had extended into the legislature, the principle of independent judgement was denied; decisions by elected representatives became illegitimate if they affronted the majority’s will, and officials thus became ‘straightjacketed’ by formal instructions from their constituents. This led to both chaos and tyranny. Laws were bypassed for the interest of majorities and assemblies were constantly changing with the temporary desires of majorities among the people. For example, in the 1778 Massachusetts House of Representatives, 83 of the members had not sat the previous year. Majorities were thus able to rule oppressively over the minority, confiscating property or cancelling debt with the authority of their sovereignty. This democratic despotism therefore resulted in tyranny and anarchy, two of the three degradations of government. Urgency caused by this, Wood asserts, largely explains why the Federal Constitution was created. The Constitution created a higher power which diluted the sovereignty of the people and a republic ‘which did not require a virtuous people for its sustenance’, which arose out of the need for fundamental laws to guide state legislatures. The Annapolis convention, gathered by James Madison to attempt to construct a federal government, was lacking in numbers, while the Philadelphia convention had far larger numbers of attendants; 44

enough, in fact, to create a federal government with legitimate authority. This change can probably be partly explained by the work of Madison and Hamilton in raising enthusiasm for a federal government, and George Washington’s attendance at Philadelphia, but it also seems likely that the occurrence of the two most dramatic instances of democratic despotism (Shays’ Rebellion and the Paper Money Riot) between these two conventions contributed to the increased attendance at Philadelphia. John Jay also wrote at this time that he was uneasy, ‘more so than during the war’, which might suggest that these feelings were current among the political elite. Wood also suggests that, while 1776 was a populist revolution, the writing of the Federal Constitution represented an elitist counter-revolution. He sees the Constitution as an effort to protect the elite’s interests and to contain the social forces released in 1776, and writes that the quarrel between federalists and anti-federalists was ‘fundamentally one between aristocracy and democracy’. Although this seems plausible, it is very difficult to understand the motives of the federalists. This is because anything they said or wrote could be what they perceived to be the most palatable argument in support of their cause, and not their real personal reasoning. For example, the federalists’ dislike of ‘new men’ – men lacking pedigree who were becoming increasingly involved in politics after 1776 – seems on the

surface to be a political concern. Madison wrote that these new men tended to have a ‘narrowness of interest and vision’, while he wanted to foster ‘an attention to the interest of the whole society’ in government. This would indicate that the federalists were trying to preserve the advantages of elite rule, such as broad policy vision, not elite rule itself. However, Wood would see their dislike of new men as a social concern, and would say that this rhetoric from Madison was intended to cover his real motive, which was keeping government somewhat aristocratic. The protection of minorities’ rights against tyrannical majorities can also, in this case, be seen as elitist as elite minorities had suffered the most from the democratic despotism after 1776. However, other minorities, such as merchants, had suffered at the hands of majorities, so the federalists’ concern can also be seen to be about equal rights more broadly. Wood’s work is certainly one of the most, if not the most, comprehensive accounts of the evolution of American political thought in this period. While other works, such as Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, have had a narrower focus (Bailyn focuses on political pamphlets during the Revolution), Wood seems to have left no stone unturned. This has resulted in a formidable and enlightening book of over 600 pages, and an essential read for anyone studying the political thought of the American Revolution.

(Not so) Historical News Stories Jerome Wilton (D)

THE COLLOSEUM 60AD

The London standard 1850

WE WANT YOU: Martyrs

French do not revolt

Lost out in the job market? Need easy fame? Martyrs are dying out, and you could be the one to fill their place!

In a shock move last year the French people decided that they were tired of revolutions and thought that they’d be nice to the aristocracy for once.

If you’re really successful, you can even become a saint worshipped by an odd cult that really like the meek. Experts can’t explain the sharp decline in the martyr population in Rome, but demand is certainly still high. Short-term employment only. Required qualities: flammable

Across 3. Pub name recalling Charles II's hiding place (3, 5, 3) 4. World's Oldest Known Writing Script (9) 5. Last Plantagenet Monarch (7) 7. Shortest Reign of Henry VIII's wives (4) 10. Armstrong, Aldrin & _______ (7) 13. World's Oldest Known Board Game (5) 15. 'Amelia _______' - Pilot (7) 17. 15th March 44B.C. (4, 2, 5) 18. August 1819, Manchester (8) 19. Treaty signed in 1920 between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied Forces (6) 20. Gettysburg Address Deliverer (7)

Down 1. 'Birth of a Nation' (abbr.) (3) 2. Third President of the U.S.A. (9) 6. 'George _______' - O.W.; Bishop of Southwell; Informator (7) 8. "Gloriana" (9) 9. 'Simon _______' - " The Liberator" (7) 11. Roman Shield-Wall Formation (7) 12. Queen of England in 1141? (7) 14. Corsica, Elba then Saint Helena (8) 16. East Germany, (abbr.) (3)

Answers to previous crossword: Across: 5. Shakespeare; 8. Genoa; 10. Augustus; 12. Hadrian; 15. Blackbeard; 16. Tubman; 19. Genghis; 20. Kamikaze. Down: 1. Crimea; 2. Leningrad (only 9 long - oops); 3. Roberts; 4. Thomas Edison; 6. Abdul; 7. You; 9; Nightingale; 11. Saint Helena; 13. Allen; 14. September; 17. Booth; 18. Rice. 46

New books in Mob Lib

Winchester History Journal | Issue 2 | Common Time 2021

Articles inside

Crossword

Seb Ellis (D

William Goltz (Coll

Jamie Mackinnon(I

The Decline of Service in the 20th Century

Book Review

Bismarck: Myth or Mastermind?

Toby BowesLyon (K) & James Hunter (K

Edward Thomson(Coll

From Winchester