Falling into line? Kosovo and the course of German foreign policy

Germany's role in Operation Allied Force has been described as a watershed in its foreign policy. It remains perhaps the pinnacle of Germany's security and defence policy transition after the Cold War. Germany's participation in Operation Allied Force was the first aggressive use of force by the Bundeswehr since the Second World War and, remarkably, was undertaken without a United Nations Security Council mandate. The deployment of German forces in 1999 suggested that German reluctance to burden-share in crisis management alongside NATO allies had been overcome. Yet Germany remains a cautious actor when it comes to the deployment of offensive military force. In this regard, Germany has maintained a considerable degree of continuity in its foreign and security policy after unification, a theme which this article will outline.     

The Kosovo war: a recapitulation

This article has four objectives: first to make a case for the significance of the Kosovo war in contemporary history; second, to present an overview of the crisis itself and the military confrontation which was its consequence; third, to survey the initial controversies aroused by military action—and, specifically, the debates surrounding NATO's Operation Allied Force; and finally, to reference the longer term significance of the Kosovo war in terms of the themes covered by the remaining contributions which make up this volume.     

The Prosecution of Informers in Eastern Germany, 1945–51

This work is an examination of the practices and experiences of administering transitional justice in post-war eastern Germany after 1945, examining the adjudication of informers as indirect perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Allied occupation law allowed for the prosecution of informers retroactively in the German courts through legislation specifically enacted for the purpose of prosecuting crimes against humanity. The implementation of the law and the prosecution of informers in the Soviet occupation zone under the auspices of the military government administration, and then later in the early years of German Democratic Republic of Germany is examined. This work also addresses the theoretical and practical problems associated with the implementation of the law, and the lessons to be drawn from this historically significant attempt to call individuals to account for their crimes against humanity after they had occurred through the use of retroactive legislation.     

RAF Ein Shemer: A Forgotten Case of Jewish and Arab Work in a British Army Camp in Palestine during the Second World War

This article explores lingering recollections of a marginalised sphere of participation by Jewish and Arab citizens of Mandatory Palestine in the Allied war effort. During the war, Palestine became a major staging ground for Allied troops in the Middle East. Some 15,000 Jewish and 35,000 Arab workers worked in administrative, construction, catering, and maintenances roles within the newly built army bases. The story of civilian labour in RAF Ein Shemer reveals previously neglected normative and non-normative patterns of inter-communal relations between British soldiers and Jewish and Arab workers on the social, economic, ideological, and romantic levels within the context of a colonial-era military installation.     

Race and hospitality: Allied troops of colour on the South African home front during the Second World War

Though often marginalised in histories of the Second World War, South Africa, in addition to contributing manpower and economic support to the Allied war effort, was a transport hub and a site for military training. Millions of Allied servicemen and women spent time in South Africa, which became an important node in both imperial and Allied wartime networks. Examining the varied experiences of Allied personnel of colour in South Africa, with a focus on the Māori battalion, this essay, working towards a transnational social history of the conflict, highlights the ways in which wartime hospitality both reflected and subverted ideologies and practices of racial segregation.     

The present tense of Afghanistan: accounting for space,time and gender in processes of militarisation

Based on ethnographic research among women married to servicemen, this article explores the diffusion of militarisation across time as well as social space. The study setting is a garrison town in Germany during the deployment of women's husbands to Afghanistan. Rather than prioritising the grand narratives of linear time prevalent in IR and military history, however, this article takes into account cyclical and everyday modes of temporality that have traditionally been associated (and undervalued) as feminised ‘zones’, including reproduction, the domestic sphere and local social space. The article explores the temporal register of an operational tour and demonstrates the material, discursive and emotional labour undertaken by military wives in smoothing and converting this rupture into stability through everyday practices. Accounting for the diffusion of militarisation over time as well as space in this way provides further evidence that its causes and effects are intricately gendered.     

Indigènes after Indigènes: post-war France and its North African troops

This article focuses on North African soldiers who served in the French army of occupation in western Germany after its liberation in 1945. Taking as its starting point Rachid Bouchareb's 2006 film, Indigènes, the article contrasts claims the film made about the memorial exclusion of the colonial soldier with his surprising centrality to French accounts of their own military exploits. Using publications issued by the army for its internal readership and archival records of the military occupation's day-to-day activities, the author argues for a modified understanding of the French Republican notion of assimilation that is able to take account of the prolific representation of the North African soldier, and his accommodation, in Cold War Germany.     

The Other Allies: Military Security,National Allegiance,and the Enlistment of ‘Friendly Aliens’ in the Australian Armed Forces, 1939–45

Abstract

This article investigates military security attitudes toward the enlistment of ‘friendly aliens’ in the Australian armed forces during the Second World War. Employing of?cial correspondence of the period, the study positions contemporary debates regarding the enlistment of Allied nationals from Axis-occupied countries within the context of Australian conceptions of race, British nationality, and national allegiance. It is argued that, while British practice was in?uential and uniformity of Imperial policy was a desired objective, the unique concerns of Australian security, the domestic relationship between citizenship and military service, and the White Australia policy combined to determine the nature and application of Australian security attitudes in this area. In certain cases, these factors exercised severely negative impacts upon ‘friendly aliens’ who volunteered for service in the Australian armed forces.     

From ethnographic knowledge to anthropological intelligence: An anthropologist in the office of strategic services in Second World War Africa

This article explores the overlapping modalities and practical purposes of anthropological ethnographic knowledge and political–military intelligence gathering – the commonalities as well as the boundaries between them – through an analysis of the career of the anthropologist Jack Sargent Harris (1912–2008), a secret operative for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War in Nigeria and South Africa. Calling upon archival and oral historical sources, the article relates Harris’s training in Boasian cultural anthropology and as a professional ethnographer of African societies and cultures to the ways he recruited informants, conducted surveillance, related to foreign Allied officials, utilized documentary evidence, and worked to establish authority and credibility in his wartime intelligence reporting. The article argues that political purpose is a central artefact of anthropological ethnography as it is in other ethnographic modalities even if the justifications for these endeavours remain distinct.     

Gender and Post‐war Relief: Support for War‐Widowed Mothers in Occupied Japan (1945–52)

This article analyses the gender implications that emerged through welfare support for the war‐bereaved in post‐Asia‐Pacific War Japan. It follows the foundation, activities and dissolution of the Federation of Bereaved War Victims, the first support group for the war‐bereaved that initially began as an organisation for military widows. After its dissolution, members of the Federation went on to create two separate groups – the Victims’ Federation and Widows’ Federation – whose members, scope and objectives presented stark gendered divisions. By examining this divide, and by analysing the earlier histories of the organisations, this article explores the relationships among gender, military, death and bereavement, and post‐war relief. The article pays particular attention to the tensions and negotiations among various interest groups, including military widows, women widowed from other causes, feminist activists, male lawmakers, bereaved fathers and the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. I place the dissolution of the Federation in its social and political contexts and analyse its relationship to the contemporaneous discussions on female citizenship. In particular, I focus on two areas mobilised by Japanese feminist activists since the early twentieth century: suffrage and motherhood. The short history of the Federation provides a means to examine the reconfiguration of the connection between gender and citizenship during the demilitarisation and democratisation processes that occurred in occupied Japan.     

St John's Ambulance Brigade and the Gendering of ‘Passive Defence’ in British Malaya, 1937–42

The St John's Ambulance Brigade established itself in British Malaya in the 1930s, as part of efforts to mobilise and train the colony's subjects for civil defence as the geo‐strategic climate in the Pacific deteriorated. This article demonstrates how the provision of emergency medical care was a gendered and racialised undertaking in the colonial context. Unlike the military, comprising mainly European and ‘trusted’ ethnic Indian soldiers, the realm of ‘passive defence’ was identified as a feminised undertaking for women and ethnic Chinese men who were considered to be either too vulnerable or too disloyal to bear arms. The rapid advance of Japan's military in south‐east Asia violently shattered such social boundaries, as many women and non‐European volunteers found themselves exposed by retreating Allied forces to the Japanese offensive and took up duties at posts from which their European supervisors had been forced to desert. Mainstream military historiography has often been highly gendered towards what is considered as the male‐dominated public domain of the battlefield. In this respect, the involvement of the St John's Ambulance Brigade reveals the process in which colonial ethno‐gender identities and hierarchies were being established, appropriated and subsequently subverted by the exigencies of the war in British Malaya.     

The Kosovo war in perspective

In historical perspective, the Kosovo war stands as a significant turning point. Within the Balkan region, Operation Allied Force marked the end of the nationalist wars of the 1990s and the beginning of a new phase of partnership and integration with the EU and NATO. In terms of the wider European security order, its repercussions were contradictory. NATO reasserted its role as Europe's leading security institution, yet Operation Allied Force also gave significant momentum to the EU's development as a quasi military body. Further afield, an immediate crisis erupted in Russo-western relations followed by renewed cooperation on the ground; the longer-term impact, however, was a lingering resentment in Moscow at NATO action. At the global level, meanwhile, Operation Allied Force appeared to symbolize the primacy of both American-led western power and of the liberal norms and values that underpinned the intervention. But this was arguably a high point: future global security crises would be managed in the context of the rising power of the non-western world, a more fragmented West and greater contestation over the norms that should underpin international society.     

Japanese Intelligence Operations in Scandinavia during World War II

Japanese intelligence operations in Scandinavia became active after the collapse of Poland in September 1939. Both the Japanese and the Finns exchanged information on Soviet military cryptography and tried to decrypt the enemy's codes. As a result of the cooperation, the Finns succeeded in decrypting Soviet naval code at the beginning of the Continuation War. Onodera Makoto, Japanese military attaché in Sweden, collected a lot of valuable information on the Allied Powers in the neutral country, though the General Staff in Tokyo disregarded them as unreliable.     

The Field Artillery Revolution and the European Military Balance, 1890–1914

ABSTRACT

This article centres on the introduction of the French 75mm light field gun, and its impact on the European military balance in the two decades before the First World War. It argues that the 75mm (and particularly its new recoil-absorption mechanism) dramatically accelerated the rate of fire and gave France a major military advantage over Germany between c. 1899 and 1906. Subsequently the application of the new technology to howitzers and heavy artillery enabled Germany to redress the balance. On the eve of war, however, Germany's leaders feared a new round of French and Russian emulation, and this fear influenced their policy in the July 1914 crisis. The article also examines the failure to forestall the quick-firing revolution at the First Hague Peace Conference; the new technology's role in the First Moroccan Crisis; its dissemination across Europe and the Franco-German competition to amass reserves of shells.     

‘War against the mosquito’: Allies,Italians and malaria during the occupation of Puglia, 1943–1946

War and healthcare are inextricably linked. In fact, the prevalence of disease in the armed forces can inflict more damage than the enemy. The case of endemic malaria during the Italian campaign of 1943–1945 in the Second World War is an excellent example. The region of Puglia was one of the most malarial regions in Italy and provides a noteworthy case of Anglo-American endeavours to eliminate the mosquito during the Second World War. The high prevalence of endemic malaria in the area represented a substantial threat to the health of Allied forces and as a result to the Allied war effort. This article explores Allied efforts to protect both Italian civilians and Allied troops from malaria, in order to demonstrate how Allied health policies affected the Allied–Italian relationship.     

Replacing a Father: civilian aspects of the Swedish military, 1600–1800

Early modern society was characterized by severe conflicts, but not all were caused by antagonistic relations between military (combatants) and civilian (noncombatants) persons. The civil–military relations were blurred. The separation and differentiation of civil and military functions in society was a process that occurred mainly in the 19th century. This process coincided with a conceptual change of the nature of gender: ‘civil’ became feminine and ‘military’ became masculine. Civil–military relations in early modern societies have recently been the focus of novel and productive research, and this article falls into that category. How civilian aspects of society were subordinated to military demands while still being a part of the military is examined in this article from a different angle; namely, to what extent the military was in charge of civilian aspects within its own organization. This is discussed from a gender perspective and scrutinized through the role of children in a series of issues connected with the creation of boundaries between civilian and military spheres in society. To put it simply, what did children do within the Swedish military in the 17th and 18th centuries? And who were the children? The answers are based on data from garrisons and the Swedish Ship’s Boys’ Corps, together with data from previous research on military history in Scandinavia. The article is part of a project that aims to make visible the role of children in the military prior to the era of child soldiers.     

Cameroonian Schutztruppe Soldiers in Spanish-Ruled Fernando Po during the First World War: A ‘Menace to the Peace’?1

When the German forces were ousted from Cameroon in early 1916, they fled south to neutral Spanish Guinea. Tens of thousands of Cameroonians joined them. Over 20,000 African soldiers and hangers-on were eventually accommodated by the Spanish authorities on the island Fernando Po, off the Cameroonian coast. Despite mounting Allied pressure on Spain to disband and repatriate the troops, they remained on the island until after armistice. They were largely under German control, and received military training during their internment. The delayed repatriation of Cameroonian soldiers, in 1919, had a pronounced effect on their communities at home.     

Foreign banks in the pacific: a note

The lives of Pacific Islanders during World War II can be described through a combination of documentary and oral history. This article reviews the experiences of the people of Chuuk (formerly ‘Truk’) in the Central Caroline Islands during the Pacific War. Chuuk served as headquarters for the Japanese Imperial Navy's Fourth Fleet and, later, rear area headquarters for the Combined Fleet. When the Japanese military shifted to defence in mid-1943, troops fortified the island, resulting in the confiscation of land and relocation of the Chuukese. From late 1943 to August 1945, Chuukese experience was shaped by Allied bombing, intensive labour demands from the Japanese garrison, and severe food shortages. After surrender, Chuuk was occupied by a minimal US Navy presence. The war and its aftermath shaped modern Chuuk through permanent changes in its resources, economy and political role.     

‘The Sustenance of Salisbury’ in the era of Decolonization: The Portuguese Politics of Neutrality and the Rhodesian Oil Embargo, 1965–7

This article investigates Denmark's international legal status during the Second World War. In exploring this theme it brings together two emergent research perspectives on twentieth-century international political history: (1) a growing interest in small states as actors and active interpreters of international political events in times of crisis and war; and (2) a focus on international law as an independent and so far underexplored research theme. From this double perspective the article highlights and analyses the unprecedented and unparalleled character of the legal relationship between Denmark and Germany after the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940. In doing so it places particular focus on how this situation was viewed and conceptualised by Danish politicians and legal experts. Thus it explores the complex entanglement of politics and law that characterised Danish attempts to bring about and consolidate the particular peaceful and ‘normal’ relationship with Germany as well as efforts to change this relationship and make Denmark a belligerent state. By analysing the four concepts of neutrality, non-belligerence, peaceful occupation, and war the article shows how these legal concepts served as political instruments that were pushed forward by competing and changing understandings of Denmark's international position and interests during the war. But it also shows how these legal conceptualisations were fundamentally structured by the general international legal and political developments of the war (the deterioration of neutrality and the emergence of long-term military occupation and guerrilla warfare throughout Europe). And it demonstrates how they gradually took on a life of their own and came to frame and shape perceptions of Denmark's international position - both among Danish politicians and bureaucrats during the Second World War and among historians to this day.     

Pushed into Pragmatism: British Approaches to Science in Post-War Occupied Germany

One of the most important dilemmas facing the British authorities when they occupied their zone of Germany at the end of the Second World War was what to do with German science. The contributions made by scientists and engineers to the Nazi war machine, in fields such as rocketry and submarines, meant that German science was both revered and feared, and was therefore closely linked to concerns about a post-war military resurgence in Germany. This article aims to chart the changing approaches which the British occupation officials adopted towards German science in this period. While the initial intention was to prevent Germany from ever waging war again, through demilitarisation, denazification and dismantling, the focus changed as British enmity shifted from a former adversary, Germany, to a former ally, the Soviet Union. Policy reflected this shift as technology transfer and the reconstruction of domestic German science won greater favour. This article aims to show that, in the face of growing hostility from the USSR and in the deeply suspicious climate of the early Cold War, Britain was forced to abandon its moral mission towards German science and adopt a far more pragmatic strategy instead.