Obstruction as Power: Rethinking Britain's Caucasus Occupation 1918–20

This article draws on French and British archival sources to rethink the history of Britain's 1918--1920 occupation of the Caucasus. The extant historiography casts London as eager to reinvigorate the region's oil exports in order to buoy its own supplies, but this article suggests that various elements within and close to the British administration sought to obstruct oil exports. Preventing Caucasus oil from reaching global markets seems to have helped parts of the British administration reach their aims during negotiations with the French government and Royal Dutch Shell. It also improved the viability of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company by denying valuable oil supplies to rival firms. Acknowledging the British oil interests that steered state policies during this period allows a richer story to unfold, one that demonstrates how imperial power in the wake of the Great War could be brought to serve the aims of, and even adopt the methods of, transnational oil companies operating in an emerging global fuel market.     

‘The Danger is Two-Fold’: Decolonisation and Cold War in Anti-Communist Asia, 1955–7

This article examines the intersection between the Cold War and decolonisation in anti-Communist Asia in the 1950s. Drawing on the papers of former South Korean President Syngman Rhee housed at Yonsei University, the article explores both the motivations behind as well as the constraints upon South Korea's efforts to cultivate a military alliance in what it called ‘Free Asia’. Articulating some of the concrete political differences between South Korea and its potential partners in Asia, the article argues that Rhee's hardline views of the Cold War were interwoven with his ambivalence about Japan's reintegration in the post-war world. As a result of this intersection between the Cold War and decolonisation, the South Korean President was unable to achieve consensus with the rest of anti-Communist Asia. In exploring this chapter of South Korean diplomacy, the article calls on Cold War diplomatic history to integrate non-Communist Asia and for the historiography of decolonisation to investigate the legacies of Japan's empire in post-war Asia. It also suggests that scholars ought to reflect more deeply on the interrelationship between the Cold War and decolonisation.     

“Nobody’s children?”: the Ministry of Pensions and the treatment of disabled Great War veterans in the Irish Free State, 1921–1939

This article analyses the treatment and rehabilitation of disabled Irish Great War veterans who lived in the Irish Free State. To do so, it utilises the records of the Ministry of Pensions, the British governmental department, that was charged with assisting these men. This research argues that the Irish Free State was a particularly challenging society for disabled ex-servicemen to reside. Yet, whilst the social and governmental reception on offer to disabled Great War veterans was less favourable in the Free State than their similarly afflicted former comrades in Britain, they were better able to benefit from substantial assistance from the Ministry of Pensions. The department lived up to its billing as an “imperial obligation” in the newly formed state.     

But There Was No War: The Impossibility of a United States Invasion of Canada after the Civil War

The notion that the United States threatened to invade the Canadian colonies after the Civil War persists to this day. Alleged British and Canadian support for the Confederate States angered Washington so much that Canadians feared military action. This menace started the Confederation movement that created the Dominion in 1867. This article argues otherwise by pointing to the careful diplomacy during the war—and rapid changes afterwards—each worked against the threat of a war. Tensions rose and fell with events such as the Trent Affair of 1861 and the St. Albans Raid of 1864, but each country otherwise sought to avoid trouble. Neither side deployed troops to the border during the war. After Appomattox, Union soldiers headed north but only to return home. Demobilization, combined with military deployments to the former Confederacy and the West, and resolute diplomacy afterwards, further prevented conflict. Not even the Fenian raids of 1866 and 1870 could disturb the peace.     

What Can Be Learned from Shell Fragments? Examples from World War II Battlefields in the Maritime Alps

Shells were the most deadly weapon used during the conflicts of the twentieth century involving industrialized nations. Astronomical numbers of them were produced and fired, making shell fragments the most common artefact to be found on modern battlefields. An understanding of shell fragments can therefore be useful to the battlefield archaeologist. This paper discusses the three main components of artillery shells and mortar shells: the body, the fuse and the rotating band for artillery shells or the tail-fin assembly for mortars. Analysing the fragments of these components can provide important information, including nationalities, types, and calibres of shells used in an area. Body fragments are the least useful, but can prove helpful if they are large, or contain markings, threads, or fragments of band seat. Rotating band fragments are extremely characteristic as well as easy to find, and a single fragment is usually sufficient to determine the exact type of shell it came from. Tail-fin assemblies are also specific of the mortar shell they were used on. Fuses are typically covered with highly informative markings such as dates of manufacture, lot numbers, or factory codes. Because the information derived from the analysis of various shell fragments is a cheap and relatively easy way to help maximize the understanding of a battlefield that is being investigated, any archaeologist working on a modern battlefield should familiarize themselves with this topic.     

Beyond Recall: Searching for the Remains of a British Secret Weapon of World War I

This article discusses the development of the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector, a massive British flamethrower that was used against German trenches in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Built underground within tunnels below No Man’s Land, this secret weapon was an attempt to use technology to break through German defences and reduce British casualties. The flame projector was the most effective flamethrower developed in WWI, but proved to be too inflexible and expensive to be widely used.     

Constituencies of conflict and opportunity: Land rights,narratives and collective action in Darfur

Grievance-based narratives are a primary component of civil wars. While present among the general population affected by conflict, the variants held by the segment of the population most proximate to the armed factions – constituencies – play a primary role in the development and conduct of a conflict. Such narratives can coalesce around specific volatile issues and enable non-combatant constituencies to participate in the conflict through the use of specific 'legalities' or legal precepts. These legalities facilitate the engagement of sets of collective action that are opposed to those derived by constituencies of the opposing side. However such constituencies and their narratives are also where potential opportunity resides for peace-building, both during and subsequent to hostilities. This article looks at the case of Darfur to examine these ingredients, with a focus on land rights as the volatile set of issues around which narratives have developed. In Darfur, opposed narratives which maintain how and why groups claim and deserve access to land and territory, and how groups were unjustly displaced or excluded from lands (and hence power), became solidified and acted upon prior to the conflict to become a primary driver in the current war. In certain cases however narrative change has led to interaction between members of opposed constituencies for the purpose of exploring cooperative arrangements.     

Be Part of the Story: A popular geopolitics of war comics aesthetics and Royal Air Force recruitment

This paper provides an analysis of images associated with the British Royal Air Force's recent ‘Be Part of the Story’ war comic-styled military recruiting campaign. Set around literatures in popular geopolitics, the paper builds on the concept of comic book visualities to suggest that the ‘Be Part of the Story’ images reproduce longstanding war comics conventions, and coherently represent the complex, relational and spatially disparate battlespaces of the present. The paper, firstly, provides a detailed history of war comics as they have mediated war to publics, and argues that war comics should figure more strongly in future studies of popular geopolitics. Secondly, it argues that more than simply part of a pervasive ‘cultural condition’ of militarization, military recruitment is a vital medium through which states and militaries view, and choose to represent their role in the world. Lastly, it demonstrates that ‘Be Part of the Story’ reproduces the violent visions, metaphors and cultural designations integral to state-centric narratives of global politics, and specifically, spatial principles inherent to network-centric warfare.     

1940年代初期河北省沦陷区联庄会研究

联庄会是中国特定历史条件下产生的。1941年太平洋战争爆发后河北省沦陷区的联庄会是日伪拼凑的乡村"群众自卫组织",是"乡村协同体"建设的重要形式。实质上河北沦陷区联庄会是日伪对付中共领导的敌后人民抗日战争而精心组建的伪组织。中国共产党以抗日民族统一战线思想为指导,对联庄会进行了卓有成效的争取工作。探讨河北省沦陷区联庄会的建立和主要活动,以及中共争取联庄会的斗争,有助于进一步深化对华北沦陷区日伪统治和华北沦陷区抗日活动的研究。