William Goltz (Coll

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 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

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

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

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. 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.

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

Patrick Sellar

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. 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.

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 Massacre of Glencoe, by James Hamilton

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