德国与中日甲午战争

1894—1895年中日甲午战争的爆发,给正处于外交转型中的德国提出了挑战也带来了机遇,德国一改过去只关注经济利益而避免卷入政治纷争的传统立场,开始介入远东的权力角逐,这也成为德国远东政策的一个重要分水岭。战争初期,德国表面采取超脱的中立姿态,多次拒绝清政府与英、俄等国的调停提议,实质是鼓励或偏袒日本的战争行为。由于担心战争可能对远东利益格局乃至欧洲地缘政治产生不利于德国的变化,且出于帝国主义追求海外殖民地的贪婪和防范东方文明崛起的"欧洲中心主义",在战争后期、中日谈判及"三国干涉还辽"期间,德国大幅度调整政策,积极推动并参与"三国干涉还辽"。尽管很难明确判定哪项动机发挥了决定性作用,但这不影响我们得出"德国是三国干涉还辽的积极推动者与重要参与者"的结论。研究这一案例,有助于认识此时期德国在远东的外交以及在战争中所扮演的角色。     

The German Secret State Police in Spain: Extending the Reach of National Socialism

Germany encroached in Spain's internal affairs that followed providing military support the Spanish Civil War in the interest of pursuing National Socialist objectives through the establishment of an extensive apparatus of National Socialist organisations in Spain, including the Gestapo. Cooperation was officially established between Spanish and German police on 25 November 1937, which was extended to the Spanish political police on 31 July 1938, when they entered into a secret agreement with the German Gestapo for mutual assistance. The Gestapo trained the Spanish ordinary police and political police to contribute to maintaining the Franco regime in control of Spain, just as the Gestapo in Germany was charged with investigating and suppressing all forms of anti-state tendencies, and exported its methods and proceedings to Spain under the guise of contributing to the struggle against the alleged danger of worldwide communism. In addition to cooperation with Spanish police on suppressing dissent against the Franco regime, other functions related to serving the interests of National Socialist Germany, which deployed the Gestapo for various purposes while Spain constituted an extension of National Socialist Germany's sphere of influence. This was ensured through the Gestapo maintaining a presence in Spain until 1945.     

'More carrot than stick', British Economic Warfare and Spain, 1941-1944

During the Second World War, economic factors became a centralaspect of Spain's relations to both Britain and Nazi Germany.In 1940, when the Franco regime was on the brink of joiningthe war on the side of the Axis, Britain tried to use Spain’sdependence on imports from the west to convince Franco to retainhis country's neutrality. Although, at the time, British ‘economicappeasement’ was not a major factor in the failure ofGerman-Spanish negotiations, it contributed to Spain's verygradual detachment from Nazi Germany over subsequent years.Between1941 and 1944, the focus of British policy towards Spain movedfrom keeping the country out of the war to restricting the servicesSpain rendered to the German war economy. Franco's sympathiesfor the Nazi regime and the economic and financial benefitsof continuing trade with Germany made British and US economicwarfare activities however only a partial success.     

Sir Edward Grey and Austria-Hungary

ABSTRACT

Although in terms of their bilateral relations the ‘traditional friendship’ between Great Britain and Austria-Hungary was no mere phrase, in general political terms British policy in the last decade before the War was characterised by Grey's determination to cultivate the ententes with France and Russia and to do nothing to upset that division of Europe into two balancing groups (with Austria-Hungary firmly in the German camp) which he saw as the best guarantee of peace. Even though the Austrians gradually recovered from the shock of the Bosnian Crisis, in which Grey had come forward against them as Russia's chief supporter, and though the British for their part came to see in Austria-Hungary a useful element of stability in the Near East, Grey's attempts to uphold the unity of the Concert in the Balkan Wars were in the end vitiated by his overriding concern to avoid offending his Entente partners. Indeed, as the crisis deepened in the last year of peace, he took refuge in an increasingly abstentionist attitude, the objective effect of which - and herein, it is here argued, lies Grey's responsibility - was to intensify Vienna's desperation and loss of faith in the Concert that soon proved fatal to peace.     

British Conservative Opinion and the Problem of Germany after the First World War

This work examines British conservative attitudes towards the Weimar Republic through the lens of several specific issues from the armistice up to the Ruhr Crisis of 1923. The author argues that a curious feature of British conservative opinion following the First World War was the consistent hostility British conservatives demonstrated towards the new German democratic state. To be sure, Great Britain had just fought a long and costly war against Germany, and there had been little time for the passions generated by the war to cool. Still, from the early days of the political changes in October and November of 1918, the German government was firmly committed to democratic principles. This was a development that the British nation claimed to favour, but the war left many British conservatives ill disposed to consider that the ‘inner change’ in Germany might be genuine or that a stable German democracy was possible. During its formative years, the Weimar Republic faced enormous challenges that would have tested any nation. Yet, even as political and economic conditions within Germany undermined prospects for democracy to succeed in that country, many British conservatives declined to take these developments seriously. Indeed, the attitudes of British conservatives substantially added to the difficulties the German government faced in dealing with the problems of the post-war world.     

“A German Bred Revolt”: the Manchester Guardian’s perceptions of the Irish Easter Rising, 1916

ABSTRACT

At the time of the Easter Rising of 1916 Britain had been engaged in the Great War against Germany for almost two years and on a scale and intensity previously unprecedented. This broader Great War backdrop is significant when analysing the 1916 Easter Rising, as it not only influenced the events which occurred in Dublin, but also the interpretation and presentation of the political violence. Despite the Easter Rising being well-documented in secondary literature, with a resurgence accounted for by its recent centenary, the British press and its portrayals of the events of 1916 has been one aspect which has not received as much scholarly attention. By analysing key stages in the uprising’s portrayal, it can be determined that the Manchester Guardian’s utilisation of the German connection had a two-fold implication. Utilising historical precedents of German-Irish “friendship”, such as the gun-running episodes of pre-War 1914, the newspaper justified its portrayal of Germany provoking violence in Ireland to disrupt British war efforts. Additionally, for the Manchester Guardian, the Irish rebels were depicted negatively in its articles as it attempted to halt the growth of republicanism, thereby ensuring the promotion of a more “moderate” form of nationalism.     

‘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.     

Neville Chamberlain and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–9

Neville Chamberlain's role in the Spanish Civil War is a neglected subject in the history of the conflict. Yet he wielded considerable influence over Britain's Spanish policy. Like most Conservatives, his ideological sympathies lay more with the Nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco than the besieged Republicans. At the same time, he deplored the intervention of Germany, Italy, and Soviet Russia and was strongly committed to the policy of non-intervention, which he genuinely believed had confined the Spanish conflict and prevented its escalation into a European conflagration. He was strongly opposed to granting belligerent rights to Franco unless foreign volunteers were withdrawn from Spain. He deplored the bombing of civilians in Spain, sought to help the many refugees caused by the war, and tried unsuccessfully on occasions to mediate an end to the conflict. The civil war was a considerable obstacle which threatened to undermine Chamberlain's appeasement of Fascist Italy, intended to weaken the Rome–Berlin Axis, and to constrain Germany in pursuit of general European appeasement. The Prime Minister's commitment to non-intervention in Spain, more the creation of the Foreign Office than his own, did no serious damage to British economic and strategic interests before June 1940.     

Canadian Diplomacy and the 1982 Falklands War

As a case study, Canadian diplomacy during the Falklands War is emblematic of the confused, and at times contradictory, components of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's utopic and idealistic foreign policy. Canada's diplomatic actions during the war were based on four principles. The first, and most significant, was the safeguarding of what were deemed to be Canada's economic interests: chiefly nuclear exports. The second was Trudeau's ‘Third Option’ policy and the belief of ‘the vital importance of the North-South dynamic to Canada’. Third was the desire to distance Canadian foreign policy, economics, and military commitments from those of both the United States and Great Britain. Trudeau had mixed feelings about the Commonwealth and disliked both President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Lastly, during the war Canadian politicians and diplomats took the position of an ambiguous neutrality to protect and promote what they perceived to be Canadian interests. Many of the political and economic decisions made by Canada during the Falklands War were met by harsh criticism nationally and internationally in both public and political spheres.     

Ensuring Benevolent Neutrality: The British Government's Appeasement of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

This article examines the development of British non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Previous studies have focused heavily on pro-rebel or anti-Republican sentiments among British officials in London and abroad, and often apply the term ‘malevolent neutrality’ to the motives behind the policy. However, utilising records from the National Archives as well as private papers, this article evaluates British non-intervention within the context of appeasement and demonstrates a clear link between the two policies. By examining British neutrality through the lens of appeasement, this study will enhance our understanding of British diplomacy in the 1930s and the links between non-intervention in Spain and the growing threat of fascism in Europe. It argues that the British Government adopted and maintained a policy of strict neutrality in order to avoid an escalation of the conflict and to place itself in a better position from which it could establish a good relationship with whichever side emerged victorious. As it became increasingly clear that the rebels were going to overthrow the Republic, the British Government began to tacitly appease General Franco in an attempt to avoid a hostile Spain in the build up to the Second World War.     

All Paths Leading to Beijing? Western Europe and Détente in East Asia, 1969–72

The early 1970s not only saw a radical improvement of Sino–US relations but also of ties between Beijing and Western Europe. This rapprochement was in many ways closely related to the parallel process of détente between NATO countries and the Eastern Bloc. This article looks at the European dimension of the Chinese opening between 1969 and 1972 and shows how Great Britain, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany had to overcome specific national challenges in order to pierce the bamboo curtain and re-establish Western Europe's political presence in Asia.     

Mitigating defeat: Vidal de la Blache’s 1885 France Frontière Nord-Est et Alsace-Lorraine

One contributing factor to France’s devastating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War was a lack of geographic knowledge at all levels of the army. As a result, politicians proposed significant educational reforms in the 1880s, which included an enhanced role of geography in the national curriculum. In order to improve access to and understanding of that subject, French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache published a series of Cartes murales that appeared in classrooms throughout the nation. Yet his Carte 10 France Frontière Nord-Est et Alsace-Lorraine, one such map, deviates from his primary mission of teaching pupils about the nation and focuses instead on the delicate topic of France’s new border with Germany. This article will examine Vidal’s map, on which he accurately presents the post-1871 political landscape. However, his cartographic discourse (colour, text, symbols), based on his geographic writings and national sentiment, differentiates Alsace-Lorraine from the new German Empire and helps his readers to question its authority over the two provinces.     

From Control to Terror: German Prostitution Policies in Eastern and Western European Territories during both World Wars

In both World Wars, the German armies enacted a prostitution policy in all the occupied territories of Western and Eastern Europe. Through a comparative study, this article uses archival research in Poland, France, Belgium and Germany as well as existing studies in five languages to examine the continuities and discontinuities in German prostitution policies between the Western and the Eastern territories during both wars. In exploring the question of continuity, we consider the interaction of local authorities with occupation forces and how prostitution policies in Western and Eastern countries differed from the German ‘home front’. Strong continuities existed between the First and Second World War, including a severe backlash against the abolitionist trend in Europe and the extension of regulatory controls beyond the prostitutes to include other ‘suspect’ women, often justified by concerns over the spread of venereal diseases and public morality and health. Despite these continuities, prostitution policies were even more regressive during the Second World War, with the racial ideology of Nazism as the main trigger for the brutalisation of prostitution policies. German authorities pushed the system to greater extremes, overseeing its evolution from control to terror.     

Anglo-American Rivalry in the Middle East: The Struggle for the Buraimi Oasis, 1952–1957

Some French writers, most notably Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and André Tardieu, have argued that French strategic interests during the early decades of the twentieth century had been seriously harmed because, alone among the Great Powers of Europe, France lacked a ‘diaspora’ in the United States. As a result of this, they have claimed, France had no advocacy group prepared to defend the interests of the European ‘kin state’ at a time when France’s great rival, Germany, was amply endowed with a sizeable demographic presence in the United States, willing to speak out in defence of Germany and its foreign policy. Moreover, a second large European diaspora had become established in the United States, whose numbers would swell after the mid nineteenth century: the Irish. Not necessarily committed to promoting German interests, the Irish-Americans did militate strongly and consistently against British interests, such that by the time France and Britain had become close security partners preceding and during the First World War, what worked against British interests would also work against French ones. This article constitutes a critical examination of the Duroselle-Tardieu thesis regarding France's allegedly ‘missing’ diaspora, and cautions against attributing too much geo-strategic influence to either the German-American or Irish-American ‘lobby’.     

On fascistization: Mussolini’s political project for Franco’s Spain, 1937–1939

‘Single party, single militia, single worker’s union, on these three pillars the great Spain of tomorrow will be built’, wrote Mussolini to Franco in August 1937, only four months after the new single party, Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, was created. From the Duce’s point of view, all the political tools developed to achieve a brilliant present and a greater future were the result of Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War. The political implementation of fascism, the single party, corporativism, propaganda and economic modernization were considered to have been derived from Italy’s military and diplomatic involvement in Spain. But, surprisingly, that political presence has largely been undervalued by historians examining the political construction and nature of Franco’s Spain. This article re-evaluates the importance, and limits, of Mussolini’s political project in Spain: fascistization.     

Iran in the Nazi New Order, 1933–1941

Despite a succession of scholarly studies over the years, the relationship between Reza Shah’s Iran and National Socialist Germany has not been fully explored. Rather than focusing on the supposed Aryan ideological sympathies that bound the two countries together, this article argues that the real driver of the German–Iranian relationship in the 1930s was economic and based in the mutual interaction of state economic initiatives. It states that Iran’s place in Nazism’s economic system was the outcome of two factors: the “New Plan” of Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht, and its focus on clearing agreements as a motor for depression-era trade, and the connections of Schacht’s system to Reza Shah’s strategy to modernize Iran. In exploring this issue the article focuses on relations between Germany and Iran during three distinct moments: first, the period from 1918 to 1928 and the working out of a new relationship after the First World War; secondly the period of Schacht’s New Plan in Iran in the mid-1930s; and finally the period from the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939 to the British–Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. During this last period Iran both belonged to the Nazi–Soviet trade zone created by the Pact and attempted to defend its neutrality.     

Former Nazi Officers in the Near East: German Military Advisors in Syria, 1949–56

In the early days of the Cold War, Syria was the first Arab country where former officers of the German Wehrmacht played an active role as military advisors. This was due, in part, to the fact that Germany was not burdened by its past political relations to Arab states for, in contrast to the Western powers, Germany which had never had territorial ambitions in the Near East. Even in the very early stages, German advisors contributed considerably to the development of Syria's armed forces and military intelligence. The advisory activities of German experts became even more intensive as a result of increased trade between the two countries; however, in 1956 the political situation in Syria worsened and the country began moving towards the Eastern Bloc putting an end to the non-official activities of German military advisors.     

The Holy War in Syria: Cemal Pasha and the Ottoman Plan to conquer Egypt in the First World War

This article aims to analyse the importance of the Egyptian campaign to Ottoman policy in the First World War. It seeks to add to our knowledge of the Ottoman war experience by putting the focus on the empire’s preparations for conquering Egypt and by giving priority to understand the aims of the expedition. The expedition itself is placed within the context of the jihad policy adopted at the beginning of the war and which sought to put an end to the Entente’s colonial domination of Muslim countries. The Ottomans’ propaganda initiatives in support of the measures were meant to motivate support among the Syrian population through the idea of holy war.     

国际法、女权保护与第一次世界大战期间的英德宣传战

宣称战争因某种道德理想而展开是一次大战的显特征,国际法、平民权益特别是妇女儿童权益保护就成了区分和衡量战争正义合法与否的标尺。英德关于非人道作战方式的合法性争执凸显出国际法存在的严重缺失及其在宣传战中作用的有限性,而侵害最易成为战争受难的妇女儿童权利便成了宣传战中最能调动舆论情绪、最易产生宣传效果的主题,这也是英国适时将宣传战主题从德国违反国际法切换到德军大规模强暴妇女儿童上来的主要原因。     

The Great War,the child’s body and the American Red Cross

Abstract

This article examines the child-relief activities of the American Red Cross in Hungary in the aftermath of the Great War, offering an insight into the workings of humanitarianism in interwar Europe. A close look at this one Central European ‘playground’ of transatlantic intervention helps us understand the logic and the underlying political, economic and ideological motives behind Allied humanitarian aid to ‘enemy’ children. Analysis of the ways in which the war’s aftermath affected children, their bodies and their relief throws light on the relationship between violent conflicts, children in need and humanitarian intervention. The article looks particularly at the role of the child’s damaged body and its photographic representation, making it what Cathleen Canning calls an ‘embodied experience of war’. Exploration of the humanitarian discourse around the suffering child helps us identify the humanitarian reaction to the unforeseen social consequences of wartime confrontation. The article argues that the harmed body of the ‘enemy child’ served to mobilise transnational compassion that challenged the war’s deeply anchored ‘friend–foe’ mentality. The child turned into a means of configuring and translating human suffering beyond ideological and political borders. At the same time humanitarian child relief helped to further consolidate asymmetric international power relations.