Three Scandinavian Counterfactual Scenarios from the Napoleonic Wars

The article focuses on the possibilities of counterfactual history through three showcases from the Scandinavian theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. The scenarios are based on clearly described and plausible points of divergence, i.e. single, identifiable historical events that could have resulted in a different outcome. The counterfactuals are explored by means of systematic extrapolation. The first scenario presents the possibility of a Danish victory against the British naval expedition in the Battle of Copenhagen Roads in 1801. The scenario seeks to answer the question whether the Danish victory could have maintained the League of Armed Neutrality intact in some form, keeping Scandinavia out of the Napoleonic Wars altogether. The second scenario describes the Abborfors border dispute of 1803, which historically nearly triggered a war between Sweden and Russia. The extrapolation focuses on the hypothetical consequences of a premature Swedish-Russian conflict in 1803, and its impact on the War of the Third Coalition. The third scenario explores the hypothetical French invasion of Jutland in 1807, and the potential of Scandinavia as a strategic quagmire of the Napoleonic Wars, comparable to what Spain became in our timeline.     

‘L’île des bannis’: Jersey,Britain and the French Emigration 1789–1815

ABSTRACT

The case of the Channel Island of Jersey is an important yet understudied part of the British Empire’s response to the French Emigration 1789–1815. During its high point in 1792–3, the émigré population in and around Jersey’s main town of St Helier was as large as that in London and one of the European centres of political migration. This article explores the complicated relationship between Jersey’s political institutions, the British military authorities in London, the British government and the émigré community. It shows how a brewing humanitarian crisis in the island prompted the British government to sanction subsistence payments in Jersey and enlist Royalist émigrés months before these policies were adopted in Britain. But British support was intimately bound up with the émigrés’ anti-Revolutionary military activities, as much as humanitarian concerns. The forced expulsion of most émigrés to Britain in summer 1796 resulted not from concerns about the wellbeing of the émigré community in face of imminent French invasion, but concerns about the Royalists’ military loyalties. During the Napoleonic Wars, British policy towards the émigrés lacked coherence and was not categorized by overriding humanitarian goals, though such concerns did compete with strategic ones.     

Missionaries,Evangelical Identity,and the Religious Ecology of Early Nineteenth‐Century South Carolina and the British Caribbean

This article examines a critical question that fraught contemporaries throughout the Atlantic system in the early nineteenth century: could slavery be ameliorated and, thus, by implication, could slaves be ‘improved’? Despite strong eighteenth‐century connections through trade and as provincial outposts of the British Empire, South Carolina and the British Caribbean differed markedly on this issue by the early 1800s. But the reasons for this divergence cannot be adequately explained by the effects of the American Revolution. South Carolina slaveholders believed that slavery could be ameliorated through the adoption of evangelicalism. West Indian proprietors, however, believed that the introduction of evangelical religion among their slaves would only incite them to rebel. Thus, evangelical missionaries were often crucial figures in defining the character of slaveholding societies in South Carolina and the West Indies. These missionaries illustrated South Carolinians' paternalistic, benevolent sense of a permanent slave society, while itinerants in the West Indies described a violent, lawless, and temporary society beyond the pale of British standards of civility and humanitarianism.     

Colonial Networks,Australian Humanitarianism and the History Wars

The ‘History Wars’ have brought contests among Britons over the colonisation of Aboriginal land and people to the forefront of public consciousness in Australia. These contests, however, were the result of trajectories that criss‐crossed British imperial spaces, connecting Australia with other settler colonies and the British metropole. A number of historians and historical geographers have recently employed the notion of the network to highlight the interconnected geographies of the British Empire. This paper begins by examining the utility of such a re‐conceptualisation. It then fleshes out empirically the networked nature of early nineteenth century humanitarianism in colonial New South Wales. Both the relatively progressive potential of this humanitarian network, and its complicity in an ethnocentric politics of assimilationism are analysed. Settler networks, developed as a counter to humanitarian influence in the colony, are also examined more briefly. This account of contested networks demonstrates that they were never simply about communication, but always, fundamentally, about the organisation and contestation of dispossessive trajectories that linked diverse colonial and metropolitan sites. The paper concludes by noting some of the implications of such a networked analysis of dispossession and assimilation for Australia's ‘History Wars’.     

Comprehending the Qing Empire: Building Multilingual Competence in an Age of Imperial Rivalry, 1792–1820*

Abstract

European knowledge of the four dominant languages of the Qing Empire, Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan, was transformed between 1792 and 1820 as a consequence of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Although these conflicts did not dramatically alter European political relations with the Qing Empire, they inaugurated a series of more subtle changes that collectively produced this surge in linguistic ability. First, this period saw unprecedented European interest in, and access to, the inland frontiers of the Qing Empire. Such access convinced some that China was newly accessible through the empire’s diverse Inner Asian territories, leading them to plan bold ventures in diplomacy, trade, proselytization, and academic research. These ambitious projects, although rarely accomplishing their goals, stimulated research by seeming to demand new linguistic capabilities for their execution. The fact that they often envisioned crossing Inner Asia to reach China explains why progress in Chinese occurred together with Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan. Another factor promoting a sudden surge in multilingual competence was the speed with which breakthroughs could now be communicated through imperial and trans-imperial networks. Printing, evangelical and learned societies, and new professional opportunities, gave European scholars unprecedented access to advances made on or near the Qing frontier.     

Farewell Lord Jeffrey Amherst: Debate over Amherst College's institutional anchorage in history (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Over the last quarter century or more there has been continuous debate in American colleges and universities over the use of icons and mascots as identity markers and subjects of dramatized playing field appearances and of rouse songs. For the most part these icons and mascots have been essentialized American Indians. The Amherst case is unique. The icon, mascot and song subject is an historical figure, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the British general ultimately victorious in the French and Indian Wars of the mid‐18th century in America. Recently there has been considerable debate at Amherst College about General Lord Amherst as an appropriate icon because he is also associated with a failed Indian policy and the genocidal use of smallpox blankets against the Indians. He has long been in disrepute for these actions among anthropologists specializing in Native American studies and among historians of the 18th century in America. This article examines the historical reasons for the present debate and the principal differences at play.     

The Failure of Restored British Rule in Revolutionary Charleston,South Carolina

The two-year occupation of Charleston, South Carolina, during the American Revolution demonstrates that umbrages suffered under military rule played a significant role in turning civilians in the 13 colonies against the British Empire. Despite British attempts to encourage loyalty by giving loyalists a say in government, stabilising the economy and guaranteeing the safety of slave property, Charleston's occupation regime failed to win local hearts and minds due to inconsistent and arbitrary policies, conflicts between military and civilian authorities and the unwillingness of imperial officials to restore full civil government to the province. As a result, South Carolinians lost faith in Charleston's restored royal administration long before British defeat on the battlefield secured American independence.     

Edward Harold Fulcher Swain's Vision of Forest Modernity

Edward Harold Fulcher Swain (1883–1970) developed a unique idea about the importance of forests, advocating the creation of a new society based upon forests, and he pursued policies to implement his unique vision of forestry when he served as the Director of Queensland's Forestry Board from 1918 to 1924 and the Forestry Commissioner for New South Wales from 1935 to 1948. Swain's beliefs developed out of a combination of his Australian experiences and connections with foresters in the British Empire and America. When he could not convince Australian elites about the need to create a forest-based society, he asked foresters at the 1947 Empire Forestry Conference in London to assert the primacy of forestry in land management in the British Empire. Many foresters positively received parts of Swain's argument, but his ideas could never be fully implemented in the British Empire because of the dominance of agrarian doctrines of development in post-Second World War colonial planning and the rapid process of decolonization. Swain's life sheds light onto current debates among historians about the origin and legacy of forestry in Australia and the British Empire. His ideas, many that parallel the basic tenets of modern environmentalism, require historians to rethink the relationship between Empire forestry and environmentalism.     

Book Reviews

The Uses of History: Essays in Intellectual and Social History. The Meaning of Democracy As Used in European Ideologies from the French to the Russian Revolution. The Concept of Representation. The Greeks. The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome. Britain in the Roman Empire. Byzantiurn: The Imperial Centuries, A.D. 610-1071. The Medieval Town. The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages. Heresy in the Later Middle Ages. Paris and Oxford Universities In the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Enterprise & Empire: Merchant and Gentry Investment in the Expansion of England, 1575-1630. The Down of British to the East Indies: As Recorded in the Court Minutes of the East India Company,1599-1603 The Correspondence of Isaac Newton. Volume IV, 1694-1709. Edmund Burke. The Practical Imagination. Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815-1908. An Expanding Society: Britain, 1810-1900. The Chamberlains. Great Britain and the War of 1914-1918. Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counter-Revolution at Versailles, 1918-1919. The Works of Jacques-Auguste de Thou. The Blood and Iron Chancellor: A Documentary-Biography of Otto von Bismarck. Germany without Bismarck: The Crisis of Government in the Second Reich, 1890-1900. The German Revolution of 1918: A Study of German Socialism in War and Revolt. The Nuremberg Party Rallies: 1923-39. The Fall and Rise of Modern Italy. Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1870-1925. The Origins of the Pact of Steel. Poland's Politics: Idealism us. Realism. The Land and Government of Muscouy: A Sixteenth-Century Account. Lenin: The Man, the Theorist, the Leader: Politics and the Military in Jordan: A Study of the Arab Legion, 1921-1957 The Chinese Communist Regime: Documents and Commentary. Sins of the Fathers: A Study of the Atlantic Slave Traders, 1441-1807. The American Revolution and the British Press, 1775-1783. The National Waterway: A History of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 1769-1965. Patriotism Limited, 1862-1865. Union Pamphlets of the Civil War, 1861-1865. Grover Cleveland. Presidential Vetoes, 1792-1945. King Cotton and His Retainers: Financing and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800-1925. The Negro's Image in the South: The Anatomy of White Supremacy. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Volume II, 1981-1884; Life of George Bent Written from His Letters. Charles Evans Hughes. Politics and Reform in New York, 1905-1910. The Pendergast Machine. Daily Lift in Early Canada. Mexico: The Struggle for Modernity. Church Wealth in Mexico: A Study of the ‘Juzgndo de Capellaanfas’ in the Archbishopric of Mexico, 1800-1856. The Twilight Struggle: The Alliance for Progress and the Politics of Development in Latin America.     

‘One Chief Letter Office at New-York’: Packet Ships,Imperial Administration,and the Geography of the American Post, 1692–1783

ABSTRACT

The postal system in the American colonies is an understudied arm of the first British Empire. Although outside the main institutions of colonial administration, the post office followed the overall periodisation of imperial affairs, as America waxed and waned in London’s attention. This directly shaped the geography of the post office, because American officials focused on the post’s ability to connect American towns, while British officials emphasised the transatlantic connection of the postal packet ships. The packets, however, were not as important to transatlantic communications as they imagined, which led the American officials to resist when London wanted to make New York City the headquarters of the American post.     

Napoleon and Europe revisited

This article outlines the main themes of my book Napoleon's Integration of Europe (1991). Napoleonic France and Europe constituted an inseparable whole, through the ambitions of the French political class to impose an administrative prism of rational, modernising reforms on what were perceived as less developed societies. Such a study implied a dual dimension: the ideals and practices of the Imperial administration, and their impact on the subject populations. Criticisms of the book are grouped into four categories which are addressed in turn: the importance attached to Napoleon's personality and role; the implications, for analysis and interpretation, of the choice of archival sources-prefectoral and civil administration rather than police or judicial records; the influence of the Napoleonic model of administration beyond France, particularly in Germany; the possibility of treating the Grand Empire with its dependent states as a single phenomenon. Finally, it is worth noting that in the decade since publication of the book the deeper legacies of the Napoleonic model have barely attracted the attention of historians.     

‘My Freind who Writes for Me’: Scribes and Scribal Relationships in the Letters of Seamen, 1793–1815

This article examines the use of scribes in letters of one group of men during a specific period: British Royal Navy servicemen below the rank of commissioned officer during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1815. The letters of one such seaman in particular, Richard Greenhalgh, are unusual in that he himself could write, but preferred to have someone to write for him, as is shown by many references to ‘his freind who writes for me’. Contrasts between the scribe’s style of writing and that of Greenhalgh are noticeable, especially after Greenhalgh and his scribe were parted by being sent to serve on different ships. The letters also reveal the relationship between writer and scribe, and the writer’s family and his scribe. The letters contain messages to be passed between a network of family and friends on board ship and on shore, strengthening ties between them, vital in wartime to the morale of the seamen and for the reassurance of those at home. References found in other surviving letters demonstrate the use of scribes by different seamen, also seamen acting as scribes for shipmates, adding to knowledge of scribal culture among this social group.     

The Commonwealth and South Africa: From Smuts to Mandela

The creation of modern South Africa as an independent unitary state within the British Empire (c. 1910) gave birth to the Commonwealth idea. Jan Smuts’s views on Commonwealth were formative and they continued to inform the evolution of the organisation until the end of the Second World War. Also significant was the role played by Afrikaner nationalist leader J. B. M. Hertzog, who exerted a critical influence on the 1926 Balfour Declaration and Statute of Westminster. At the point of South Africa’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1961, the Commonwealth divided between new entrants, who cast South Africa as a pariah, and older member states who lamented the exit of a troubled family member. Even after South Africa’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1961, apartheid’s significance as the global exemplar of institutionalised racism and colonial rule helped to bind the Commonwealth as a multi-racial organisation with strongly defined ethical values. South Africa’s reintegration in 1994, with Nelson Mandela to the fore, was welcomed as a triumph for the Commonwealth. Paradoxically, however, this proved a pyrrhic victory and may actually have contributed to the Commonwealth’s state of indirection.     

‘Ambushed by Victory’: British,French and American Military Plans to Defeat Germany in 1919

The United States, Britain, and France’s discussions on how to achieve victory over the enemy reveal how widespread was the notion that the war would have to be carried into 1919 in order to ensure a military victory over the German army. With the British, political pressure to maintain a sizable army combined with the over-estimation of the abilities of the enemy meant that many considered victory only possible in 1919. The Americans were determined to expand their army substantially to play a leading role in the 1919 campaign; however, they had to negotiate what constituted a realistic contribution. Behind these deliberations stood the French who were promoting the idea of a decisive 1919 campaign and pressuring their co-belligerents to make the greatest possible commitment to ensure a victorious outcome.     

A New Albion in New America: British Periodicals and Morris Birkbeck’s English Prairie, 1818–1824

The “English Prairie” settlements in Edwards County, Illinois attracted an inordinate amount of commentary in the post‐Napoleonic War period, providing a window into British intellectual life of the period. Morris Birkbeck, the more famous of the English Prairie’s two founders, came to personify America for British readers. Commentators ranged widely in their opinions of the English Prairie, speaking in broad terms of either superior aspects of western American society and polity or else making the new state of Illinois a foil to illustrate the ills of democracy and religious disestablishment. Three of the most prominent British reviews of the time – the Edinburgh Review, Quarterly Review, and Westminster Review – were vital participants in this debate that was really about the future of Great Britain. The periodicals created images of America suited to their understanding of the situation, as one small part of sparsely populated Illinois became a vicarious arena for competing concepts of politics and religion.     

Reviews/Comptes rendus

Book reviewed in this article: The Land Transformed, 1800–1891. Vol 2 of The Historical Atlas of Canada, edited R. LOUIS GENTILCORE (GEOFFREY J. MATTHEWS, Cartographer) A Scholar's Guide to Geographical Writing on the American and Canadian Past, edited by MICHAEL P. CONZEN, THOMAS A. RUNMEY, and GRAEME WYNN. Continental America, 1800–1867. Vol. 2 of The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, by DONALD W. MEINIG. Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on European Coastal Lowlands, edited by MICHAEL J. TOOLEY and SASKIA JELGERSMA. The Geography of Death: Mortality Atlas of British Columbia, 1985–1989, Edited by LESLIE T. FOSTER and MICHAEL C.R. EDGELL. Teaching Geography in Higher Education: A Manual of Good Practice, JOHN R. GOLD, ALAN JENKINS, ROGER LEE, JANICE MONK, JUDITH RILEY, IFAN SHEPHERD, and DAVID UNWIN. The Shape of the City: Toronto Struggles with Modern Planning, by JOHN SEWELL, with a foreword by Jane Jacobs. Géographie et ethnographie en Grèce ancienne, par CHRISTIAN JACOB, Armand Colin, Paris L'Empire des Cartes: Approche théorique de la cartographie à travers l'histoire par CHRISTIAN JACOB, Albin Michel Trouble in the Woods: Forest Policy and Social Conflict in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, by L. ANDERS SANDBERG. The First Immigrants from Asia: A Population History of the North American Indians, by A.J. JAFFE.     

The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic Wars

At the conclusion of peace at Kiel in 1814, the Danish state had to cede Norway to Sweden. Thus, Denmark was one of the greatest losers of the Napoleonic Wars. Denmark allied with France in 1807 after the British bombardment of Copenhagen and seizure of the Danish navy; Denmark stuck by Napoleon until the bitter end. After the crushing French defeat in Russia in 1812, King Frederick VI more than once received an offer from the Allies to change sides and break with Napoleon; however, he dismissed them. In Danish historiography, the king has therefore been seen as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. A more recent Danish historiographical trend stresses the fact that the Danish state was multi-territorial, and among other areas it contained the kingdom of Norway; consequently, this multi-territorial state formation was, in the mind of the Danish political decision makers, especially the exposed situation of Norway, dependent on grain imports and the subject of Swedish territorial ambition. But how did Frederick VI see things himself? What were his motivations for his foreign political decisions? Based on letters written by the king and instructions to Danish diplomats abroad it is argued that the grain provision and ongoing possession of Norway by the Danish state were crucial factors in the king’s decision to stick with Napoleon. This can be further nuanced: the king was expecting the wars to end with an international peace conference with Napoleonic representation, and so the king’s strategy was to stay loyal to Napoleon, in order to get his support for keeping Norway.     

Protection,Federation and Union: The Global Impact of the McKinley Tariff upon the British Empire, 1890–94

This article takes a global historical approach to American protectionism and the British imperial federation movement of the late nineteenth century, showing how US tariff policy was intimately intertwined with the political and economic policies of the British empire of free trade. This article argues that the 1890 McKinley Tariff's policies helped call into question Britain's liberal, free trade, global empire by drumming up support for an imperial, protectionist, preferential Greater Britain. The tariff also speeded up the demand and development of more efficient transportation and communications—technological developments that made imperial federation all the more viable—within the British Empire. This article is thus a global history of the McKinley Tariff's impact upon the British Empire, as well as a study of the tariff's effect upon the history of modern globalisation.     

Book Reviews

Herodolos the Historian: His Problems, Methods and Originality. Roman Foreign Policy in the East: 168 B.C. to A.D. 1. Kings and Queens of Early Britain. English Medieval Diplomacy. Criminal Law and Society in Late Medieval and Tudor England. The Power of the Early Tudor Nobility: A Study of the Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury. Renaissance Essays. The English Aristocracy: A Comparative Synthesis. English Industrial Cities of the Nineteenth Century. A Social Geography. The Unfortunate Duke: Henry Pelham, Fifth Duke of Newcastle, 181 1–1864. The Politics of British Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone. The Scaremongers. The Advocacy of War and Rearmament, 1896–1914. The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge Among Gentlemanly Specialists. The Maupeou Revolution: A Study in the History of Libertarianism, France, 1770–1774. Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Royal Republicans: The French Naval Dynasties Between the World Wars. Pierre Laval: Traitor or Patriot? Diplomacy in Iron: The Life of Herbert von Bismarck. The Western Allies and the Politics of Food Agrarian Management in Postwar Germany. The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought. The Princess of Siberin: The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles. Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance, 1914–1917. The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, December 1917–1922. The Economy of British America, 1607–1789. The Limits of Liberty: American History, 1607–1980. The Evolution of the southern Backcountry: A Case Study of Lunenburg County, Virginia, 1746–1832. The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with the English Colonies from Its Beginnings to the Lancaster Treaty of 1744. Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party. First Lady: The Life of Lucy Webb Hayes. The Breadstealers: The Fight Against the Corn Laws, 1838–1846. The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865. The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops an the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns. Books and Libraries in Camp and Battle: The Civil War Experience. Phil Sheridan and His Army. Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 19th-Century South. The Haymarket Tragedy. The Anti-Monopoly Persuasion: Popular Resistance to the Rise of Big Business in the Midwest. By Steven L. Piott. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Pp. x, 194. $35.00.) Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War. The Invisible Hand of Planning: Capitalism, Social Science, and the State in the 1920s. The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s. The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism: Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and Internal Security, 1946–1948. Dirksen of Illinois: Senatorial Statesman. The Hoosier Politician. Officeholding and Political Culture in Indiana, 1896–1920. Frank Murphy: The Washington Years. Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences. Buffalo Soldiers in Italy: Black Americans in World War II. The Empire of the Seas: A Biography of Rear Admiral Robert Wilson Shufeldt, USN. The Indian Man: A Biography of James Mooney. American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Vine Deloria, Jr. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. Pp. 258. $16.95.) Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State. American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and Their Directions. Still the Golden Door. The Third World Comes to America.     

Not forging nations but foraging for them: uncertain collective identities in Gran Colombia*

ABSTRACT. This article examines the place of the nation in discussions of collective identities in the early nineteenth century in northern Hispanic South America. It provides a historical account of the birth of national identities in the late colonial and early republican period, and then explores two main sections. The first looks at the port of Riohacha and its experiences during the Wars of Independence. The second examines the in‐patients at a hospital in Caracas just after the end of the wars in 1821. The conclusion suggests that foreign involvement in the Wars of Independence was a crucial catalyst to national identity formation in Gran Colombia. As such the article brings out the extent to which these wars were part of Atlantic networks which were being reconfigured during the Age of Revolution. Rather than forging national identities, the Wars of Independence were the arena in which elites foraged for the constituents of new states and nations.