Ambassador George Buchanan and the July Crisis

During the July Crisis, the United Kingdom was put under strong pressure from Russia and the latter's ally, France, to declare it would fight alongside them. Britain had made the entente cordiale with France in 1904 and a Convention with Russia in 1907. The British Ambassador to St. Petersburg, George Buchanan, was the key figure in diplomatic communication between Britain and Russia at this time and his performance has drawn diverse comments over the decades. Some analysts believe he genuinely sought to restrain Russia from war, but was undermined by his own government, who too easily accepted St. Petersburg must mobilise its army. But others feel Buchanan's reports of Russian mobilisation were ill-informed and unhelpful to the government in London. This article examines Buchanan's performance, arguing that he attempted to preserve peace for a time and does not deserve some of the criticisms levelled at him. Nonetheless, the preservation of the Triple Entente was a priority for him and, after about 28 July, once it became clear that European war could not be avoided, he became tardy in reporting Russia's war preparations, appearing more interested in defending his hosts’ behaviour than in providing an accurate analysis of events.     

Unmasking Britannia: The Rise and Fall of British National Identity

Abstract. British national identity is a supranational identity deriving from an imperial past. Warfare created Britain in the eighteenth century, and at first glance mass war in the twentieth century seemed to reinforce it. War, however, was a twoedged sword. On the one hand, it dominated the lives of Britons between 1900 and 1945, yet war and its social-political demands weakened the fabric of the British state which was designed to be a nation-state, rather a state-nation. The more it demanded loyalty to its national icons, the more it became clear that these were not ‘national’ at ail. In many ways war forged state and nation but in a way that has led to its possible break-up.     

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.     

'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.     

Better than an Ironclad: Leonard Isitt,Temperance and Greater Britain

The English-born New Zealand temperance activist, the Rev. Leonard M. Isitt, undertook a number of temperance ‘missions’ in Britain between 1895 and 1905, offering historians a deeper insight into the lived reality of the ‘British world’ and ‘Greater British’ identity. Addressing several areas of imperial historiography, the article uses newspapers from both New Zealand and Britain to acquire a truly ‘Greater British’ perspective of an imperially mobile individual, from which can be drawn lessons about imperial identities and ‘networks’. Isitt's participation in a self-consciously imperial temperance movement highlights the development of a New Zealand identity that depended upon both contrast and commonality with Britain, but it also points to a politics of imperial peregrination, with the temperance reformer's visits to the ‘Mother Country’ factoring in the highly divisive drink question in both New Zealand and Britain. The article concludes with reflections on the nature and limitations of a ‘Greater British’ politics.     

‘They’ll never understand why I’m here’: British Marxism and the Irish Revolution, 1916–1923

The Irish Revolution of 1916-1923 posed a huge challenge to Marxist organizations in Britain. Although Marx and Engels themselves had supported Irish independence, later British socialists were not able to frame a consistent response to the Irish national question. Few organizations supported the Easter Rising in 1916 and although attitudes changed markedly during the Irish War of Independence, most British Marxists, with some notable exceptions, did not seem to view the Irish struggle against British imperialism to be connected to their own struggle for revolutionary change in Britain.     

Men and the Desert: Contested masculinities In Ice Cold in Alex

This article explores the relationship between space, identity and film through the war film genre and in particular Ice Cold in Alex (1958). Although war films have suffered particular neglect by geographers, their appeal is enduring, helping to shape British national identity and popular constructions of masculinity. Through an analysis and critique of the film, this article makes two interconnected points. First, it highlights the value of film to geographers as a creative medium in which spaces and identities are imagined, (re)created, contested and negotiated. Second, it brings recent work on masculinities to bear on a detailed examination of Ice Cold to illustrate how war films have produced and sustained a specific unconventional form of heroic masculine British national identity through the passage of an ‘off-road’ movie. Here we demonstrate that masculinities are forged not only in the maelstrom of power interrelationships between men and other men and between men and women, but also importantly in relation to the landscape, in this example the desert as other. This glimpse allows us to challenge hegemonic norms as well as the construction of the desert as an active agent in the co-construction of the main characters' identities.     

Mythologising the Dominion Fighting Man: Australian and Canadian Narratives of the First World War Soldier, 1914–39

A stereotypical image of the nation's First World War soldiers—and a conventional understanding of their war experience and its meaning—is not a concept unique to the British Empire's former Pacific Dominions, but is also promulgated in other parts of the Empire. During the First World War and interwar period, Canada also saw the emergence of a ‘Myth of the Soldier’ that paralleled the Anzac legend in many ways. This article focuses on some of the similarities and differences in Australia and Canada's mythologising of their First World War soldiers, proposing that this process reflects aspects of identity formation common to settler societies within the British world.     

National Identity in the British Volunteer Sermons, 1794–1802*

From 1794, when the British volunteer movement began in earnest, to 1802, when the French Revolutionary Wars came to an end, the established clergy preached numerous sermons to volunteer military units throughout England and in parts of Scotland. These sermons sought to articulate a sense of Britishness in such a way as to command more or less universal assent, meaning assent both to the ongoing war effort and to the national enterprise more broadly considered. Volunteers across the country were taught to see Great Britain as a nation chosen by God to stand alone against the onslaught of French principles, and they were encouraged to derive a sense of purpose and meaning from their local contributions to the national struggle. The volunteer sermons bridged the gap between local attachments and national commitments, and in so doing they played a significant role in the formation of a national consciousness.     

Last charge of the knights? Iraq,Afghanistan and the special relationship

At the heart of the ‘special relationship’ ideology, there is supposed to be a grand bargain. In exchange for paying the ‘blood price’ as America's ally, Britain will be rewarded with exceptional influence over American foreign policy and its strategic behaviour. Soldiers and statesman continue to articulate this idea. Since 9/11, the notion of Britain playing ‘Greece’ to America's ‘Rome’ gained new life thanks to Anglophiles on both sides of the Atlantic. One potent version of this ideology was that the more seasoned British would teach Americans how to fight ‘small wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby bolstering their role as tutor to the superpower. Britain does derive benefits from the Anglo‐American alliance and has made momentous contributions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet British solidarity and sacrifices have not purchased special influence in Washington. This is partly due to Atlanticist ideology, which sets Britain unrealistic standards by which it is judged, and partly because the notion of ‘special influence’ is misleading as it loses sight of the complexities of American policy‐making. The overall result of expeditionary wars has been to strain British credibility in American eyes and to display its lack of consistent influence both over high policy and the design and execution of US military campaigns. While there may be good arguments in favour of the UK continuing its efforts in Afghanistan, the notion that the war fortifies Britain's vicarious world status is a dangerous illusion that leads to repeated overstretch and disappointment. Now that Britain is in the foothills of a strategic defence review, it is important that the British abandon this false consciousness.     

The Woollen Industry of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) 1450–1550: Problems of a Balkan Textile Centre

Abstract

This article examines British responses to changes in Japanese dress during the Victorian period. The disapproval of the Japanese adoption of European clothing is shown to be linked to British anxieties regarding their political relationship and cultural engagement with Japan. The ways in which the kimono served as a touchstone for the British understanding of the country, representing an unchanging and romanticised view of the cultural identity of its Japanese wearer, is also explored. However, the kimono did not only signal ‘Japaneseness’, but was assimilated in British fashion as well. This article further explores how the kimono was related to issues of late nineteenth-century dress reform in Britain as well as to British unease about the cultural changes that they themselves had experienced in the wake of industrialisation.     

Gzartoryski's Hôtel Lambert and the Great Powers in the Balkans, 1832–1848

A pragmatic, but focused, pursuit by British policy-makers of an alliance is often regarded as a central element in the genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty. Analysis of the issue of Scandinavian membership shows that British policy was not actually consistent regarding either means or ends. It was subject to internal debate, based upon conflicting assumptions in the Oslo embassy, the Foreign Office, and the armed forces. The Foreign Office's main concern was to provide Norway and Denmark with a sense of security so that they would take measures against internal subversion, while the military was more concerned to prevent British military resources being overstretched and were prepared to accept Scandinavian neutrality: they wished if possible to keep the cold war out of Scandinavia. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and the Foreign Office did not believe this was possible, nor necessarily desirable, but were less than wholehearted about Norway and Denmark joining the pact on their own. Even in early 1949, when Soviet pressure was applied to Norway, Britain was ambivalent about whether Norway should be a founder-member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although Britain strongly desired the alliance for long-term gains, they worked hard to ensure the form it took worked to meet their short-term needs.     

‘Motherly Hate’: Gendering Anti–Semitism in the British Union of Fascists

Throughout the interwar period, Britain’s fascist movement was marked by anti–Semitism. That anti–Semitism was such a striking feature of the movement is well known, and studies of British fascism have consequently paid attention to the implications and effects of racial prejudice on Britain’s Jewish community, and on British society more generally. However, the history of women in Britain’s fascist movement has been less well known, and the narrative of racial politics and racial tensions in interwar Britain must now be modified by a consideration of gender relations and women’s activism on the extreme right. The first part of this article is thus concerned with the questions of how British fascist women gave vent to their racial hatreds, the particular tone of their rhetorical invectives against the Jewish community, and the distinctiveness of their expressions of anti–Semitism. From their support for Jew–baiting activities on the streets, to their high level of participation in an anti–war movement dedicated to keeping Britain out of the ‘Jews’ war’, to their choices to educate their young children in the principles of Jew–hating, British fascist women did, in fact, show themselves to be ‘Jew wise’. Their active expression of anti–Semitism certainly challenged the optimistic liberal supposition that the female sex was the more tolerant. The second part of this article is concerned with the theoretical implications of putting women back into the history of British anti–Semitism, and explores how the powerful gender paradigms of feminine tolerance, maternalism, and feminised pacifism were subverted to justify a seemingly incongruous sentiment of ‘motherly hate’.     

Beyond ‘Parade Ground Soldiers’: French Army Assessments of the British in 1918

When the Germans launched their Spring Offensives of 1918, they placed tremendous pressure on the alliance between Britain and France. While French and British soldiers had formed strong relations through mutual cooperation at the Somme in 1916, the French experiences at Verdun and during the mutinies of 1917 had changed the way they viewed the war and, most crucially, how they would view any allied failures. When the British were forced to retreat following the beginning of Operation Michael in March 1918, the French reacted with fury. This article examines the nature of the French evaluations of the British during 1918 and the extent to which they judged their ally to have failed them. By using the collections of the Commissions de contrôle postal for the French army during the war, it will show the depths to which French opinion of the British fell in the first half of the year but also how British actions towards the war’s conclusion managed to restore some of their honour in French eyes.     

Making sense of remembrance

In recent years the annual cycle of war remembrance in Britain has been punctuated by major anniversaries and the inauguration of new war memorials. This paper explores whether time and forgetfulness are gradually eroding the power of twentieth century war memorials as traces of memory in the everyday landscape. It finds that at least some war memorials are retaining their significance and even evolving new significance as time passes. The paper considers how the sensuous and spectacular nature of war remembrance has contributed to this process and draws attention to the centrality of sight, sound and touch to remembrance activities. Case studies are then used to explore how war memorials in specific localities provide a locus for making sense of remembrance in the twenty‐first century.     

The Crimean War and its lessons for today

Orlando Figes's book The Crimean War: a history, based on English, Russian, French and Turkish sources, throws a new light on the Crimean War in a number of ways. It shows that the conflict was far from being a small war, but a landmark event. It was the only example of a war between Britain and Russia—and it led to enormous casualties. It also represented a stage in medical history, since most of the casualties were caused by disease. In Britain, it marked a new advance in the power of the press, which did much to fuel anti‐Russian sentiment. The war was also fuelled, on both sides, by religious and nationalist sentiment—but its most important cause related to the fate of the Ottoman Empire, then in decline, and fears that its collapse could result in a dangerous power vacuum. The war still has a significance for the present day because the collapse of communism has failed to resolve the antagonism between Russia and the West. Here, the book throws an important light on the development of British and western attitudes towards Russia, many of which were shaped in the nineteenth century. The book deserves attention, both here and in Russia.     

Great expectations: changing social,spatial and emotional understandings of the companion animal–human relationship

This paper examines the changing social, legal, spatial and emotional understandings of the companion animal–human relationship in Britain during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, based upon in-depth interviews with pet owners and professionals involved in the pet industry. This period has seen rapid change in attitudes and practices towards companion animals, bringing benefits for both animal health and welfare, but also increasing social, emotional and financial expectations. Animals have become increasingly integrated into the human home and family, whilst simultaneously subject to increasing control of their behaviour and movements in public space. Such changes have brought a culture of ‘responsible’ pet ownership in which both animals and humans are subject to constant surveillance of their own and others pet-keeping practices. Such expectations are constantly changing and contested, with notions of human identity and status increasingly defined through human–animal relationships. These processes are ongoing and new forms of responsibility are continually evolving, providing new means for caretakers to express their love and care for their animal companions.     

The War Munitions Supply Company of Western Australia and the Popular Movement to Manufacture Artillery Ammunition in the British Empire in the First World War

Among the nations that comprised the British Empire, the First World War has generally either been forgotten, as in India, as irrelevant to the achievement of political independence, or remembered, as in Canada, as the catalyst for developing a separate national identity. This article argues that both these historical interpretations ignore the extent to which the First World War was a shared British Empire experience. The article examines the establishment of the War Munitions Supply Company of Western Australia as an example of the popular movement to make artillery ammunition that swept many parts of the British Empire in 1915. The munitions movement provided an outlet for the patriotic surge that occurred in April–May 1915 in reaction to the German use of poison gas and the sinking of the Lusitania. It was also an attempt to overcome wartime economic disruption by creating a new local industry. The practicalities of cost and shipping meant that by 1917 artillery ammunition production was continued only in Britain, Ireland, and Canada, but in 1915 the Western Australian company was part of an Empire-wide movement to make munitions and support the war.     

A Patina of Age: Elizabeth Macquarie (née) Campbell and the Influence of the Buildings and Landscape of Argyll,Scotland, in Colonial New South Wales

Elizabeth Macquarie, a daughter of Campbell of Airds, was the wife of Lachlan Macquarie, the fifth governor of New South Wales (1810–21). The buildings of Argyll, Scotland, strongly influenced choices made by Elizabeth in the buildings erected during her husband’s 12-year administration of the colony. By examining these Scottish influences, through theories of landscape and the transfer of traditional, even “old-fashioned,” architectural styles to this far-flung colony, new layers of meaning embedded within the landscape of Sydney Cove are disentangled to reveal a deeper understanding of how British cultural identity was recreated on the far side of the world.