Winchester History Journal | Issue 4 | Short Half 2022

The Winchester History Journal

The War on Place

Toby Bowes Lyon

Language and Culture in Japanese Korea James Hunter

The Guayaquil Conference Ivo Sawbridge

Winchester History Journal

10 ‘Language is an essential tool of colonial domination.’

James Hunter (K)

Short Half 2022 Issue 4

18 The War on Place

Toby Bowes Lyon (K)

From the Editors:

Welcome to the fourth issue of the Winchester History Journal. Our regular sections, including the new “Debunked!”, where we refute common historical misconceptions, mostly focus on the life of HM Queen Elizabeth, 1926 2022, to whom this edition is dedicated.

Toby Bowes Lyon, Douglas Page and Jamie Mackinnon

24 The Guayaquil Conference

Ivo Sawbridge (K)

Front Cover Image: HM Queen Elizabeth II, 1926 2022.

Tributes by Toby Bowes Lyon and Jamie Mackinnon, can be found on the back cover.

32 The Chinese Cultural Revolution

Morris Hsieh (K)

46 Is History in the UK Taught in Too Eurocentric a Way?

48 Second World War: Defence Lines

Jamie Mackinnon (I)

5 From Winchester: Douglas Page (Coll.)

8 From Winchester: Edward Thomson (Coll.)

4 Interestingly; This Month in History; Older or Younger?

4 NEW: Debunked!

Crossword

& 53 Books in MobLib “Operation Mincemeat”: Edward Thomson (Coll.)

Jonas Bhattacharya (I) and Victor Sim (I)

Interestingly...

Interestingly, the unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. Hence, the plan for the Queen’s death in Scotland was named “Operation Unicorn”.

Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth II had the first state funeral in the United Kingdom since Sir Winston Churchill’s in 1965.

Interestingly, KCs (King’s Counsels) wear “weepers”, white material covering one of their cuffs, in times of mourning. This is to capture any tears shed for the deceased.

Interestingly, the royal dogs are surprisingly violent: the Queen was bitten in March 1991 trying to break up a fight between around 10 of her corgis and had to have 3 stitches on her left hand!

Interestingly, George Pompidou presented the Queen with a giant grasshopper in 1972. It can be used both as a wine cooler and as a drinks table.

Debunked!

The Royal Standard does not regularly fly at half mast, and until the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, it was the only flag to fly from Buckingham Palace.

The King does not own all the swans in the UK, but does have the right to claim ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water in England and Wales. This right is mainly exercised on the River Thames. Marking a swan used to involve carving a distinct pattern into its beak to identify its owner.

The Queen did regularly carry cash: but only for the collection in church.

Older orYounger

Were the following world leaders older or younger than Queen Elizabeth II?

Pope John Paul II

Pope Benedict XVI

Ronald Reagan

Jimmy Carter

Margaret Thatcher

Leonid Brezhnev

Mikhail Gorbachev

François Mitterrand

Answers to previous 'Older or Younger':

Charles Darwin

Albert Einstein Younger Isaac Newton Older Louis Pasteur Younger Marie Curie Younger Ada Lovelace Younger Galileo Galilei Older Aristotle Older Robert Hooke Older

This Month in History

25 years ago Titanic, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, premiered. 50 years ago Richard Nixon was re elected, with every state except Massachusetts. 75 years ago Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II, and Philip Mountbatten married. 100 years ago the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered by Howard Carter.

FROM WINCHESTER

In this From Winchester, Douglas Page (Coll.) explores the deep connection between Winchester College and the Annunciation story, found in the Gospel of Luke.

Below: depiction of the Annunciation, on Middle Gate at Winchester College the archangel Gabriel is on the left; Mary is in the middle; and a kneeling bishop, presumably William of Wykeham, is on the right.

Since its foundation, Winchester College has had a unique connection with Luke’s Annunciation story, where the Angel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary that she will bear a child and that he will be the son of God. The story can be found in many places around the College, notably in François Lemoyne’s altarpiece, dated 1727, that can now be viewed in the Treasury. Lemoyne, the artist, was a French Catholic, and Winchester was an English Protestant school. It is therefore unusual that such a painting was chosen to feature prominently in its chapel. However, Winchester’s close relationship with the Annunciation story, which is explored in detail in this article, explains in part why there was little controversy at the time.

William of Wykeham decided to dedicate both of his colleges “to the glory of God and the glorious Virgin Mary, His Mother” he fundamentally connected Winchester College to the Virgin Mary and therefore the Annunciation story. We can see this connection from the foundation in many places. On Middle Gate, there are two similar depictions of the Annunciation, one of which is pictured. Wykeham himself is the character on the right; he is kneeling in reverence. Both Wykeham’s seal and chantry chapel have similar depictions, although in the latter, the bishop has been replaced by another angel. In the Jesse window at the east end of Chapel, the Virgin Mary takes centre stage. There is also a small depiction of the Annunciation in the bottom left panel. Furthermore, the dates of Winchester College’s construction coincide with the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March) for no coincidence: the foundation stone was laid on 26 March, 1387; the doors to the College opened on 28 March, 1394. Wykeham would have viewed the Feast of the Annunciation as importantly as modern Christians view Christmas. He prayed at an altar to the Virgin

The Annunciation was still important to the College long after Wykeham’s death. It is depicted in two other stained glass windows currently at the College, one in Thurbern’s Chantry and one in Fromond’s, the former pictured. The candelabra currently by the altar in Chapel similarly depict the Annunciation. From the Archives, the pictured initial of a charter, issued by Henry VI to Winchester College in 1443, shows the story. The fact that these depictions span almost the whole history of the College demonstrates that Winchester’s strong connection with the Annunciation story was not merely limited to its foundation but was sustained.

Winchester College was also the site of a famous translation of the Annunciation story into English. Warden Harmar (c.1555 1613) was assigned to lead a small committee to work on some parts of the Bible for the KJV (1611). He led the translation of Luke’s Gospel, including the Annunciation story, from the now Warden Harmar room in the Warden’s Lodgings. His words (significantly edited here for both brevity and clarity) still hold huge significance for many:

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.’ And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, ‘Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

Dr John Burton, the Headmaster who bought Lemoyne’s altarpiece, was viewed at the time as being a Jacobite sympathiser. He most likely bought the painting in Catholic France: Louis XV was viewed as being poised to invade England. Religious paintings were viewed by Protestants as being controversial, as a distraction from God. Idolising the Virgin Mary was a distraction from the Holy Trinity. Catholic imagery, such as Lemoyne’s picture, was therefore typically rejected by society. Consequently, it is plausible that Burton chose the picture to express his high church, ‘High Tory’ stance; anyone else would not risk such controversy.

Left: tracer lights in Thurbern’s Chantry. Right: illuminated initial in charter from 1443.

Nevertheless, it is primarily because of the undeniable connection between Winchester College and the Annunciation story that Burton’s choice of altarpiece was accepted. Other factors were also greatly important: Winchester being viewed as an institution academic enough not to be susceptible to Catholic ideas and the distance from the court in London to Winchester. The minimisation of the amount of Catholic imagery in the painting the lack of doves and lily flowers was also significant. Combined, these factors explain why Burton’s altarpiece was accepted by society, remaining in Chapel for 135 years.

The author has referenced Mark Byford’s book ‘The Annunciation: A Pilgrim’s Quest’ and Christopher Rowell’s article on Lemoyne’s altarpiece extensively whilst researching this topic. Lemoyne’s altarpiece, William of Wykeham’s seal and one of the original medieval statues from Middle Gate can all be seen in the Treasury at Winchester College.

The author writes regularly at godtres.wixsite.com/cornucopia on historical topics relating to Winchester College. Through this website, much more on the Annunciation at the College, particularly on Lemoyne’ s altarpiece, can be found.

Pictured: Lemoyne’s altarpiece with details.

From Winchester

In this second FromWinchester, Edward Thomson (Coll.) takes a look at the Morgan Leaf of the Winchester Bible.

The Winchester Bible is a Romanesque Bible produced in the mid to late 12th Century. Romanesque does not refer to it as an illuminated manuscript. There is nothing Roman esque about illuminated manuscripts (as far as we know the Romans did not produce illuminated manuscripts, as most of their writings were on papyri which have not survived) but it is the style of art and its period which grant it this classification. It is written in a Protogothic script which reflects the transition at the time it was written from Romanesque to Gothic architecture and manuscript styles.

The Bible was made from vellum, which was the best writing and illuminating surface, but was also very expensive and more than 250 calfskins would have been needed to produce the book. Therefore there must have been a wealthy patron for the book. Evidence points to Henry of Blois, the then Bishop of Winchester, who was the brother of Henry II and one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England at the time. The vellum is only one of the expenses in the Bible. One of the most striking things about the book is the extensive use of an intense blue pigment. This was ultramarine, made of lapis lazuli, which had to be imported from Afghanistan, and was more expensive than the gilding used in the book.

The scribes and artists in the Winchester Bible were formidable craftsmen. One scribe alone copied out the entire Bible with a feather quill, which would have taken him around four years, and is an incredible feat, given that the Bible is around 800,000 words. There were six artists: the Master of the Leaping Figures, the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings, the Master of the Genesis Initial, the Master of the Amalekite, the Master of the Morgan Leaf, and the Master of the Gothic Majesty, although much of the art and illumination remains incomplete.

The Morgan Leaf is the only finished full page illuminated from the book. It was worked on by two of the artists, the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings and the Master of the Morgan Leaf. It seems that the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings made the drawings for the Morgan Leaf, and it was the Master of the Morgan Leaf who added all the vivid colour. The Morgan Leaf comprises three scenes: David and Goliath, David acceding to the throne of Israel, and the death of Absalom. There are lots of proto heraldic references, as most of the shields are patterned to distinguish them, and the cloaks have a heraldic style depiction of vair, a fabric of sewn squirrel pelts. There is much speculation that the Master of the Morgan Leaf may have seen the Cappella Palatina and the Abbey of Monreale, as there as similarities between the Sicilian mosaics and his style of manuscript illumination.

There are large amounts of detail in the illumination of the Morgan Leaf, from the knotwork border reminiscent of the Insular style found in earlier Columban manuscripts to the delicate floral details in white ink filling in the spaces between the knotwork. The attention to detail paid by the artists is quite a feat, all the armour of the soldiers is given texture with light and dark strokes to give the effect of a mail shirt, and each building within the border of the image has a tiled roof. The people are all in immaculate detail, with all the clothes being given light and dark areas to make them look as if they are actually being worn and have natural folds where they lie on their owner. The hair is also perfectly executed, there are many strands to break up the colour and add to the realism of the artwork. At no point did the scribes miss any opportunity to add a flourish or a stroke whether in the people, objects, buildings or borders.

The Morgan Leaf is a perfect example of the Romanesque movement, European craftsmen and experience coming together to create art and culture, materials reflecting the trade and wealth of the time, and unparalleled attention to detail and artistic flair, which glorified God and its patron, and added to European culture as a whole.

‘Language is an essential tool of colonial domination.’ Korea under Japanese control

In an essay highly commended in Oriel College's Rex Nettleford Prize, James Hunter examines the important role that culture and language played in ensuring the successful Japanese colonial domination of Korea. Policies implemented during the ‘Chosēn’ colony (1910-1945) highlight a concerted attempt by Imperial Japan not just to colonise Korea, but to erode the ‘sense’ of a Korean nation itself.

Above:March 1st Movement, 1919, depicted by Suh Se Ok.

Background

Korea is a nation with a history stretching for thousands of years. Often under the cultural, political and military influence of successive Chinese dynasties, Korea was ruled by the Goryeo (918 1392) and the Joseon dynasties (1392 1897) for a thousand years. However, key developments such as the General Sherman incident 1866 (an intrusion of American armed boats which aimed to open up trade with isolationist Korea), gradually forced Korea into the increasingly interconnected world of trade, industrialisation and modernity.

To the East of Korea lay the Japanese archipelago. Japan and Korea shared much common history and culture. The ancient Kings of Baekje (A kingdom in South Western Korea) from 18BC to 660AD were distant ancestors of the Imperial family. Moreover, in Imjin War of 1592 1598, Japan had attacked and unsuccessfully tried to conquer Joseon Korea. Despite their failure in this regard, the Japanese brought back many skilled Korean prisoners who greatly influenced the development of a range of Japanese culture and art.

Throughout the 19th century Japan underwent a transformation from a feudal shogunate to a newly industrialised society under Emperor Meiji. Yet, Japan had several problems including overpopulation, lack of resources and lack of farming space. By 1894, Japan was ready to expand and challenged Qing China for control of Taiwan and Korea in the Sino Japanese War of 1894 1895. The Japanese forces, newly modernised, recorded a resounding victory over the declining Qing state and subsequently took control over Taiwan and increased Japanese influence in Korea.

The period known as: ‘The Great Korean Empire,’ was a time of limbo for the Koreans. Despite being located within the same borders as the previous Joseon state and ruled by Joseon emperor King Gojong, the ‘Empire’ was heavily influenced by the Japanese. With Japanese authority in the region further reinforced by the 1905 Russo Japanese War and with the suppression of the Korean rebel Ūibyŏng Righteous Armies, the Japanese formally annexed Korea in 1910.

Left:King Gojong of Korea, the last Joseon emperor, was forced to abdicate in 1907.

Right:The “Japan Times” Extra newspaper announces the annexation of Korea, August 29th 1910.

Nevertheless, the Japanese were far from secure in their control over Korea. Japan’s occupation of Korea was challenged by the 3 1 Sam Il movement on March 1st 1919. The scale of the 3 1 protest movement stunned the Japanese authorities. The Japanese changed strategy and the 1920s saw a period known as ‘cultural rule’ which involved a relaxation in Japanese colonial controls such as censorship. The first indigenous Korean language newspapers: the Tonga’ ilbo, the Chosŏn ilbo and the Chungang ilbo were set up throughout the 1920s.

However, the 1930s saw another shift in Japanese colonial policy. Following the rise of nationalism in Japan in the 1930s and the expansion into Manchuria and later China, Japanese colonial policy became increasingly nationalistic and totalitarian.

‘Assimilationist’ policies such as the sōshi kaimei (creation of a family name) policy, the burning of 200,000 Korean language manuscripts and the outright banning of Korean language in public places all exemplified this shift. Such policies highlight a concerted attempt by the Japanese government not only to colonise Korea, but to erode the sense and of a Korean nation itself.

Main article

The traumatic legacy of Imperial Japan’s colonial domination of Korea between 1910 1945 profoundly affected the Korean people, culture and mindset and continues to do so today, both in North and South Korea. The extent to which Japan’s direct colonial influence pervaded into the daily lives of the Korean people during the Chosēn (Korea) colony was especially ‘unusual in its intensive and intrusive nature.’

At the same time, Japan exploited Korea’s human and natural capital, abducting many men to work in the factories which powered the Japanese war machine and 200,000 women to work as ‘Comfort Corps’ for the Imperial Japanese army. Historian Michael J Seth said that: ‘By the end of the colonial period, Korea had become a land where the majority of the population were farmers who owned no land or not enough to support themselves, who were burdened with high rents and who could not even eat the rice they grew.'

One of the most essential tools in perpetuating Japanese colonial domination over Chosēn was the linguistic and often linked cultural domination of Korea. Nationalistic Japanese assimilationist policies during the 1930s forcibly suppressed the Korean language and culture, as part of a long term underlying psychological attempt to convince the Korean people that they were a subset of the Japanese race based on ‘the vague, mystical and racial nationalist ideology of kokutai (national essence).’ In addition, the Japanese administration used other more immediate tools in synthesis with linguistic domination to perpetuate colonial control over Korea. This included military domination, exemplified by the suppression of the Independence March the 1st Movement in 1919 and ‘Wartime Mobilization’, alongside natural and human capital exploitation which were used to subjugate and exploit the Korean people and sustain the Japanese Empire with resources. Overall, both the linguistic and military domination of Korea were essential methods of the multi faceted Japanese colonial policy to maintain control of the Chosēn colony. Nevertheless, language was a particularly essential tool in asserting Japanese colonial dominance over Korea as it aimed to destroy the ‘sense’ of a Korean nation itself, stripping the Korean people of ‘basic features of their ethnic identity, including even their names and language.’

Above:Japanese 1 Chosēn Yen banknote, 1932.

Above:Japanese General Minami reviewing Korean volunteer troops, c 1930s.

The Japanese domination over the Korean language and culture were essential tools in maintaining and perpetuating colonial control over the Chosēn colony. By denying the Koreans even their own language, culture and heritage, the Japanese strengthened their position in Korea, whilst severing the cultural roots of the Korean people, part of the long term assimilationist policy. Rather than being ruled by an alien and distant ruling power as in other colonial scenarios, Korea was subjected to colonial control by a people that had: ‘the same origins, the same ancestors, a common culture and a common history.’ As a result of the Japanese kokutai theory, the seizure of Korea in 1910 through the Japan Korea treaty, according to the Japanese, was not a hostile annexation but a ‘national reintegration,’ and an inevitable amalgamation of the two countries.

Above:A map of Imperial Japan that appeared on the front page of a Tokyo Newspaper, 1910.

Korea was regarded by the Japanese as an extension of their homeland whilst the Korean people were viewed as a backwards subset of the Japanese race. Although the Japanese were initially prepared to let Korean language and culture flourish in the ‘cultural rule’ period throughout the 1920s, in part to placate the Koreans after the March 1st 1919 uprising, the 1930s saw a range of increasingly radical assimilationist policies implemented and an overall move towards Japanese totalitarianism in the midst of wartime mobilisation following the 1931 invasion of Manchuria.

Above:Advertisement for Korea’s grand exhibition of 1940, the 2600th year of Japan’s founding and the 30th year of Japan’s rule over Korea. Credit: Kwŏn Hyokhŭi.

The Japanese carried out policies in order to assimilate the Korean people into loyal imperial subjects which was, according to historian Kyung Moon Hwang, the ‘overarching ideal’. As part of this, the Korean language was withdrawn from required school subjects in Korea in 1936. By 1942 all optional Korean language classes had been removed from schools across Korea whilst the authorities began to even prohibit children from speaking Korean at school. At the same time, Japanese was installed as the working language of schools. As Japan veered towards wartime totalitarianism, Koreans were also forbidden by the Japanese colonial administration from writing or speaking Korean in public places. Furthermore, Korean language newspapers such as the Tonga’ ilbo, the Chosŏn ilbo and the Chungang ilbo were shut down during the 1930s whilst Korean language radio programs ceased to be broadcast. Any programs that promoted Korean culture were also withdrawn from broadcast. At the same time, there was a concerted effort throughout the 1930s by the colonial establishment to supersede Japanese over the Korean language. From 1937, there was an increase in airtime for Japanese language broadcasts. The Japanese language was promoted as the rate of Korean children ‘no longer experiencing difficulty with basic [Japanese] conversation’ rose from 760,000 in 1933 to 1.2 million in 1937.

Above:By comparing old fashioned Korean schools to modern Japanese schools, the Japanese highlighted ‘progress’ under Japanese colonial rule.

Following the merging of the Japanese and Koreans school systems in 1940 into ‘kokumin gakkō’ (national schools), further changes highlighted Japanese attempts to suppress Korean language and culture. Classes titled ‘Japanese History’ became ‘History’ whilst the time hitherto dedicated to Korean language was occupied by Japanese martial arts training (a methods by which the colonial authorities could obtain healthy future labourers for factories). By denying the Koreans even their own language, the Japanese severed them from their cultural roots and sense of nation, exemplifying the underlying psychological aims of Japanese assimilationist policy.

In 1940 under the Sōshi kaimei (creation of a family name) policy, Koreans were encouraged to replace their family names with Japanese names. Although a voluntary policy, Korean families who did not change their family name were severely disadvantaged from rations and could be subject to harassment from Japanese authorities. A Japanese report stated that 84% of Koreans had taken Japanese surnames by the end of 1940. For the deeply conservative Korean people, the policy of sōshi kaimei created widespread resentment. In Korea, the family name was extremely important, rooted in the Confucian tradition of ancestor worship and family heritage. The relinquishment of the family name was not just a symbolic loss of identity for the Korean people, it was to abandon and dishonour one’s own ancestors, severing the Korean people’s connection to their heritage. ‘Few colonial policies left such bitterness,’ stated historian Michael Seth. The trauma of the sōshi kaimei policy was further exacerbated by Japanese requirements for Koreans to worship the Japanese emperor and the Shinto religion. Through a mixture of incentives such as the placing of ration collection points on shrines ground and ‘encouragement’ such as sirens, military style rallies at schools and neighbourhood syndicates, the visiting of Shinto shrines and deification of the emperor became a staple part of the daily routine for many Koreans. Shrine visitations reached 5,541,367 in 1937, (cf population 21,000,000).

Moreover, the Japanese also carried out policies of cultural domination over Korea which were strongly linked to language. Chief among them was the requirement for Koreans to adopt Japanese names and religion.

The assimilationist policies in the 1930s like these highlight a concerted effort by the Japanese to gradually eradicate the Korean language, culture and heritage in order to perpetuate Japanese colonial domination. The Chosēn colony was profoundly different to European colonial scenarios such as British India or French Algeria in that Korea in the 1930s saw totalitarian, imperialistic and nationalistic Japanese attempts not just to colonise Korea for its resources and strategy (which were of course important), but to destroy

Above:The Government general building, Seoul, circa 1930s.

Left:Shinto Shrine in Busan, Korea, circa 1930s.

Middle:A three legged race with nai (Japan, right) and sen (Korea) united in cooperation.

Right:Admiral Saitō Makoto, Governor General 1919 1927.

the ‘sense’ of a Korean nation and people itself. The ultimate objective of the Japanese colonial domination in Korea was to fully integrate the Korean people into loyal supporters of nationalistic agendas such as the ‘Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere,’ which was perhaps the ultimate pinnacle of colonial domination. Furthermore, more immediate, and brutal policies of cultural and linguistic domination such as the destruction of 200,000 Korean language historical documents and other Korean cultural items which also highlight Japanese attempts to destroy the ‘historical memory’ of Korea. Ultimately, the control of language and often linked culture was an essential tool in perpetuating Japanese colonial domination over Korea. Overall, assimilationist policies such as the promotion of the Japanese language over Korean, sōshi kaimei, and the forced visitations to shrines all highlight how the domination of language and culture were essential tools in the Japanese colonial domination of Korea. If Japanese rule had lasted well beyond 1945, it is uncertain as to whether Korean language, culture, and traditions would have survived.

Nevertheless, other tools were also essential in the Japanese domination of Korea. Military force was a key tool of Japanese colonial domination over Korea as it enabled Japan to suppress dissent and thus perpetuate colonial rule. From the start of Japanese colonial control over Korea in 1910, following the Japan Korea annexation treaty, Japan showed its preparedness to use aggressive military force to establish and enforce colonial dominance over Korea as exemplified by the crushing of 15,000 guerrilla troops of the Korean ‘Righteous Armies’ (Ūibyŏng) between 1907 1910. Unlike the more symbolic and long term policies of

linguistic domination, military force as a tool of colonial domination was far more immediate in its nature. The extent to which Japan’s direct colonial influence intruded into the daily lives of the Korean people was unusual at the time for a colonial state. Indeed, in the late 1930s nearly 250,000 Japanese served in Korea in various professions such as soldiers, policemen and administrators, around ten times the size of the French establishment in colonial Vietnam, a country similar to Korea in both population and size. The Chosēn colony was an unusually centralised colony, with both the military and police exercising significant influence on the daily life of the Korean people. The police had wide ranging powers, including the power to judge and sentence for minor offences, to collect taxes and to inspect any household or business to ensure that government regulations were being followed. Indeed, the direct ruler (Governor General) of the Korean colony was always a military man such as Admiral Saitō Makoto (1919 1927) who was directly responsible for all infrastructure, culture, justice and censorship, highlighting the central role the military played in government affairs and thus its essential role in the colonial domination of Korea.

Military force was always an essential tool in suppressing dissent and thereby maintaining Japanese control of Korea. One of the most notable examples of this was the suppression of the March the 1st Movement (Sam Il 3 1) in 1919. Caused by a range of factors (including Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points’), the scale of 3 1 movement stunned the Japanese authorities. Historian Mark Caprio stated that: ‘the Korean mansei (Long live Korea) cacophony would reverberate in Japanese ears throughout the remainder of

Japan’s period of colonial rule as warnings to the colonizers against complacency.’ Although Caprio ignores the fact that the 1920s ‘cultural rule’ saw an actual relaxation in Japanese colonial controls, it is clear that the military’s heavy handed response to the protests in 1919 was extremely ruthless, with widespread atrocities such as random massacres, burning of villages and summary executions carried out. This brutal response demonstrates the military’s role in the suppression of the Korean independence movement and the perpetuation of colonial domination over Korea The colonial government’s tallies for deaths and injuries numbered over 500 deaths. The real number was likely in the thousands. The military were also heavily involved in censorship of information as exemplified by the Son Gijeong case in 1936, where the Tonga’ Ilbo Korean language newspaper was shut down and its editors jailed for smudging the Japanese flag on the photo of Korean gold medal athlete Son Gijeong (embarrassed that a Korean was forced to represent a conquering nation in sport), demonstrating the link between the military government and censorship and thus its essential role in maintaining colonial domination over Korea.

was extremely important for Japan which was an island nation with few resources and little space for farming. The exploitation of Korean natural capital, in part, allowed Japan to achieve its expansionist aims. In addition, the Japanese also exploited the Korean population Many were abducted or transported to fill the labour shortages of Japan in the factories, shipyards and mines, working for little pay in dangerous conditions. Colonial Chosēn also saw a vast growth in industry in order to power the Japanese military machine and by 1945, over 40% of Korea’s economic output was industrial. Koreans were drafted in as volunteers to the Japanese army in 1938 and conscripted in 1943 in order to bolster the ranks. Perhaps the most infamous method of military exploitation was the ‘Comfort Corps’, a wartime atrocity that involved the exploitation of 200,000 Korean women who were forced into prostitution for the Japanese Army.

Above:The Tonga’ Ilbo Korean language newspaper, 1936, shows Korean gold medal athlete Son Gijeong with a smudged Japanese flag.

Moreover, the military played a central role in the exploitation of natural and human capital in Korea which greatly sustained the Japanese war efforts. Following the increasing role of the military in Japanese government affairs in the 1930s, Korea was increasingly put on a ‘war footing’. The peasants of Korea were hit by high taxes and rents whilst being barred from even eating their own rice which was exported to Japan in part to sustain military campaigns. The Korean natural capital such as the abundance of minerals (iron ore/coal) was exploited by the Japanese to further their imperial aims, whilst non Korean plant species were imported and the forests ravaged to make space for farmland. The natural exploitation of Korea

The domination and exploitation of Korea by military force was an essential tool in the Japanese attempts to sustain and perpetuate colonial domination over Korea. The suppression of the Korean Independence movement, especially in the forms of the Ūibyŏng and the 3 1 movement, demonstrates the essential role that the military played in achieving colonial domination of Korea. Unlike the symbolic, psychological and largely long term tools of domination over Korean language and culture, the military suppression of dissent and exploitation of Korea was more immediate and thus a more essential form of domination. Without a strong military, the Japanese would have struggled to both establish and maintain colonial domination over the Korean people. Ultimately, the manner in which the Japanese established, maintained and enforced colonial domination were all heavily related to the military.

Above:Recruitment of Korean workers for Japan, Kyongsang Province, circa 1940.

Overall, the two essential tools of Japanese colonial domination over Korea were the military force and the long term underlying linguistic domination of Korea. The policy of linguistic domination was key to perpetuating Japanese colonial dominance over Korea as it was a psychological tool which aimed to destroy the sense of a Korean ‘nation’ itself as opposed to merely occupying it. Policies of linguistic domination aimed to deny the Koreans their language, culture and heritage in an underlying and psychological attempt to sever their cultural roots. Although domination by military force was undoubtedly important in establishing and maintaining Japanese rule, the assimilationist policies which aimed to ‘destroy’ Korea by denying the Koreans even their own names, language and heritage, were the ultimate pinnacles of colonial domination and a key part of the overarching ‘Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere,’ of Japanese nationalist expansion. Nevertheless, military force as an essential tool of Japanese colonial domination must not be discounted as it played a central role in furthering Japanese aims and policies from the start to the end of the Chosēn colony. The two forms of linguistic and military domination were often linked as highlighted by the burning of 200,000 Korean language historical documents by military authorities in an attempt to destroy Korean historical ‘memory’. Both tools were used in synthesis in the multi faceted Japanese policy to maintain colonial control over Korea. Ultimately, the control of language was an essential tool in perpetuating long term Japanese domination over Korea.

Above:The poster reads: “The China incident and the peninsula home front.”

Bibliography

Blakemore, Erin, ‘How Japan Took Control of Korea’, HISTORY <https://www.history.com/news/japan colonization korea>

Caprio, Mark, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910 1945, Korean Studies of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009)

Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, ‘South Korea Under Japanese Rule’ <http:// countrystudies.us/south korea/7.htm>

Hwang, Kyŏng mun, A History of Korea: An Episodic Narrative, Palgrave Essential Histories, 2nd edition (London: Palgrave, 2017)

Lee, Hong Yung, Yong ch’ul Ha, and Clark W. Sorensen, eds., Colonial Rule and Social Change in Korea, 1910 1945 (Seattle: Center for Korea Studies Publication, University of Washington Press, 2013)

Seth, Michael J., Korea, A Very Short Introduction, Vsi:P, New edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)

Seth, Michael J., North Korea: A History, Macmillan Education (London: Palgrave, 2018)

Above:Korean rebel ‘Righteous Army’/ Ūibyŏng, circa 1907.

The War on Place

Revisiting Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs

Toby Bowes Lyon reconsiders two towering figures in the evolution of urban planning, examining how far their views can be reconciled, to what extent their legacies have been fairly evaluated, and what lessons can be learnt by today’s generation of urban planners.

‘We will neglect our cities to our peril,’ said John F. Kennedy, ‘for in neglecting them we neglect the nation.’ In a world in which by 2050 some seven in ten people will live in a city, and in which Covid has raised new questions about how we interact with urban space, it has never been a more fitting time to re examine two of the giants of 20th century urban planning, Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.

These figures, at first glance, represent two very different approaches to cities. Robert Moses, dubbed ‘the power broker’ by his biographer Robert Caro, advocated the need for top down, large scale measures to ensure city centres remained vibrant and viable. Slums, he argued, ought to be cleared with all due speed, arterial highways constructed to better serve the vehicle of the future, the car, and recreation facilities prioritised to promote greater public health and happiness. He was a man with a vision for the city he served, New York, one not afraid to, as he often expressed it, break a few eggs to make an omelette.

Though never actually elected, Moses skilfully gained and maintained power, from his work on Jones State Beach Park in 1924 right up to him finally being ousted in 1968. With that power, as Caro put it, he ‘built public works unmatched by any man in the history of America’, ranging from playgrounds, parks and public pools to bridges, highways and housing. His effect was transformative; he did for New York what Haussmann did for Paris.

Figure 1 Stuyvesant Town (1947), Robert Moses’s first key application of the modernist ideas of Le Corbusier. It was against this direction of travel that Jane Jacobs reacted. For her, cities were complex and interconnected places which developed organically, and should not be swept away and systematically rebuilt. In her view, master planners like Moses had no clear idea of how cities worked, and were hence oversimplistic in their approach, discounting the importance of small scale detail and not consulting sufficiently well with residents affected by their plans.

Moses was also in tune with broader contemporary developments in urban planning. Of these, perhaps the most important was the rise of urban modernism, which sought to make cities as rational, mechanised and efficient as possible. Houses were to be merely ‘machines for living’, parts of the city with different functions were to be zoned, and high rise apartments were to be positioned within expansive parks. Le Corbusier’s 1933 ‘Athens Charter’ encapsulated and popularised these beliefs, and Robert Moses applied some of them in New York (Figure 1)

Indeed, Jacobs personally clashed with Moses in the 1950s owing to his proposals to build a highway across Washington Square Park, which she argued overlooked the cultural value of the neighbourhood. Her efforts, alongside those of others, especially the actress Shirley Hayes, ultimately resulted in the wholesale closure of the park to traffic in 1958 (Figure 2)

Figure 2 The 1958 closure of Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, New York.

For Jacobs, the key to a healthy city was diversity, achieved by, for instance, variation in housing age and type, mixed use spaces, short blocks to better integrate residents, as few ‘border vacuums’ (produced by, for example, railways, highways and even large parks) as possible, and, above all, an active and vibrant street culture. Tradition and heritage were important to her vision, as were the needs of pedestrians and public transport users. Her ideas, lucidly expressed in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, remain central to the discipline of urban planning today.

The divergence between Moses and Jacobs fundamentally comes down to a debate about ‘place’. As a concept, place is generally held to refer to a space which an individual has given meaning to through an emotional connection of some sort. Jacobs valued the preservation of this meaning above all else. For Moses, however, the demands of individual neighbourhoods should not be allowed to get in the way of the economic growth of the city as a whole. If that meant sacrificing areas with a strong sense of place to the bulldozer, so be it.

Moses thus attempted to pragmatically see the city with a bird’s eye, all encompassing view, sometimes using aerial photography to do so. Jacobs claimed such an approach was short sighted and impossible to achieve in reality, instead advocating a more localised approach, with decentralised planning based on what she called ‘administrative districts’. She claimed that projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway served to fragment districts with a unique and irreplaceable character (Figure 3), to achieve only meagre improvements in traffic flow.

The approaches of Moses and Jacobs are often presented as polar opposites, and with good reason, perhaps. However, by re evaluating their legacy it is possible to consider how far they can be reconciled, and how their ideas should best be deployed by contemporary urban planners. They were, in their own ways, both idealists. Moses, after all, came from a reformist background, proposing major changes to New York’s civil service early in his career, with partial success. His construction of major public facilities like parks, playgrounds and swimming pools in the interwar period can be linked to a desire to widen access to recreation and therefore promote wellbeing. The eleven pools opened in the summer of 1936, built largely using New Deal funds, helped to promote equality and democracy by encouraging both different classes and genders to mix in a single public space, even if their record on racial integration is mixed.

Moses has certainly been given a bad press for far too long. Historiographical debate on his legacy has focused on his personality to such an extent that his actual impact on the urban environment of New York has been largely side lined. He certainly was high handed and ruthless at times, but without such forthrightness he would never have achieved as much as he did. Structures like the pools are still enjoyed by New Yorkers today, and even Lewis Mumford, often critical of Moses, praised them as being ‘sound vernacular architecture’. Similarly, when the Bronx Whitestone Bridge opened in 1939, for instance, it was named the most beautiful suspension bridge in the world.

Figure 3 The South Bronx in the 1970s. Some claim the Cross Bronx Expressway, planned by Moses and begun in 1948, accelerated and intensified the decline of this part of New York.

Figure 4 Thomas Jefferson Pool and Bathhouse, 1936. Located in East Harlem, an area dominated by Italian immigrants, the site choice was at least partially motivated by political considerations.

Figure 5 The Bronx Whitestone Bridge, completed in 1939. The toll revenue from such bridges was significant; Moses was often able to quickly pay off the cost of the bridge, before investing the surplus revenue in other projects.

Moses hence should not be associated to too great a degree with Le Corbusier and his plans for a ‘utopian’, zoned city of towers in parks. Indeed, Moses did not generally play much part in the design of housing, leaving this to the private corporations responsible; in the case of Stuyvesant Town, this was the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Moreover, such an example is more of an exception than the rule, and, of course, housing was also just one facet of Moses’s long and remarkably productive career.

So how should Moses’s legacy best be understood in its entirety? Moses himself once famously expounded, ‘Those who can, build, those who can’t, criticise’. In a recent play by David Hare, he is presented as an idealist whose views have been hardened by the difficult reality of getting things done in such a high cost, high density and complex urban environment as New York. Moses the idealist, Hare has it, became Moses the pragmatist. There is merit in this argument, and it is temptingly neat to divide Moses’s career into two halves either side of the Second World War. In the first, he made great progress in promoting health and leisure and building roads that really did need to be built; in the second, his ambition led to needless destruction through slum clearance and him undertaking projects that did more harm than good.

Such a clear division is, on balance, oversimplistic, and disregards the point that Moses had a coherent vision throughout of making New York a more prosperous, healthy and functional city. He was a dedicated public servant, one who made little money considering the length of his service, and, though he often did force through his plans in an autocratic manner, they must surely be seen as a net positive for New York. Caro’s devastating claim that Moses caused the ‘fall’ of New York both underplays the importance of broader socio economic forces at work, which were far beyond the control of a single individual, and says more about the time in which he was writing than the actual impact of Moses. New York in the 1970s was suffering from substantial urban decay, and Caro landed the blame for this squarely at Moses’s door, ignoring the broader climate and the similar situation in other cities in the region. Yet, as Kenneth Jackson has convincingly demonstrated, Moses’s true legacy was in how quickly New York recovered from that decline compared to its neighbours. Without the infrastructure Moses built to facilitate long term economic growth, New York would not be as pre eminent amongst the world’s capitals as it is today

Figure 6 Robert Moses, 1959.

Moses’s famous quote also calls into question the realistic applicability of some of Jacobs’s ideas, however sound they may be in principle. Her emphasis on what she called ‘unslumming’, for example, a process whereby people are empowered to remain in slums to improve and diversify them from within, betrays a certain naivety about the ability of some neighbourhoods to pull themselves back from the brink without appropriate federal support. Moreover, while her criticism that slum clearance only creates new slums in other areas is valid to some extent, it fails to point out the significant investment into new housing for relocated families that Moses, for example, was committed to. Relocation and re assimilation were certainly imperfect processes by any means, but Moses’s hard line slums policy following the 1949 Housing Act should not entirely be deemed a failure. In the aftermath of the war, some major structural change was called for, and Moses delivered it effectively. Furthermore, the process of slum clearance was more extensive, destructive and traumatic, and crucially less well organised, in other American cities at the time; Moses’s plans must be seen more in context for their impact to be better gauged.

Any defence of Moses inevitably raises contentious questions about the ethics of concentrating so much power in the hands of a single city administrator. It is true that Moses used his legal knowledge to innovatively draft bills which made the authorities he ran permanent and thereby prevented him being removed from power. It is also true that he paid less attention to the objections of local residents affected by his schemes than the residents might have liked. However, the value of Moses’s approach has since been vindicated, with red tape and lengthy community liaison

procedures causing some major and much needed projects to fail to go ahead, such as the 1984 defeat of the Westway project to replace the West Side Highway. Power in the hands of a single man sets a dangerous precedent, but, for the most part, it is clear that Moses used his well.

One problem with Jacobs’s emphasis on the micro over the macro is therefore that it results in projects using up much more time and money, in an attempt to be as sensitive as possible to the needs of individual areas. Jacobs’s idealism can hence turn into a case of self centred NIMBYism, obstructing the need for new infrastructure on the basis of preserving the character of an area. Jacobs, after all, lived close to Washington Square Park, and as such had a personal stake in its preservation. The harsh reality is that many areas in the potential path of a bulldozer may claim they have a unique character and community that must be protected, but that does not mean that nothing should ever be built.

It is also clear that Moses made a significant contribution to promoting New York culturally. He organised two world fairs (1939 and 1964), supported universities, and planned the UN Headquarters, the Coliseum and the Lincoln Center, to name just a few of his achievements in that regard. To claim that he did not value sense of place is as misguided as it is to claim that he would have been more successful had he followed Jacobs’s ideas to the letter.

Ultimately, both Moses and Jacobs, despite their differences, saw the value of seeing the city as interconnected. Moses’s approach was indeed more large scale, with him combining his positions in both the state and city administrations to plan highly ambitious, monu-

Figure 7 The UN Headquarters following their official opening in 1951.

mental projects. Jacobs too, however, also espoused the value of seeing the city as one whole, organic unit. From her perspective, urban planners failed to fully take the complex nature of a city into account. This criticism is certainly valid, but it is also pertinent to consider whether anything would actually ever be done if urban planners did try to exhaustively consider the complexities of a city, and minutely analyse the effect of every inch of new road constructed. Perhaps part of the benefit of a city wide master planner is the sort of detachment that comes from using a bird’s eye view, rather than thinking on the scale of the individuals affected by the plans. Moses was by nature an idealist, but he also recognised the necessity of a certain dose of cold hearted pragmatism.

As such, a compromise between the ideas of Moses and Jacobs is necessary to maximise the efficacy of urban planning. The time for a full scale realisation of Le Corbusier’s concepts is perhaps now past, but the benefit of building with speed and energy should not be forgotten. Many of Moses’s projects were delivered below budget and ahead of schedule, yet they have proved their ability to stand the test of time. Jacobs’s emphasis on considering the human experience is an important one, but it must not be taken too far. Humanity must be sacrificed to efficiency at some point along the line; it is a difficult balancing act, one that needs to be sensitively judged by the urban planners of today. As Amanda Burden, the chief urban planner of the Bloomberg administration, put it, what is required is a commitment to build ‘like Moses, on an unprecedented scale, but with Jacobs firmly in mind.’

Bibliography

Altshuler, Alan A., and David Luberoff, Mega Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press [u.a.], 2003)

Ballon, Hilary, Kenneth T. Jackson, Robert Moses, Museum of the City of New York, Queens Museum of Art, and Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, eds., Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York, First edition (presented at the Exhibition Robert Moses and the Modern City, New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007)

Callahan, Gene, and Sanford Ikeda, ‘The Career of Robert Moses: City Planning as a Microcosm of Socialism’, The Independent Review, 9.2 (2004), 253 61

Caro, Robert A., The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (London: The Bodley Head, 2019)

Gutman, Marta, ‘Race, Place, and Play: Robert Moses and the WPA Swimming Pools in New York City’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 67.4 (2008), 532 61 <https://doi.org/10.1525/ jsah.2008.67.4.532>

Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (London: The Bodley Head, 2020)

Above left: Jane Jacobs in New York. Above right: The 1964 World’s Fair in New York, planned by Moses.

The Guayaquil Conference

The Liberators of South America Meet

Ivo Sawbridge explores what may have been said at the Guayaquil Conference of 1822. This monumental conference marked the first and only meeting between José de San Martín (liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru) and Simón Bolívar (liberator of Panama, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). It was conducted behind closed doors; however, a lot can be inferred from the actions of the two great men after the conference.

Above: A statue of Bolívar (left) and San Martín (right) meeting in Guayaquil (1822).

The Guayaquil Conference was one of the most pivotal moments in South American history. On July 26, 1822, two great ‘Liberatores’ of Spanish colonies, Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín, held three meetings in Guayaquil, modern day Ecuador. Guayaquil was the mid point of their epic expeditions across Latin America; San Martín had come up to Ecuador from Southern South America whereas Bolívar had come down from Central America. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the future of South America and in particular the heavily royalist centre, Peru. It is unclear exactly what was said at the conference as Bolívar and San Martín conducted their talks behind closed doors. However, a lot of information can be inferred from both their actions, and the letters that they sent, after the meeting.

dors decided to replace ancient Aztec, Maya and Inca cities with their own royalist capitals. The Incan capital, Cuzco, was pushed to the side in favour of Lima, and Mexico City was built on top of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. These cities provided a base for the Spanish Empire to rule over her American colonies more efficiently. The activation of the Iberian Union, between 1580 and 1640, also helped to further Hispanic domination of the Americas as it secured a link between Spanish America and Portuguese America.

Background Information

The 1492 landing in the Bahamas by Christopher Columbus marked the beginning of Spanish intervention in the Americas. Over the next 50 years, Spanish conquistadors would traverse Latin America’s rainforests, mountains and deserts colonising Venezuela (starting in 1502), Mexico (1521), Peru (1532), and Chile (1540). This colonisation and exploitation of Latin America led to vast profits for Spain. However, these gains came at the expense of indigenous peoples. It is estimated that, 150 years after Columbus’s landing in America, 80% of the indigenous populations in Latin America had died out. This huge loss of natives’ lives was caused through slavery, execution and primarily, the spread of disease. Many historians would argue that this was the first large scale genocide of the modern era. Some fierce proponents of this theory are Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, and Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

After their initial conquest of Latin America, Spain focussed on the consolidation of their power there. To achieve the maintenance of the first global empire, the Spanish had to put down uprisings by the rapidly diminishing indigenous populations. As well as this, the conquista-

Spanish America was greatly influenced by the Atlantic Slave Trade which started around 1650. Spain imported roughly 2.5 million slaves in total to her American colonies during this slave trade and a huge 22% of African slaves that landed in America ended up working in Spanish colonies. This was vastly lucrative for Spain and her colonies. The introduction of African slaves brought a third race into the continent of South America. This led to institutionalised racism which is still evident throughout ex Spanish colonies in the region.

In 1700, the Bourbons came to power in Spain. This was good for Spain’s colonies as more money was channelled into them, especially military spending. It was becoming increasingly clear that Spain and her empire’s supremacy on the global platform was deteriorating in favour of the growing British and French empires. In order to combat the British and French expansions into America, the Bourbons had to make sure that Spanish America was fortified. For the first time in two centuries there was a threat to Spanish rule in the Americas.

By the early 1800s Spanish influence in Latin America had weakened notably despite the Bourbons’ reforms. There was much more autonomy within Spain’s American colonies, and this led to a desire for independence. The desire for independence was intensified when, in 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and deposed her Bourbon monarchy. Napoleon then gave the throne of Spain to his elder brother, Joseph Bonaparte. The dethroning of the Bourbon monarchs was not approved of by the Spanish people, who proceeded to put in place ‘juntas’ (resistance governments) in Spain and ‘viceroyalties’ (territories run by viceroys) in Spanish America. The disbandment of a central power in Spain and her colonies led to a surge in the number of independence seekers. The two most notable in Spanish America were José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar.

The ancient Incan capital, Cuzco.

Landing of Columbus’ by John Vanderlyn.

Spanish America, 1700.

José de San Martín

José de San Martín was born on 25 February 1778 in Yapéyu, a town in northern Argentina. His military career began as young as the age of 11 at which point he was living in Murcia, Spain. He fought in various Spanish campaigns in North Africa before switching to the Navy. In 1798, he fought in the War of the Second Coalition and was captured and held prisoner by the British for a year. During his time in British captivity, he built unbreakable ties with his captors. These would prove to be advantageous for both sides later on. After his release, San Martín continued to fight in the War of the Oranges.

2. San Martín missed his homeland, Argentina.

3. San Martín created a relationship with Britain during his stint as a POW which was rekindled when Britain was aiding Spain’s defence against Napoleon. The British, when they saw the futility of resisting the French in Spain, employed San Martín to liberate Spanish America so that Britain might be able to expand her sphere of influence over the Americas.

It is impossible to tell what San Martín’s motives for leaving Spain in her hour of need were as there are no sources on the subject. The first possibility, that he wanted to avoid Napoleonic prosecution, seems the most reasonable. This being said, accounts of San Martín’s character perhaps point towards this being unrealistic. He was fiercely loyal to the Spanish army and it appears very unlikely that he would desert Spain at such a perilous moment.

The second reason, that San Martín missed Argentina, also seems fairly reasonable; however, San Martín’s connection to his homeland was never particularly strong as he moved away from his homeland, to Spain, at the age of five. It is rather unlikely that he missed a country he had not visited for nearly 30 years to such an extent that he decided to desert Spain.

The third reason, San Martín’s employment by the British, though it seems the most unreasonable at first glance, is in fact the most logical explanation. After leaving Spain, San Martín was scouted by the Earl of Fife, James Duff, who gave him the necessary paperwork to travel to Argentina on a British ship. It is undeniable that San Martín had a relatively strong connection with Britain after spending time as a POW there and also fighting alongside the British in the Peninsular War. This being said, after San Martín moved back to Argentina, there are very few sources which hint towards the relationship between San Martín and James Duff sustaining. Realistically, communication between San Martín and the British was too difficult and not valuable enough for the British to maintain. San Martín’s connection to the British was definitely a factor that led to his decision to leave Spain; however, it was one of many factors influencing his judgment. Most likely, an amalgamation of all of these factors led to San Martín deciding to leave Spain.

In 1808, San Martín fought in the Peninsular War against France and was promoted to captain of the armies of Andalucía. He played a vital role in the Battle of Bailén and in the subsequent recapturing of Madrid for which he was promoted to the role of lieutenant colonel. By 1811, almost all of the Iberian Peninsula had been occupied by the French. That same year San Martín retired from the Spanish army in pursuit of moving back to South America. This appears to be an odd move considering his dedication to the Spanish army and his resilient character. There are three main reasons which historians have deduced as possible explanations for San Martín’s abandonment of Spain:

1. San Martín saw the weak position of Spain and wanted to escape so as to avoid Napoleonic prosecution.

Before catching the British vessel to Argentina, San Martín spent a brief period of time in London where he was initiated into the Lodge of Rational Knights. This was an organisation set up by American born Spaniards which was focussed on securing independence in Latin American countries.

Once San Martín arrived in Buenos Aires, he was immediately entrusted with the task of setting up a cavalry unit to defend the city. In Buenos Aires, he and his friends joined a new branch of the Lodge of Rational Knights which was run by the wealthy families of the city. To further initiate San Martín into this inner circle of independence seekers, he was asked to marry María de los Remedios de Escalada, the 14 year old daughter of one of the city’s wealth families.

Battle of Talavera (1809), Peninsular War, by E. Walker.

Over the next few years, San Martín fought in several battles across Argentina and the heavily royalist output, Uruguay, and was given many promotions by the independence seekers back in Buenos Aires. In early 1814, however, it became clear that he was not in the best health. Historians are unsure what caused his ailment, but the most logical explanation is hematemesis. As a result of this illness, San Martín and his wife moved to Córdoba where he took six months to recover. During these six months, Napoleon was defeated in Spain and Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne. This put the Lodge of Rational Knights into a difficult position as it meant that Spain would turn her eyes to the mayhem and revolts occurring in Spanish America.

cause he did not want to jeopardise the security of his friend’s country by stealing away its army. Eventually, he managed to convince the leaders of Buenos Aires to give him 500,000 pesos (the equivalent of about £420,000 in today’s money).

San Martín, having moved back to Chile, spent the money, given to him by Argentinians, on a navy to avoid having to transport so many troops across the treacherous Andes again. By 1819 the navy was ready and Thomas Cochrane, a British captain, was appointed to run the fleet; however, San Martín was not allowed to launch the offensive on Peru as there was still a chance that the fleet would be needed to help combat a Spanish invasion of Buenos Aires. By early 1820, though, he was given the go ahead and the fleet set sail for Paracas in Peru.

The navy was carrying around 1,600 troops and, overall, San Martín had around 5,600 troops. This number was far from the estimated 23,000 troops that the Royalists possessed in Peru. As a result of the military disparity between the independence seekers and the Royalists, San Martín was wary not to get into many large battles and instead tried to spread out the Royalist army all over Peru. His intention was to do a pincer movement on the Royalist army with backup from Bolívar’s armies in Gran Colombia.

After San Martín’s recovery by September 1814, he asked for the new position of Governor of Cuyo. Cuyo is a large region of Argentina next to its modern day border with Chile. San Martín wanted the position in Cuyo so that he could set up an army of Chileans and Argentinians to cross the Andes and conquer Peru. This plan faltered in October 1814 when Bernardo O’Higgins, a friend of San Martín’s, was deposed as leader of Chile. San Martín, not one to give up, expanded the construction of his Army of the Andes to include people as young as 14.

By the end of 1816, San Martín’s Army of the Andes was ready to traverse the mountains. 5,000 men, 10,000 mules and 1,500 horses took part in the month long crossing into Chile and over the course of the journey over 40% of the animals died. Once in Chile, San Martín’s depleted forces managed to win decisive battles in Chacabuco, Cancha Rayada and Maipú, securing the defeat of the Royalist forces in the country and facilitating Chilean independence. With San Martín’s friend, O’Higgins, back in power as Supreme Dictator in Chile, San Martín once again diverted his attention to Peru. He made several trips back to Buenos Aires to try to convince the wealthy leaders to fund his expedition into Peru. Perhaps rather reasonably the leaders of Argentina expected that the Chileans would fund San Martín’s invasion of Peru, given that O’Higgins owed so much to San Martín. It is unknown why San Martín did not request support from the Chileans but it was probably be-

Having spread his army all around Peru, San Martín besieged some Peruvian cities such as El Callao and intended to do the same to Lima. Unfortunately for him, not as many Peruvian people and slaves decided to join his armies as he expected and this resulted in a stalemate between the liberators and the Royalists. San Martín conducted several meetings with the Royalist leaders in Peru; however, none of these talks bore fruit, as the Royalists were unwilling to give independence to Peru. As such, he decided to face the fact that he would have to attack Lima regardless of the many deaths this would cause. He readied his armies and

José de San Martín probably painted by Jean Baptiste Madou.

The crossing of the Andes. José de San Martín (left) and Bernardo O’Higgins (right).

was about to attack when suddenly the Peruvian viceroy, José de la Serna, withdrew his army from the capital. There is no apparent reason for La Serna’s withdrawal; however, the likeliness is that he was not prepared to shed so much Peruvian blood just to keep Lima. The liberation armies marched into the city and San Martín proclaimed the independence of Peru to its people. Despite Peru’s independence being declared, however, Peru was far from free of Royalist forces.

sobriquet, the ‘Napoleon of Latin America’.

In 1807, Bolívar moved back to Caracas where he rose through the ranks of the independence seeker groups in the city. By April 1810, Venezuela had gained de facto independence, with Francisco de Miranda as Supreme Chief, and this point marked the beginning of Bolívar’s diplomatic and military career. Throughout the First Republic of Venezuela, he worked in delegations for the Juntas of Venezuela and also served as commandant of the port city of Puerto Cabello.

San Martín, to his disappointment, was appointed Protector of Peru. He did not want this position but there were no other suitable candidates for it. As Protector of Peru, he was conscious not to set up too many liberal laws as the Peruvian society was very conservative. This being said, he passed a law of ‘freedom of wombs’ which made sure that all the children of slaves were free, introduced freedom of speech and also banned corporal punishment in Peru. From Lima, he travelled up to Guayaquil to try to capture the city before Bolívar. This would have given him all the negotiating power in Guayaquil; however, he was too late. Bolívar had beaten him to the city.

During Bolívar’s time as commandant of Puerto Cabello, the Royalist forces started to encroach on the city’s land and he eventually lost control of the city’s castle, San Felipe. At this point, it was looking as if the new Venezuelan Republic would crumble so the Supreme Chief, Miranda, decided that he had to sign an armistice with the Royalist forces. The revolutionary officers of Venezuela, including Bolívar, felt that they had been undercut by this agreement and therefore arrested Miranda and handed him over to the Royalist forces. This was a slightly dubious move from Bolívar Miranda had not only greatly helped to lever his position within the Venezuelan Republic but, as well as this, Miranda had not blamed him for the loss of Puerto Cabello.

After the collapse of the First Venezuelan Republic, Bolívar fled to the United Provinces of New Granada where he forged the Admirable Campaign. The objective of this was to retake Venezuela from Spanish control by reconquering the large cities of the area. Having built a relatively small army, Bolívar initiated his campaign. It was a massive success. Between 1813 and 1814, he managed to reclaim the cities of Mérida, Barinas, Trujillo, Caracas and Bogotá and this won him the name ‘El Liberator’ (‘the Liberator’). He intended to capture Santa Marta, the last Royalist nucleus in the Cartagena region; however, he argued intensely with the Cartagena government and so greatly did they not get on that Bolívar was forced to flee to Jamaica.

Simón Bolívar was born into a wealthy family in Caracas on 24 July 1783. By the age of nine he was an orphan; however, this appears to not have had a great effect on him. Before their deaths, Bolívar saw little of his parents and was effectively brought up by the slaves of the household. He received a well rounded education in Caracas before, like San Martín, moving to Spain, where he continued his military studies. He spent several years in Europe and there observed the beginnings of Napoleonic domination over Europe. In 1805, he witnessed the crowning of Napoleon as King of Italy and, though he disagreed with Napoleon’s crowning, he was heavily influenced by the event. He greatly admired and longed for the deep reverence that Napoleon had built for himself. Ultimately, Bolívar achieved his goal and, for his accomplishments, he earnt himself the

Bolívar was not welcomed very warmly into Jamaica and after a few days of refuge there, he was the victim of an attempted assassination. Needless to say, he had to take flight again and this time he fled north to Haiti. In Haiti he was welcomed by the president, Alexandre Pétion, whom he soon befriended. After six months, so close was the friendship between Pétion and Bolívar that the Haitian President pledged to give Bolívar troops, weapons and food to reconquer the lands he had been expelled from. There was once condition: Bolívar had to promise to abolish slavery in all of these regions.

Simón Bolívar.

Simón Bolívar

In June 1816, Bolívar once again landed in Venezuela ready to launch the ‘Expedition of the Keys’. Somewhat unexpectedly the expedition worked, with Bolívar capturing Angostura and winning decisive battles in New Granada. This allowed him not only to free the slaves of the region but also to set up a temporary government of Venezuela. His method for recapturing Venezuela was an issue he wrestled with for the rest of his life. He famously said in an interview, ‘Should I not let it be known to later generations that Alexandre Pétion is the true liberator of my country?’ Without the hospitality, resources, troops and weapons given to him by the Haitian President, there is very little chance that Bolívar would have been able to escape assassination let alone recapture Venezuela.

Having reconquered Venezuela, Bolívar was able to start up the country’s Second National Congress and, unsurprisingly, he was elected President. Power hungry, vengeful and reinspired, Bolívar decided to conquer New Granada. This adventure forced him to cross the Andes, just like San Martín. Within six months he had won independence for New Granada by being victorious at the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819. His victory in New Granada allowed him to officially establish his empire: the Republic of Colombia.

On 25 November 1820, the Spanish General, Pablo Morillo, met Bolívar to draw up an armistice. This consolidated Bolívar’s power in Latin America. He was now recognised by Spain as the president of the Republic of Colombia. With his title official, Bolívar decided to expand his sphere of influence further by launching a campaign to conquer Ecuador. As well as increasing the size of his territory, his capture of Ecuador allowed him to change the name of his empire to Gran Colombia. This being said, the 1821 capture of Ecuador placed Bolívar in a difficult position. He had run into San Martín. Finally, the meeting between the two great liberators could commence.

What was spoken about at Guayaquil?

What nationality would Guayaquil be?

The first order of business in Guayaquil was to decide what nationality the city and people of Guayaquil would be. San Martín wanted it to be the northern port town of Peru; however, Bolívar thought it should be part of Gran Colombia. Having arrived at Guayaquil before San Martín, albeit only by a day or two, Bolívar made sure that he had all the negotiating power regarding the future of the city. Unable to come to a conclusion, Bolívar suggested that a referendum should be held by Guayaquil’s people to decide. Bolívar also added that he was confident that the people of Guayaquil would choose to be Colombian. This was quite a bold claim for Bolívar to make and its validity seems to be questionable. There are only two reasons that the people of Guayaquil might choose to be Colombian over being Peruvian; the fact that Bolívar and his Colombian army were already on the ground in Ecuador and the fact that Colombia, unlike Peru, now had a functional political system. San Martín, seeking to move onto more pressing issues as soon as possible, agreed to the idea of holding a referendum to decide the nationality of Guayaquil.

How would the Royalist forces in Peru be defeated?

A portrait of the Haitian President, Alexandre Pétion.

Guayaquil today.

San Martín announces Peru’s independence to the people of Lima.

Having dealt with the more menial issue of the nationality of Guayaquil, the two liberators went on to discuss how to extinguish the Royalists in Peru. The leader of the Royalist forces in Peru, José de la Serna, commanded a large army in the highlands of Peru. San Martín and Bolívar had very different opinions on how to go about taking out this army. San Martín thought that the best way to take out La Serna’s army and extinguish royalism from Peru was to attack the army from two fronts, by both land and sea. San Martín intended for these fronts to be hundreds of miles apart so that La Serna would have to divide his colossal army. San Martín was convinced that by creating two fronts La Serna’s army would lose their advantage.

In response to hearing San Martín’s plan, Bolívar very politely tried to explain why it was a weak option. Bolívar thought that a better strategy would be to assemble all of the liberating army and punch into La Serna’s army on one front.

San Martín and Bolívar’s ideas on how to combat La Serna’s army perfectly showcase their personalities. San Martín, wanting to devise a two front plan, was displayed as tactical and measured. Bolívar, wanting to battle to the death on one front, was displayed as more reckless and hot headed. In the end neither plan went ahead; however, in their books on the subject John Lynch and Marie Arana suggest that San Martín’s plan was perhaps more well thought through and realistic.

San Martín pounced upon Bolívar’s idea to attack from one large army to illustrate that the United Army (the name for the collective Army of Andes and the Chilean army) was not large enough. The Army of the Andes was a fragment of its former self, having been heavily depleted by the inhospitable terrain of the Andes and the strong royalist forces in Peru. As well as this, the Chilean army was very unstable after the recent reconquest of Chile.

Having emphasised the weakness of his forces, San Martín posed the question that he had been waiting so patiently to ask: how many Colombians would Bolívar contribute to the task of ridding Peru of all royalist forces? San Martín had calculated the size of Bolívar’s army to be around 9,600 soldiers; a number San Martín could only dream of commanding. Bolívar called one of his aides to bring documentation to show San Martín that the Colombian army was also weak. Bolívar concluded by saying that he could return Santa Cruz’s division (a division that switched allegiance between San Martín and Bolívar) to him and that he would replace all the division’s losses. Bolívar also stated that he could provide three battalions of Colombians. Historians have estimated that all of these troops added together was only about 1,000 troops, far from the 9,600 San Martín had dreamed of.

Bolívar was, as Marie Arana put it, ‘caught between desire and common sense’. It was a dream of Bolívar’s to defeat all the royalist forces in Spanish America and to conquer Peru but yet he realised that it would be foolish to strip a country, as vulnerable as Colombia, of her army. Bolívar’s empire still teemed with royalist passions and Bolívar had

to accept that he could not spare many more than 1,000 troops to aid San Martín’s ambitions for Peru.

San Martín, unaware of Bolívarian Colombia’s domestic issues, was extremely disappointed with this outcome and came to the conclusion that Bolívar did not trust him to lead his troops. As a result of this, he suggested that perhaps Bolívar could come down to Peru and see the circumstances of the country for himself. Bolívar very quickly shut this idea down by saying that, as president of Colombia, he was not allowed to leave the country without congress’s permission. Bolívar’s direct turning down of this suggestion further emphasised to San Martín the fact Bolívar distrusted him.

As a final desperate attempt to try to persuade Bolívar to trust him with the Colombian army, San Martín suggested that he could act as Bolívar’s subordinate. Bolívar refused to answer San Martín’s suggestion directly, preferring to steer carefully around it. San Martín, himself, speaking to a journalist many years later, said, ‘I couldn’t get a clear answer from him’. It is uncertain what Bolívar’s actual reason for not replying to this suggestion was. However, it is fairly safe to assume that Bolívar thought that this was too tricky an idea to put in place. It is also worth noting that, as a military man, he would have been all too aware of the long legacy of second in command soldiers and heroes overthrowing the less powerful primary leaders, such as Julius Caesar.

Thoroughly disappointed with the decisions made at the conference so far, San Martín began to talk to Bolívar about the future of Peru’s political system. He rather tentatively explained to Bolívar his intentions to put in place a monarchical system in Peru with a European (ideally English) prince as its ruler. This was perhaps another reference back to San Martín’s collaboration with the British. Bolívar had indeed heard several rumours about San Martín’s intentions to put in place a European like political system in Peru but had always dismissed them as just rumours. Hearing the great Argentine speak of his monarchical plans for Peru, now, flabbergasted him.

To try to convince Bolívar that placing a European prince

Bolívar and his army.

What political system would be best in Peru?

on the throne of Peru would be the best course of action, San Martín illustrated three factors. Firstly, he told Bolívar that he had spoken to the Peruvian viceroy, José de la Serna, who said that he would accept a monarchical system in Peru but not a republic. Secondly, San Martín said that he had already sent teams of diplomats to England to see if England were willing to place a prince on the Peruvian throne. San Martín also suggested that if England was unwilling then there were plenty of other alternatives such as Belgium, France, Russia, Holland or perhaps even Spain. Thirdly, San Martín explained to Bolívar that Peru was not ready for a republican democracy. He fervently believed that before installing a republic in Peru, the domestic issues in the country had to be fixed. San Martín believed Peru needed both time and a monarchy to help it stabilise.

Bolívar agreed with San Martín that Peru was in a shambolic state; however, he ardently believed that a European monarchy was not the answer. He thought that by reinstating European power in Latin America, all of the effort and blood spilt over gaining independence for Spanish American colonies would be lost. Therefore, however hard San Martín tried to convince Bolívar to help him instigate a monarchy in Peru, Bolívar would disagree; he would not budge on this issue.

The Aftermath of the Conference

After the two liberators had concluded their talks, San Martín stayed only for a day before leaving the city. As Marie Arana put it, Bolívar left the conference ‘as sombre and impenetrable as a sphinx’ whereas San Martín left it ‘deeply mortified’. Despite their respect for each other and their common goals, San Martín and Bolívar were unable to agree on anything; there was no chemistry between the two men. On the day of San Martín’s departure from Guayaquil, Bolívar announced to him that there had been a revolt in Lima. San Martín was left distraught by this news; his future in Peru lay uncertain. It is rumoured that San Martín, after finding out this news, broke down in front of Bolívar in a final attempt to win his support. In essence, this did work, as San Martín earnt Bolívar’s sympathy; however, Bolívar was still unwilling to give him any substantial aid. The alliance between the two great liberators was not to be.

Royalists at major battles at Junín and Ayacucho. The British historian, Robert Harvey, sums up Bolívar’s achievement in Peru perfectly, ‘He [Bolivar] had taken on and defeated an army of 18,000 men and secured a country the size of nearly all of Western Europe. … His stamina and military achievements put him at the forefront of the global heroes of history.’ The aim of defeating the Royalists was accomplished.

The final major point of discussion at Guayaquil was what the best political system for Peru was. Bolívar put in place a republic with himself as dictator of congress. Being dictator of Peru gave Bolívar power over both the politics and military of the country. This helped him secure and maintain peace more easily.

Despite Bolívar’s promises at the conference, there is no evidence to show that a referendum, to see whether the people of Guayaquil wanted to be Colombian or Peruvian, was ever held; Guayaquil would remain a Colombian city. Bolívar’s reasoning behind not holding a vote was probably because he intended to have dominion over both Colombia and Peru. Therefore, there was no point in holding a referendum.

Having been handed a divided Peru by San Martín, Bolívar began the arduous process of unifying the country. He tidied up the Peruvian army and then pursued his policy of battling the Royalists with one large army. He defeated the

Having liberated Peru, Bolívar went on to liberate Bolivia, making him one of the very few people to have a country named after them. For a while, Bolívar was able to maintain peace in his empire of Gran Colombia, Peru and Bolivia; however, by 1830 it had eroded to such a stage that it had to be dissolved. On 17 December 1830, Bolívar passed away from tuberculosis in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. It was reported that, on his deathbed, he exclaimed, ‘America is ungovernable!’ This poignant exclamation sums up the tragedy of Bolívar’s story rather well. From a young age he had dreamed of ruling an empire spanning all of Latin America. Although, in the end, this dream was taken away from him, Bolívar certainly accomplished something greater: independence for many countries in Latin America.

In many ways, the Guayaquil Conference sealed the coffin on San Martín’s career. After the Royalist rebellion, he had no choice but to resign as Protector of Peru. He briefly moved back to Cuyo; however, his wife died there in 1823. This event left him deeply traumatised and led to his decision to leave South America altogether in pursuit of settling down in Europe. He remained reasonably involved with South American politics, despite his move to Europe, up to his death on 17 August 1850.

‘Death of Bolívar’ by Antonio Herrera Toro.

What happened to Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín after the Guayaquil Conference?

The Chinese Cultural Revolution

Morris Hsieh explores the causes and consequences of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, revealing the true horror of the violence that broke out across China, and charting Mao’s journey to becoming a living god.

Prologue: Why did the Cultural Revolution happen?

On the first of October 1949 the People’s Republic of China was established. Mao Zedong had won the civil war against the Kuomintang, and now sought to further his vision of eliminating the “bourgeoisie”. Local landlords were killed by peasants, with his blessing.

cities but also to villages in Guangdong Province, for instance, where many villagers forcibly took back their land. Mao responded by tasking Deng Xiaoping to lead an “anti rightist campaign”; some half a million students were denounced as “rightists” by the government. Mao’s gamble had backfired but at least he had his old colleagues supporting him again, determined to suppress the people.

In 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, Khrushchev denounced the brutality of life under Stalin. Mao had personally modelled himself on Stalin and felt threatened, becoming wary of those closest to him. This paranoia was proved right when, in autumn 1956, the Cult of Mao and the Chinese 5 Year Plan were denounced by many of his colleagues.

From winter 1956 to spring 1957 the Hundred Flowers Campaign was launched, a brief period of liberalisation in which the common people were allowed to express their discontent and gather publicly. Mao hence outdid Khrushchev by posing as a protector of democratic values. Many felt, however, that Mao Zedong wanted to “make the flowers bloom” to give his enemies the chance to show their intentions before brutally cracking down on them.

Mao, though, had badly miscalculated the magnitude of discontent amongst the people. He had hoped for an outpouring of adulation in support of him against a party that had sidestepped him. Many artists, students, teachers and intellectuals protested in the streets of Beijing, demanding more freedom of expression. In Nanjing thousands of protesters rallied in front of the mayor’s office. The unrest extended not just to the

The Great Leap Forward 1958 1961

Back at the helm of the party, Mao was still bitter with Khrushchev and had ambitions to outstrip the Soviet Union as the head of the Communist Bloc. He was determined to do this by maximising production rates, aiming to outproduce Britain in steel produced within 15 years. The Great Leap Forward had begun.

“Who are our friends? Who are our enemies? This is the main question of the revolution.”

– Mao Zedong

Figure 1 Mao Zedong proclaims the People’s Republic of China, 1st October 1949.

Figure 2 A Chinese propaganda poster signals the start of the Hundred Flowers Campaign.

Figure 3 Chinese propaganda poster portraying a prosperous nation, with enough food to go around and developing technology.

To confirm his control over the party, many provincial party leaders and their underlings were purged and replaced by loyal Mao supporters, regardless of competence. Millions of villagers were herded into state run communes; cutlery and utensils were melted down into steel. Soon virtually the whole nation was producing rice and steel.

It was a project of immense ambition, but one that ultimately failed. Many provinces could not grow rice and there was a shortage of people producing fertiliser or organising logistics for food. People lost their homes, land, belongings and livelihoods. Food became a merit used to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. Many cadres (communist workers) were pressured by their superiors to report false production rates, often giving away lavish amounts of grain reserves at the expense of the villagers wellbeing to keep their jobs. In the summer of 1959, Peng Dehuai cautiously criticised the Great Leap forward along with others, while Khrushchev publicly denounced the communes under Stalin. It looked like a planned attack on Mao.

The man died of grief a few days later. Estimates vary but an estimated 45 to 60 million people were beaten, tortured or starved to death. Many also committed suicide.

By the end of 1960 the scale of the catastrophe forced Mao to allow Premier Zhou Enlai and other colleagues to introduce measures designed to weaken the power of the communes and allow limited privatisation. This was a heavy blow for Mao, one which ultimately helps to explain why the Cultural Revolution took place.

Mao’s popularity was at his lowest during the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference of 1962, organized to give cadres the opportunity to assess the results of the Great Leap Forward. Cadres from all over the country flocked to the meeting, bringing notes and dictations about the disaster and Mao’s role in it. No delegate could insult the Chairman directly, but nevertheless did so indirectly in their vocal criticism of the Great Leap Forward. Stalin had faced a similar challenge in 1934 after the Ukraine famine.

During the conference no delegate spoke out against Mao Zedong’s role in the famine as much as President Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s deputy in the CCP. Liu proclaimed that the disaster was 70% man made and 30% due to natural causes, arguing that the failures far outweighed the successes. This was a terrible blow to Mao, with many of the audience gasping at Liu’s boldness. Mao angrily issued a rebuttal, putting down any claims of decreased production. This did not deter Liu as he continued his argument against Mao. This made him seem like a Khrushchev who would denounce him after he died, and Mao became suspicious of him. As with anyone who spoke out, Liu ultimately paid the price with his life during the Cultural Revolution.

Sensing danger, Mao accused Peng of a plot to overthrow the state and the people. A brutal crackdown against “rightist” elements ensued. 3 million cadres were converted into executioners. The country quickly spiraled into violence again. People were hanged and beaten if they “didn’t work hard enough”, or forced to eat excrement or drink urine. Reports of brutality spread widely; one man named Wang Ziyou was said to have had one of his ears chopped off, his legs bound with wire and a 10 kg stone dropped on his back before he was branded, all as punishment for digging up a potato. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunanese village, the local boss, Xiong Dechang, forced the boy’s father to bury his son alive.

One person that did side with Mao was Marshall Lin Biao, regarded as one of the most brilliant strategists during the Civil War. He was essential for Mao’s rise to power and would play a critical role during the Cultural Revolution. In the end of the conference Mao did deliver an apology for “limited” responsibility in the disaster and pressured other delegates to follow suit. Mao managed to survive the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference but this episode taught him an important lesson, which would reinforce his paranoia against his colleagues later during the Cultural Revolution.

Figure 4 One of the victims of the Great Leap Forward.

One of the first steps that Mao took to save his position and clear his image was delivering a speech, called “never forget class struggle”, at the leadership’s annul retreat, Beihaide. The speech soon became worshipped like a holy text. He blamed the failure of the Great Leap Forward on regional cadres, exclaiming that “bad people have taken power” and must be purged from the party.

This laid the groundwork for the Socialist Education Movement, which commenced in autumn 1962, one year after the policies of the Great Leap Forward were let loose. The campaign was often seen as Mao’s build up to the Cultural Revolution. It aimed to educate the nation in Mao Zedong Thought and to destroy any so called “class enemies” that threatened the state. He again felt threatened by Liu, when he exclaimed, “So many people have died of hunger, history will judge you and me, even cannibalism will go in the books”.

This episode left Mao Zedong certain about Liu’s status as a potential threat. Surprisingly, however, during the Socialist Education Movement, Liu threw his weight behind Mao and sent his wife, Wang Guangmei, to the countryside to suppress class enemies. She proved herself to be a fierce class warrior, torturing corrupt cadres who had been working with “capitalist forces” during the Great Leap Forward. Death from beatings were common. Critically, while the Socialist Education Movement was focused on the countryside, Mao believed that the real struggle was in the cities against the bureaucracy. Mao disliked Liu’s participation in the Movement, concerned that Liu might steal all the glory. He instead wanted ordinary people to take part in the struggle. It was the ordinary people who would ultimately become the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

The War on Culture

Mao understood the importance of culture in propaganda, and promoted stories about patriotic heroes. He implemented the artistic style known as “Socialist Realism” in artwork. One of the heroes was known as Lei Feng. He was a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army and died at the age of 21 by a work accident. Dedicated to serving the people, Feng praised Mao and the Party highly, writing in his diary, “the blood given by the party penetrated every single cell of my body”. He even went on: “I dreamt of seeing Chairman Mao. Like a compassionate father, he stroked my head and spoke to me to do well in study and serve the state with upmost loyalty”. He wrote that: “my joy is overwhelming as I tried to speak but I could not”.

Such stories as these were spread throughout the country, both in the military and civilian sectors. The aim of disseminating them, people were told, was to “liberate the proletariat”. During the Chinese National Day, on 1st October 1964, a statue of Mao Zedong was raised. Plays and books were written to indoctrinate the nation and allowed Mao to set the scene for the Cultural Revolution, along with the issuing of his “Little Red Book” in August 1965, which is still used in China today.

“Never forget class struggle” – the Socialist Education Movement

Figure 5 “Follow Lei Feng’s good example”. Lei Feng became a tool for Mao’s rhetoric.

The Cultural Revolution Group

Figure 6 These are the four members of the Cultural Revolution Group who rose to prominence during the Cultural Revolution. Clockwise, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan.

Jiang Qing was an up and coming actress in Shanghai but had to leave the city in 1937 because of the Second Sino Japanese War. She headed for Yan an in 1937 and gained Mao’s attention. They soon became engaged and Mao divorced his previous wife for her with the backing of Kang Sheng, the equivalent of Himmler in China. Sheng quickly shut down any critics of Mao’s new marriage, a vital move since Qing was part of the “Bourgeoisie” in Shanghai.

Soon the passion faded as Mao lost interest in her. This made Qing bitter as she had tried to use the marriage to win power. She demanded constant attention and complained that she had an allergic reaction to the colours yellow and brown. Mao decided to introduce Jiang Qing and allowed her to try her hand in the cultural front that Mao decided to open in the early 1960s, sending her on a secret mission to Shanghai.

At this time there was little opposition to Mao, with only a few pieces of literature that stood up against the Great Leap Forward. Most importantly, Wu Han published a play called “The dismissal of Hai Rui”. Hai Rui was a political advisor during the Ming dynasty and was dismissed from office despite being one of the emperors most important allies because of his honesty, pointing out the Emperor’s mistakes in order to guide him. The play soon gained attention, as many officials compared Hai Rui with Peng Dehuai (one of the founding fathers) who had stood up honestly against the brutal reality of the Great Leap Forward. Even Peng Dehuai sent a letter to Mao proclaiming: “I want to be Hai Rui!”. Predictably, Yao Wenyuan was one of the first people to die during the Cultural Revolution

The stage was set for the Cultural Revolution to begin. Mao had the backing of Premier Zhou Enlai and Marshall Lin Biao, Kang Sheng and his wife Jiang Qing. With most of his enemies purged, executed or silenced, he commenced the Revolution. Mao Zedong’s first attack was against the poets and playwriters who had criticised him during the early years. People like Wu Han and Deng Tuo were denounced by state media. A barrage of articles was unleashed “exposing” the poets as “traitors”. Some of them, such as Deng Tuo, ended up committing suicide. Peng Zhen, then Mayor of Beijing, unleashed a wave of fury in support of Mao, although he ultimately fell out of favour because of showing slight support for Wu Han’s writing.

The Cultural Revolution Group was established, and soon became the most important political organ during the Revolution. The group’s head was Chen Boda, an ambitious man trained in Moscow. The group also included Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, Yao Wengyuan and Zhang Chunqiao. Teams of typists, recorders, telephonists and other assistants published article after article denouncing “capitalist roaders” and “traitors of the Chinese people”, safely enclosed while chaos engulfed the country.

On the first of June, celebrated as International Children’s Day, the Cultural Revolution Group dropped its bombshell. An aggressive article written by Chen Boda urged the population to “sweep away all monsters and demons!” The nation descended into even greater chaos, as the nation militarised its people to combat “counter revolutionaries”, claiming they had corrupted the government and were responsible for the suffering during the Great Leap Forward.

“Sweep away all monsters and demons” The Cultural Revolution

Figure 7 A Chinese propaganda poster made during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. This is one of the versions of the article, “Sweep away all monsters and demons”, but made in a comic fashion.

Figure 8 Teachers from numerous schools were persecuted by “Rightists”. Here a teacher is denounced using a hat.

This marked the start of the Revolution. Many youngsters, mainly university and college students, had been brought up with Mao Zedong Thought and his doctrine of “class struggle”, and just like Lei Feng, were now ready to do whatever the Chairman asked. Many were put to good use in the State’s propaganda machine. Soon headlines appeared throughout the country: “Smash the black gang”, “Down with the anti socialist cabal!”, “carry the revolution through to the end”. Mao ordered Lin Biao, Chief of the Army, to carry out “military education” for children across the country, aiming to “unite the army and the people as one”, ready to combat anything including “class enemies” at home and foreign imperialists.

At first the violence was limited to secondary schools. Rae Yang, a fifteen year old student at one of the most prestigious middle schools of Beijing, wrote a poster denouncing his teacher as “lacking proletarian feelings” as revenge for punishing her in class in front of her classmates. Many teachers were accused of being “imperialist spies” and soon an atmosphere of hatred was whipped up.

The accusations developed into physical attacks, with victims forced to wear dunces’ caps and others having placards put around their necks denouncing them as “enemies of the proletariat”. As the days went by the dunces’ caps became heavier. Moreover, head shavings, kneeling on broken glass, being exposed to the summer heat for hours and having ink splashed on faces were all common torture methods in the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Many students who had developed friendships with teachers, and were reluctant to join, were also attacked. There was little opportunity for bystanding; one had to pick a side.

“Work teams” were also unleashed throughout the nation. They were led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and were secretly aimed at keeping the Revolution under control. Mao was not aware of this and ultimately used the work teams to accuse Liu and Deng of “working and conspiring behind his back”. Work teams were denounced which contained students that were too aggressive and had gone too far. One of the most significant confrontations between work teams and students was at Tsinghua University, where Kuai Dafu, a student of Chemical Engineering, was denounced as a “rightist” and locked up in his dormitory. The work teams became very unpopular with the students as they were seen as suppressing their views. Soon there were protests in Beijing and other cities against the work groups. Liu Shaoqi was becoming the most detested leader in his country. Mao was ready to return to Beijing.

Mao had travelled around the country secretly, with many of his colleagues not knowing where to find him. Mao’s intention was unclear, although many historians believe that he was trying to root out Liu Shaoqi and other enemies that were working while he was absent, before clamping down on them using the media. On 16th July 1966, the Chairman marked his return to Beijing by a swim in the Yangtze River. He used the strong current to float downstream and emerge on the other side of the river an hour later. The news went wild, squashing rumors of his failing health. “He showed no sign of fatigue”, the papers wrote. Celebration parades were organised to mark the Chairman’s return. Thousands flocked to the Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing and there were casualties everywhere as people drowned under the human wave.

Figure 9 Another denunciation rally, showing teaches with placards around their necks calling them the “black gang”.

Red August – Mao Zedong becomes an unchallenged living God

Figure 10 Above left: Mao takes a dip in the Yangtze with his followers to show his dedication to the Cultural Revolution. Above right: Mao poses at the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. He wanted to show China that he was fit and healthy and that “things such as western imperialism didn’t intimidate him”.

Two days after his swim Mao was back in Beijing, ready to confront Liu Shaoqi, whom he believed was using the “work groups” to silence student activists. Liu was summoned to the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse (the headquarters of the Cultural Revolution Group) and Mao opened fire on Liu Shaoqi for “suppressing the student movement”.

The forces of the Cultural Revolution were sent to undermine the work teams. Kuai Dafu, who was still trapped in his dormitory in Tsinghua University, was visited by members of the Cultural Revolution Group and freed. This was a direct snub to Wang Guangmei (Liu Shaoqi’s wife) who had condemned Kuai Dafu as a “rightist” for attacking teachers. Several party leaders were summoned in the Diaoyutai Guesthouse and scolded by Mao for “suppressing the students”, who demanded that the work teams be disbanded. Students hailed Mao as their liberator; they could now carry on the persecution of “capitalists” once more.

The announcement was made in the Great Hall of the People on 20th July. Years prior 7000 officials had assembled to confront problems unleashed by the Great Leap Forward, but the hall was now crowded by college and university students. Kuai Dafu was hailed as a hero and Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were forced to make public self criticism, taking responsibility in organizing the work teams while Mao listened intently behind the curtains.

When Liu Shaoqi stated that they were “old revolutionaries facing new problems” Mao snorted. “What old revolutionaries? Old counter revolutionaries is more like it.” At the end of the meeting Mao Zedong unexpectedly stepped into the stage and was applauded by the crowd, which was already going insane. “I simply could not believe my eyes”, one student wrote. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping looked on in a daze as Mao left in triumph with Zhou Enlai following him faithfully.

In early August, a plenum was hurriedly convened to endorse the Chairman’s views. Many officials left, sensing trouble. Mao accused Liu of “running the dictatorship” and “aligning himself with the bourgeois class” during his absence from Beijing. Still, many of the party elders failed to rally behind the Chairman with “sufficient enthusiasm”, and Mao brought in reinforcements. Lin Biao, who had backed the chairman throughout the Great Leap Forward, although secretly resenting him, backed the chairman with full force.

After the plenum, Lin Biao was sworn in as Mao’s deputy and heir apparent, replacing Liu Shaoqi. Mao had now outmaneuvered Liu. He had effectively captured the decision making organs of the country and had made a statement during the plenum on the “Decision on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. Its aim was to attack the leading officials who had “taken the capitalist road”.

The “Sixteen Articles” were launched, describing how best to implement the Cultural Revolution. These were broadcasted on radio, and printed on newspapers and posters. Announcements were made warning of “counter revolutionaries” hiding in the nation, and urging them and to be purged relentlessly. The People’s Daily published Mao’s own “big character” poster, entitled “Bombard the headquarters”. This had started Mao’s campaign to eradicate leading political leaders. He had also sent a letter to Tsinghua University. “To rebel is justified!” The students were ordered to take down teachers, students, workers or anyone else who could be defined as “counter revolutionary”.

Figure 11 A man condemned as a “Rightist” about to be shot by a militiaman. Mao’s first participation in an execution was in 1927 when he joined the Communist Party as a recruit. In his diary he wrote that he had a “feeling of ecstasy” during the execution which changed him forever.

Chaos ravaged the country once more as the Red Guards formed. Mostly youngsters, they pledged allegiance to Mao and vowed to eliminate “counter revolutionaries” in all walks of life. Red Guards began physically attacking teachers and administrators as soon as they heard Mao’s signal: “to rebel is justified!”

In Beijing, a group of school administrators were accused of having formed a “black gang”. They were forced to kneel, with ink splashed on their faces and were repeatedly hit with nail spiked clubs. Many lost

consciousness after hours of torture, with reports of one of the teachers being killed and dumped into a garbage cart before being pronounced dead. In numerous other schools, such as the Beijing’s 101st Middle School, teachers were made to crawl on a path paved with coal cinders until their knees and palms were burnt.

The biggest show of support came on the 18th of August, when a million Red Guards poured into Tiananmen Square with Mao appearing just when the sun has started rising from the east. Lin Biao, now his deputy, made a lengthy speech to the youngsters encouraging them to destroy “all the old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits of the exploiting classes”.

After the speech more violence erupted throughout Beijing. This time the brutality infiltrated middle and primary schools. At the Beijing Girls’ Middle School, the principal was beaten to death. At another middle school in Beijing Normal University, the principal was forced to stand under the hot sun while Red Guards poured boiling water over his head. In one case, a Biology teacher was knocked to the ground, beaten and dragged by her legs through the door and down the steps, her head bumping against the concrete. She died after being tortured for several more hours. New depths of horror emerged as elementary school students made teachers swallow iron nails and excrement, while others had their heads shaved, or were forced to slap each other. These brutal attacks were done by students no older than 13 years.

rectly offended Mao, was dragged onto an improvised stage with a heavy placard around his neck that cut deep into his skin, while he was forced to kneel to be further beaten and tortured. The crowd cheered “Down with Tian Han!”

Soon the attacks became even more extreme. Nan Baoshan, an impoverished elder, was dragged onto the streets and clubbed to death. His sons were also beaten and trapped in their homes, where they died of thirst a few days later. Many other old people were accused of having links to “capitalists” and received extreme torture, beatings and harassment, all with Mao’s blessing.

Soon the Revolution spread to southern cities such as Xiamen, Guangzhou and Shanghai. Book burnings were common. In Shanghai, Red Guards destroyed thousands of books from the Zikawei Library. Public monuments were also destroyed. Graves, temples, and religious men were also attacked. One imam at a mosque in Nanning, Guanxi, was beaten, tortured and forced to wear a necklace of pigs’ tails. 25,000 graves were destroyed in 1966 alone, most of them belonging to Christians and foreigners. Newspapers referred to the Red Guards as “Mao’s little generals”, but Mao still did not have enough. He was again paranoid of governors such as Peng Zhen (Mayor of Beijing) of running “independent kingdoms” outside of his control. A plan was made to invite millions of Red Guards around the country to travel to Beijing and meet the Chairman before going back to spread the revolution, sidelining the governors and allowing Mao to assert control. Red August had become the most violent month in the cultural revolution and effectively made Mao a living God.

Factionalism Red Guards Fighting Red Guards

Figure 12 Bronze statues, books and furniture of the ancient Chinese culture are burnt. “Old culture, old ideology, old customs and old traditions must be destroyed.” This was one of the main goals of the Cultural Revolution.

Poets, artists and writers were also targeted by the Red Guards. Even the slightest hint of resentment against the Chairman resulted in brutal beatings, torture and sometimes execution. Tian Han, a dramatist who indi-

Another aim Mao wanted to achieve from the Cultural Revolution was securing his legacy. He wanted to be remembered as an equal to God, Carl Marx, and other great leaders. The Mao Cult was hence intensified. Mao badges, Mao posters, Mao books and Mao photos were disseminated rapidly. He wanted the whole nation to worship him. As such, he cut the production of airplanes, for example, to create 5 billion badges with his face on them, which required aluminum. People of lower class, however, could not wear them. Barbers only gave “proletarian” haircuts, bookstores sold nothing but the ‘Little Red Book’ and other books about the Chairman. Mao’s portrait was hung in most houses, with many families giving thanks to Mao be-

fore eating. Many songs were also dedicated to Mao and were sung by people of all ages. The nation had become one big Mao cult.

Now that Mao had a private army, he also wanted to take down other leaders within the party. It had taken over a year of political maneuvering to break Peng’s grip in the capital and he feared that other mayors and administrators had dug into their city and closed their gates on him. A wave of propaganda directed at party officials who he claimed had become “capitalist” and had “sympathies for the bourgeois”, was successful in motivating many Red Guards to turn on these party leaders.

On the contrary, many leaders were hardened veterans who had honed their survival skills during decades of political struggle. In Changsha, the mayor made himself a minor version of the Chairman, appearing in a military uniform to perform a review of his own private army. When university and college students denounced him as a “capitalist roader”, he used his Red Guard against other Red Guards. Mao wanted to intensify the attacks against the regional leaders and for the Red Guards to spread the fire of revolution to all parts of China rather than just the major cities.

Millions of Red Guards were thus hoarded into trains and buses and sent to Beijing. Conditions were poor as logistics was poorly managed. Many vehicles were ambushed by bandits and food and water were scarce. The vehicles were crammed full of people, with the toilets always being scarce. Soon a bad smell spread, as urine mixed with sweat, vomit and excrement. Some carriages became so disgusting that Red Guards used their knives to pry open a hole in the floor.

Soon, tensions flared. Red Guards started fighting each other for space and food. Many ordinary passen-

gers used the chaos to get in while the Red Guards were distracted. Thousands of youngsters spilled out of trains and cars to Beijing every day, all wearing red armbands but speaking mutually unintelligible regional dialects.

Mao had started another logistical catastrophe once more. Beijing was stretched to breaking point. At the peak of the campaign an extra 3 million Red Guards were added to the city’s usual population of 7.7 million inhabitants. Food supply was running out; water and living space became luxuries. The People’s Liberation Army was sent in to aid the situation, but this was a futile effort. Soon, many Youngsters died over fights for food and water during their stay in Beijing. Things deteriorated even more for the city as Mao made transportation and food free for Red Guards, which devastated the food supply even more.

Mao proceeded to host mass rallies, meeting the Red Guards and instructing them to bring revolution back to their home provinces and take down the “capitalist roaders” who currently governed their province. By 26th November 1966, Mao had reviewed 12 million Red Guards. When the Red Guards saw Mao Zedong many turned hysteric. “I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our great leader Chairman Mao”, said one girl as she saw a glimpse of Mao during a rally.

The final rally was a disaster. The poorly planned event was held at an airfield on the outskirts of the capital on 26th November, and was followed by a stampede as a crowd of 2 million people rushed towards the only available exit. Those who tried to bend down to tie their shoelaces or pick up belongings were trampled to death. As 2 million people tried to get through a wooden bridge; it collapsed. Many fell into the stream, trampling on each other, as the entire

Figure 13 Members of the Red Guard reading Mao’s “Little Red Book”. Mao drained the national budget on arming them, mostly teenagers and students. They participated in mass killings, ethnic cleansing, beatings, torture and public humiliation.

stream was soaked up by the cotton trousers of the waves of people, leaving nothing but an expanse of mud. Amid the scenes of chaos military lorries filled with clothes, socks and shoes sped up and down the only road, with some carrying mutilated corpses.

Mao had given the Red Guards free transportation, food, water and any accessories in the form of money. All they needed was a name and a school affiliation. Li Shihua, a Red Guard from Anhui Province, put it simply: “Everywhere there were reception centres for Red Guards, and food, accommodation and travel were all free; when would such a great opportunity present itself again?” Many students used this opportunity to travel the country, visiting revolutionary sites during the Chinese Civil War that they had read so much about in school. Places such as the Chairman’s birthplace in Shaoshan were simply overwhelmed by human waves.

tions brought about by swarms of revolutionary youngsters. Meningitis, spread by coughing and sneezing, was the most lethal. Soon there was a nationwide epidemic. The disease first appeared in Beijing, with an alarm raised but no preventive measures were taken, as in Mao’s logic nothing was allowed to impede revolution. Hospitals were overrun; facemasks were unavailable because of the paper being used to make propaganda posters. In order to avoid the blame, he condemned the hospitals for serving the leadership rather than the people. Many hospitals were soon besieged and burned down by Red Guards in the name of Mao.

Mao had successfully deployed another man made disaster. The United States offered medical help although China did not respond to the request. The shortage of antibiotics was such that the government was forced to turn to pharmaceutical companies in Western Europe and Asia. But it was too little, too late.

By the time the situation had been brought under control, more than 160,000 people had died. Red Guards were proud of their class background, in which they tried to keep their ranks pure. When students started to pour into the capital in the last week of August 1966, many youngsters with any relation to the “bourgeoisie” were ejected.

Wang Guanghua, a middle school student, who had responded enthusiastically to the Chairman’s call to “spread the revolution and destroy party leaders that have turned against Mao”, was deemed to be from a “capitalist family” and was kidnapped and tortured to death by Red Guards on his way back home in late September.

Another site was Jinggang Mountain, a “holy site” where Mao and his Red Army held out against the Kuomintang forces during the early stages of the Civil War. It was simply overrun by the amount of people flooding into the nearby village, an astounding 60,000 people a day. A month later there were 30 times more visitors than locals. This “holy site” became another disaster, which forced Mao to send hundreds of lorries to evacuate the area. On December 21st 1966, free board and travel were abolished, forcing the Red Guards to pay their debts. Many of them could not afford to pay and were sent to “workcamps”.

During the disastrous campaign, when Red Guards travelled for free, so did a host of viruses and bacteria. Disease thrived in the overcrowded, unhygienic condi-

Cities such as Xiamen had Red Guards who were accused by their classmates of “subverting the revolution” because of them being born “black”. But these critics were outnumbered, further dividing the Red Guards. Soon, many students, including Red Guards, were labelled as “rightists, royalists or conservatives”, especially in Changsha and Xiamen.

The balance of power shifted in October. In Fuzhou, many Red Guards demonstrated before the provisional party committee. In desperation, a telegram was sent to Mao requesting backup against the Red Guards who were now fighting the regional governors. Beijing’s answer came in an editorial published in the party journal, Red Flag: “The power holders inside the ranks of the party who take the capitalist road are a small bunch of counter revolutionary revisionists. They raise the red flag in order to fight the red flag.

Figure 14 One of the rallies in Beijing at which Mao reviewed 12 million Red Guards overall. There were deaths at every rally as the stampedes caused mass destruction.

They are like Khrushchev. At the first opportunity, they will plot to usurp the party, the army and the state. They are our most dangerous and principal enemies”. The editorial then denounced specific mayors, governors, generals, and regional leaders who were accuses of following a “bourgeoisie reactionary line”.

Chen Boda named Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping as the main targets of the Cultural Revolution and contrasted their “bourgeois revolutionary line” to Mao Zedong’s “proletarian revolutionary line”. The very meaning of the terms “red and “black” begin to shift. Those who were born red suddenly found themselves in the wrong camp, as their parents, followers of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were denounced as following the “bourgeois reactionary line”. Now they became targets of the revolution which they had so fervently supported only weeks earlier. In order to protect their reputations and help their parents survive, the radical youths turned into conservatives, willing to defend the status quo.

Mao had started another revolution where the “rebel Red Guards” were trying to overthrow the “royalists” which were the party leaders and the Red Guards that opposed him. Local party authorities had so far managed to deflect the thrust of the Cultural Revolution away from themselves, unleashing the Red Guards on ordinary people, turning them into scapegoats for belonging to the wrong class.

Now a growing army of rebels laid siege to party leaders suspected of being “Bourgeois”. Rebels seized power in offices and government buildings as provincial leaders were denounced and paraded across the streets, often ending in brutal torture and death. It looked like another People’s Revolution. Mao had incited students to rebel against their teachers months earlier, and now unleashed ordinary people against their party leaders.

“Seize power! Seize power! Seize power!” The Country Boils into Civil War Once More

As tensions rose, even more government buildings had been encircled by passionate Red Guards. The Chairman’s office was piled with letters pleading for support against the “rebels”. The chairman did not respond. On 26th December as Mao Zedong turned 73, representatives of a newly forged alliance of temporary workers met with Jiang Qing and other members of the Cultural Revolution Group at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. As birthday celebrations ensued, the Chairman gave a toast: “to the unfolding of a nationwide civil war!”

Compared to other cities, Shanghai had the most violent and chaotic time during the Cultural Revolution. It was the base in which the Revolution was launched and it was now in flames. A midnight raid was carried out on a fabric shop, where bolts of red cloth were commandeered to make armbands. Mayor of Shanghai Cai Diqiu spurned the event, referring to the rebels as “dregs of humanity”.

Right after the inaugural event, more than 20,000 workers marched to the city hall, demanding that their organisation be recognized. During the standoff a rumour spread of a telegram sent by Zhou Enlai calling the Rebels to “return to Beijing” if the Shanghai administration did not want to see them. Over a thousand workers forced their way on to an express train bound for Beijing. As the train left 20 minutes out of Shanghai, the Shanghai Railway Authorities shunted it off, although the rebels refused to leave. As local authorities organized water and buns for the passengers, much of the food was thrown out of the windows: “We do not wish to eat this revisionist food”.

The deadlocked ensued as the Shanghai authorities refused to allow the rebels to get to Beijing. For 30 hours the train was in a standstill before Zhang Chunqiao, the director of propaganda, stepped in. Flown in from Beijing in a military plane, he had orders from the capital demanding that the rebels “return to Shanghai”. The rebels won the day, gaining official recognition from Beijing. The Shanghai officials panicked as the city was put under siege by angry rebels. The city organised its own force to keep the workers and Red Guards in check. By late December, the city was a warzone, with battles staged between hundreds of thousands of rebels and “Scarlet Guards” (People who supported Shanghai’s government).

One of the bloodiest clashes was on Kangping Road on 30th December 1966, as 100,000 rebels armed with iron pipes, clubs and bamboo poles launched an assault against 20,000 scarlet guards. Casualties were unknown although it is estimated from the hundreds to the thousands. Mao ordered 38 million Yuan to be withdrawn from the banks to fund the rebels with real weapons. Shanghai was threatened by critical shortages. Although the city needed 3,500 tones of grain a day, by New Year’s Eve there were not enough provisions to cover a single week. Coal reserves could keep the city warm for no more than five days.

The deadlock was broken on 3 January 1967, as Red Guards, wearing safety helmets, and armed with iron rods, stormed two of the biggest newspapers, while others took over the televisions and radio stations. A few days later the major roads, buildings, offices and

TV stations were taken over by the rebels. On 11th January Mao dealt a fatal blow proclaiming that Red Guards and workers in other cities should overthrow their regional leaders too. What happened in Shanghai was known as the “January Storm”, as the Shanghai commune was established. Just like the Paris commune, Mao was very fond of the idea of revolution. To “seize power” became the motto of the day in the People’s Daily. “If you don’t have power, you have nothing … unite yourselves, form a great alliance and seize power! Seize power! Seize power!”

turned against Mao, hoping to reverse the Cultural Revolution.

At a meeting of the central leadership in January, Xu Xiangqian burst out against Mao. “You have made a mess of the government, a mess of the party, a mess of the factories and a mess of the countryside”. This proclamation would soon lead to his death. These attempts were futile though as Mao still had the support of two key members, Lin Biao and Zhou Enlai, who controlled most key positions in the army and the government.

Violence was still raging throughout the country, from Xinjiang to Henan. Soldiers fought Red Guards, Red Guards fought soldiers, soldiers fought soldiers; it was complete carnage. Many people had lost family members during the fight, with personal loss fueling enhanced rage. Trapped in a vicious cycle of violence, the prospect of losing had become unthinkable.

Enter the army the great purge of army generals

The “January Storm” was a resounding victory for the Chairman and an absolute catastrophe for his enemies. He had originally wanted the army to stay out of the fight during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution but had now asked Lin Biao to send in the army to “wherever the proletariat needed support”. Soon entire provinces fell to the rebels, starting with Shanxi. However, some military leaders became victims of the Red Guards and there was widespread discontent among the military commanders as they were forced to witnessed their colleagues being tortured, beaten and killed in droves. Peng Dehuai was surrounded by Red Guards as he was attempting to keep his head defiantly high, but a college student kept hitting him on the neck. This gave the army a grave realisation. Even Peng, who was considered a legend, could not escape Mao. Several marshals, including Xu Xiangqian and Ye Jianying, joined forces together and demanded that order should be restored in the military. Lin Biao, trying to play both sides, accepted the demands in order to keep the military in his favour. Mao had no choice; he needed guns, not steel batons and pikes, in order to spearhead the revolution. Many army leaders

Figure 15 Workers and Red Guards celebrate the victory at Shanghai by praying to Mao. He was especially inspired by the Paris Commune during his time in Yan an and called for an overthrow of the government of Shanghai to be replaced by an independent Shanghai commune.

Figure 16 Peng Dehuai denounced by having a placard placed around his neck. The army was especially afraid of Mao, as even those such as Dehuai, who was considered one of the “founding fathers” of China, could be put down by Mao.

Quenching the fires – the end of the Cultural Revolution

Mao had got what he wanted, although China was still on fire. At this point, rebels had stolen weapons from the army, with semi automatic weapons and artillery often used during clashes. Mao decided to finally quench the flames. At this point Lin Biao had ordered the army not to fire back; they became, as it were, sitting ducks. Mao, however, decided to issue a decree announcing that the army was allowed to fire back. Billboards were replaced and stories and articles urged the need to “respect the army”. Soon the violence started subsiding as the military were able to take back control. Shops and schools were slowly reopened, many people went back to normal life midst all the destruction. Some embraced political apathy.

All Mao needed to do was to mop up all the party leaders that had undermined and opposed him, and his power and legacy would be supreme. In March 1968, a new campaign called the “three loyalties and four boundless loves” was launched. The study of the Mao cult had intensified and students were made to sings songs, read passages and say things like: “great leader. Teacher, Helmsman Chairman Mao, may you live ten thousand years”. Over 600,000 statues of Mao were put up, with some being as tall as 15 metres. Millions of Yuan were invested, as the demand for Mao badges, Mao posters, Mao books, Mao furniture, Mao busts and Mao statues soaked up the national resources and the national budget as construction projects were diverted to fund the projects.

On 27th July 1968, the propaganda team was sent to Tsinghua University, marking the end of the Red Guards, who were brought to heel and disciplined. Mao had now started purging and mopping up remaining enemies as everyone from high ranking officials to peasants were cleansed. Over 17 million students were banished from cities to the countryside to provinces such as Liaoning and Heilongjiang. Lin Biao had used the opportunity to purge more marshals and generals and further cemented his position in the military.

Over a year later, in April 1969, the 9th Party Congress was launched. Lin Biao was appointed successor to the regime as Liu Shaoqi was put into solitary detention. On 12th November 1969, Liu Shaoqi died in prison. He had become too weak to get out of his bed, but nobody would help him wash, change his clothes or use the toilet. He was covered in faeces, his hair long and unkept. Although he suffered from muscle atrophy in his legs, the guards insisted on tying him down with gauze strips for fear he might commit suicide. For two years after his arrest in 1967, he was subjected to immense torture. He was denied medi-

cine for his diabetes while being beaten and tortured, and denounced at meetings, dragged along by guards when he was too weak to walk. At a small banquet Liu’s death was toasted by Zhou Enlai.

Aftermath

Mao had got what he wanted, consolidating his position and legacy as the great leader of the People’s Republic of China, who led the proletariat to victory in 1949 and cleansed the country of so called “corrupt bourgeois”. The Cultural Revolution had been won. His paranoia did not fade though, as he soon became wary once again of the people close to him, including Lin Biao. Especially after the Sino Soviet Split, when Lin Biao put the entire army on high alert in just one order, he feared that Lin Biao would be able to overthrow him.

As such, Mao soon started undermining Lin Biao, touring around the countryside and attacking his reputation without mentioning him by name. Lin Biao knew his demise was near and on 12th September 1971, he hurriedly boarded a plane, together with his wife and son, just outside Beihaide. Lin Biao’s plane crashed in Mongolia; his death is still debated to this day, as to whether Mao was responsible or if it was an accident.

Just two years later, another second in command was killed. Years later he turned his eyes on Zhou Enlai, the Premier of the People’s Republic of China. He had gained popularity by enacting reforms for modernisation which again made Mao paranoid. On the 8th of January 1976 Zhou Enlai died of bladder cancer. Mao had tortured Zhou Enlai by refusing to give him medications. Although Zhou Enlai kept toiling away to modernise China he soon, therefore, started dying. His last appearance was on the 13th of January 1975, where he presented his government work report. Mao Zedong did not acknowledge Zhou’s achievements during his time as the Premier. Zhou’s wife, also a senior party member, was not sent condolences from Mao Zedong. He also forbade party members from wearing black mourning armbands.

A funeral, however, was organised by the people of Beijing. An outpouring of popular support for Zhou Enlai culminated in a massive demonstration on Tiananmen Square, brutally suppressed by Mao. On the 9th of September 1976 Mao Zedong died. Among the populous the youngsters mourned for their leader while many older people secretly celebrated the death of this sadistic dictator.

Conclusion

At his death, Mao’s legacy was sealed; he had become untouchable. He had, though, created absolute chaos and crippled the country in the process. During his reign the amount of suffering was immense, with tens of millions either starving to death or dying from brutal killings ordered by Mao. Victims were not just killed. Their dignity was stripped away from them, humiliated as even their mothers denounced them. They were paraded in the streets, beaten, tortured, paraded and then slaughtered. Children were also executed in the masses. There were many cases of young children being buried alive for stealing bits of food, as they were too hungry, because of Mao’s brutal policies. Old people were not left alone either. Many were beaten to death with bricks, burnt alive or impaled. Mao had indoctrinated a young army of brainwashed children, ready to do whatever he wanted them to do.

He was especially paranoid about the people closest to him. He did not care how loyal his followers were to him, only caring whether his grip on power was strong enough. In his eyes, humans were not humans. They were disposable objects ready to be thrown away by him for any reason. The economy also suffered heavily, with China’s resources such as aluminum, paper, cotton and marble being wasted on statues, posters, badges and caps of Mao. Priority was given in the national budget to the arming of fanatical teenagers with artillery and guns, which were used to bomb holy sites in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Other than the killing of Chinese, the minorities suffered more heavily, with many of their cultures being almost completely wiped out. Tibet’s holy sites were bombed by artillery, mosques were burned and torn apart and many other minorities forced to relocate and do forced labor. The 14th Dalai Lama was also exiled, where he still campaigns for Tibetan rights to this day. Other than people, Mao had also destroyed Chinese culture and morals as a whole, with Chinese culture only starting to regroup after his death. If Mao were taken to a modern day psychiatrist, he might well be labelled a psychopath. Despite his crimes, his portrait still hangs boldly in Tiananmen Square to this day.

Bibliography

The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikotter

Mao’s Great Famine by Frank Dikotter

The Tragedy of Liberation by Frank Dikotter

Blood Red Sunset by Ma Bo

Figure 17 Mao’s dead body on display in 1976. A man who arguably destroyed China was being revered as a god.

Is History in the UK Taught in a too Eurocentric way?

Jonas Bhattacharya and Victor Sim pull apart the way History tends to be taught in the UK today, proposing a new framework which emphasises the role of non European nations in shaping the events of the past.

Students need to gain a holistic picture of history. Therefore, this picture must include the influences and contributions of both European countries and non European countries. History is presented as overly Eurocentric in the UK. This is done in the form of disregarding the history of other countries or oversimplifying the historical significance of non western countries. This Eurocentric history is deeply rooted within the education system, with critical negative impacts that we must avoid.

The Eurocentric perspective presented to students is usually resultant of the propagation of outdated or biased content by teachers or textbooks. As Matthew Wilkinson wrote in his Guardian article on Michael Gove’s History curriculum: “Reading this draft curriculum one would have thought that the history of the world was almost entirely enacted by white, English, Protestants. Other people play a marginal role. Muslims and Islam, the second largest religious grouping in the UK and the world’s second largest faith, whose history forms a vital part of the history of humankind, simply don’t exist.” For example, it is easy to find the contributions of Pythagoras and Euclid in most History textbooks, but it is rare to find the contributions of Islamic scholars on optics, algorithms, or algebra. From this, we can tell that our Eurocentric perspective causes the omission of significant figures from our history while over glorifying those who have contributed less.

The impacts of Eurocentric representation of History are significant, especially in the context of impressionable young students. Namely, it leads to the establishment of incorrect conclusions and a lack of a well rounded sense of identity.

Without a holistic perspective on the past, uninformed and oversimplistic conclusions can be drawn. These conclusions can lead to a society that is less empathetic towards non European countries and even develops a dichotomous “us” and “them” mentality towards non European people. It could also lead to enhanced discrimination, damaging both the individual and society as a whole.

As such, a Eurocentric reading of our history could lead to the establishment of more organisations like the English Defence League, which is an Islamophobic, fair right organisation that opposes the integration of Muslims into England and Europe as a whole. It continues to propagate anti Muslim beliefs, falsely justified by fraudulent historical representations of Islam and the West. They have commonly characterised Western society as progressive and tolerant while characterising Islamic society as intolerant and backward. This supports the idea that a harmful and false dichotomy is fostered by a Eurocentric perspective, leading to the conclusion that non European countries are inherently worse than European countries.

A fundamental problem with a Eurocentric history is that students will not learn about the histories of foreign countries, therefore limiting the knowledge that they can gain, and their overall cultural awareness. Additionally, those not native to England might feel that they are misrepresented or excluded when their culture and history is not taught in schools. As a result, their sense of identity could be affected. This could lead, in a worse case scenario situation, to confidence problems in later life. Their peers, meanwhile, would have less cultural understanding.

As historical knowledge is partly propagated through information from family and friends, the impacts of a Eurocentric education will spread through the population intergenerationally. The negative impacts outlined will therefore be exacerbated as they will eventually be widespread within the population.

A potential solution is to make sure that a more holistic view of the past is taught to everyone. For example, the GCSE course is mainly focused on Nazi Germany. This is important to learn but, in addition to Nazi Germany, covering history from different continents like, for instance, exploring the Cuban Revolution, and also studying leaders like Genghis Khan, would be beneficial to the students’ overall experience. In turn, if students learnt about historical figures like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, it would give them more perspective on how leaders solve different problems. From Genghis Khan and the Mughal Empire, we can learn how powerful empires take control. Potentially the GCSE syllabus could contain history from each continent for young historians to have a well rounded perspective of History as a discipline.

Part of the solution certainly involves making sure that the role of non European countries is not underplayed. For example, the presentation of the Second World War in the GCSE syllabus is problematic. Several countries outside Europe, including the British colonies, played significant roles in the conflict. Recognising their contribution could also help to improve relations between Britain and the Commonwealth. This would also show that non European countries, small and large alike, should be credited and remembered for their contributions to the war.

In conclusion, a Eurocentric reading of the past is prevalent in the UK. This has the impact of discrediting important historical figures, causing cultural ignorance, and having a reductive impact on the learning and experience of students. Although changing the GCSE course is a potential solution, there are significant barriers and hurdles against this. The change of the History syllabus would receive backlash, but the benefits of implementing a holistic perspective of history outweigh these drawbacks.

Second World War Defence Lines

Jamie Mackinnon discusses what the defence lines were, their impact on the lives of those who lived near them, and whether they would have worked if put to the test.

Above: anti tank “dragon’s teeth” defences.

The fear of an invasion during the Second World War was significant. This sentiment was stirred on by the media and the ominous line from Churchill that “we shall fight them on the beaches”. The risk of an invasion prompted the creation of new defences throughout Britain.

The lines of defence were called GHQ and built up around the country as shown in the map below. The lines were colour coded. The green line ran from the Severn Estuary and stopped at Malmesbury, where the red line went north east to Abingdon and then joined back to the green line at Theale. The blue line began just before Malmesbury and followed the line of the Kennet and Avon Canal south of the red line. The blue and red lines met and formed the green line which continued towards London. London was defended by its own rings of defence scheme. A long line that would defend the east coast was proposed but was never completed.

A pillbox for an anti tank gun near Kintbury.

The reason that the defence lines were so important was because they were the country’s last line of defence. If the enemy broke through these lines, then the war would have been lost. These lines were the lines of defence after the so called ‘coastal crust’, the line of defences along the coast. The coastal crust could have been broken through easily thanks to its well spread out defences and lack of natural defences. It was hoped that rear guard actions would have slowed down the enemy in their attempt to get from the coastal crust to the GHQ lines, so that the GHQ lines would have had time to prepare.

The line was made up of a wide variety of defences. The primary role of the line was to defend against an attack on London or the industrial heartlands, particularly against the threat of tanks. Therefore, all of the lines are one continuous anti tank barrier. They tried to take advantage of pre existing geographical features which would help them to carry out this function. In the case of the blue line, much of the defence was the fact that tanks could not cross the canal, provided that all of the bridges were blown. Spaces were dug below bridges which were filled with explosives so that it would be very easy for the Home Guard to destroy them. Bunkers were placed along the entire length of the route and most, such as the one seen below, would have just held a machine gun and some riflemen. However, others held anti tank guns which could be used to stop the invading panzers. Another design included a combination of anti aircraft guns and machine guns. Other obstacles included anti tank teeth, barbed wire and girders that could be put into holes in bridges to stop the passage of tanks. There were also mobile barriers which could have been placed across the road to block soldiers. The density of pillboxes was fairly high with nine in Kintbury parish, Berkshire, alone.

The lines of defence would have had a large impact on the lives of people who lived near them. The construction of them due to the inaccessibility of some of the locations would have been complicated. One of the pillboxes in Kintbury had to have building supplies carried to it by the canal. The building would have involved locals as it was local builders that were contracted to build the bunkers. For the people that lived near by the defence would have been a very real reminder of the war. If an invasion did occur some parts of line would have had to been held by only the local defenders for up to a day until reinforcements arrived. This fact would have been drilled into the minds of the locals. In the event of an invasion, it seems highly unlikely that just the Home Guard would have fought. It seems more likely that entire villages would have fought. One Kintbury local, Richard Sampson, who is now the oldest person in the village, was taught how to handle weapons as a scout, and it seems likely that scouts and others would have fought had the war come to them. He also mentioned the fact that the Kintburians were informed about the importance of their stretch of the blue line. His father, a member of the Home Guard, kept his rifle at home so that it was close at hand in preparation for the invasion.

My own great grandmother, who also lived on the blue line, buried petrol in her garden during appeasement with which she intended to supply the British troops, and had a single barrelled shotgun made for her with which she intended to defend both her fuel dump and the line of defence. The Kintburians aside from the Home Guard would have been armed with a plentiful supply of shotguns and homemade Molotov cocktails. As such, in some villages any invasion would have been faced with an almost suicidal level of resistance from armed defenders.

The resistance the locals put up would have likely depended upon the person that led the village. In Kintbury the large Methodist population led by a passionate priest would have put up firm resistance. There were also so called ‘auxiliary units’ which were made up of the most competent members of the Home Guard. They were instructed to live in tunnels along the GHQ lines to wage guerrilla warfare against the Germans, to hold them up to allow regular reinforcements time to arrive.

My great grandmother’s shotgun with which she intended to defend the blue line.

Would the lines of defences have actually worked in the case of an invasion? Somewhat surprisingly, a 1974 wargame with surviving German generals concluded that they would have held. It is hard to tell whether this would been because of the strength of the line or because the royal Navy’s attacks on Channel shipping would have stopped supplies reaching the German invaders, thus causing their attack to peter out. However, it is important to remember that just one small break through in the defensive line would allow the enemy to outflank the whole line, and thus cause its collapse. Therefore, an invasion would have stretched the line to its limits.

The remains of these lines lie all around us. Perhaps next time you see anti tank spikes you will be aware of what they were built to do and how, thankfully, they were never put to the test.

An example of a bunker which contained both an anti aircraft gun and a machine gun.

A pillbox for a machine gun in Kintbury.

Crossword

Across:

2. Lemoyne’s altarpiece (12)

4. OW mountaineer (7)

7. Granicus victor (9)

9. German artist (1471 1528) (5)

10. Republican Secretary of State, d. 2021 (6)

12. Bishop, Martyr, Saint (6)

15. Bishop of Bayeux (3)

17. Famous English playwright (11)

18. ‘_____ Kuczynski’ Agent Sonya (6)

19. “The Ballot or the Bullet” (7,1)

Down:

1. “The wind of change is blowing through this continent” British PM (9)

3. Sacked during the Fourth Crusade (14)

5. James Joyce’s chef d’oeuvre (7)

6. Romanian communist (9)

8. King who died going to the loo (6)

11. Followers of John Wycliffe (8)

13. ‘______ Hokusai’ Japanese artist (10)

14. Guernica painter (7)

16. Subject of Netflix’s “The King” (5)

Books in MobLib: Operation Mincemeat

Edward Thomson reviews Ben Macintyre’s book: “Operation Mincemeat”. The author spoke to the History Society last Short Half, as reviewed in the last edition of the WHJ.

It all began with the “Trout Memo” written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey (or quite possibly his assistant Ian Fleming), on many ways of tricking the Germans. Little would they know that the 28th suggestion: "A suggestion [not a very nice one]" which was where disinformation would be presented as fact by being placed on a corpse which would become the most successful act of deception of WWII. In “Operation Mincemeat” Ben Macintyre guides us through the entire operation from inception to conclusion.

The inspiration for the plan was an airplane crash off the coast of Spain, where the body was recovered by Spanish authorities and returned to the British. There were concerns that documents on the body had been shown to the Abwehr (the Nazi counterpart of MI6). This inspired the British intelligence services, as they realised that they could use the Spanish to unwillingly pass disinformation to the Germans. The operation was carried out by two intelligence officers, Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu. Macintyre provides considerable detail about their backgrounds, including on Ivor Montagu, Ewen Montagu’s brother and possible Soviet agent. The aim of the operation was to distract German attention away from Operation Husky (the Allied invasion of Sicily) and support Operation Barclay (the overarching deception plan for Operation Husky). Operation Barclay attempted to persuade Nazi high command that the main targets for Operation Husky were Sardinia and the Balkans. These were chosen as known concerns of Hitler’s and to explain large Allied forces in North Africa.

Operation Mincemeat began with the search for a corpse. After discussions with a pathologist and a coroner, a body was eventually found, that of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless Welshman who had taken his life. Macintyre also provides details as to his early life, and what led him to become the Mincemeat corpse. With the most important detail now decided, Cholmondeley and Montagu began devising the story for the operation. The body would be that of Captain (Acting Major) William Martin, a Royal Marines staff officer, as there were many Marines of that name, and this would reroute communications about his whereabouts to Naval Intelligence, where Cholmondeley and Montagu worked. He would crash over the Atlantic near Spain, carrying a letter from Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye to Lieutenant General Sir Harold Alexander, complete with the general’s signature. It was here that the kernel of deception lay, for the letters confirmed Sardinia and the Balkans as the real targets, but to add another layer of security (and risk) Sicily was named as a false target. This was intended to make the Germans believe that even when troops landed in Sicily this was just a cover for a larger operation.

Every detail was thought of for the items in his pocket (which made him seem real): why did he have a new staff ID (as they were unable to forge an old one)? A forgetful personality and to persuade the Abwehr of this they placed false letters from his father about outstanding payments, as well as the request for a new ID card, the previous one having been lost. They even gave him letters of recommendation for this mission, and a full backstory, including a girlfriend called Pam, who was an

MI5 clerk, Jean Leslie. Macintyre tells us that Montagu went on dates with Leslie, under the personas of “Bill” Martin and Pam.

After all these preparations the body was prepared and put aboard HMS Seraph, a submarine which would plant the body just of the cost of Huelva in southern Spain. This was chosen for an extremely active Abwehr agent there who Naval Intelligence was sure would pick up the letters. But once the body landed there were concerns that not everything would go as planned. Unfortunately, the documents were given to the Spanish Navy, which was sympathetic to the Allies, and so there was a possibility that the documents would return to the U.K. without ever being seen by the Abwehr. However, copies of the documents did eventually reach German eyes, possibly even Hitler’s, although the Spanish, who handed the copies over to the Abwehr, did try to conceal their tampering. They twisted the letters out at the corners without breaking the seals, but a single black eyelash had been placed inside to see whether the Germans had tampered with it, and with this sign, Naval Intelligence knew that the operation had been successful.

The entire book is extensively researched, from MI6 and Abwehr records to Montagu’s letters, and supplemented with archive images from throughout the operation. It reads like a spy thriller, each detail revealed as it occurs, and Macintyre has gone above and beyond to provide information about all the characters that appear. A fantastic read for anyone interested in espionage, WWII or simply something to enjoy from cover to cover. There is a copy of the book in MobLib, and a film on the topic was released in April.

Moberly Library has a wide ranging selection of history books on offer. This includes the entire shortlist for the Wolfson History Prize 2022, the only prize to value both readability and the calibre of academic research. To learn about England in the 17th century, but from the perspective of outsiders, to reappraise the Ottoman Empire, to understand going to church in medieval England, or hunting witches in the New World, do go to MobLib and borrow whichever tickles your fancy.

Answers to this edition’s crossword:

Across: 2. (The) Annunciation; 4. (George) Mallory; 7. Alexander (the Great); 9. (Albrecht) Dürer; 10. (Colin) Powell; 12. (Thomas) Becket; 15. Odo; 17. (William) Shakespeare; 18. Ursula; 19. Malcolm X.

Down: 1. (Harold) Macmillan; 3. Constantinople; 5. Ulysses; 6. (Nicolae) Ceaușescu; 8. George (II); 11. Lollards; 13. Katsushika; 14. (Pablo) Picasso; 16. Henry (V).

Cholmondeley and Montagu with “Major Martin” on the way to HMS Seraph.

Major Martin's identity card.

HMS Seraph.

In Memoriam: HM Queen Elizabeth II

On 6 February 1952, upon the death of King George VI, the throne passed to his daughter, the 25 year old Princess Elizabeth. Her father was the second son of King George V, and was not initially expected to become monarch, so neither was she. However, after King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 in order to marry Wallis Simpson, he became king.

Her Majesty was a mechanic in the A.T.S. during the Second World War, making her the last head of state to have served been such a veteran. Aged 14, she made her first of many radio broadcasts, asking the children of the nation to remain calm.

She was a witness of the extraordinary change that occurred over her reign. At her accession, the nation lay in the shadow of war, with many goods still rationed. The Queen advised fifteen Prime Ministers, holding weekly meetings with them, and the success of the Commonwealth is much to her credit.

On a more personal level, she remained a constant in the hearts of many Britons. Through thick and thin, she was forever collected. She was a rallying point in crises, as shown by her speech during the coronavirus pandemic. She will be sorely missed across the country, but in her own words, ‘grief is the price we pay for love’.

The statistics are extraordinary. In a reign of record breaking length, Her Majesty the Queen provided stability and continuity in a period of unprecedented societal change. The share of postgraduate degrees awarded to women has sextupled, GDP per capita has quadrupled, and infant mortality is a tenth of what it was. Her Majesty was patron of over 600 charities, made almost a hundred state visits abroad, and worked alongside fifteen prime ministers, from Churchill to Truss, and fourteen American presidents, from Truman to Biden. The television coverage of her funeral was watched by some 4 billion people worldwide.

What is perhaps even more extraordinary, however, is the individual. Her Majesty used her ‘soft power’ with great skill, fortitude and compassion, unwaveringly dedicating her life to the service of her people. Steadfast, dutiful and disciplined, she provided leadership and guidance to all with characteristic poise, warmth and sensitivity. Few could have done what she did. Her spirit resides in us all now, and her legacy lives on. All great eras must end, but where there is an end there is also a beginning. Her Majesty may have been laid to rest, but she will not be forgotten, and the ancient institutions she represented so remarkably successfully will continue to stand strong.

Jamie Mackinnon pays tribute to the remarkable life of HM Queen Elizabeth II, 1926 2022.

Toby Bowes Lyon appreciates the record breaking reign of the UK’s longest serving monarch.