Clarendon,Cavour, and the Intervention of Sardinia in the Crimean War, 1853–1855

The notorious arms trader Sir Basil Zaharoff is remembered as the archetypal ‘merchant of death’. During the First World War, he is alleged to have exercised a malign influence over statesmen in London and Paris. Recently released Foreign Office files now allow us to document Zaharoff's wartime activities on behalf of the British government as an agent of influence in the Levant. The new sources reveal that Sir Vincent H.P. Caillard, the financial director of the arms-maker Vickers, played a key role in making Zaharoff's services available to prime ministers Asquith and Lloyd George. While Zaharoff has often been portrayed as a sinister force, manipulating statesmen into pursuing his financial and political interests, the reality was the reverse. Zaharoff was a convenient tool of two prime ministers rather than a powerful political manipulator in his own right.     

Allied Intervention and the Russian Civil War, 1917–1922

MICHAEL KETTLE. Russia and the Allies, 1917–1920: Vol. II: The Road to Intervention, March–November 1918. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Pp. 401.

RICHARD LUCKETT. The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Pp. xvi, 413.

TERENCE EMMONS, trans, and ed. Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp. xvii, 513.

DONALD J. RALEIGH, ed. A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917–1922. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1988. Pp. xxiv, 240.     

Revisiting the War in the Receipt, 1572–1609*

This article explores a protracted dispute in the exchequer of receipt that initiated lasting procedural reform. The argument revolved around contested narratives of exchequer history which had direct implications for officers’ fees, rights and status. The ferocity of the dispute has rendered it one of the most-studied episodes in exchequer history, yet historians have largely focused on procedural reform and dismissed the ardour of the protagonists. This article recontextualises the dispute within its political and physical context in the Palace of Westminster to argue that the feud was not merely personal but political. By drawing together officers’ personal papers with exchequer records and architectural records of the palace, this article demonstrates the agency of individuals in influencing institutional reform. The protagonists operated within webs of overlapping loyalties between crown, institution and patrons which reflects the place of the Receipt in central government. Consideration of the warring officers in this context reveals that the outcome of the dispute was not in spite of their passions, but a product of them.     

New insights into Mao’s initial strategic consideration towards the Korean War intervention

The argument that the US army’s crossing of the 38th parallel compelled China’s intervention has been widely accepted in the West. However, as the US manoeuvre posed a major threat to the political and ideological foundations of the CCP regime in the early period of the Korean War, Mao Zedong wanted to send troops to assist North Korean’s quick victory. However, this was not realised because of Stalin’s negative position. Mao’s stance shows that his overriding criteria for intervention was not whether US forces would cross the 38th parallel, but whether their dispatch helped to solidify the CCP regime and if the preconditions for victory existed.     

The first nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula, 1975–76

This article discusses how and why South Korea tried to develop its own nuclear programme in order to safeguard its national security after the US withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1975 and 1976. Because Washington did not want nuclear proliferation in East Asia, the South Korean leadership decided to use its fledgling nuclear programme as a trump card in negotiations with the US. This article will demonstrate the process in which the client states of the US came to understand how to negotiate with Washington in order to further their own national interests in the Cold War era.