‘Are We Ready?’: Belgium and the Entente’s Military Planning for a War Against Germany, 1906–1914

Abstract

While historians have consistently focused on the development of German, French, and British planning in the years preceding the Great War, few have truly acknowledged neutral Belgium’s role in defining the strategic paradigm of 1914. Belgium held the strategic key to the opening salvos of a future Franco-German war, and each of its Guarantors were determined to obtain the initiative. While German planners were prepared to seize it by force, the Entente (particularly Britain), remained wary of its obligations. Instead, Britain sought to determine Belgian intentions and capabilities through secret and unbinding staff conversations in 1906 and 1912. The former proved useful in establishing a framework for co-operation but ultimately came to nothing. By the time they were resumed in 1912, Anglo-Belgian diplomatic relations had soured, while Belgium’s military reforms and its emergence as a colonial power gave it a renewed sense of confidence. Belgian officials were determined to retain the kingdom’s agency in the formulation of its defence policy and resented Entente suggestions of pre-emptive action. Neutrality was subordinated to independence, which itself could not be guaranteed were Belgium to conclude even the loosest of military accords. Consequently, Entente plans were forced surrender the strategic initiative to the Germans.     

The Labour Party and the League of Nations: The Socialist League's Role in the Sanctions Crisis of 1935

When the Labour Party—influenced by the NEC and the TUCGeneral Council—decided to support League of Nations sanctionsagainst Italy in 1935 this signalled its recognition that itwas necessary to challenge the fascist dictators with collectiveforce. The way in which this decision marked the discreditingof pacifism within the Labour Party has been fully examined.The Socialist League—the organ of the Labour left—alsounsuccessfully opposed the sanctions policy. Nevertheless, existingaccounts have focused on its chairman, Cripps, and his refusalto trust the ‘capitalist’ and ‘imperialist’National Government to impose sanctions. Instead, this articleconsiders the Socialist League as a whole and highlights divisionsthat emerged within it over sanctions. The official SocialistLeague line demanded ‘mass resistance’ against theNational Government. However, a sizeable minority—particularlythose with overtly pro-Soviet affinities—decided to supportcollective security now that the Soviet Union had joined theLeague of Nations. These internal divisions seriously weakenedthe Socialist League case. They explain how the NEC–TUCwas able so conclusively to defeat its radical anti-capitalistarguments, thereby gaining a fuller mandate with which to developits policy of armed collective security before the Second WorldWar.     

Politics of the Frontier: Henri IV, the Marechal-Duc De Bouillon and the Sovereignty of Sedan

This article re-examines the Bouillon affair of 1602–1606,a dispute between the maréchal-duc de Bouillon and HenriIV which was finally resolved through a royal show of forceand Bouillon’s apparent capitulation. Portrayed in royalpropaganda as a resounding victory, this episode has traditionallybeen viewed as a decisive step in the reassertion of royal authority.More recently, the affair has been analysed in the light ofearly-modern codes of honour and masculinity. The present articleoffers a reinterpretation of these events which pays due attentionto the motivations and objectives of Bouillon himself, too oftencaricatured as a self-serving aristocrat, lacking in seriouspurpose. Thus, attention is drawn to the significance of Bouillon’sinternational dynastic and confessional concerns, and, in particular,to the role of his female relatives throughout the affair. Aboveall, however, it is argued that Bouillon’s relationshipwith the crown can only be properly understood if it is examinedin the context of the efforts made by Bouillon and his predecessorsto establish and gain recognition of their own sovereign authorityat Sedan. The Bouillon affair was not just about royal honourand authority, it was also a debate over the sovereignty ofa frontier territory. The manner in which the affair was concluded—througha treaty of protection which recognized Bouillon’s sovereigntyat Sedan—indicates that, far from being an unqualifiedroyal victory, the settlement was a compromise which satisfiedBouillon’s foremost objective.     

General Roatta's war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942

During General Mario Roatta's tenure as commander of the Italian 2nd Army in Yugoslavia, he faced a mounting Communist insurgency. To defeat the partisan forces of Tito, he resorted to proactive politics and a strategy of counter-insurgency. Owing to Italian military weakness and his army's lack of training in guerrilla warfare, Roatta was not averse to enlisting the services of Orthodox Serbs in Croatia, who the previous year had asked for Italian protection after a fearful massacre had been unleashed against them by Mussolini's handpicked ruler in Zagreb, the Croatian Usta?a leader Ante Paveli?. Against the wishes of the Fascist government in Rome, Roatta armed Serbs (called ?etniks) because they agreed to assist the Italian legions in fighting the partisans, their common ideological foe. But as Yugoslavia descended into civil war – one triggered by the Axis invasion – Roatta paid a price for his freelance pro-Serb politicking by alienating Zagreb, irritating the Germans, and dismaying his superiors in Rome. Italian policy was reduced to a tug-of-war between the Fascist empire-builders surrounding Mussolini and the military command in Yugoslavia, and Roatta became enmeshed in a cobweb of intrigues involving Croats, ?etniks and Germans. Apart from political manoeuvring, Roatta, in the ineluctable necessity of defeating the partisans, devised a detailed strategy of counter-insurgency. On 1 March 1942, he circulated a pamphlet entitled ‘3C’ among his commanders that spelled out military reform and draconian measures to intimidate the Slav populations into silence by means of summary executions, hostage-taking, reprisals, internments and the burning of houses and villages. By his reckoning, military necessity knew no choice, and law required only lip service. Roatta's merciless suppression of partisan insurgency was not mitigated by his having saved the lives of both Serbs and Jews from the persecution of Italy's allies Germany and Croatia. Under his watch, the 2nd Army's record of violence against the Yugoslav population easily matched the German. Tantamount to a declaration of war on civilians, Roatta's ‘3C’ pamphlet involved him in war crimes.     

The Conservative Party and Defeat: the Significance of Resale Price Maintenance for the General Election of 1964

The 1964 general election was one of the closest in modern Britishhistory and resulted in the narrowest of defeats for the ConservativeParty, who had been in office continuously for thirteen years.In terms of the popular vote, the difference between the victoriousLabour Party and the Tories was just 0.3 per cent and—witha swing of just 3.5 per cent—the Labour majority in theHouse of Commons was only four, the smallest since Lord JohnRussell's Whigs in 1847. There were, of course, many differentfactors involved in the defeat, including the longterm damagecaused to the Conservative Party by the 'Profumo affair' andother security scandals. Yet, the issue that caused the greatestpolitical problems for the Conservative government in the run-upto the election was not a public scandal or the general managementof the economy, but a seemingly innocuous macroeconomic issueknown as resale price maintenance (RPM). The Macmillan and Douglas-Homegovernment's attempts to abolish RPM—a practice wherebyproducers would dictate the price at which their goods couldbe sold by retailers, thereby ensuring that prices were 'fixed'across the board—led to the biggest backbench rebellionsince Neville Chamberlain was forced out of office in 1940.During the RPM affair, Conservative MPs openly plotted againsttheir own government and threatened it with embarrassing defeatin a series of highly charged parliamentary votes. At one stagethe Conservative government's majority in the House of Commonswas reduced to just one vote. Party whips and managers foundthemselves unable to contain the rebellion, and even the Cabinetfound it difficult to remain above the fray, with several seniorministers strongly opposing the measures. Originally introducedby Harold Macmillan as part of an overarching policy programme,RPM abolition was highly controversial during his administrationand continued to overshadow that of his successor, Alec Douglas-Home.The Conservative government's attempts to legislate againstRPM culminated in an attempt to force through the controversialmeasures in the run-up to the general election. The measuresinvolved and the resulting rancour, fed by an anti-governmentcampaign organized by retailers and a large section of the press,split the party and alienated many 'natural' Conservative votersm the country. This study seeks to explain the issue of RPMabolition and its origins within the context of the two successiveConservative administrations, and to assess the political rationalebehind the controversial decision to proceed with the ResalePrices Bill in Parliament. The intention is not to show thatRPM abolition in isolation was responsible for the ConservativeParty's defeat in 1964, but rather to demonstrate that the directand indirect effects of the whole issue were crucial to theelectoral fortunes of the Conservative Party in one of the closestgeneral elections in modern British history.     

Shipboard relations between Pacific Island women and Euroamerican men 1767–1887

Abstract

In January 1942 over 1,500 Australian troops and civilians were captured by the Japanese in Rabaul and on New Ireland and New Britain. Through much of the war the Allies had either coastwatchers or soldiers on New Britain, but remained uncertain what had happened to those captured. Anxious to return to Rabaul after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Australians found few survivors. Some officers and nurses had been shipped to Japan, and they were soon on their way home. Many of the Catholic missionaries had survived on the Gazelle Peninsula, but only a handful of the civilians, airmen, coastwatchers and soldiers were still alive and in Rabaul. Eventually the Australians learnt that over 1,000 prisoners had been on the Montevideo Maru which had been sunk in 1942. More than three years after the event Australians had to begin the accounting for their biggest single disaster of the Second World War.     

'Very Peculiar Circumstances': Walter Runciman and the National Government, 1931-3

Walter Runciman's role in the crisis of 1931 and its aftermathis not as well known as those of his Liberal contemporaries,Samuel and Simon. It was, however, at least as important indetermining the outcome. Runciman was not a member of the firstNational Cabinet of August 1931, but he reluctantly acceptedthe Board of Trade, on flattering terms, in November. Highlyregarded by MacDonald, he developed an effective working andpersonal relationship with Neville Chamberlain, and togetherthey shaped the government's tariff policy. It was a compromisethat ensured the long-term survival of the National Governmentand defined the fiscal policy that would replace free trade.Runciman remained convinced throughout his years in office thathe was remaining true to Liberal principles—using tariffbargaining to reduce the general level of tariffs—andthat the national crisis and the changing economic climate justifiedhis compromise with the Conservatives. ¹ I am grateful to my colleagues, Professor Bill Luckin andDr Gaynor Johnson, and to Dr David Dutton, for their commentswhile this article was being written. The quotation in the titleis from Lord Shuttleworth to Runciman, 18 November 1935, RuncimanPapers, Robinson Library, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.WR221     

The Specter of Revolution: Reconsidering Japan's Decision to Surrender

Existing studies of the Pacific War tend to focus on the adverse military situation in explaining Japan's decision to surrender. Special emphasis has been placed on both the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet entry into the war. Although these are no doubt critical to understanding the end of the Pacific War, they fail to tell the whole story. This paper seeks to broaden the scope of the scholarly debate by focusing on Japan's domestic situation as a major factor behind the decision to surrender. It argues that a near-obsessive fear of social revolution among Japan's conservative ruling elite played an important role in prompting Japanese elites to make the decision to end the war.     

British Surrenders and the South African War, 1899–1902

Based on primary research, this article examines more than 1000 cases of surrender in the British Army during the South African War, 1899–1902. It concludes that the majority of surrenders were caused by five conditions: faulty leadership, the removal of effective leadership through injury or death, lack of necessary supplies, decisive disadvantage in terms of numbers and the use of questionable tactics by the enemy. An examination of surrender gives insight into morale, resource allocation, discipline, decision-making and military law.     

Harold Macmillan and the Deadline Crisis Over Berlin 1958-9

This article examines postwar British foreign policy by analysingthe decision-making process in Whitehall during the ‘deadlinecrisis’, the months between Khrushchev's ultimatum inNovember 1958 and Macmillan's famous voyage of discovery inFebruary 1959. The role played by the then British governmentduring this critical period of the Cold War was widely ignoreduntil the opening of the British archives for the late 1950sand early 1960s, under the thirty-year rule. Since then, scholarshave paid more attention to it. Diplomatic history is affectedgreatly by lack of access to public records; by utilizing previouslywithheld government documents, this paper results in a considerablereassessment of Britain's policy during the early cirisis months.Contrary to conventional wisdom, it argues that Macmillan'scontinuous attempts to shape alliance policy from behind thecurtain put alliance consensus at risk, provoked a deep breachof confidence and so diminshed his scope for effective actionseverely. His visit to Moscow did, in fact, achieve very little,if anything at all.     

Anglo-Irish Relations, 1939-41: A Study in Multilateral Diplomacy and Military Restraint

‘This study bridges two gaps, one in the historiographyof Anglo-Irish relations between 1939 and 1941 and the otherin International Relations (IR) theory. Anglo-Irish relationsduring the Second World War have been the subject of numerousstudies focusing upon the bilateral nature of that relationship,but it was subject to serious multilateral considerations—theCommonwealth and the US. At moments of danger between the twostates, it was not the balance of a bilateral relationship,but rather of a broad multilateral structure which set the paceof British policy-making. This restrained British military planningagainst Eire. The history of Anglo-Irish relations in this periodpositively links the conduct of multilateral diplomacy withthe absence of the use of force. From the standpoint of IR theory,this provides a useful ‘hard’ case for how/why multilateralismmay matter. It also illustrates several of the deficienciesin IR theory, not least the Whiggish assumption that integrationor globalization follow a linear progression (against whichstands the equally Whiggish notion that interstate relationsare eternally cast). This article seeks to demonstrate thata somewhat wider appreciation of history makes it possible toreconcile multilateral diplomacy with many more traditional‘realist’ concerns.’     

Domains and the Intercultural: Understanding Aboriginal and Missionary Engagement at the Mornington Island Mission,Gulf of Carpentaria,Australia from 1914 to 1942

The Mornington Island Mission in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, was a site of historical engagement between Aboriginal people and missionaries. In this paper, we apply the theoretical concepts of “domains” and the “intercultural” to the investigation of this engagement between 1914 and 1942, when the mission was overseen by the Reverend Robert Wilson. Through the examination of the removal of Aboriginal children, the establishment of a mission compound and Aboriginal camp and the inclusion of Aboriginal adults into the mission compound through production and economy, we show how mutually constituted domains operated. At the same time, the interaction between Aboriginal adults and children with missionaries within these domains was increasingly intercultural in nature. Thus, both “domains” and the “intercultural” are shown to have relevance to the historical case study.     

章高元与中日甲午战争——兼论章高元在胶州湾事件中的表现

清军将领章高元在中日甲午战争中奉命增援前往辽东战场,在盖平战役中他不畏强暴.奋勇杀敌,建树了英雄业绩,虽败尤荣,表现了可贵的爱国主义精神.章高元在胶州湾事件中坚持抵抗态度,但违心服从清廷旨意,对其后丧地负有一定责任.应肯定章高元是一个有作为的抵抗派人物,是功大于过的爱国将领.     

The kingdom's two bodies? Corporeal rhetoric and royal authority during the religious wars

The conventional discourse of the body politic assumed a peculiarresonance during the French religious wars due to the uniqueidentification of the king with the well-being of his kingdom.The duality of this relationship was echoed in the languageand imagery of corporeal rhetoric which infused the declarationsof all sides during the conflict. The combined threat of heresyand civil war, and the shared imperative to defend the unityand integrity of the kingdom, lent a renewed relevance, butalso a profound discord, to this rhetoric. While opinions differedabout the best means to cure France's ills—the royal policyof pacification being the most controversial of them—monarchicalauthority was bolstered by the king's undisputed role as headof the body politic and protector of, and physician to, hisrealm.     

“We Wia Ragai”: Missionary Collection and Synergetic Assemblages in the Solomon Islands 1920–1942

An entry in Edith Safstrom’s diary, We Wia Ragai, marks her first posting to the girl’s mission school in the Solomon Islands, and is a Mota phrase told to her by lay missionary colleague, Ida Wench. The phrase essentially means “it is good to be here among you all” and echoed Edith’s thoughts on life at the school on tiny Mbungana Island. The Safstrom collection of artifacts held in the Museum of Victoria and Edith’s diaries unwrap a synergetic dialogue between lay missionary women and Indigenous women and children. The collection circumscribes a lay missionary’s collective experience of Christianity and acceptance of Indigenous cultural heritage from 1921 to 1942 in the Solomon Islands.     

杨龙友死因再探

杨龙友是明末清初一位重要的历史人物。由于多种因素,他的死亡原因在学界颇有争议,一说是在福建浦城降清被戮,一说在福建建阳,王毅《再说杨龙友》(1993年《湖北大学学报》第5期)即持杨龙友在福建浦城降清被戮说。笔者经多年考证和对杨龙友当年练兵、战斗的地方走访,收集到很多鲜为人知的资料。资料证明:杨龙友不是降清被戮,而是抗清不屈,于1646年8月25日在福建建阳水东的三桂里就义。     

The Heroic Image of the Warrior in the First World War

Abstract

Sun Tzu asserts that true success is not winning every battle fought, but subduing the enemy’s will without fighting at all. The author asserts that the U.S. planning efforts for post-WWII Japan from 1942 to 1945 reveal a unique period where military and political planners actively pursued a greater understanding of the role an enemy’s will-to-fight plays in conflict. The historical record reveals an iterative — and often heated — discourse among experts in diplomacy, governance, political culture, anthropology, and military intelligence. Consequently, Allied commanders entertained and ultimately executed a war plan for the occupation of Japan with fewer forces and less fighting than called for by the alternative plan for invasion. The fundamental difference in the two plans — an assumed effect that safeguarding the Imperial Institution would have on the Japanese people’s will-to-fight. In the end, meaningful discourse enabled Allies to target the enemy’s will separately from their means, enabling conditions where subduing the Japanese will required the Allies not to fight.     

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.