Why the General said No

Based upon recently published volumes of French diplomatic documents, this review article examines the course of the negotiations for British entry into the European Economic Community from 1961 to 1963 and the reasons why France vetoed Britains application. It is clear that even before the British government launched its application, the French government was aware of the threat it posed to the cohesion of the Community and to French interests. It therefore pursued tactics of delay. The British, who were in a hurry to join, vainly sought to convince the French of their conversion to the Gaullist conception of a con–federal Europe that would be independent of both the Soviet Union and the United States, even dangling the prospect of nuclear cooperation before President de Gaulle. The latter's position inside France was relatively weak until he won a referendum on the direct election of the president in October 1962 and his party triumphed in the legislative elections the following month. De Gaulle then felt secure enough to tell Prime Minister Macmillan quite bluntly at their Rambouillet meeting on 15–16 December 1962 that he did not believe that Britain was ready for EEC membership. He had thus already made up his mind to exclude Britain before the Nassau agreement between President Kennedy and Mr Macmillan in which the former agreed to supply Britain with Polaris nuclear missiles, although this agreement confirmed his belief that Britain was excessively dependent upon the United States. Although economic questions—particularly those relating to the system of agricultural support and to Britain's request for special concessions to Australia, Canada and New Zealand—did play an important part in de Gaulle's decision, it is clear that political factors were uppermost in his mind. He did not want either a diluted Community or one in which there was a possible rival to French leadership.     

The Heath Government and British Defence Policy in Southeast Asia at the End of Empire (1970-71)

This article examines the rationale behind the Heath government's1970 decision to negotiate a Five Power Defence agreement withAustralia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia and to maintaina small British military contingent in Southeast Asia as a partof this new politico-military framework. It argues that whileits overriding foreign policy concern was to end Britain's problematicrelationship with the European Economic Community and to makemembership of this grouping the cornerstone of its foreign policy,the Heath government was careful not to cast Britain's post-imperialfuture in purely European terms. The successful negotiationof the Five Power Defence Arrangements in 1970–71 wasinstrumental in achieving this by ensuring that London wouldmaintain close links with key Commonwealth partners in the Asianregion. In what was not only an attempt to neutralize potentialdomestic opposition to Britain's entry into the EEC, but alsoa lingering reluctance to do away with the rhetoric of Britainas a leading power with extra-European interests, Heath waseager to show that by making a contribution to the stabilityof Southeast Asia, Britain still had a role to play outsideEurope.     

英国与德国的重新武装

对于20世纪50年代前期德国的重新武装,英国初则支持美国的大西洋联盟框架而反对法国建立欧洲军的普利计划;在美国对法妥协的斯波福德计划失败后。转而对普利计划采取较积极的态度;法国计划失败后,又通过艾登计划最终将德国重新武装纳入大西洋联盟框架。上述政策的变化受到两大因素的制约,即美国压力下重新武装德国的迫切性和重新武装的框架——大西洋联盟还是超国家的欧洲机构。前决定了英国对法国计划态度的转变,后则决定了英国不会加入欧洲防务集团并始终希望建立大西洋联盟框架。实际上,英国的方针是一贯的,造成法国计划失败的主要原因还在于法国人自己。     

伊拉克哈希姆王朝的建立与英国的委任统治

占领美索不达米亚、控制波斯湾本来是英国一个多世纪的追求,但第一次世界大战结束后,英帝国由占领者变为受任国,这并非英国人的初衷和意愿。战时英国在巴士拉的军事管理搬用印度经验;委任统治的第一步则是创建伊拉克政权,扶持汉志哈希姆家族的费萨尔王子管理伊拉克。在伊拉克的委任统治中引进英国式宪政,但并没有触动美索不达米亚和摩苏尔地区的社会基础,甚至保护和强化了当地的部落制。英国较早地允许伊拉克国家独立,但一直从军事和财政方面控制着伊拉克。伊拉克革命彻底赶走了英帝国主义,但英国在伊拉克委任统治的影响并未在短期内消除,相反,给伊拉克后来的发展埋下了隐患。     

'A Matter of Regret': Britain, the 1983 Grendada Crisis, and the Special Relationship

When the USA launched a military intervention in Grenada inOctober 1983 it was against the wishes of its closest ally,Britain, who felt deliberately misled as to Washington's intentions.As a former British colony and member of the Commonwealth, withthe Queen as Head of State, Grenada remained of interest toBritain. This article will provide a detailed analysis of Anglo-Grenadianrelations and the events and contacts between the USA and Britainduring and after the 1983 crisis and assess the role of the‘special relationship’ in shaping Britain's reactionto the intervention. I conclude that the conventional wisdomthat Britain was ‘in the dark’ about what was happeningis not entirely accurate. ^*The views expressed in this article represent those of theauthor alone.     

The collapse of British foreign policy

British foreign policy has tried to balance between the United States and continental Europe for the past half-century, with an unambiguous commitment to a special relationship with Washington and an ambiguous commitment to European integration. New Labour has followed its predecessors in this, claiming that Britain can act as a bridge between America and Europe, or as a pivot around which transatlantic relations turn. In the wake of the Iraq war, deepened scepticism in Washington about whether close European cooperation is in America's interest, and scepticism across continental Europe that Britain can or should act as a privileged interlocuteur, have undermined both ends of the bridge on which British foreign policy claims to rest. The end of US commitment to Atlanticism, together with post-Cold War divergence between US and European interests and values, should have led to a shift in British priorities towards closer cooperation with other major European states and-from that shared perspective-an attempt to reconstruct a more balanced transatlantic relationship. The EU presents a sadly weak framework for such a strategy; but Britain's domestic debate, in which this government-like its predecessors-has allowed a Eurosceptic press to shape the language of foreign policy, has made it more difficult for any government to change direction. Recent government speeches on foreign policy, however, suggest that ministers still cling to the illusion that Britain has a 'unique' position between Europe and the United States.     

英国海外粮食公司活动考察

1947年,英国成立海外粮食公司,主要是为解决战后初年面临的经济困难,如食品短缺和美元荒。公司的主要任务是实施东非花生种植计划,该计划虽然一改再改,到50年代中期仍以失败告终。失败的重要原因是脱离了客观实际,特别是过分低估了清除灌木丛的难度。海外粮食公司的活动期正是世界范围内民族解放运动如火如荼的时期,英国的殖民统治受到严峻挑战,英属东非正在走向独立。这不能不说是英国海外粮食公司失败的重大时代背景。     

Is Britain European?

To ask ‘Is Britain European?’ is to engage in a particularly difficult area of the always elusive business of Identity Studies. The very nature and future viability of Britain have recently been subject to extensive questioning. Meanwhile, one can distinguish at least six politically relevant senses of the term ‘European’. Britain was never as exceptional as was suggested by the traditional story of British exceptionalism told by the ‘Island Story’ school of historians. Moreover, it has become much less insular over the past sixty years. The question is whether the process has been Europeanization, Americanization or simply globalization. There is considerable evidence that the country's ties to what Churchill called 'the English‐speaking peoples' are still as strong as those to continental Europe. In fact, both sets of ties have become stronger. But these identities are not exclusive. Britain has always been a place of multiple over‐lapping identities: English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish, as well as British, European and transoceanic. That Britain's European identity is bound to remain only a partial identity does not mean it has to be a shallow one. If Britain is to be a full and effective participant in Europe it has to deepen its European identity, to develop something of the normative, idealistic sense of being European which is second nature to most continental Europeans engaged in these debates.     

坚守还是让渡——二战后英国人主权观述论

英国人对主权让渡的认识经历了较为复杂的过程:从欧洲一体化初期不愿让渡主权,到加入欧共体时出现"无关主权"、"共享主权"和"威胁主权"三种认知,之后逐渐形成主流共识:一方面,让渡部分主权、融入欧洲一体化有利于增进英国国家利益;但另一方面,无论"亲欧派"还是"疑欧派"都坚持英国的核心主权不可让渡的原则,并且不认同欧洲联邦是欧洲一体化的终结目标。英国政府采取务实主义的态度,既通过"非政治化"努力避免主权让渡成为与欧共体/欧盟合作的障碍,又坚守英国的法理主权地位,部分主权的让渡与否取决于对本国利益的权衡和国内政治的需要。英国人对主权让渡的"保守"态度是他们认知主权的一种"英国方式",但它并没有改变英国人的上述主流共识。     

Drivers and difficulties in the economic relationship between Australia and the European Union: from conflict to cooperation

ABSTRACT

Economic relations between Australia and the European Union (EU) have always been strong, but they have not always been easy. They have been difficult for Australia because it associated the EU with the loss of the UK preferential export market on its entry into the then European Economic Community. And because Australia associated the EU with the original Common Agricultural Policy, which combined subsidies for agricultural production and high agricultural tariffs to make Australian agricultural exports not competitive. They have been difficult for the EU also. Australia developed a biosecurity system to protect its agricultural sector: quarantine requirements and food safety standards made the importation of EU plant and animal products too costly. Yet Australia and the EU need each other. The EU, which is Australia’s largest services trade and investment partner, supplies the business services that drive a knowledge economy and provides the credit to finance economic development. Correspondingly, the EU needs Australia both as a commercial base in Asia and as a reliable energy supplier. This article analyses the drivers and difficulties in the economic relationship between Australia and the EU as they start negotiations for a free trade agreement.     

Brexit or Bremain: what future for the UK's European diplomatic strategy?

A major public debate on the costs and benefits of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union is presently under way. The outcome of the referendum on 23 June 2016 will be a pivotal moment in determining whether the EU has a future as a component of the UK's European diplomatic strategy or whether there is a major recalibration of how the UK relates to Europe and more widely of its role within international relations. Since accession to the European Economic Community the UK has evolved an uncodified, multipronged European diplomatic strategy. This has involved the UK seeking to reinforce its approach of shaping the security of the continent, preserving a leading diplomatic role for the UK in managing the international relations of Europe, and to maximize British trade and investment opportunities through a broadening and deepening of Europe as an economically liberal part of the global political economy. Since accession the UK's European diplomatic strategy has also been to use membership of the EU to facilitate the enhancement of its international influence, primarily as a vehicle for leveraging and amplifying broader national foreign and security policy objectives. The strategy has been consistent irrespective of which party has formed the government in the UK. Increasing domestic political difficulties with the process of European integration have now directly impacted on this European strategy with a referendum commitment. Whether a vote for a Brexit or a Bremain, the UK will be confronted with challenges for its future European strategy.     

Conducting Locarno Diplomacy: Britain and the Austro-German Customs Union Crisis, 1931

It has frequently been asserted that following its signing ofthe Treaty of Locarno in 1925 Britain withdrew from Europeanaffairs to concentrate on imperial and domestic concerns. Thisarticle, building upon an argument developed in an earlier volumeof Twentieth Century British History (Vol. 6. (1995), 1–22),seeks to demonstrate, using the example of British policy andthe customs union crisis, that rather than cutting Britain awayfrom European affairs, Locarno had the opposite effect. By signingLocarno, Britain had undertaken commitments it had no desireto honour, i. e. siding with either France or Germany in a renewedEuropean war. The continuing reconciliation between France andGermany was essential to ensure that peace would prevail inEurope and thereby secure a fundamental objective of Britishforeign policy. British policy regarding the customs union crisisprovides an example of how important Britain believed its roleto be in harmonizing Franco-German relations and maintainingthe Locarno system.     

Building Bridges across the Atlantic: the European Union Visitors Program. A Case Study for Public Diplomacy and the Transatlantic Relationship in the 1970s

This article addresses the core question of the complex interplay between Atlantic-alliance politics and European integration in the 1970s, a turning point in the European-US relationship. The analysis focuses on the European Community Visitors Program: the first European Community (EC) professional exchange programme seeking to foster mutual understanding between the Community and the United States, which is an intriguing case study in the history of transatlantic relations from a public-diplomacy standpoint. Its relevance is indeed twofold. From an intra-European perspective, it has contributed to laying the foundations for an identity discourse, upon which the narrative of a Euro-exceptionalism has been constructed from the 1970s onwards. Furthermore, as an exchange programme fostering connections among elites abroad, it has enhanced the EC's visibility outside its borders and thus promoted its recognition worldwide. At a systemic level, the ECVP - modelled after the most famous US public-diplomacy programmes - has served as a transatlantic bridge-builder and a prime tool for facilitating alliance management during the cold war, particularly in the troubled 1970s.     

The United States, Algeria, and the Fall of the Fourth French Republic

The relative alacrity with which the United States accepted the collapse of the Fourth Republic in France in May 1958 stands in marked contrast to the obsessive concern with French internal stability that characterized the earlier postwar period of U.S.-French relations. Indeed, the Americans appear to have played a considerable role in undermining the very stability of the regime they had done so much since 1947 to help preserve. Much had changed in the intervening period that helps explain the revised American attitude. The French economy, precarious and dependent on American assistance in the years 1947 to 1952, was now robust and growing, and the threat of the French Communist party, which the Americans believed strong enough to seize power virtually at will in 1947, was now much reduced. The French army had been built by Washington into a powerful military force, meant to be the linchpin of European defense against a Soviet invasion, but it was now heavily embroiled in Algeria, and its role was on the way to being assumed by a restored German army, negotiated on the heels of the failure to construct a European Defense Community in 1954.¹ Finally, in the immediate postwar period, Paris and Washington had acted as allies, the United States offering military assistance and almost fully financing the Indochina War by 1953, although the French goal, to preserve their crumbling empire, became obscured by the American obsession with the possible expansion of Soviet power. In Algeria, in contrast, the conflict began in November 1954, following the humiliating French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and withdrawal from Indochina. In the absence of communism as a salient issue, American anticolonial attitudes came into play, and frustration grew with the French inability to bring a conclusion to a war that, as viewed in Washington, increasingly appeared to play into the hands of Soviet ambitions.     

The Politics of Preaching the Promised Land for the Canaanites

Abstract

This paper explores issues around European Christian theological prejudice against Jews and Judaism and asks whether attempts to make amends for the wrongs done to one people have blunted the conscience of Christians to the sufferings of another. It is ironic that the division between those who attribute anti-Semitism to New Testament texts and those who blame the misuse of the texts mirrors division over colonialist ideologies in the Old Testament. Should we blame the text or its interpreters? There is irony in the fact that those who wrestle with anti-Judaic texts in the New Testament are seldom the same people who perceive problems with the land traditions in the Old—or indeed the other way round! Evangelical Christian Zionist insensitivity towards the Palestinians derives from biblical fundamentalism. Mainstream Christian Zionism derives partly from guilt over past Christian crimes against the Jews but it also reveals a residual fundamentalist underpinning.     

Holy Wisdom and British foreign policy, 1918-1922: the St. Sophia redemption agitation

Abstract

As the Ottoman Empire tottered towards its final collapse at the end of the First World War the fate of its various territorial components aroused the interest not only of other states, but of interest groups within those states. Britain in particular revealed a strong concern with this subject, having long been interested in the Eastern Mediterranean. The end of the Ottoman Empire saw the legendary Lawrence of Arabia grasping the Arab lands, various secret treaties with the other Great Powers disposed of much of Anatolia, and the future of Turkish rule over Constantinople, that much sought after city, now hung in the balance. The final fate of the city would be decided at the postwar Paris Peace Conference. Of all of the spoils of the Ottomans none evoked such passions as that inspired by Constantinople – Byzantium, the Second Rome. If any building could epitomise the Europeans' vision of this city it was the St Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom, which since the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had been a mosque. With the end of Ottoman dominance an opportunity was seen by some of symbolically completing a crusade begun centuries before, with the expulsion of the Turks, and Islam, from Europe. Nothing could so symbolise a change of control at Constantinople than the reconversion of St Sophia into a church. This found support from those who wished to see the Turk expelled bag and baggage from Europe. The philhellenes saw its transfer to the Greek Orthodox church as indicating the resurgence of the Greek nation, and forming the backdrop to eventual Greek control of Constantinople. In Britain the focus of such views was the St Sophia Redemption Committee, which sought to restore the building to its original function. Now virtually forgotten, the agitation for the redemption of St Sophia was an emotive topic during the first months of peace. The supporters of this movement were not a group of fringe political cranks, and its members numbered two future foreign secretaries and many other prominent public figures. The popular agitation coordinated by this committee, and the opposition it encountered, illustrate some of the complexities at work in the formulation of a coherent Eastern Mediterranean policy for Britain.     

The Labour government and the battle for public opinion in the 1975 referendum on the European Community

An upsurge of historical research in this century has assessed various campaigns that promoted European Community (EC) membership to the British people. This article, concentrating on the Labour government’s approach to the 1975 referendum on the EC, uses sources such as official records at The National Archives and political papers of some of the key agents; these sources have hitherto been underused for investigating public opinion-related activities on Europe in 1975. Although acknowledging that the interpretation of a government-controlled referendum applies up to a point, the article emphasises, as its key theme, the government’s difficulties in controlling events during the campaign itself. Despite having much support from newspapers, the government often had difficult relations with the mass media as a whole, and the article challenges the belief that it was effective here. This article also contests the idea that the campaign made much impression on the public. These findings further apply to other campaigns on the EC in the 1960s and 1970s and potentially in contemporary British politics.     

French–German relations: the Strasbourg–Kehl encounter, 1945–55

German–French relations have proved to be pivotal to the course of modern European history. Recent success, however, has somewhat obscured our memory of the difficult path that has been trod. Directing our attention to Kehl, a small village on the upper Rhine, we can revisit the difficulties inherent in resolving feelings of mutual animosity and longstanding historical problems. Kehl stands for the quest for reconciliation at the local and regional level. In the immediate postwar era, French dreams of continued influence over the Rhine valley would have to be put aside just like German anger over their treatment by the French.     

No Hammock for the Idle: The Conservative Party, 'Youth' and the Welfare State in the 1960s

The postwar ‘baby boom’ focused unprecedented attentionon young people in Britain and made ‘youth’ a newand increasingly worrying category of both social and politicalidentity. Belief in the uniqueness of postwar youth was widelyshared among political parties but it caused particular anxietyfor the Conservatives who feared that young people in the 1960swere shaped by values that predisposed them to socialism, notconservatism. This article traces the Conservative party's interactionwith ‘youth’ through an examination of the policy-makingefforts of the Young Conservatives (YCs) organization. Afterthe 1959 election, the Conservative party was anxious to retainthe support of younger voters and saw the YCs as a vehicle topublicize its commitment to them. Departing from the YCs’long-standing emphasis on social activities, the party establisheda Policy Group Scheme to integrate younger members into policy-makingand encourage a ‘youth’ perspective on key policyareas such as the welfare state. However, in 1966, the PolicyGroup Scheme ended as it became clear that young people's loyaltyto the main party was not conditional upon participation inpolicy-making and the YCs’ model of postwar conservatismdiffered very little from that of older Conservatives. Thisanalysis of grassroots discussion of the welfare state thusestablishes the limits of a distinctive ‘youth’perspective on major issues in modern conservatism such as individualfreedom and the role of the state, and contributes to recentdiscussions of the role of age and demographic structure inpostwar Britain.     

Radar and Air Defence in the 1930s

The article sets out to demonstrate that radar played a central,but hitherto unrecognized, role in the formation of Britishair policy during the 1930s. It is generally conceived thatthe secret of radar was stumbled across, as if by accident,in early 1935, and was then employed to devastating effect inthe Battle of Britain. The article, however, shows that thedesire for an effective instrument for air defence had gestatedduring the First World Wart—when Britain sought to fightoff the Zeppelin and Gotha bombing raids—and the searchcontinued throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Moreover, theprinciple of radar had been known since 1904, but scientificbackwardness precluded practical progress. There is detailedexamination of the intricate political manoeuvring by PrimeMinister Stanley Baldwin and others which accompanied the adoptionof radar as Britain's primary line of defence against the Luftwaffein preference to the increasingly obsolete doctrine of bomberdeterrence. In conclusion, radar was deliberately developed,and consciously conceived of, as a device that would be slottedinto a proved framework of observation and organization constructedon top of Britain's First World War air defence system.