Discuss
the interaction of cultures in the area of Hadrian’s Wall .
Hadrian’s wall . Over time these would interact in different
ways eventually becoming more comfortable in each others presence such that
Roman Soldiers (or at least soldiers of the Roman Army (as ; not all soldiers in the Roman army were
Italian. Inscriptions from Arbeia
include Pannonians, Spaniards, Gauls, Moors and Syrians – as well as Italians)
would be setting up Altars to British gods, such as that set up to
Antenociticus at Benwell.Hadrian’s Wall was not
uninhabited when the army arrived there.
Indeed the wall cut across the territory of the Brigantes at its western
end (Huskinson, 2000 p64)[ii]. So the establishment of permanent bases in
tribal territory would have forced interaction between the natives and the
army. As the wall bisected tribal
territory there may be a stronger argument for its role, at least early in the
period when Roman Units were still stationed to the north, as a means of
controlling, and thereby taxing trade, rather than as a purely defensive base
although its numerous guard positions and forts do not rule this latter
function out. The presence of the vallum
to the south of the wall has been interpreted as evidence of local interaction
or encroachment upon the wall (Video 2) although this interpretation is one of
many it is worth noting as it represents a plausible reason for changes to the
structure of the wall over time as a result of interaction between civilian and
military needs.Regina Hadrian’s Wall . Factors that shaped culture in the area would
have included the make up of the army units stationed there, the nature of
local people and the interaction between soldiers and civilians. Evidence of religious and cultural practice,
including the classical art used to depict local gods Over time relationships
in the area would have changed assimilation of local customs by the army and of
ex-soldiers into the local settlements would likely have increased the cultural
homogeneity of the area. At times, such
as during the period of Antoninus Pius when a new northerly frontier was set at
the Antonine wall, the garrison of the wall may have been relatively small and
therefore interactions between locals and the army limited. Although literary sources are scarce, this
area is relatively rich in archaeological evidence but this remains open to
some interpretation so it is not possible to be certain how well the combined
Roman British and even Caledonian populations intermingled, some degree of
acculturation can be reasonably concluded from the archaeological record. One important question remains however and
that is just how permanent were the changes brought about by the presence of
the Roman Army in the area? Video 2
points out that within 50 years of the departure of the army a great deal of
its infrastructure – roads, bridges, plumbing – had disappeared. This disappearance should not be taken, I
believe, as an indication that the Roman effect on the culture of Britain Milton
Keynes Milton Keynes Oxford University Press, Oxford
Aeneid 6.791-800 - How and why does Virgil promote
Augustus in this passage?Rome Gaul and Augustus’s own victory
(or at least Agrippa’s) over Marcus Antonius, this affirmation puts into the
minds of the listener the image of a great General.Holland Holland Actium
the bloodshed of the civil war ceased but the memory had not disappeared
overnight, it is not likely therefore that Virgil would have considered
criticising Augustus. However another
view may be taken here. The memory of the civil war of the 30s and 40s BC may
have made Virgil truly glad for the return of peace that Augustus’s triumph
represented. In other writing’s, Virgil
had depicted the miseries of those dispossessed by the break down of civil
society (Holland Holland ,
T (2003), Rubicon The Triumph and Tragedy
of the Roman Republic , Abacus, London
Word Count 1661 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Discuss
the interaction of cultures in the area of Hadrian’s Wall .
Frontier is defined by
the Oxford English Dictionary in more then 1 way. It may be ‘the frontline or foremost part of
an army’ or the ‘part of a country which fronts, faces or borders on another
country’ or ‘that part of a country which forms the border of its settled or
inhabited regions’. All of these
definitions are relevant to this discussion as the variety of definitions is
matched by a variety of different inhabitants, cultural practices, types of
settlement and trading patterns around Hadrian’s wall . Over time these would interact in different
ways eventually becoming more comfortable in each others presence such that
Roman Soldiers (or at least soldiers of the Roman Army (as ; not all soldiers in the Roman army were
Italian. Inscriptions from Arbeia
include Pannonians, Spaniards, Gauls, Moors and Syrians – as well as Italians)
would be setting up Altars to British gods, such as that set up to
Antenociticus at Benwell.
The different
components that affected culture in the area can be broken down into a number
of categories and sub categories. Firstly
consider the nature of the military and civilian inhabitants of the area. These may be categorised in terms of members
of the Roman Army whose commanders would likely belong to the Roman Elite or
Equestrian classes and the soldiery who may be legionary Roman Citizens or
non-Roman Auxiliaries. Already there is
a great degree of heterogeneity within this group that is further complicated
by the fact that many of the soldiers, such as the Thracian Longinus Sdapeze
(Huskinson, 2000 p54)[i]
originated from outside the Italian peninsula.
Despite this heterogeneity of origin, long service with the same comrades
and in the same units, often in the same area, together with standard military
law and training plus allegiance to the emperor made the soldiers culturally homogenous
in outlook at least during our period.
In the area of the
frontier the military would have interacted with local civilians. The Roman military was relatively well paid
and large numbers of troops would have provided a market for civilian traders,
indeed in the frontier area a specific trading pattern may have developed to
service the military camps. The
gatehouses and vallum of Hadrian’s wall appear to have been designed to control
passage between Roman and non-Roman territory (though literary evidence is
scarce) thus the wall may well have been used by the Romans as a means of controlling
the passage of traders form North to South.
It should also be noted
that the area around Hadrian’s Wall was not
uninhabited when the army arrived there.
Indeed the wall cut across the territory of the Brigantes at its western
end (Huskinson, 2000 p64)[ii]. So the establishment of permanent bases in
tribal territory would have forced interaction between the natives and the
army. As the wall bisected tribal
territory there may be a stronger argument for its role, at least early in the
period when Roman Units were still stationed to the north, as a means of
controlling, and thereby taxing trade, rather than as a purely defensive base
although its numerous guard positions and forts do not rule this latter
function out. The presence of the vallum
to the south of the wall has been interpreted as evidence of local interaction
or encroachment upon the wall (Video 2) although this interpretation is one of
many it is worth noting as it represents a plausible reason for changes to the
structure of the wall over time as a result of interaction between civilian and
military needs.
Evidence of cultural
interactions can be found in different cultural practices in the area. These have been classed as Celtic, Classical
and Imported non Classical (Salway p666)[iii]. Archaeological evidence of these practices
mixing is widely available in the area.
Already mentioned is the altar set up by a Roman Soldier to
Antenociticus which is evidence of acceptance of local customs by the occupying
forces, although the representation of Antenociticus is clearly Roman. Although the Romanization of local gods is
not uncommon as is represented by the classical representation of the Celtic
Goddess Brigantia from near Birrens (Plate 4.31) there are also examples of
clearly Celtic symbols in Roman settings such as the horned warrior god from
Maryport (plate 4.33). This evidence of
cultural interaction should however be tempered by examples of clearly Roman
practice such as the following of the Emperor cult and the worship of Mithras (Mithras was not a British god, and his worship was only
open to initiates, so it did not represent cultural interaction with the local
population. It did however, show the
inclusive nature of the Roman pantheon when an eastern god could become the
object of devotion among Roman soldiers) nevertheless the evidence of even high
ranking Romans allying themselves with local gods is significant in that it
shows that over time members of the army becomes accultured to the area so that
cultural interaction is not just one way.
Non classical imported cults are also in evidence such as the altar at Corbridge
, set up by a centurion, dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus, to Caelestis
Brigantia (a North African deity combined with a local goddess), and to Salus.
The nature of
Settlements is a further factor or symptom of cultural interaction. Whilst army officers brought their wives with
them to the area, Roman soldiers below the rank of centurion were not allowed
to marry during their service, until the Severian edict of 197, nevertheless many
acquired ‘wives’ and families who effectively became camp followers in nearby
settlements not far form the military bases.
There is a lot of tombstone evidence of such marriages between soldiers
and local women for example the tomb of Regina
To conclude it should
be noted that numerous interactions between the Roman army and local populations
would have occurred in the area around Hadrian’s Wall . Factors that shaped culture in the area would
have included the make up of the army units stationed there, the nature of
local people and the interaction between soldiers and civilians. Evidence of religious and cultural practice,
including the classical art used to depict local gods Over time relationships
in the area would have changed assimilation of local customs by the army and of
ex-soldiers into the local settlements would likely have increased the cultural
homogeneity of the area. At times, such
as during the period of Antoninus Pius when a new northerly frontier was set at
the Antonine wall, the garrison of the wall may have been relatively small and
therefore interactions between locals and the army limited. Although literary sources are scarce, this
area is relatively rich in archaeological evidence but this remains open to
some interpretation so it is not possible to be certain how well the combined
Roman British and even Caledonian populations intermingled, some degree of
acculturation can be reasonably concluded from the archaeological record. One important question remains however and
that is just how permanent were the changes brought about by the presence of
the Roman Army in the area? Video 2
points out that within 50 years of the departure of the army a great deal of
its infrastructure – roads, bridges, plumbing – had disappeared. This disappearance should not be taken, I
believe, as an indication that the Roman effect on the culture of Britain
[i] Huskinson,
J. Hope, V. and Nevett, L. (2000) AA309
Block Four Roman Britain, The Open University, Milton
Keynes
[ii] Huskinson, J. Hope, V. and Nevett, L.
(2000) AA309 Block Four Roman Britain,
The Open University, Milton Keynes
[iii] Salway, P. (1985), Roman Britain, The Oxford University Press, Oxford
The direct reference to Augustus in this
passage clearly ensures that there is no possibility in confusing the target of
the praise within the passage, there is no effort made simply to allude to the
Princeps. In trying to understand how
Virgil is promoting Augustus, it is possible to see overt and direct reference;
however there is also subtler praise within the text. We cannot be absolutely certain why Virgil praises
Augustus because he doesn’t tell us, although by looking at the context within
which it was written we can make an educated guess.
Firstly how does Virgil praise Augustus? Overtly, Augustus is praised as the promised
one, as though chosen by fate to bring glory to Rome Gaul and Augustus’s own victory
(or at least Agrippa’s) over Marcus Antonius, this affirmation puts into the
minds of the listener the image of a great General.
Further overt praise is made by alluding to the greatness
of a future promised under Augustus – promises of a new golden age and of
empire stretching beyond the world into the zodiac. This latter mention of the zodiac again
subtly emphasises, by reference to the heavenly sphere, Augustus’s
divinity.
Overt, but subtle praise is used when Virgil talks of the
trembling of the Caspian realm and of the Crimean country. This alludes to both the power and military
prowess of Augustus and even to peoples beyond the Roman world having heard of
this power. In Roman society making
one’s enemies tremble at the sound of your name would have been a sign of
greatness.
Why did Virgil praise Augustus? There are number of possible and plausible
explanations. The first being that he
may have been paid to do so (Goodman, 2006, p181)[1] –
or at least have been given significant patronage. Augustus was keen to encourage the propaganda
of his legitimacy, to link with Caesar and to be seen as a great soldier. He was careful therefore to patronise the
poets who were able to provide this image on his behalf. A second possible reason why Virgil was keen
to praise may have been through fear.
During the Triumvirate Augustus had clearly demonstrated a ruthless
streak in the years following Phillipi (Holland Holland Actium
the bloodshed of the civil war ceased but the memory had not disappeared
overnight, it is not likely therefore that Virgil would have considered
criticising Augustus. However another
view may be taken here. The memory of the civil war of the 30s and 40s BC may
have made Virgil truly glad for the return of peace that Augustus’s triumph
represented. In other writing’s, Virgil
had depicted the miseries of those dispossessed by the break down of civil
society (Holland
In reality it is extremely unlikely that
Virgil would have heaped the praise upon Augustus for one reason alone. It is more likely that Virgil’s motive was
the outcome of a number of these reasons.
[2] Holland ,
T (2003), Rubicon The Triumph and Tragedy
of the Roman Republic , Abacus, London
[3] ibid
[4] ibid
[5] ibid
Compare and contrast
the accounts by Mark Noll and Alexis de Tocqueville of the role of religion in
political life in the United States in the early nineteenth century. How
important was Christian identity to the development of American nationhood by
1865?
The extracts by Noll
and de Tocqueville are separated by more than 150 years. Whilst Noll is writing with the benefit of
hindsight he is required to use secondary sources whereas de Tocqueville writes
from personal experience. These
different viewpoints affect the different authors accounts. In this essay I will deal firstly, with the
general context of the two accounts before looking at specific differences and
the conclusions drawn by the two authors.
I will then go on to give my own interpretation of how important
Christian identity was to the development of nationhood up to the end of the
Civil war in 1865.
Writing in different
times and through different witnesses gives the accounts of Noll and de
Tocqueville quite distinct differences.
Noll, has the advantage of the use of a wide range of statistical data
that was not available to de Tocqueville as well as good accounts from
contemporary participants in the events recorded. De Tocqueville, on the other hand has a more
limited view, in time and space, of personal experience but has the advantage
of writing from direct knowledge of ongoing events. These different vantage points may well
account for the different emphasis placed on Christian denominations by the two
authors. De Tocqueville, with his
Catholic French background, spends a considerable amount of time reviewing the
democratic credentials of Roman Catholicism within the United States. He notes the differences in its practice as
an instrument in support of democracy in America rather than tyranny as in
Europe. De Tocqueville concentrates on
Roman Catholicism but acknowledges that there are a wide range of Christian
sects in America, noting that Roman Catholics are in a minority that is
protected by, and therefore supports the constitutional separation of church
and state.
In contrast to de
Tocqueville, Noll highlights the massive expansion of Evangelicalism through
the Methodists and Baptists from the late 18th century. Noll acknowledges that Roman Catholics are a
growing minority but highlights that they represent mainly an immigrant
population whereas Evangelical Protestantism expands from within through
missions to the expanding territories and supported by improved industrial methods
and communication. Unlike de
Tocqueville, Noll is concerned not only to record the importance of religion in
the United States but also to explain the reasons for the growth of
religiosity, noting that all denominations grew in adherents from the Revolution
to the Civil War but that the Evangelical sects grew massively.
Both writers link the
importance of religion in the formation and maintenance of democracy although
the emphasis each places on religion is different. De Tocqueville holds religion to be
‘indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions’ (de Tocqueville
xxx)[1]
whilst Noll identifies the rise of Evangelicalism to be a result of democracy
that results from the revolutionary war.
Noll identifies four possible reasons for the growth of religiosity but
seems most drawn to the argument that the Revolution caused social dislocation
that then required a period of social reconstruction within which the Methodists
and Baptists seem to have found a niche.
The Evangelical’s ideology, Noll claims, of self-selection of leaders,
of grass-roots organization, of the rejection of mediation to achieve salvation
and in particular of individual interpretation of scriptures, matched neatly
the post revolutionary Zeitgeist. The
revolutionary war, claims Noll, sanctioned liberal, democratic, populist and
individual constructions of liberty as well as arousing popular principles and
eliminating deference to authority. Noll
quotes Wood in support of his argument for the reasons of the expansion of evangelicalism
that churces in America had to construct revolutionary forms of Christianity or
decline.
As I have already said
both de Tocqueville and Noll identify religion as important to the development
of American democracy. They take
different viewpoints however. De
Tocqueville is concerned to observe that which he can see around him. Noll has a wider view and draws on the
scholarship of others as well as primary source material not only to comment,
as de Tocqueville, but to explain.
Noll’s concludes that the rise of evangelicalism is the result of common
people choosing to ‘shape the culture after their own priorities rather than
the priorities outlined by gentlemen’ (xxxx)[2]
whereas de Tocqueville sees religion as central to the maintenance of democracy
rather than shaped by it.
The Puritans were
amongst the earliest settlers of the American colonies and although a number of
their beliefs and practices such as support for the concept of pre-destination
the need for experience of personal revelation, were superseded, particular
with the rise of the Evangelicals and other sects such as the Quakers, they
have left a legacy in the American cultural memory. Chidester (2000, p425)[3]
recounts the early Puritan settlements of Massachusetts of which the leaders
considered themselves to be not only refugees from the oppression of the
religious establishment but also the founders of a new Zion. This concept of Zion on the American
continent remained strong and was reinforced in the early nineteenth century by
continued religious revivalism and is evident in the ideology of the Church of
Jesus Christ of the Latter-day saints. Other
Puritan legacies that out-lasted the Puritans themselves included the belief,
expressed by the Evangeilcals in the nineteenth century, that the Bible was the
final divine revelation and therefore source of authority. Additionally the
consepts of religious freedom that became part of the US constitution can be
traced to the Puritan’s own desire to protect their religious freedom. To the puritans can be traced, also, the
‘Protestant’ ethics of self-reliance and hard work (whether or not these are
truly ‘protestant’ can be argued see AA307 CD3).
Whilst all of these
characteristics feed into the development of the American nationhood into the
nineteenth century, the Puritans belief in Theocracy rather than democracy and
strict hierarchy did not survive. By the
late eighteenth century the political upheavels that led to the revolutionary
war created a new enlightenment influenced emphasis on individualism,
democratic participation (for whites), anti-authoritarianism and freedom from
religious dogma that contributed, as noted above, to a great expansion of
Christian congregations, particular of evangelical sects. These sects would play an increasingly
important role in the development of national identity as they grew, though it
must be noted that they were not a coherent grouping.
The American revolution
caused a social dislocation, as already mentioned, that contributed to the
expansion of evangelicalism. The
revolutionary leaders influenced by the enlightenment and looking across the
Atlantic were concerned to ensure freedom from religious tyrrany and therefore
ensured freedom from religion by allowing freedom for religion thus assisting
more individualistic religions to flourish from 1776 onwards.
The ownership of slaves
was easily justifiable in an ideology that accepted everyman should bear his
god-given role that was characteristic of Puritan thinking. However, after the revolution, where whites
declared themselves to be free, it was difficult to make a coherent argument
for slavery, although some tried. The
Presbyterian minister Charles Colcock Jones, for example, was one of many that
preached that slaves should honour their masters as they had been placed in
their position by God (Chidester, 2000, p 437).
The growth of evangelicalism from the late eighteenth century not only
challenged these views but also appealed to the slaves themselves so that
Christianity was spread throughout the population of America even if different
sects had widely different viewpoints.
The missionary zeal of the evangelicals, facilitated by
industrialisation, territorial expansion and improved communications meant that
their individualistic, democratic, anti-establishment ideology became
widespread. In particular it captured
the post revolutionary Zeitgeist. As mentioned earlier, Noll pointed out that
the revolutionary war sanctioned the same liberal, democratic, populist and
individual constructions of liberty that the evangelicals espoused.
Largely as a
consequence of the expansion of all Christian denominations during the first
half of the nineteenth century American society was strongly moralistic
(Wolffe, 2008, p15)[4] in
outlook with a particular stress on family values. Evidence for this is seen in the wide range
of social concerns championed by the evangelicals that include temperance,
prison reform and a range of other issues as well as abolition. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there
was a strong religious tone to American public life. In spite of this there was conflict between
denominations, as can be seen in the anti-catholic riots in Charlestown in
1834, as well as between economic and political interest groups that were
concerned to use the scriptures to justify the iniquities of slavery.
A significant
consequence, noted by Wolffe (2008, p15) of the ‘strongly religious tone of
American public life’ was that when Civil War broke out both sides considered it
to be a holy war with God on their side
I have shown here that
Christianity was a major force in the development of American nationhood to the
middle of the nineteenth century – so much so that we leave two sides fighting
a holy war against each other. Having
said that there were also other factors at play during this period. Politically the revolution itself provided
the ideology and space for the expansion of the variety of Christina
denominations, particularly for the Methodists and Baptists. I would argue that without the revolutionary
mindset that cast off authority, declared freedom for religion and set in train
a democratic mindset there may not have been the same explosion of religiosity
that we see. Although most of the
Word Count 1661
Chidester,
D. (2000), Christianity, Penguin,
London
[1] Quoted in
Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in
history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study Guide 3, The Open University [3] Chidester, D. (2000), Christianity,
Penguin, London
[4] Wolffe,
J (2008), AA307 Religion in history:
conflict, conversion and coexistence Study Guide 3, The Open University
Compare the role that different aspects of
US power might play in
realising the USA US USA USA USA again took
up an isolationist position, which contributed significantly to the failure of
the League of Nations as a security
institution. Its entry into world war
two and its subsequent multi-lateral engagement in the international system
have brought it to pre-eminence. The
position of the USA has come about as a result of its victory in world war two
and its then military (until the mid 1950s it was the only nuclear power) and
economic strength vis a vis its strategic partners in Europe after 1945 and its
eventual ‘victory’ in the Cold War as a result of the economic collapse of the
USSR. From a realist perspective, it has
achieved its position because it has ‘imposed [its] will on lesser states
and…because other states have benefited from and accepted [its]… leadership’
(Gilpin, 1983, p 145.)[2]USA US USA USA USA USA USA USA USA US USA USA Europe
and beyond has been seen as some (Bromley, 2004, p147)[5],
as a compelling source of US power reshaping the world (Gramsci, 1971, p317)[6].
Given the very different social systems in Europe Americanism is only part of
the story accounting for the USA Anderson USA USA Daytona Beach , Florida US USA US United States USA USA France , Germany Russian and China deprived the USA US USA USA US US
public opinion was horrified at events in Chechnya
in the 1990s and yet the costs of using military or economic power against Russia were too high for the USA USA Pearl
Harbour , “so, too, should this most
recent surprise attack erase the concept in some quarters that America USA
still has the world largest economy, the states-system is multi-polar with the
EU and Japan already as
major liberal competitors to the USA
and new regional economic powers developing in China ,
Russia and perhaps India USA US South East Asia the application of military power is
inconceivable except as providing regional security guarantees to liberal
capitalist states. In Europe, continued
involvement in NATO and the application of soft power to encourage eastward
expansion of NATO and the EU also helps to neutralise regional pretensions to
leadership of France and Germany Russia , and China the USA Russia , China
and the USA China , Russia and perhaps other are uncomfortable with
the USA ’s unipolar moment
and will try to hasten a multipolar world, the USA USA ’s actions in Iraq USA U.S. US
policy in Iraq Iraq USA to achieve its foreign policy objectives
at….low cost ….depend in a large part on whether other powers are inclined to
support or oppose US USA USA USA USA cannot
control all the threats to these public goods (Bromley, 2004)[17]
In most cases, therefore, it will be in the interests of other states to work
with the USA USA USA USA U.S.
[1] Brown, W. (2004) A liberal international
order, in Bromley. S et al (2004) (ed) ‘’Ordering the International: History,
Change and Transformation’, London and Sterling Virginia Cambridge US Power and Strategy After Iraq London London
and Sterling Virginia London ,
Lawrence
Graph 1 – Rate of growth SSA compared with East Asia and
Pacific - note lack of high growth during the adjustment years despite BWI
involvement (From Making the International p 312, original source World Bank)
foreign direct investment. Therefore, the deficit in availability of foreign
currency from trade has been made good mainly by foreign aid in two forms:
transfer payments on current account and loans on capital account. Therefore, throughout
Africa there is a high dependence on foreign aid.
USA
Abide by Kyoto deal
Don't abide by Kyoto Deal
EU
Abide by Kyoto deal
2,2 Preferred outcome to weak play
0,4 Nash Equilibrium
Don't abide by Kyoto Deal
4,0 Nash Equilibrium
-6,-6 Catastrophic Play
Figure 1 Matrix depicting
global warming as a collective action problem game between 2 actors
Analysing the game from the point of view of the EU, if the
USA acts tough and fails to abide by Kyoto, the EU’s best reply is to act weak
and abide as 0 is better than -6; if the USA acts weak and abides by the
agreement, the EU’s best reply is to act tough and not to abide as 4 is better
than 2. From the perspective of the USA,
if the EU acts tough and fails to abide by Kyoto, the USA’s best reply is to act
weak abide as 0 is better than -6; if the EU plays weak and abides by the
agreement, the USA’s best reply is to act tough and not to abide as 4 is better
than 2. These strategies show 2 Nash
equilibria (see figure 1) each cell indicating strategies that are best replies
to each other.
Part 2 b (728 words)
[1] Wangwe. S. (2004) The politics of
autonomy and sovereignty: Tanzania’s aid relationship, in Bromley. S et al
(2004) (ed) ‘Making the International: Economic Interdependence and
Political Order’, London and Sterling Virginia, Pluto Press in association
with The Open University
What was the role of technology in British imperial expansion?
The
British Empire grew in phases from English domination of the British Isles to
expansion across the Atlantic to trading posts in India and beyond and whilst
the gap in technological capability between the English/British and those areas
being colonised in these earlier phases of expansion was never as great as in
the late nineteenth century there were times when a gap was wide enough to make
a difference. Cromwell’s suppression of Ireland and Scotland through the
New Model Army, better American settler weaponry during King Phillip’s War and
James Cook’s banishment of scurvy with sauerkraut, not to mention innovations
in Naval Architecture and timekeeping, that allowed for his multiyear
exploration of the Pacific and the discovery and mapping of New Zealand and the
Eastern seaboard of Australia are all examples of imperial expansion enabled by
technology and should not be ignored. Furthermore, financial innovations
such as the establishment of the Bank of England as well as the Industrial and
Agrarian revolutions allowed Britain to outspend her continental opponents from
the 1700s onwards that would lead to her industrial and naval supremacy for
most of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries that gave her the strategic
space to expand her empire. From the 1750s extensive
use of copper sheathing to protect ships’ hulls assisted British dominance in
tropical waters. Military innovations in weapons and organization were
instrumental in expansion before 1800. The main
difference between these earlier phases of expansion and that of the nineteenth
century was that the technological gap widened significantly from the 1840s
onwards thus making expansion cheaper in lives and treasure and causing a rapid
acceleration that would not end until after the 1st World War when the new technology of air power was
deployed in the middle east in order to control the mandated territories.
What was
unusual about the 2nd half of the nineteenth century was the increasing
technological gap between Europe, particularly Britain, and the rest of the
world. This gap allowed for accelerated British imperial expansion, and
in this period expansion was not only made possible by the use of technology,
but was also rationalised by technology and the British came to distinguish
themselves from and claimed a superiority over others on the basis of their
mastery of science and technology. From the 1830s onwards, Headrick has
noted that technology allowed for a three-phased analysis of imperial
expansion. Firstly several technologies enabled the British to move
inland from their traditional trading posts to penetrate new territories.
The primary technologies employed were the flat bottomed, steam powered
river boats and the isolation of quinine as a malaria prophylactic.
Well-armed naval steam powered gunboats were instrumental in the defeat
of Chinese forces during the opium wars and the imposition of favourable, to
the British, terms upon the Chinese that not oly forced market penetration for
the opium trade but also led to the transfer of territory to the Empire.
Even
today inland communications within Africa are hampered by natural barriers,
disease and poor infrastructure and Africa had long been a European graveyard.
During Bolts 1777-79 expedition at Delagoa Bay, 132 out of 152 Europeans on the
journey died whilst Mungo Park's 1805 journey to the upper Niger resulted in
the death of all the Europeans. By the 1840s, Bryson and others had identified
the effectiveness of quinine and Laird’s 1854 expedition, following Bryson’s
advice on quinine dosage, lost none of the European members despite spending
112 days on the Niger and Benue rivers. Improved medical technology,
however only provided the means to stay alive, to travel flat bottomed steam
powered river boats were required. As Kubicek points out, these boats,
built in numbers for the Crimean War, were upgraded and distributed to various
stations where they both an instrument and symbol of Imperial control.
Kubicek cites the example of HMS Goshawk being used in 1887 to kidnap a local
ruler and palm oil merchant, Jaja of Opobo.
Once
territories were penetrated, control need to be wrested from the indigenous
population. This could be achieved by military force alone if sufficient
could be brought to bear or could be combined by weight of number, a population
could be overwhelmed by British Settlers, Ferguson’s ‘White Plague’. The
British diaspora to the colonies, though not new, was facilitated to a great
degree in the latter half of the century by a revolution in steamer traffic
resulting from the replacement of iron for steel as the preferred material for
ship and steam boiler construction and by from 1878 British usage of the Suez
Canal. The late century development of military capability, characterised
as ‘Maxim Force’ allowed for overwhelming firepower to be brought to bear
against those who resisted conquest – such as at the battle of Omdurman, though
it should be noted that in many clashes between the British invaders
and local peoples from 1875 that both sides had modern weaponry, the British
tended to have more of it and their factories could produce more.
Nevertheless, the South African War also showed, technological advantage
was being eroded through technology transfer to subject peoples. This transfer would eventually erode the
economy of empire and set limits to the expansion of the Empire.
Headrick’s
third analytical phase is that of consolidation – the bringing together of the
territories and their capabilities to a coherent whole. Consolidation is
one word but exploitation would be equally valid. New transport networks, rail
as well as steamship allowed for rapid communication and transfer of resources,
as well as armies to quell unrest. Modern mining technologies allowed
extractive industry, and provided a motive for imperial expansion, notably in
Southern Africa. New communications
technologies, notably telegraphs and undersea cables allowed for unprecedented speeds
of communication that gave London distinct advantages in getting markets data
and communicating to the imperial satraps thereby bringing the periphery under
greater political control. The ability to communicate rapidly also
allowed for effective troop deployment to keep the empire together. Telegraphy
was an effective in aiding suppression Indian mutiny as well as one that could
be used to provide the London financial markets with global news ahead of her
competitors. It even gave Britain a Strategic advantage over her European
rivals as Kitchener proved at Fashoda when he communicated to London via subsea
cable not available to his French counterpart or even more importantly during
World War One when German signals traffic to the USA travelled on British
Subsea cables, thereby bringing the Zimmerman telegram to light!
Headrick’s
phases approach to the analysis of the impact of technology on the expansion of
the British Empire is a useful one though in fact the reality is more muddles.
Certain technologies were employed in multiple of his phases. Technology
was not important solely in the later development of the Empire but it was
during the latter part of the nineteenth century when a distinct gap opened
between Europe and the rest of the world, particularly with Africa, that provided
for an acceleration of imperial expansion at a very low cost in lives and
treasure. This technological advantage would however be time bound. Technology transfer to the less developed
areas of the world, initially the white colonies but by the 1950s globally
would make the cost of Empire prohibitive as the gap was eroded.
Bibliography
https://hilary2018.conted.ox.ac.uk/blocks/oxref/index.php?redirect=oxscholar&dest=%2Fview%2F10.1093%2Facprof%3Aoso%2F9780198205654.001.0001%2Facprof-9780198205654-chapter-12. Kubicek, R in The Oxford History of the British
Empire Vol : the Nineteenth Century
Geoffrey
Parker, The Military Revolution, Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,
1500–1800, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1990).
What beliefs and arguments drove the movement to abolish
slavery, and what kind of evidence against the slave trade was presented to the
British public?
- ·
Governance and Trusteeship
- ·
Economic
- ·
Strategic
- ·
Evangelical and Humanitarian
Burke and others, perhaps
inspired by the American rebellion, argued that possession of Empire and power
brought obligations to promote the welfare of its peoples. As much concerned with the ability of power
to corrupt the British themselves and seeking thereby to limit that power, by
1783 Burke was speaking in Parliament of the ‘natural equality of mankind at
large’[i] an
admission that slavery and servitude were not compatible with British values. Adam Smith argued against the institution of
slavery as it was economically unsustainable pointing to the inevitably
decreasing productivity of the West Indian monoculture dependent on the Slave
trade and protected by trade barriers. Smith’s
claim that overseas plantations represented much less secure investments than
metropolitan agriculture or industry was confirmed by the British West Indies’
difficulties during the War of American Independence.[ii]
[i] Porter
The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century.
Trusteeship, Anti-Slavery, and Humanitarianism Andrew Porter
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205654.003.0010
What were the main causes of British decolonisation?
Britain was forced out of India and Burma by political change within India, in part a response to the growing demands of the colonial state, in part an outgrowth of both religious revival and new cultural movements. From 1920 the Indian National Congress aimed at destroying the habit of deference to British authority. The arrest of Congress members during the war allowed the rise of the Muslim League. Even before the war there were strains on the system but the need for resources to defeat Germany and, in 1942, Japan’s invasion of Malaya then Burma led to the eventual British commitment to giving India self-government at the end of the war (though the intention was to tie India closely to Britain). In the second half of the war, the causes of mass grievance and fear also grew quickly the likes of inflation and then food shortages (up to 2 million deaths in the Bengal Famine) exacerbated Congress’s calls for independence.
Once the war ended the British were exhausted. Many British officials and soldiers longed to go home and get back to civvy street. Unrest in the Bengal Navy led to fears that the huge Indian Army might mutiny and it was recognised by Wavell and Attlee that if the Congress chose to make trouble, there was little the British could do: ‘I doubt whether a Congress rebellion could be suppressed,’ wrote the Viceroy’s adviser on internal security. Attlee’s own assessment was:
a) In view of our commitments all over the world we have not the military force to hold India against a widespread guerrilla movement or to reconquer India
b) If we had, public opinion especially in our party would not stand for it
c) It is very doubtful if we could keep the Indian troops loyal. It is doubtful if our own troops would act.
d) We should have world opinion against us
e) We have not the administrative machine to carry out such a policy British or Indian.
The end of the Raj did not lead to the immediate break-up of the empire. But it marked a critical break in its internal cohesion, and an irreparable loss of the vital resources – military above all. Still an imperial mentality was still deeply entrenched at all levels of British society (and remains in today’s Tory party). The USA’s hostility to European Empires was tempered by her fear of communism filling a possible vacuum, so for the next few decades the US would continue to accept imperial pretensions, though on its own terms. This harnessing of empire to the task of Cold War containment would extend its life.
Britain’s strategic disasters in 1940–42 marked a momentous change. Canada, Australia and New Zealand (though not South Africa) discovered their strategic dependence on American power. Their status as sovereign countries, became increasingly real, indeed Australia recalled her ground troops from North Africa (despite Chuchill's pleas) to defend the homeland in 1942; they did not return. Canada’s Navy was instrumental in the defeat of the U boat threat in the North Atlantic and by the end of the war she had a rising friendly power on her southern border that offered markets far easier to access than the earlier imperial ones – access to which was made easier by Canada’s being a ‘dollar’ rather than Sterling Economy.
From the late 1940s the pressing issue for Britain became the economy and the weakness of sterling. The reliance on ‘dollar’ goods led to an iniquitous policy of Britain sweating her remaining colonial assets by the transfer of colonial export dollar cash flows from the colonies to London’s ‘dollar pool’, to be spent as London decided a policy one would argue almost specifically designed to cause resentment of Empire as those countries whose currency was tied to sterling – including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – were forced to accept central control of their dollar spending, and buy sterling goods whenever they could.
By the late 1950s the aggressive expansion of the colonial state – regulating, restricting, conscripting – and the arrival of more and more whites as farmers, miners, officials and experts aroused ever-increasing resentment among African peoples, not least among the traditional chiefs on whom the colonial apparatus relied. De Gaulle’s granting of independence to most of France’s African possession and the collapse of Belgian authority (self-inflicted for a large part) in Congo further inflamed African nationalists and opened the door to Soviet approaches as partner of choice thus further reducing British influence – particularly apparent in Egypt but also elsewhere on the continent.
Continued economic weakness into the 1960s and 70s, and the humiliations of Suez and De Gaulle’s ‘non’ to EEC membership would undermine Britain’s great power pretensions and reduce support at home for further expenditure on an increasingly anachronistic project.
World War 1: Lessons and Legacy of the Great
War. Future Learn MOOC run by University
of New South Wales; Lead Educator - Dr John Connor; Course Educator - Dr Liana
Markovich
The course is presented in three parts:
1 An overview of the War. Concentrating on the conflict on the Western Front and the development of trench warfare.
2 The ‘learning curve’ - compares how the British, French and German armies attempted to end the stalemate of trench warfare by developing new technology, training and tactics.
3 Remembering the First World War explores how the social and political landscape has shaped and changed the memory of the War over the last century, and how art, poetry and novels have contributed to that understanding.
Glossary - International Encyclopedia of the 1st WorldInternational Encyclopedia of the 1st World Warr
Week 1 examines the immediate origin of the War including those alliances that pressed Nations to act. It also looks at the Strategies employed throughout the war by the Germans, British and French. The Germans tried five separate strategies to win the first War and each of them failed:
1. Schlieffen Plan (Moltke) 1914
2. Knockout Russia – negotiated Peace to free Army to attack France unhindered by Eastern Front (Falkenhayn) 1915
3. Bleed France Dry – Verdun (Falkenhayn) 1916
4. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (Hindenburg/Ludendorff) 1917
5. Kaiserschlacht – defeat Britain and France before US power applicable (Hindenburg/Ludendorff) 1918
Germany’s key strengths were in operations and tactics but her key weaknesses were in logistics and resources, her seizure at the start of the war of much of France’s Iron and Coal industry relieved to some extent here resource issues and also drove French Strategy to the attack in order to recover these. A further problem for Germany, that worsens as the war progresses is the weakness of her key ally – Austria whom she increasingly needs to prop up.
The origins of the War are complex but as is commonly known the spark that ignited the War occurred on 28 June 1914 when the heir to the Austrian Throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo. A month later Austria invaded Serbia, Russia, seeing herself as the defender of Serbia mobilised her army which prompted Austria’s ally Germany to declare war on Russia. Fearing that France would come to the aid of her own ally (Russia) and believing the British, though with an ‘Entente Cordiale’ with France, would remain aloof, the Germans put into to operation the Schlieffen plan in order to defeat France before turning her whole attention to the defeat of the slow to mobilize Russians. As we now know, the German defeat at the Marne ended their chance of defeating France and led to the Race for the Sea and the solidification of the Western Front. Until 1918 further offensives would be a frontal attack against increasingly complex trench systems, in which the odds favoured the defenders. The army commanders always knew that the war would only be won once manoeuvre returned to the battlefield but they lacked the technological means to achieve this.
British Strategy:
The British Army on the First World War is really three different armies:
1. Regular Army BEF of 1914 – Old Contemptibles – small but professional 2 x Corps
2. New Army – Volunteers plus Colonial divisions
3. Conscription 1916 onwards - this is the army which plays probably the biggest role in defeating the Germans on the Western Front.
By 1918, for the first time in history, Britain is a military power. We must remember that Britain did not see itself as a military power. It was the world's biggest financial and naval power – which directed her strategy to win the war by Blockade and by financing her allies – much as she had done during the Napoleonic Wars. By 1917 however, the army is required to do most of the fighting as the French Army had suffered horrendous casualties and was in a state of mutiny. In 1918, Haig deployed the largest field army Britian had ever had and it was this army that was largely responsible for the battlefield defeat of Germany in the 100 days after the battle of Amiens
French Strategy:
In 1914 it was assumed that the only possible way to defeat a German invasion was, in fact, to attack them hence Plan XVII – which actually fell right into the German plan by assisting encirclement! However failure of Plan XVII was a godsend (at horrendous cost) in that it forced the French into retreat upon internal LOCs and eventually into the right place – The Marne. Joffre, unlike Moltke, kept his head and was able to defeat the Germans on the Marne
The French strategy in 1915 was set by political and Allied considerations. At the end of 1914, once the Battle of the Marne had been won and the Germans had been stopped, yet again, at the First Battle of Ypres, it was obvious that the defensive battle had been won. However, German troops still sat in most of-- practically the whole of-- Belgium, and they occupied the mineral-rich industrial areas of northern France. Therefore, for political reasons, the strategy for 1915 could only be that the Germans had to be attacked and driven out of France leading to the strategy of offensive action. A second consideration was the Allies. Russia had done what it promised by attacking Germany in eastern Prussia. So to help Russia the only strategy that was possible in Joffre's mind was on offensives. In fact this was to be the French strategy throughout the conflict though Joffre and more than one successor would be sacked for its failure long before the war’s end.
The course then spends time looking at the Western allies and their differences (including historical enmities) – often leading to misunderstandings. The French saw the British as ‘Germanic’, greedy and arrogant; the British saw the French as being ‘Latin’, emotional and unreliable.
It was Germany’s increasingly aggressive policies in the early 1900s that brought the two nations together. In 1904, France and Britain settled their colonial disputes with the agreement known as the Entente Cordiale. The two countries began joint military discussions that led to agreements that, in the case of war with Germany, the French Navy would take responsibility for the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy for the Atlantic and the North Sea, and the British Army would provide a small expeditionary force to serve beside the French Army.
During the war French political and military leaders argued that France was doing more fighting and suffering more casualties than the British. There was some truth in this in the first part of the war while the British in this period had only a few divisions on the Western Front. By the end of the war, and after horrendous French losses the British having by now become a military power (see earlier) this view could not really be uphold logically.
The French accused the British – whose economy had not suffered from enemy invasion and occupation – of using the war to gain economic advantage though they never fully understood the British contribution to the alliance at sea and financially. So while the British and the French were the chief partners in the alliance that defeated Germany, but there was ‘no solution to the conflict’ between the two nations on how the war should be conducted and how the sacrifices of war should be shared.
Conclusions to Week 1:
The idea of the First World War as a futile and pointless war seems to have come from a viewpoint that the end result in no way justified the huge loss of life. However, European governments did not become involved in the war by accident, but through real commitment to underlying principles of loyalty to allies, the defence of small nations, as well as the opportunistic idea that a war at this time would be to one’s advantage. Certainly at the time war was perceived an instrument of foreign policy – something that its eventual cost would make more liberal nations renounce (though not Hitler’s Germany of course)
These factors drove the strategies of the major powers. Germany supported its ally Austria-Hungary in its declaration of war with Serbia – in today’s terms a state sponsor of terrorism! They believed this would remove the threat to the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian state from rising Slav nationalism. As Russia saw itself as the protector of Serbia, the Germans recognised that supporting Austria-Hungary against Serbia would likely lead to war with Russia. The German Government believed war with Russia was inevitable, and that it was better to take the opportunity to fight the war sooner rather than later. Russian economic growth and the modernisation of the Russian army would, over time, make it a more formidable enemy.
France became part of the war because Germany attacked her Britain had no formal alliance with any European power, but the British Government had held secret military talks with France which did include plans for a small British Expeditionary Force to go to France in the event of a war with Germany. However it was the German invasion of Belgium on 4 August that brought Britain into the war. Though Asquith wrote in a letter on 2 August that his government did ‘have obligations to Belgium’, he also stated that he ‘cannot allow Germany’ to have naval bases on the Belgian coastline as they would threaten Britain – with echoes of the ill-advised Battleship building programme engaged in by Tirpitz. The British declaration of war was therefore a combination of national self- interest and defending the right of Belgium to exist.
What factors worked against mutual toleration between
Catholics and Protestants between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the
nineteenth century?Britain ,
France and briefly in the USA Bismarck Europe conflict between Lutheran’s and Catholics was
ended by the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 which established the principle that the
religion of the ruler was to be the religion of the state. In spite of this pragmatic approach,
religious differences between Catholics and Protestants would do create violent
conflict in the French Wars of Religion up to the accession of Henry IV in 1598
and later in the thirty years war that was ended by the Peace of Westphalia in
1648. England ’s
own civil war has been described as a religious war however, if this was a
religious war it was between Protestant sects (except in Ireland England Elizabeth Elizabeth France England Britain
and France saw subversion in
religious diversity, it should be noted that the Netherlands Britain Britain , although
in the 1870s Bismarck America
was evident in events such as the attack on a convent in Boston USA England a lack of significant Protestant
minorities in Italy , Spain and Portugal
meant that there was no real significant degree of state sponsored Anti-Protestantism
in these countries, whilst the Treaty of Westphalia had extended the toleration
agreed between Catholics and Lutherans at Augsburg France Britain
there was no formal treaty guaranteeing Catholic rights – in fact after 1678
the Test Acts limited freedoms whilst the Glorious Revolution of 1688 led to a
still permanent settlement whereby Catholics are to this day prevented from
marrying or becoming the Head of the State of the United Kingdom Britain and Europe
suspicion of religious minorities was not uncommon throughout the period. The religious wars of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were followed by colonial wars in the mid eighteenth
century between Protestant Britain and Catholic France. From 1776 France
supported the rebellious American colonies against Britain
in the war of Independence France Britain Ireland Ireland England
Chidester,
D. (2000), Christianity, Penguin,
London
MacCulloch,
D. (2009), A History of Christianity,
Allen Lane, London
Reynolds,
D. (2009), America, Empire of Liberty: A
new History Allen Lane.
Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study
Guide 3, The Open University
AA307 Religion in history: conflict,
conversion and coexistence CD3, The Open University
[1] Quoted in
Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in
history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study Guide 3, The Open University
[2] Chidester, D. (2000), Christianity,
Penguin, London
Written 2004
This
essay will examine the nature and dimensions of US
Within the USA USA USA again took
up an isolationist position, which contributed significantly to the failure of
the League of Nations as a security
institution. Its entry into world war
two and its subsequent multi-lateral engagement in the international system
have brought it to pre-eminence. The
position of the USA has come about as a result of its victory in world war two
and its then military (until the mid 1950s it was the only nuclear power) and
economic strength vis a vis its strategic partners in Europe after 1945 and its
eventual ‘victory’ in the Cold War as a result of the economic collapse of the
USSR. From a realist perspective, it has
achieved its position because it has ‘imposed [its] will on lesser states
and…because other states have benefited from and accepted [its]… leadership’
(Gilpin, 1983, p 145.)[2]
From a liberal viewpoint the USA US
The political power of the USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
From a Marxist perspective, US USA USA
The export of Americanism (mass production,
consumption and consumption of culture) to Europe
and beyond has been seen as some (Bromley, 2004, p147)[5],
as a compelling source of US power reshaping the world (Gramsci, 1971, p317)[6].
Given the very different social systems in Europe Americanism is only part of
the story accounting for the USA Anderson USA
The USA Daytona Beach , Florida US USA
Power
is the ability to obtain the outcome one wants (Nye, 2003)[9]. Within the liberal capitalist system, US United States USA USA France , Germany Russian and China deprived the USA US
As mentioned, the USA USA US US
public opinion was horrified at events in Chechnya
in the 1990s and yet the costs of using military or economic power against Russia were too high for the USA USA Pearl
Harbour , “so, too, should this most
recent surprise attack erase the concept in some quarters that America USA
still has the world largest economy, the states-system is multi-polar with the
EU and Japan already as
major liberal competitors to the USA
and new regional economic powers developing in China ,
Russia and perhaps India
In its
relations with rest of the world, the USA US South East Asia the application of military power is
inconceivable except as providing regional security guarantees to liberal
capitalist states. In Europe, continued
involvement in NATO and the application of soft power to encourage eastward
expansion of NATO and the EU also helps to neutralise regional pretensions to
leadership of France and Germany
When
dealing with Russia , and China the USA Russia , China
and the USA China , Russia and perhaps other are uncomfortable with
the USA ’s unipolar moment
and will try to hasten a multipolar world, the USA
Outside the West, and particularly in the Middle
East, evidence of political rather than informal imperialism is seen in the USA ’s actions in Iraq USA U.S. US
policy in Iraq Iraq USA to achieve its foreign policy objectives
at….low cost ….depend in a large part on whether other powers are inclined to
support or oppose US
The
main threats to the USA USA USA USA cannot
control all the threats to these public goods (Bromley, 2004)[17]
In most cases, therefore, it will be in the interests of other states to work
with the USA USA USA USA U.S.
[1] Brown, W. (2004) A liberal international
order, in Bromley. S et al (2004) (ed) ‘’Ordering the International: History,
Change and Transformation’, London and Sterling Virginia
[2] Gilpin, R. (1983) War and Change in World politics (paperback edition), Cambridge
[3] Nye, J.S.(2003) US Power and Strategy After Iraq
[4] Arrighi, G. (1983) The Geometry of Imperialism (revised edition), London
[5] Bromley, S.(2004) American power and
the future of the international order, in Bromley. S et al (2004) (ed) ‘’Ordering
the International: History, Change and Transformation’, London
and Sterling Virginia
[6] Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections From The Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (edited and
translated by Hoare, Q and Nowell Smith, G.),London ,
Lawrence
[7] The Economist Nov 6th 2003
[8] Nye, J.S.(2002) The American National
Interest and Global Public Goods, International Affairs,Vol.78,No2
[9] ibid
[10] ibid
[11] ibid
[12] ibid
[13] The Economist Nov 6th 2003
[14]
ibid
[15] ibid
[16] Walt, S. M. (2000) Keeping the World Off Balance: Self Restraint and US Foreign Policy,
Faculty Research Working Papers Series No.00-013, Cambridge, Mass., JFK School
of Government, Harvard University
[17] Bromley, S DU 301 Audio
5, The Open University
Sovereignty is the right that a nation claims to rule its
own territory and to be recognised as sovereign over that territory both by
other states and its own citizens.
Autonomy is the capacity of the state to effectively exercise its
sovereignty within its own territory. Autonomy
of the state may be taken to mean either autonomy from external pressure or
from internal pressure. This question
implies that the former meaning is being examined, however it cannot be taken
in isolation as internal pressures will affect policy. In Making the International, Sam Wangwe
states that ‘One consequence of the policy reforms that have been pursued in
Africa under the leadership of the multilateral institutions has been the loss
of autonomy in policy making …of African countries’ Wangwe (2004)[1]. This is not the same as saying that aid
dependence per se reduces autonomy in macroeconomic policy autonomy. I will argue that macroeconomic policy
autonomy is dependent on a number of factors, of which aid is a significant but
not the only one. Many Sub-Saharan African
states have been dependent upon aid since independence and yet had high degrees
of autonomy until after the Berg report of 1981 (World Bank, 1981)[2]
and are now regaining some of the autonomy lost to the Bretton Woods
Institutions (BWIs) in the 1980s and 1990’s.
Until
independence, economic development in Africa was defined by the colonial
authorities. The colonial powers, in the
aftermath of the Second World War used African raw materials to rebuild their
own economies and industries whilst using the colonies as a captive market for
the export of those industries. Macroeconomic
policy can be defined as the measures taken to manage the national economy as a
whole (Mkandiware, 2004)[3]. Upon gaining their independence, African
nations generally followed policies similar to those of India (such as State
participation in industry and import substitution policies) in an attempt to assert
their newly won sovereignty and develop their economies to ‘catch up’ with
those of their previous imperial masters.
Unlike India, African nations generally neglected agriculture and
education whilst remaining relatively open to the global economy.
During this
period of developmentalism, high investment in industrialization and a
favourable global economy with good terms of trade for primary products helped
ensure high levels of growth for most African nations although, there remained
significant differences in the distribution of benefits both within and between
countries. Furthermore the continued
reliance on primary goods export left African states vulnerable to changes in
terms of trade a fact that was compounded by failure to invest in agriculture
leading to a disproportionate amount of export earnings being used for food
imports.
Between 1974 and
the early 1980s, the rapid rise in world oil prices and stagnant or falling
prices for many African export commodities led to severe economic crisis in
most of Africa. It was in these years
that the foundations for the loss of autonomy were laid. In a democratic state the government derives
legitimacy from its electoral mandate.
Most African states at this time were autocratic and derived legitimacy
from economic performance, as economic growth declined legitimacy was
lost. Most governments initially tried to
maintain growth by increasing public expenditure leading to reduced economic
performance and in turn to reduced legitimacy.
From the early 1980s,
African countries under the supervision of the BWIs initiated structural
adjustment programmes designed to move them away from the state-led model
of development which they had followed in the first two decades of independence
towards a fully market-driven system of allocation of resources. The broad
intellectual context for this reform drive was offered by the Berg Report of
1981 which argued that the reason why African economies were in difficulty and were
unable to fulfill their promise was the dominant role of the state in the
political economy. Berg argued the case for African economic policy-making to
shift emphasis towards getting prices right and liberating the forces of the
market in order both to revive exports and improve the incomes of the rural
agricultural populace. His main arguments were taken up by the World Bank which
commissioned his report. It is ironic that at about the same time the
Organization of African Unity (OAU) had adopted the Lagos plan to address the
crises faced by its members. In addition
to retaining the state led model a significant difference in the Lagos approach
was action placing emphasis on adverse external factors, largely ignored in the
Berg report (Olukoshi. A 1999)[4].
Graph 1 – Rate of growth SSA compared with East Asia and
Pacific - note lack of high growth during the adjustment years despite BWI
involvement (From Making the International p 312, original source World Bank)
So far I have
shown that adverse external factors plus omissions from the developmental model
affected the legitimacy, and hence autonomy of African governments to enact
policy. Throughout their history, most
African states have been dependent upon aid – external financing. The key to economic growth is investment
(Athreye, 2004, p212)[5]. With low levels of savings and capital
available within most African states, funds for investment could come either
from exports or from aid. I have already
stated that too much export income was being spent on provision of food. Thus domestic absorption exceeded GDP and
created Trade Gaps throughout Africa. Investment
will be very low or in negative unless it is balanced by foreign currency
received (other than from export because it is less than import) through which
the trade deficit has been financed. Throughout Africa little foreign currency
received comes through exporting labour, or through earning assets owned
abroad, or through inward
foreign direct investment. Therefore, the deficit in availability of foreign currency from trade has been made good mainly by foreign aid in two forms: transfer payments on current account and loans on capital account. Therefore, throughout Africa there is a high dependence on foreign aid.
foreign direct investment. Therefore, the deficit in availability of foreign currency from trade has been made good mainly by foreign aid in two forms: transfer payments on current account and loans on capital account. Therefore, throughout Africa there is a high dependence on foreign aid.
Aid dependence
does not necessarily mean loss of autonomy. Prior to the Berg report, most aid was Project Aid provided
by bilateral agreements. Few conditions were set for the use of aid by donors,
indeed much project aid bypassed government channels, whilst many donors were
less concerned about internal macroeconomic policy than in maintaining the Cold
War balance of power. Furthermore with a
variety of different donors, it was not possible for a single donor to affect state
autonomy in any great way.
By the time of
the Berg Report however, there had been a shift in Western Political ideology
from Keynesian to monetarism. The Berg Report
found western democracies willing to support as its prescription mirrored their
own developing ideologies. As a
consequence donor countries became more willing to act in multilateral terms
with Africa through the BWIs. The
imposition of conditionality, set by the BWIs and supported by donor nations,
upon aid had a major effect upon the autonomy of African states that were
unable to resist donor pressure under aid dependency without causing harm to
their already weakened economies without undermining domestic political
support. During these ‘adjustment
years’ the provision of programme aid was conditional upon the recipient
countries accepting externally set macroeconomic policies. The effects of these free market reforms were
not as expected (see graph 1).
Throughout the adjustment years, SSA GDP growth rates remained
poor. Berg required that Africa should
base its trade on static comparative
advantage. However, the liberalization of import controls led to greater demand
for imports which in turn led to more imports.
At the same time terms of trade for most primary good worsened so that
greater export production failed to bring in correspondingly greater funds the
net result was a widening trade gap, requiring more programme aid.
Disappointed by
the performance of African economies during the adjustment years, Tanzania and
Denmark commissioned the Helleiner report in 1995. Since this report, there has been a retreat
of conditionality upon aid with donor nations seeking to empower African states
to develop their own programmes for aid dissemination. I do not believe that it is mere coincidence
that this phase of recovery of autonomy coincides with the election in the west
of Social Democratic parties during the 1990s.
Dependence on
foreign aid does not automatically translate into loss of autonomy. Much depends upon relations between states
and international donors and on type of aid given and conditions attached to
it. Many states have been dependent upon
aid since independence but have only lost autonomy through the confluence of
worsening global economic conditions, some errors in policy such as the failure
to invest in agriculture, changing types of aid (from project to programme),
problems of state legitimacy in non democratic states with low or negative
economic growth and finally in changing ideologies of donor nations. Nevertheless aid dependency makes a state
vulnerable to interference from external agents and to unrest from within as
aid dependency is symptomatic of weak economies whose legitimacy may be
questioned should economic policy fail to deliver growth.
Part 2 a (435 words)
Assuming that the game indicated in figure 1 is a one shot game;
it is possible to use Nash equilibrium analysis to identify the preferred
options of each player given the strategy of the other player. It is not possible to identify the outcome of
the game however. A Nash equilibrium is a set of strategies, one for each
player, such that, given the strategy of the other player no player can improve
on their payoff by adopting a different strategy (Mehta and Roy, 2004, p 436)[6]. The Nash equilibrium indicates each party’s
best response to the action of the other.
USA
|
|||
Abide by Kyoto deal
|
Don't abide by Kyoto Deal
|
||
EU
|
Abide by Kyoto deal
|
2,2 Preferred outcome to weak play
|
0,4 Nash Equilibrium
|
Don't abide by Kyoto Deal
|
4,0 Nash Equilibrium
|
-6,-6 Catastrophic Play
|
|
Figure 1 Matrix depicting
global warming as a collective action problem game between 2 actors
Analysing the game from the point of view of the EU, if the
USA acts tough and fails to abide by Kyoto, the EU’s best reply is to act weak
and abide as 0 is better than -6; if the USA acts weak and abides by the
agreement, the EU’s best reply is to act tough and not to abide as 4 is better
than 2. From the perspective of the USA,
if the EU acts tough and fails to abide by Kyoto, the USA’s best reply is to act
weak abide as 0 is better than -6; if the EU plays weak and abides by the
agreement, the USA’s best reply is to act tough and not to abide as 4 is better
than 2. These strategies show 2 Nash
equilibria (see figure 1) each cell indicating strategies that are best replies
to each other.
The game being played is CHICKEN. The defining characteristics of Chicken are:
•
The presence of a tough
and a weak strategy.
•
2 Nash equilibria.
•
The players preferred
Nash equilibria outcomes differ – in the example above each player would prefer
to score 4 whilst the other player scores 0.
•
Each player would
prefer the non-equilibrium outcome to the outcome where they act weak – in the
example above each player would prefer to score 2 rather than 0.
In this game neither player would regret their strategy if
they had played their part in reaching one of the Nash equilibria (they could
not have improved upon the outcome given the strategy of the other player). However, before the event it is not possible
to determine which play will occur, it is even possible that the catastrophic
strategy might occur with both actors playing tough as there
is no dominant strategy in Chicken; “Chicken can model a situation where two
actors are confronted with different preferences about a subject, and have
incentives to assert themselves. Therefore, it is often used as a model
of political conflict.” [7]
Part 2 b (728 words)
The newspaper
extract describes a collective action problem that is modelled as a Chicken
game by figure 1. Using game theory it
is possible to model the issue of Global warming as a collective action problem
because it can be described as a ‘Public Bad’ (Mehta and Roy, 2004, p417)[8],
that is it is non-rival – (the suffering of one country does not reduce another
country’s suffering); non-excludable (everyone is vulnerable); joint in supply
(produced once for everyone) and non-excludable (everyone becomes a victim). The collective action problem is that it is
not in every actor’s unambiguous private interest to do their part in achieving
the optimum social outcome.
Game theory
analysis is a powerful method of identifying these patterns of self-interest
and consequent strategies that are available to actors. Game theory assumes that each actor will
follow a strategy to maximise its own return (see fig1) even when this is not
the best possible outcome. Like all
models, the assumptions made simplify the complexity of the real world allowing
it to be used to illustrate the nature of collective problems and to identify
some types of solutions. By modelling
problems differently, say as Prisoner’s Dilemma or Assurance it is possible to
identify strategies for achieving socially optimal solutions by ensuring
repeated interaction and punishment / reinforcement (grim and tit for tat).
Whilst the
matrix in figure 1 illustrates the Kyoto deal as a one-off game of Chicken
between the USA and the EU, the Guardian extract
shows elements of a repeated game of Prisoner’s Dilemma. By reviewing games from the point of view of
all players it is possible that their barriers to co-operation are identified,
once identified, it is possible to define a strategy to overcome each barrier
for example it is possible that the required side-payments to change the payoff
structures for actors can be identified.
The $500m of side payments in extra aid to the developing world and the
EU concessions to Japan, Canada and Australia are illustrative of this
dynamic.
Whilst Game
theory is a useful analytical tool, it remains a simplification. The assumptions upon which it is based may
not always be accurate for example actors may not always be as self-interested
as is assumed. Another criticism of the
model is that the assumption of or as in
the case of the Kyoto issue, the payoff structure may differ for different
players. By assuming the global warming
is a public bad, we assume that each player will be affected equally badly. The
USA for example is unlikely to suffer as badly from rising sea levels as is
Bangladesh in this case the pay-off structure is skewed so that the USA might
feel that it is being asked to pay disproportionately for the benefit of
another actor.
A further
critique of Game theory is that the approach is rather static. It assumes that when you model the situation
that we know what each player’s preferences are and that those preferences
don’t change whilst the game is played.
In the real world of course what states want, what they are trying to
achieve, might change as a process of negotiation (Bromley S 2004 DU301 Audio
4). States continually interact with
each other and their preferences are often the result of interaction with each
other. Whilst Game theory assumes that
talk is cheap, i.e. that no matter what is said before the game commences the
incentive will be to cheat, knowledge of a states previous actions in different
games might well decide a state’s strategy.
For example using figure 1, the EU might conclude that given the USA’s
continued opposition and failure to sign the protocol that the optimum EU
strategy will be to act weak. This will
of course lead to a Nash equilibrium outcome.
A final weakness
is that it is not always clear to players which game is being played as many
situations may be viewed as different games.
Whilst Game theory simplifies the nature of a problem and may indicate a
range of strategies, it does not provide a clear guide to any given course of
action. Playing Chicken can end up in a
catastrophic outcome. It is the
political context, the previous interaction, even perhaps using side payments
in other games (for example support for the US led war on Iraq) that might lead
to acceptable of even optimum solutions.
[1] Wangwe. S. (2004) The politics of
autonomy and sovereignty: Tanzania’s aid relationship, in Bromley. S et al
(2004) (ed) ‘Making the International: Economic Interdependence and
Political Order’, London and Sterling Virginia, Pluto Press in association
with The Open University
[2] World Bank (1981) Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (The
Berg Report), Washington DC, World Bank.
[3] Mkandware. T (2004) Can Africa Have
Developmental States?, in Bromley. S et al (2004) (ed) ‘Making the
International: Economic Interdependence and Political Order’, London and
Sterling Virginia, Pluto Press in association with The Open University
[4] Olukoshi. A. (1999)
Africa beyond Structural
Adjustment http://www.nai.uu.se/newsfromnai/arkiv/1999/olukoshi.html viewed 2 Jun 2004.
[5] Athreye. S (2004) Trade policy,
industrialisation and growth in India, in Bromley. S et al
(2004) (ed) ‘Making the International: Economic Interdependence and
Political Order’, London and Sterling Virginia, Pluto Press in association
with The Open University.
[6] Mehta. J and Roy. R. (2004) The
collective action problem, in Bromley. S et al (2004) (ed) ‘Making the
International: Economic Interdependence and Political Order’, London and
Sterling Virginia, Pluto Press in association with The Open University.
[7] http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~agsoz/agora/text/textv81_b.htm
viewed 2 Jun 2004.
[8] ibid
What was the role of technology in British imperial expansion?
Technology
can be defined as the application of scientific knowledge for practical
purposes and the machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific
knowledge. Technology by itself cannot explain imperial expansion as it
does not address the motives for expansion for which a number of explanations
have been postulated from international rivalries to the needs to create
new markets and gain access to resources (the latter two surely driven by
technological advancement at home).
Motive is one thing but alone will not allow expansion, it was as
technology, as Headrick and others have been explicit in asserting, that
provided the means of the rapid penetration of exploitation of Africa and Asia
in the latter part of the nineteenth century. This paper supports
Headrick’s thesis and shall concentrate on this late nineteenth century rapid
expansion but I would add that technology was a key enabler of the early
development of the British Empire also.
The
British Empire grew in phases from English domination of the British Isles to
expansion across the Atlantic to trading posts in India and beyond and whilst
the gap in technological capability between the English/British and those areas
being colonised in these earlier phases of expansion was never as great as in
the late nineteenth century there were times when a gap was wide enough to make
a difference. Cromwell’s suppression of Ireland and Scotland through the
New Model Army, better American settler weaponry during King Phillip’s War and
James Cook’s banishment of scurvy with sauerkraut, not to mention innovations
in Naval Architecture and timekeeping, that allowed for his multiyear
exploration of the Pacific and the discovery and mapping of New Zealand and the
Eastern seaboard of Australia are all examples of imperial expansion enabled by
technology and should not be ignored. Furthermore, financial innovations
such as the establishment of the Bank of England as well as the Industrial and
Agrarian revolutions allowed Britain to outspend her continental opponents from
the 1700s onwards that would lead to her industrial and naval supremacy for
most of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries that gave her the strategic
space to expand her empire. From the 1750s extensive
use of copper sheathing to protect ships’ hulls assisted British dominance in
tropical waters. Military innovations in weapons and organization were
instrumental in expansion before 1800. The main
difference between these earlier phases of expansion and that of the nineteenth
century was that the technological gap widened significantly from the 1840s
onwards thus making expansion cheaper in lives and treasure and causing a rapid
acceleration that would not end until after the 1st World War when the new technology of air power was
deployed in the middle east in order to control the mandated territories.
What was
unusual about the 2nd half of the nineteenth century was the increasing
technological gap between Europe, particularly Britain, and the rest of the
world. This gap allowed for accelerated British imperial expansion, and
in this period expansion was not only made possible by the use of technology,
but was also rationalised by technology and the British came to distinguish
themselves from and claimed a superiority over others on the basis of their
mastery of science and technology. From the 1830s onwards, Headrick has
noted that technology allowed for a three-phased analysis of imperial
expansion. Firstly several technologies enabled the British to move
inland from their traditional trading posts to penetrate new territories.
The primary technologies employed were the flat bottomed, steam powered
river boats and the isolation of quinine as a malaria prophylactic.
Well-armed naval steam powered gunboats were instrumental in the defeat
of Chinese forces during the opium wars and the imposition of favourable, to
the British, terms upon the Chinese that not oly forced market penetration for
the opium trade but also led to the transfer of territory to the Empire.
Even
today inland communications within Africa are hampered by natural barriers,
disease and poor infrastructure and Africa had long been a European graveyard.
During Bolts 1777-79 expedition at Delagoa Bay, 132 out of 152 Europeans on the
journey died whilst Mungo Park's 1805 journey to the upper Niger resulted in
the death of all the Europeans. By the 1840s, Bryson and others had identified
the effectiveness of quinine and Laird’s 1854 expedition, following Bryson’s
advice on quinine dosage, lost none of the European members despite spending
112 days on the Niger and Benue rivers. Improved medical technology,
however only provided the means to stay alive, to travel flat bottomed steam
powered river boats were required. As Kubicek points out, these boats,
built in numbers for the Crimean War, were upgraded and distributed to various
stations where they both an instrument and symbol of Imperial control.
Kubicek cites the example of HMS Goshawk being used in 1887 to kidnap a local
ruler and palm oil merchant, Jaja of Opobo.
Once
territories were penetrated, control need to be wrested from the indigenous
population. This could be achieved by military force alone if sufficient
could be brought to bear or could be combined by weight of number, a population
could be overwhelmed by British Settlers, Ferguson’s ‘White Plague’. The
British diaspora to the colonies, though not new, was facilitated to a great
degree in the latter half of the century by a revolution in steamer traffic
resulting from the replacement of iron for steel as the preferred material for
ship and steam boiler construction and by from 1878 British usage of the Suez
Canal. The late century development of military capability, characterised
as ‘Maxim Force’ allowed for overwhelming firepower to be brought to bear
against those who resisted conquest – such as at the battle of Omdurman, though
it should be noted that in many clashes between the British invaders
and local peoples from 1875 that both sides had modern weaponry, the British
tended to have more of it and their factories could produce more.
Nevertheless, the South African War also showed, technological advantage
was being eroded through technology transfer to subject peoples. This transfer would eventually erode the
economy of empire and set limits to the expansion of the Empire.
Headrick’s
third analytical phase is that of consolidation – the bringing together of the
territories and their capabilities to a coherent whole. Consolidation is
one word but exploitation would be equally valid. New transport networks, rail
as well as steamship allowed for rapid communication and transfer of resources,
as well as armies to quell unrest. Modern mining technologies allowed
extractive industry, and provided a motive for imperial expansion, notably in
Southern Africa. New communications
technologies, notably telegraphs and undersea cables allowed for unprecedented speeds
of communication that gave London distinct advantages in getting markets data
and communicating to the imperial satraps thereby bringing the periphery under
greater political control. The ability to communicate rapidly also
allowed for effective troop deployment to keep the empire together. Telegraphy
was an effective in aiding suppression Indian mutiny as well as one that could
be used to provide the London financial markets with global news ahead of her
competitors. It even gave Britain a Strategic advantage over her European
rivals as Kitchener proved at Fashoda when he communicated to London via subsea
cable not available to his French counterpart or even more importantly during
World War One when German signals traffic to the USA travelled on British
Subsea cables, thereby bringing the Zimmerman telegram to light!
Headrick’s
phases approach to the analysis of the impact of technology on the expansion of
the British Empire is a useful one though in fact the reality is more muddles.
Certain technologies were employed in multiple of his phases. Technology
was not important solely in the later development of the Empire but it was
during the latter part of the nineteenth century when a distinct gap opened
between Europe and the rest of the world, particularly with Africa, that provided
for an acceleration of imperial expansion at a very low cost in lives and
treasure. This technological advantage would however be time bound. Technology transfer to the less developed
areas of the world, initially the white colonies but by the 1950s globally
would make the cost of Empire prohibitive as the gap was eroded.
Bibliography
https://hilary2018.conted.ox.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/7550/mod_book/chapter/5134/HeadrickTools.pdf. Headrick, 1981 pp 3-14
https://hilary2018.conted.ox.ac.uk/blocks/oxref/index.php?redirect=oxscholar&dest=%2Fview%2F10.1093%2Facprof%3Aoso%2F9780198205654.001.0001%2Facprof-9780198205654-chapter-12. Kubicek, R in The Oxford History of the British
Empire Vol : the Nineteenth Century
Geoffrey
Parker, The Military Revolution, Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,
1500–1800, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1990).
Hough
Richard, Captain James Cook: A Biography (London, 1994)
Sobel
Dava, Longitude, The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest
Scientific Problem of His Time (London, 2008)
Dalziel
Nigel, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (Penguin Reference)
(2006)
Jackson
Ashley, The British Empire: A Very Short Introduction (2013)
Darwin
John, Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (2013)
Ferguson
Niall, Empire, How Britain Made the Modern World (London, 2003)
Marshall
Tim, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know
About Global Politics (London 2016)
Bowman, W
et al, Imperialism in the Modern World, Sources and Interpretations (2016)
What beliefs and arguments drove the movement to abolish slavery, and what kind of evidence against the slave trade was presented to the British public?
As the Eighteenth Century closed the movement to abolish slavery was becoming irresistible in
the British Empire. Abolition of the
trade would occur in 1807 and would be followed a quarter of a century later by
the abolition of the institution. Anti-slavery arguments, inspired by the
European Enlightenment, can be broadly grouped into the following:
- · Governance and Trusteeship
- · Economic
- · Strategic
- · Evangelical and Humanitarian
Burke and others, perhaps
inspired by the American rebellion, argued that possession of Empire and power
brought obligations to promote the welfare of its peoples. As much concerned with the ability of power
to corrupt the British themselves and seeking thereby to limit that power, by
1783 Burke was speaking in Parliament of the ‘natural equality of mankind at
large’[i] an
admission that slavery and servitude were not compatible with British values. Adam Smith argued against the institution of
slavery as it was economically unsustainable pointing to the inevitably
decreasing productivity of the West Indian monoculture dependent on the Slave
trade and protected by trade barriers. Smith’s
claim that overseas plantations represented much less secure investments than
metropolitan agriculture or industry was confirmed by the British West Indies’
difficulties during the War of American Independence.[ii]
From a National Strategic
perspective, the argument was made that the loss to Britain of very many sailors
engaged on the trade, through sickness, mistreatment and, no doubt
psychological trauma was unsustainable. Testimony of this loss was provided by
the likes of Alexander Falconbridge[iii] and
Clarkson who could show that, on average, 20% of each crew died from disease or ill treatment
before the ship returned.[iv]
Much credit for abolition
has been given to evangelical movements during this period. Slavery, it was argued must incompatible with
‘a properly Christian existence’[v].
Slave-ownership conflicted with the obligations of charity and evangelization;
slave status removed the liberty for moral choice and ethical behaviour. Proving the humanity of the slaves should not
have been difficult though Falconbridge went out of his way to demonstrate, in
his testimony,[vi]
the human behaviour of the victims of traders on the West African coast. Falconbridge felt the necessity of pointing
out that slaves, contrary to his earlier belief were not bred as cattle for the
trade but had been kidnapped[vii]. To further humanise the victims, he went on
to recall their only too human behaviours in trying to escape from
captivity. Having thus established the
humanity of slaves he was able to provide evidence of the mistreatment, and
high mortality, of them between capture and sale. The likes of Thomas Clarkson,
in addition to interviewing actors in the trade also provided physical evidence
of mistreatment - shackles, thumbscrews and a device for force-feeding slaves
who went on hunger strike[viii] - to
provide physical evidence of abuse and confirmed the testimonies of the likes
of Falconbridge.
[i] Porter
The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century.
Trusteeship, Anti-Slavery, and Humanitarianism Andrew Porter
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205654.003.0010
[ii]
The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century. P.
J. Marshall and Alaine Low The British West Indies in the Age of Abolition,
1748–1815. J. R. Ward
OI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205630.003.0019
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205630.001.0001/acprof-9780198205630-chapter-19
[iii] An
account of the Slave Trade on the coast of Africa by Alexander Falconbridge,
Late Surgeon in the African Trade
[v]
ibid
[vi]
ibid
[vii]
ibid
What were the main causes of British decolonisation?
Britain was forced out of India and Burma by political change within India, in part a response to the growing demands of the colonial state, in part an outgrowth of both religious revival and new cultural movements. From 1920 the Indian National Congress aimed at destroying the habit of deference to British authority. The arrest of Congress members during the war allowed the rise of the Muslim League. Even before the war there were strains on the system but the need for resources to defeat Germany and, in 1942, Japan’s invasion of Malaya then Burma led to the eventual British commitment to giving India self-government at the end of the war (though the intention was to tie India closely to Britain). In the second half of the war, the causes of mass grievance and fear also grew quickly the likes of inflation and then food shortages (up to 2 million deaths in the Bengal Famine) exacerbated Congress’s calls for independence.
Once the war ended the British were exhausted. Many British officials and soldiers longed to go home and get back to civvy street. Unrest in the Bengal Navy led to fears that the huge Indian Army might mutiny and it was recognised by Wavell and Attlee that if the Congress chose to make trouble, there was little the British could do: ‘I doubt whether a Congress rebellion could be suppressed,’ wrote the Viceroy’s adviser on internal security. Attlee’s own assessment was:
a) In view of our commitments all over the world we have not the military force to hold India against a widespread guerrilla movement or to reconquer India
b) If we had, public opinion especially in our party would not stand for it
c) It is very doubtful if we could keep the Indian troops loyal. It is doubtful if our own troops would act.
d) We should have world opinion against us
e) We have not the administrative machine to carry out such a policy British or Indian.
The end of the Raj did not lead to the immediate break-up of the empire. But it marked a critical break in its internal cohesion, and an irreparable loss of the vital resources – military above all. Still an imperial mentality was still deeply entrenched at all levels of British society (and remains in today’s Tory party). The USA’s hostility to European Empires was tempered by her fear of communism filling a possible vacuum, so for the next few decades the US would continue to accept imperial pretensions, though on its own terms. This harnessing of empire to the task of Cold War containment would extend its life.
Britain’s strategic disasters in 1940–42 marked a momentous change. Canada, Australia and New Zealand (though not South Africa) discovered their strategic dependence on American power. Their status as sovereign countries, became increasingly real, indeed Australia recalled her ground troops from North Africa (despite Chuchill's pleas) to defend the homeland in 1942; they did not return. Canada’s Navy was instrumental in the defeat of the U boat threat in the North Atlantic and by the end of the war she had a rising friendly power on her southern border that offered markets far easier to access than the earlier imperial ones – access to which was made easier by Canada’s being a ‘dollar’ rather than Sterling Economy.
From the late 1940s the pressing issue for Britain became the economy and the weakness of sterling. The reliance on ‘dollar’ goods led to an iniquitous policy of Britain sweating her remaining colonial assets by the transfer of colonial export dollar cash flows from the colonies to London’s ‘dollar pool’, to be spent as London decided a policy one would argue almost specifically designed to cause resentment of Empire as those countries whose currency was tied to sterling – including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – were forced to accept central control of their dollar spending, and buy sterling goods whenever they could.
By the late 1950s the aggressive expansion of the colonial state – regulating, restricting, conscripting – and the arrival of more and more whites as farmers, miners, officials and experts aroused ever-increasing resentment among African peoples, not least among the traditional chiefs on whom the colonial apparatus relied. De Gaulle’s granting of independence to most of France’s African possession and the collapse of Belgian authority (self-inflicted for a large part) in Congo further inflamed African nationalists and opened the door to Soviet approaches as partner of choice thus further reducing British influence – particularly apparent in Egypt but also elsewhere on the continent.
Continued economic weakness into the 1960s and 70s, and the humiliations of Suez and De Gaulle’s ‘non’ to EEC membership would undermine Britain’s great power pretensions and reduce support at home for further expenditure on an increasingly anachronistic project.
World War 1: Lessons and Legacy of the Great War. Future Learn MOOC run by University of New South Wales; Lead Educator - Dr John Connor; Course Educator - Dr Liana Markovich
This 6 week long MOOC compares and contrasts the reality of the First World War - a costly and wasteful conflict, but one that ended in a decisive victory over German aggression - with our memory of it today, a war of trenches, mud and barbed wire, a war that seen as both senseless and ineffective. The Western front is the focus of study as it is seen as the most important theatre of the war (cf Mallinson who argues persuasively that instead of repeating frontal assaults against prepared defences on the Western Front Britain could have simply held the line there and instead sought a strategy to win by Naval Blockade and by kicking in a back door in Italy, or Salonica perhaps. Indeed in November 1918 it was the removal of Bulgaria and the collapse of the South Eastern fronts that presaged Ludendorff’s breakdown). The course aims to present a view of the war that better fits the historical evidence than that which is often popularly portrayed by selective readings of war poets. I remember myself my sons coming home from school with English homework to discuss ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and have since wondered why this was never juxtaposed with another German author’s war classic ‘Storm of Steel’.
The course is presented in three parts:
1 An overview of the War. Concentrating on the conflict on the Western Front and the development of trench warfare.
2 The ‘learning curve’ - compares how the British, French and German armies attempted to end the stalemate of trench warfare by developing new technology, training and tactics.
3 Remembering the First World War explores how the social and political landscape has shaped and changed the memory of the War over the last century, and how art, poetry and novels have contributed to that understanding.
Glossary - International Encyclopedia of the 1st WorldInternational Encyclopedia of the 1st World Warr
Week 1 examines the immediate origin of the War including those alliances that pressed Nations to act. It also looks at the Strategies employed throughout the war by the Germans, British and French. The Germans tried five separate strategies to win the first War and each of them failed:
1. Schlieffen Plan (Moltke) 1914
2. Knockout Russia – negotiated Peace to free Army to attack France unhindered by Eastern Front (Falkenhayn) 1915
3. Bleed France Dry – Verdun (Falkenhayn) 1916
4. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (Hindenburg/Ludendorff) 1917
5. Kaiserschlacht – defeat Britain and France before US power applicable (Hindenburg/Ludendorff) 1918
Germany’s key strengths were in operations and tactics but her key weaknesses were in logistics and resources, her seizure at the start of the war of much of France’s Iron and Coal industry relieved to some extent here resource issues and also drove French Strategy to the attack in order to recover these. A further problem for Germany, that worsens as the war progresses is the weakness of her key ally – Austria whom she increasingly needs to prop up.
The origins of the War are complex but as is commonly known the spark that ignited the War occurred on 28 June 1914 when the heir to the Austrian Throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo. A month later Austria invaded Serbia, Russia, seeing herself as the defender of Serbia mobilised her army which prompted Austria’s ally Germany to declare war on Russia. Fearing that France would come to the aid of her own ally (Russia) and believing the British, though with an ‘Entente Cordiale’ with France, would remain aloof, the Germans put into to operation the Schlieffen plan in order to defeat France before turning her whole attention to the defeat of the slow to mobilize Russians. As we now know, the German defeat at the Marne ended their chance of defeating France and led to the Race for the Sea and the solidification of the Western Front. Until 1918 further offensives would be a frontal attack against increasingly complex trench systems, in which the odds favoured the defenders. The army commanders always knew that the war would only be won once manoeuvre returned to the battlefield but they lacked the technological means to achieve this.
British Strategy:
The British Army on the First World War is really three different armies:
1. Regular Army BEF of 1914 – Old Contemptibles – small but professional 2 x Corps
2. New Army – Volunteers plus Colonial divisions
3. Conscription 1916 onwards - this is the army which plays probably the biggest role in defeating the Germans on the Western Front.
By 1918, for the first time in history, Britain is a military power. We must remember that Britain did not see itself as a military power. It was the world's biggest financial and naval power – which directed her strategy to win the war by Blockade and by financing her allies – much as she had done during the Napoleonic Wars. By 1917 however, the army is required to do most of the fighting as the French Army had suffered horrendous casualties and was in a state of mutiny. In 1918, Haig deployed the largest field army Britian had ever had and it was this army that was largely responsible for the battlefield defeat of Germany in the 100 days after the battle of Amiens
French Strategy:
In 1914 it was assumed that the only possible way to defeat a German invasion was, in fact, to attack them hence Plan XVII – which actually fell right into the German plan by assisting encirclement! However failure of Plan XVII was a godsend (at horrendous cost) in that it forced the French into retreat upon internal LOCs and eventually into the right place – The Marne. Joffre, unlike Moltke, kept his head and was able to defeat the Germans on the Marne
The French strategy in 1915 was set by political and Allied considerations. At the end of 1914, once the Battle of the Marne had been won and the Germans had been stopped, yet again, at the First Battle of Ypres, it was obvious that the defensive battle had been won. However, German troops still sat in most of-- practically the whole of-- Belgium, and they occupied the mineral-rich industrial areas of northern France. Therefore, for political reasons, the strategy for 1915 could only be that the Germans had to be attacked and driven out of France leading to the strategy of offensive action. A second consideration was the Allies. Russia had done what it promised by attacking Germany in eastern Prussia. So to help Russia the only strategy that was possible in Joffre's mind was on offensives. In fact this was to be the French strategy throughout the conflict though Joffre and more than one successor would be sacked for its failure long before the war’s end.
The course then spends time looking at the Western allies and their differences (including historical enmities) – often leading to misunderstandings. The French saw the British as ‘Germanic’, greedy and arrogant; the British saw the French as being ‘Latin’, emotional and unreliable.
It was Germany’s increasingly aggressive policies in the early 1900s that brought the two nations together. In 1904, France and Britain settled their colonial disputes with the agreement known as the Entente Cordiale. The two countries began joint military discussions that led to agreements that, in the case of war with Germany, the French Navy would take responsibility for the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy for the Atlantic and the North Sea, and the British Army would provide a small expeditionary force to serve beside the French Army.
During the war French political and military leaders argued that France was doing more fighting and suffering more casualties than the British. There was some truth in this in the first part of the war while the British in this period had only a few divisions on the Western Front. By the end of the war, and after horrendous French losses the British having by now become a military power (see earlier) this view could not really be uphold logically.
The French accused the British – whose economy had not suffered from enemy invasion and occupation – of using the war to gain economic advantage though they never fully understood the British contribution to the alliance at sea and financially. So while the British and the French were the chief partners in the alliance that defeated Germany, but there was ‘no solution to the conflict’ between the two nations on how the war should be conducted and how the sacrifices of war should be shared.
Conclusions to Week 1:
The idea of the First World War as a futile and pointless war seems to have come from a viewpoint that the end result in no way justified the huge loss of life. However, European governments did not become involved in the war by accident, but through real commitment to underlying principles of loyalty to allies, the defence of small nations, as well as the opportunistic idea that a war at this time would be to one’s advantage. Certainly at the time war was perceived an instrument of foreign policy – something that its eventual cost would make more liberal nations renounce (though not Hitler’s Germany of course)
These factors drove the strategies of the major powers. Germany supported its ally Austria-Hungary in its declaration of war with Serbia – in today’s terms a state sponsor of terrorism! They believed this would remove the threat to the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian state from rising Slav nationalism. As Russia saw itself as the protector of Serbia, the Germans recognised that supporting Austria-Hungary against Serbia would likely lead to war with Russia. The German Government believed war with Russia was inevitable, and that it was better to take the opportunity to fight the war sooner rather than later. Russian economic growth and the modernisation of the Russian army would, over time, make it a more formidable enemy.
France became part of the war because Germany attacked her Britain had no formal alliance with any European power, but the British Government had held secret military talks with France which did include plans for a small British Expeditionary Force to go to France in the event of a war with Germany. However it was the German invasion of Belgium on 4 August that brought Britain into the war. Though Asquith wrote in a letter on 2 August that his government did ‘have obligations to Belgium’, he also stated that he ‘cannot allow Germany’ to have naval bases on the Belgian coastline as they would threaten Britain – with echoes of the ill-advised Battleship building programme engaged in by Tirpitz. The British declaration of war was therefore a combination of national self- interest and defending the right of Belgium to exist.
What factors worked against mutual toleration between
Catholics and Protestants between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the
nineteenth century?
Wolffe makes a
distinction between tolerance – the attitude of individuals towards different
religious practices of their neighbours and toleration – the attitude of states
to the religious diversity within their territories (Wolffe 2008, p8)[i]. This essay will therefore concentrate on the
government actions and policies that affected religious toleration from the
sixteenth century until the mid nineteenth century. I will show that there are three major
headings under which these factors can be grouped; these are religious
attitudes; political factors and cultural factors. Although I have separated these groupings, I
will show that they are clearly inter-linked with considerable cross-over
between them. I will show how these
factors worked against toleration in Britain ,
France and briefly in the USA Bismarck
In the sixteenth
century, religion mattered. Heaven and
hell were held to be factual and the relationship people had with God was
supremely important. The Reformation came
about as a debate regarding this relationship between mankind and God. For Catholics the importance of sacraments,
saints and the church to intercede on behalf of one’s soul was contrasted the
Protestant belief of salvation through one’s faith alone. In addition to these contrasting views on
religious living was a very different view on sources of religious
authority. For Catholics authority came
through the church whilst Protestants made direct references to the text of the
Bible. Conflicts on these matters between
Catholics and Protestants mattered because it was felt that those who held the
incorrect belief would die damned (Wolffe, 2008, p100)[ii]
therefore forcing them to change religion was in effect ‘doing them a
favour’. Furthermore heresy was seen as
damaging to society so state involvement was required to prevent it.
Early on in central Europe conflict between Lutheran’s and Catholics was
ended by the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 which established the principle that the
religion of the ruler was to be the religion of the state. In spite of this pragmatic approach,
religious differences between Catholics and Protestants would do create violent
conflict in the French Wars of Religion up to the accession of Henry IV in 1598
and later in the thirty years war that was ended by the Peace of Westphalia in
1648. England ’s
own civil war has been described as a religious war however, if this was a
religious war it was between Protestant sects (except in Ireland
Given the State
nature of toleration it is not surprising that political factors affected
toleration. In England Elizabeth Elizabeth France England Britain
and France saw subversion in
religious diversity, it should be noted that the Netherlands
In Britain
In the popular
culture of English speaking nations, anti-Catholicism would become a peculiarly
common obstacle to toleration that does not appear to have been seen much
outside of Britain , although
in the 1870s Bismarck America
was evident in events such as the attack on a convent in Boston USA
Away from England a lack of significant Protestant
minorities in Italy , Spain and Portugal
meant that there was no real significant degree of state sponsored Anti-Protestantism
in these countries, whilst the Treaty of Westphalia had extended the toleration
agreed between Catholics and Lutherans at Augsburg France Britain
there was no formal treaty guaranteeing Catholic rights – in fact after 1678
the Test Acts limited freedoms whilst the Glorious Revolution of 1688 led to a
still permanent settlement whereby Catholics are to this day prevented from
marrying or becoming the Head of the State of the United Kingdom
In both Britain and Europe
suspicion of religious minorities was not uncommon throughout the period. The religious wars of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were followed by colonial wars in the mid eighteenth
century between Protestant Britain and Catholic France. From 1776 France
supported the rebellious American colonies against Britain
in the war of Independence France
During the nineteenth
century two factors contributed to the continuance of anti-Catholic intolerance
in Britain Ireland Ireland
The factors that led
to lack of toleration between Catholics and Protestants during this period,
although grouped in this essay for convenience into religious, political and
social categories are intertwined. Where
monarchs or states felt insecure either from external or internal threat then
toleration was an unwanted luxury. In
any case, until the Enlightenment toleration was not highly valued except for
pragmatic purposes. Throughout the
Western Christian world toleration, was actually the norm for long periods of
time. The chronic anti-Catholicism seen
in the English-speaking world does not appear to have had parallels throughout
Europe and is perhaps a factor only that arose only from England
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdy, E.S (1835) Journal of a Residence and Tour in the
United States, London London Britain
and Ireland : The churches of
the British Isles 1560-1691; in Wolffe, J ed (2008), Religion
in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence,
The
Open University, Manchester Allen Lane , London Manchester
[i] Wolffe, J ed (2008), Religion in history: conflict, conversion
and coexistence, The Open University, Manchester
To what
extent can the crusades be understood as a Christian war on Islam?
In 1095 Pope Urban II
initiated the crusades when preaching at Clermont in France. Urban thus initiated a series of military
assaults on the occupiers of the Holy Land – specifically on Jerusalem Holy Land to show that whilst terrible
things were done in the heat of battle, that there was a degree of co-existence
between Christians and Muslims throughout the period of the crusades. Whilst I will argue that the view of the
crusades as a holy war against Islam is simplistic I would like to put the
caveat here that this is a western secular view and may differ significantly
from the view of Muslims of the 11th and 12th centuries
who would be unaware of crusades against non-Muslims and even a modern Muslim
viewpoint could legitimately differ from the view offered here. Jerusalem Holy Land had been Islamic territory for 400 years,
Christian pilgrims had been allowed reasonably unfettered access to holy sites
but there is evidence (Pearson, 2008, p47) from the early 11th
century, coincidental with the rising power of the Turks, that pilgrims were
suffering increased hindrance. √ Thus a plea from Alexius combined with a
cassus belli resulting from the hindrance of pilgrimage provided Urban with the
ability to establish his legitimacy, rather than any great desire for holy war
against Islam, must have been a large part of the motivation for the 1st
Crusade.Jerusalem Jerusalem Jerusalem ,
against Muslims throughout the crusades, there is a significant amount of
evidence of tolerance between Christians and the Muslims, as well as Jews,
living in the Kingdom
of Jerusalem Jerusalem Acre an oratory to Ali possessed an eastern apse a clear
indication that Christians and Muslims were worshipping in the same building. Usama
ibn Munqidh[9] in
an interesting piece of primary evidence notes how Templars, friends of his,
make the Christian oratory attached to the Masjid al-Aqsa available to him for
prayer and even protect him from a Christian who tries to interfere with his
prayer.√ Evidence of this level of
tolerance contradicts the ‘Holy war on Islam’ paradigm.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdy, E.S (1835) Journal of a Residence and Tour in the
United States, London
Bossy,
J. (1985). Christianity in the West,
1400-1700 (OPUS)
Chidester,
D. (2000), Christianity, Penguin, London
Laurence, A. (2008) Post Reformation Britain
and Ireland : The churches of
the British Isles 1560-1691; in Wolffe, J ed (2008), Religion
in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence,
The
Open University, Manchester
MacCulloch,
D. (2009), A History of Christianity,
Allen Lane , London
Wolffe, J ed (2008), Religion in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence, The Open University, Manchester
Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study
Guide 2, The Open University
AA307 Religion in history: conflict,
conversion and coexistence CD2, The Open University
Podcast: Revolutions in Religion:1517-1555, Thomas Lacquer, UC Berkeley:
History 5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present; Fall 2006
– Audio; 11 September 2006
Podcast: Religious War and Witchcraft, Thomas Lacquer, UC Berkeley: History
5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present; Fall 2006 –
Audio; 18 September 2006
Podcast: The European Tradition of Constitutionalism, Thomas Lacquer, UC
Berkeley: History 5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present;
Fall 2006 – Audio; 20 September 2006
Podcast: Absolutism, Thomas Lacquer, UC Berkeley: History 5: European
Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present; Fall 2006 – Audio; 25
September 2006
Podcast: Salvation at Stake, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, UC Berkeley: History
5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present; Spring 2008 –
Audio; 4 February 2008
[i] Wolffe, J ed (2008), Religion in history: conflict, conversion
and coexistence, The Open University, Manchester
[ii] ibid
[iii] Podcast:
The European Tradition of Constitutionalism, Thomas Lacquer, UC Berkeley:
History 5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present; Fall 2006
– Audio; 20 September 2006
[iv] Colley
[v] Question
asked to Prime Ministerial candidates Sky TV Leader’s Debate 22 April 2010
regarding the appropriateness of a planned visit by Pope to Britain
[vi] Abdy
To what extent can the crusades be understood as a Christian war on Islam?
Wolffe,
J ed (2008),
Religion in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence , The Open University, Manchester London London Allen Lane , London
[1] Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in
history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study Guide 1, The Open
University pp127-129 Manchester London
[1] Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in
history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study Guide 1, The Open
University pp127-129
[2] Wolffe, J (2008), AA307 Religion in
history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study Guide 1, The Open
University pp130=132
[3] AA307CD1
[4] Pearson, J. in
Wolffe, J ed (2008), Religion in history:
conflict, conversion and coexistence , The
Open University, Manchester
[5] Tyerman, C (2007) God’s War, Penguin, London
[6] AA307 CD1
[7] AA307CD1
[8] AA307CD1
[9] Wolffe, J
(2008), AA307 Religion in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study
Guide 1, The Open University p171
[10] AA307 CD1
[11] Wolffe, J
(2008), AA307 Religion in history: conflict, conversion and coexistence Study
Guide 1, The Open UniversityP175
The English Civil War
The search for a settlement, 1646–8
Do the Levellers deserve the
description of ‘the first modern political party’?
The Levellers were a mostly
civilian movement of political radicals associated in particular with the
religious dissenting radicals initially associated with John Lilburne, Richard
Overton and William Walwyn that emerged from the chaos of the first Civil War[1]
. In July 1646, the ‘Remonstrance of
Many Thousand Citizens’ was the first Leveller text to make a claim to a mass
following, a significant moment in the genesis of the group (Foxley 2014)[2].
By the end of 1649, having fallen foul of the army’s leadership they would be
finished as a pressure group (Worden 2010)[3]
although political agitation they inspired, mostly from within the army, would
continue into the early 1650s. It should
be noted that the name ‘Levellers’ was coined by the enemies of the movement
‘to imply that they favoured the abolition of property rights and the
equalisation of wealth’. Levellers was
not a label the movement applied to itself.[4]
The claim that the levellers
might be ‘the first modern political party’ is surely founded in the ideas they
developed in these three years of prominence, when they would have influence
within the army and the ear of the army’s leadership when a confluence of
grievances against the new tyranny of Parliament (in particular under Holles)
replaced that of the King. Certainly by the standards of the times their
developing ideology as represented in the final version of their manifesto ‘An Agreement of the People’
were indeed revolutionary and the demands made were not dissimilar to those
clamoured for nearly two centuries later prior to the Great Reform Act of 1832
and those of the Chartists of the 1840s.
The key demands set out in An
Agreement of the People[5]
were:
- The right to vote for all men over the age of 21 (excepting
servants, beggars and Royalists)
- Annual elections to Parliament with MPs serving one term only
- No army officer, treasurer or lawyer could be an MP (to
prevent conflict of interest)
- Equality of all persons before the law
- Trials should be heard before 12 jurymen, freely chosen by
their community
- The law should proceed in English and cases should not extend
longer than six months
- No-one could be punished for refusing to testify against
themselves in criminal cases
- The death penalty to be applied only in cases of murder
- Abolition of imprisonment for debt
- Tithes should be abolished and parishioners have the right to
choose their ministers
- Taxation in proportion to real or personal property
- Abolition of military conscription, monopolies and excise
taxes
As Lacey points out[6]
these demands were ignored during the interregnum and after the restoration but
came to pass piecemeal from the early 1830s and into the final quarter of the
20th Century (with some still outstanding). This analysis
demonstrates that the ideas set out to form a written and binding constitution
between Parliament and the People, from whom, according to Leveller theory, Parliament
received its authority.
These ideas and the final
proposals set out in ‘An Agreement of the People’ certainly seem modern to our
eyes and somewhat radical in the context of the mid-17th century,
although given the upheaval of the period and the search for an acceptable
settlement after Parliament’s victory they probably did not seem as radical as
we may think. The fact that Lilburne’s developing proposals were discussed at
the Putney Debates of 1647 and a year later by a committee of Levellers, London
Independents, MPs and army Grandees at the Whitehall Debates in December 1648, indicate
that Leveller leaders had sufficient influence for their ideas to be heard at
the highest levels and indicate that the Leveller movement was influential, at
least up to that point.
Having influence, a modern agenda
and ideology are factors that might lead one to conclude that the Levellers
were indeed an early modern political party.
However, a number of authors have pointed out that the Levellers were not
in any sense a political party[7]. The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a political
party as Political party, a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise
political power[8].
There appears to have been no
attempt by the Levellers, both within and without the army, to acquire power
for themselves, even to enact their ideologies, but instead only to influence
the real powers of the land to ensure that society was ordered differently and
with wider participation.
The premise that the Levellers
were in any way organized to acquire and exercise power is weak. Whilst the likes of Lilburne, Overton and
Walwyn may well have been prominent in the movement it is hard to pin down a
leadership role to any of them in the modern sense that a party political
leader would have. Some have said
(unkindly given the exemplary military record of Lilburne and others) that the
Leveller leaders were philosophers, pamphleteers, and paper warriors, not men
of physical action themselves[9]. Certainly they were influential in the
political space as is shown by their influence at the Putney Debates and
Whitehall of 1647 and 1648 this was only as part of the wider political
discourse in which the demands of the soldiery were to the fore. The power base that the levellers did possess
was never their own. The influence of
their ideology and manifesto was only felt because of its confluence with the
interests of large sections of the army.
Whilst there were Leveller
meetings and even a newspaper, The
Moderate, that aimed coordinating Leveller supporters across the country[10]
however, as Scott points out ‘any notion of a “Leveller party” is misleading’ as
‘movement never established a large-scale organisation of its own’[11].
Levellers had little or no real political support outside their own numbers,
the middling-sort in London and the dissident rank and file members of the New
Model Army. There was little or no support from the senior Army officer staff,
or the wealthier upper middle classes[12]. Perhaps the best argument against declaring
the Levellers to be a modern political party is that whilst they did have an
ideology, it was one that was fashioned ‘on the hoof’ in response to rapidly
changing, even cataclysmic, events rather than being developed through a
coherent political philosophy.
The Levellers' appeal to the
people as the ultimate source of political authority, Lilburne’s notion of the
‘free-born Englishman’, the relationship between consent in the religious
sphere and in political life[13]
as well as their manifesto as expressed in An Agreement of the People would
make it hard to argue against the premise that the Levellers were first modern
Social Democrats. However to say that
they were the first modern political party is to go too far. They were not organized along the lines of a modern
political party but operated within a mid-17th century model having
influence through association with other groups – in particular section of the
army. There is no evidence that they
sought power for themselves as would a modern party and their programme, such
as it was was developed in extremis.
There is no evidence that they ever developed a broad base of support,
when the army was purged of their supporters they had no powerbase to fall back
on, consequently they were easily supressed after their brief flowering between
1646 and 1649. In truth it would be more
accurate to assert that the correct modern analogy for the Levellers is not The
Political Party but a Political Movement – something like ‘Occupy Wall St’ or ‘Pegida’
though the leveller leaders did in
1647-9 have stronger positional influence through their connections to the Army
Leadership than ‘Occupy Wall St’.
[2] Foxley,
R. (2014) The Levellers (Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain),
Manchester University Press
[4] http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/levellers.html
[5] http://bcw-project.org/church-and-state/second-civil-war/agreement-of-the-people
[6] http://hilary2016.conted.ox.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=6851
Whatever happened to the Levellers?
[7] http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/levellers.html
[8]
http://www.britannica.com/topic/political-party
[9]
http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/levellers.html
[10] http://bcw-project.org/church-and-state/sects-and-factions/levellers
[11] Scott,J.
(2000) England’s Troubles, Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in
European Context, Cambridge
[12]
http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/levellers.html
[13] http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1519
Future Learn Courses Autumn 2014
Future Learn is a private company owned by The Open University that partners with other Academic Institutions to provide MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses ) which are free high quality online courses on a huge range of topics. For more info take a look at https://www.futurelearn.com/about . So far I have done 2 courses – England in the Time of Richard the 3rd – presented by Leicester University and Causes of War by King’s college London. The courses are typically between 3-8 weeks in length and require around 3-4hours online study per week though you can go faster or slower if you require. There is no pressure on learners and no qualifications are awarded (although courses will provide certificates of participation if you wish them).
With the long days of Summer rapidly receding I have decided to think about keeping myself occupied over the long nights of Autumn and Winter by doing 3 more courses all with a historical flavour:
Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds Presented by the University of Southampton
This is a 4 week course presented by the University of Southampton whose lecturers ( Professor Jon Adams, Dr Lucy Blue, Dr Justin Dix, Dr Helen Farr, Dr Julian Whitewright, Dr Fraser Sturt and Dr Jesse Ransley ) for the most part seem to be rather young – I suspect the nature of Marine Archaeology requires a high degree of fitness at least for the field work! Week 1 introduces the topic and looks at the history of Marine Archaeology – a relatively recent discipline that only in the 20th century, and from 1960 in particular, progressed from the search for and recovery of ancient valuable artefacts to systematic study of the context in which objects are found and preserved. In week 1 a range of fascinating links are included for additional study – the Mars Wreck and UK National Maritime museum to name just 2. The scope of marine archaeology is wide indeed ranging from the study of submerged human towns and cities to the study of shipwrecks and even crashed aircraft this study covers deep water, coastal and tidal regions as well as rivers and lakes (Odo Blundell’s early 20th century study of Scottish crannogs is cited).
Week 2 looks at shipwrecks and seafaring using a few (of the estimated 3million) shipwrecks from different era and parts of the world as case studies. The earliest indirect evidence of seafaring pre-dates modern humans dated to 800 000ya and the island of Flores but then a gap of 750 000 yrs separates this to the next evidence – that of the settlement of Australasia by a genetically viable population. The range of seafaring craft are looked at from Floats to Rafts (such as Kon Tiki and Ra – see Heyerdahl) to Pot boats – these were completely new to me and the earliest wooden boats – initially logs but then planked. The explosion of seafaring in pre classical Mediterranean is reviewed where significant evidence exists of extensive trade as early as the Bronze age (the Uluburun wreck 49 m vessel carrying 10 tons of copper ingots from Cyprus) and thereafter through to Roman times and beyond. Eventually we work through Medieval and Viking Seafaring to the year round voyages of the 19th century using case studies and video/you tube clips of dives and sailing reconstructions. Again a wide variety of links are provided to additional material – too much to read in one go but definitely worth coming back to. One advantage with Future learn courses is that they don’t close as soon as your time is up – this at least gives you time to browse the material and additional reading at your leisure later – otherwise you will spend hours on you tube following interesting leads!
The course traces shipbuilding through reconstructions from Classical time through the Viking Age and into the Medieval. Surviving remains such as the cog the Doel 1 found in in Antwerp harbour - Dendrochronology dated wood at 1325- are used as case studies; a Cog btw is a carvel bottom and clinker sided vessel. The Doel 1 had been caulked with moss but sheep’s hair repairs suggested she had been worked on in Britain or Scandinavia as caulking material vaired from place to place.
Also covered this week are navigation and trade – the Hanseatic League is mentioned but the Society of Merchant Adventures – see my book review on the Merchant Adventures were an example of one of the many trading companies set up in the early modern perios. Technological development from Clinker to Carvel (1st seen in Mediterranean) and technological exchange resulting from trade is followed. Ships from Northern Europe had more efficient stern rudders developed for use in heavy seas whilst Mediterranaen ships had better carvel /skeleton construction that allowed for bigger ships and better use of materials (less wood and lower quality wood could be used). Carvel ships also provided excellent gun platforms and cut out gun ports low in the hull.
Case Studies this week included:
Greek and Viking reconstructions
Doel 1
Mary Rose
The Age of Sail and European Discovery and Empire
‘Flower of the Ugie’ an early to mid 19th Century vessel is given as a study of a trading vessel in use in the 1850s.
Week 3 Understanding the Sea
This week covered the effects of changing sea levels rather than ship construction so the effects on human habitation / cities are covered though ships are not forgotten as techniques for investigating the seabed and below are discussed as is their use in identifiying and mapping wreck sites.
Sea Levels have fluctuated markedly throughout human history (up to 120m several times over last 2.5m years) we know this because of core analysis amongst other things. The primary driving force behind large scale changes is Orbital Forcing as described by the Milankovic cycle; Smaller scale (though not necessarily small scale, changes in sea level have resulted from 3 other factors:
Eustasy - the amount of Water in the oceans which has varied significantly as the result of repeated Ice Ages, the inundation of Doggerland (now the North Sea) was a result of Eusatasy. Human artefacts and mammal bones have often been dredged by trawlers from the bottom of the North Sea – these are the remenants of Dogger Land
Isostasy
Tectonics which might cause near instantaneous change
The course uses paleogeographic (the old geography of the world) models to show how fluctuating sea levels have affected humans and landscapes and introduces techniques for investigating submerged landscapes/wrecks - Side Scan Sonar to 4 D Swath Bathymetry; sub bottom profiling (seismic - acoustic) ; magnetometry. Fraser Sturt and Helen Farr use a large wall map to discuss submerged paleo landscapes; how myths of submerged cities and landscapes persist in folk memory - e.g. Atlantis; the details of Atlantis may have been pure fictionbut they are based on a true narrative of sea-level rise and coastal change and so it is no wonder that these stories are so common around the world.
Finally we return to ships, specifically surveying for Shipwrecks using these techologies. The course uses the USS Richard Montgomery as a case study but another example would be Do17 recently recovered by RAF Museum. As a final activity you get to have a go yourself at finding wrecks using a downloadable pdf.
In week 4, the final week of the course, the focus shifts to look at the different techniques used by Maritime Archaeologists and discusses debates surrounding ethics which emerge from working underwater and differentiates between preservation in situ and preservation by record (through excavation). At the end of the week the Course team, whom I cannot praise highly enough for their enthusiasm and obvious enjoyment of their topic, suggest ways that students can continue to participate in the subject from Masters level study down to what individuals could do locally.
When looking at techniques for understanding the past, Dr Jesse Ransley presents a video showing how Marine Archaeologists study how traditional boat building is carried around the world today and brings up the topic of boat ethnoarcheology. Jesse describes how such study can help archaeologists understand the processes and practices involved in making boats, as well as the skills and knowledge of the people who make and use them. At the same time she warns about drawing wrong conclusion from lessons taken out of context – either in distance or time and points out that the evolution of design is not necessarily a linear process.
Some key milestones in Maritime Archeology are discussed as case studies :
Tybrind Vig, Denmark (5400-4000 cal BC) - a prehistoric submerged sites are so uniquely interesting is because the preservation of organic materials – here inn 1972 a number of log boats and decorated paddles were found in an inundated (due to sea lelvel change) landscape. The prescence of a number of log boats indicated that maritime transport was more common than had previously been thought.
Cape Gelidonya, Turkey (1200 BC) – discussed in week 1 of the course but in effect the progenitor of modern shipwreck archaeology it was the first site ever excavated by archaeologists who dived and thus conducted the excavation themselves rather than archaeologists instructing divers from the surface
The Grace Dieu, England (1439) - In the mudflats of the River Hamble, Henry V’s flagship. Built between 1416-18 this was the largest English ship to be built for the next 200 years; never used in war, in 1434, she was towed up the River Hamble to Bursledon, where she was laid up in a specially constructed dock in the mudflats. On 7 January 1439, lightning struck and a major part of the hull burnt out. Only the keel and some of the bottom planking remained embedded in the mud. At extreme low tides, the impressive wreck would surface from the river. The Victorians thought the wreck was a huge Danish Viking ship, because the hull was clinker-built. In January 1970, the University of Southampton bought the wreck for a sum of £5 and her care lies with its Department of Archaeology. In 1973 the Protection of Wrecks Act was passed, and it was one of the first sites to be designated as of historical and archaeological importance.
The Torrey Canyon, (1967) - the significance of the Torrey Canyon is that the spill from her wrecking
he pivotal part of the Torrey Canyon’s significance is that the environmental disaster she created forced a shift in ship design, from ‘single skinned’ ships to ‘double hulls’ . The course provides an interesting link to a BBC news report with a dive on this wreck - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13280507
The importance of Archival research is demonstrated with a wide number of fascinating links wothy of bookmarking. The future development of the topic is discussed under the following headings
• people - trg local archaeologists; better skills and more people
• underwater technology - AUVs; re-breathers - dive time
• Applications of new scientific techniques - 3d Printing; Computer visualisation
• Public platforms for exploration. e.g. Google Earth abandoned shipwrecks database – take a look!
To finish the course, threats to the world’s maritime heritage , from treasure hunters to the uninformed dive tourists to coastal economic development are discussed along with some solutions including the UNESCO 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (see the final week of the 1919 course for the expanding role of the UN!) This Convention aims:
• to ensure and strengthen the protection of underwater cultural heritage.
• States Parties shall cooperate in the protection of underwater cultural heritage.
• States Parties shall preserve underwater cultural heritage for the benefit of humanity in conformity with the provisions of this Convention.
• For thThe preservation in situ of underwater cultural heritage shall be considered as the first option before allowing or engaging in any activities directed at this heritage.
• Ensure that Underwater cultural heritage shall not be commercially exploited.
To close the course a google hang out with the educators is posted on You Tube. Annoyingly I got the day wrong so have missed the interactive part of this but I hall go back to it.
In summary this was a stunning course. There is a wealth of new material to while away the hours and I do hope to spend time following up on a number of these. I would highly recommend the course to anyone it is so well presented it makes you want to take up diving and go back to university. Well done and a BIG thank You to the Course Team.
World War 1: Paris 1919 - A New World Order? - University of Glasgow
This is a 3 week long course that looks at the aims and outcomes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The course is highly interactive and put together with some excellent videos and online tutorials weekly – that are then posted on You Tube. The course is Led by Professor Christian Tams and is enjoyable, well put together and makes one look at the topic from a new perspective. The weekly Tutorials can be found on You Tube (I am assuming they are still posted after the course):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gag8O0BB9Uc
Today many see in the ashes of the Versailles settlement the seeds of the 2nd world war. This is certainly arguable but for those attending the conference the intent at least was different. 1919 was different to early international conferences in its attempt to provide global answers – Self Determination, the setting up of a system of international governance etc. and not just to carve up the spoils of victory. As the course introduction says ‘Paris was meant to be an inclusive, an open and a transformative event: a peace to end all wars’ It also marked the arrival of the USA onto the global stage with the dominant figure at the conference being US President Woodrow Wilson (the USA being the power that emerged significantly enriched in economic as well as military terms from the war) significantly Wilson spent 166 days in Europe in his attempt to rebuild the world order – compare this with Barrack Obama’s longest overseas trip of 10 days.
In 1919 every man and his dog turned up in Paris. Initially representatives of the Allied powers attended and these were joined by the defeated powers later. The conference had 2 aims - to ‘make a settlement of victor over vanquished’ and; to ‘establish a functioning international system after the disturbances created by a world war’ (Clive Archer, International Organisations, 14).
The 1st week of the course looks at the initial influence of Wilson, particularly at the start of the conference and then the formation and an assessment of the performance of the League of Nations. There was a tension between the victors’ war aims – getting the vanquished to pay for the war , and President Wilson’s demands that the new post-war order would be based on the principles of equity and justice. Paris 1919 was a Global Summit NGOs; Trade Unions as well as heads of Government. Trade Unions won support for an International Labour organisation and Ho Chi Minh attended and was inspired by Wilson’s ideas on Self Determination. The question of Wilson’s idealism vs Naïveté is discussed.
Wilson’s 14 points were certainly inspirational but in hindsight seem unrealistic. “It was easy to mock Wilson, and many did. It is also easy to forget how important his principles were in 1919 and how many people, and not just in the United States, wanted to believe in his great dream of a better world. They had, after all, a terrible reference point in the ruin left by the Great War. Wilson kept alive the hope that human society, despite the evidence, was getting better, that nations would one day live in harmony. In 1919, before disillusionment had set in, the world was more than ready to listen him." Unfortunately Wilson’s idealism was one thing in reality he had no effective plan for implementation (beyond the League of Nations – of which more in a moment). In hindsight it is hard to disagree with John Maynard Keynes appraisal of Wilson as a‘blind and deaf Don Quixote’ who had ‘no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas whatever for clothing with the flesh of life the commandments which he had thundered from the White House’ (Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 58). In particular his support for ‘self-determination’ of peoples did nothing more than fuel Nationalist ambitions in a range of countries that has echoes to this day (not good ones IMHO).
The League of Nations was the 1st Agenda Item – even ahead of the Peace Negotiations; brainchild of Wilson it is seen today as a failure – it clearly failed to stop WW2. However it was the first attempt at setting up a permanent organisation to act in the name of global governance. It was a failed experiment but it allowed lessons to be learned in the setting up of the UN. The League’s failure in the 1930s was a failure of the members to act against aggressors – Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, Italy’s of Abyssinia. . Too much depended on the willingness of the disputing States. They were to bring before the League (or submit to courts or commissions) all crises ‘likely to lead to a rupture’ (Article 15). During a cooling-off period, States agreed not to begin war while the League considered how to preserve peace. And if the League Council was unanimous, it could impose sanctions on States ignoring their obligations under the Covenant of the League of Nations. The Covenant was flawed in one crucial respect – just like the French Maginot line – was designed to preclude another World War One. But states did not sleepwalk into World War Two; one side aggressively planned for it!
The course then goes onto challenge the accepted view that the League was a failure. Clearly in its primary aim – it did fail but the League’s secondary aim - ‘to promote international co-operation’ outside the security field were much more successful. In particular in the issuing of ‘Nansen’ passports to Refugees to allow them to be resettled in safe countries, in disease response and control (influenza ; typhus and others ) and in economic fields the League it turns out was to some degree successful, with some of its structures visible in international law to this day.
Week 2 – Problems with Internet Connections really slowed me down! Not a fault of the course but of BT!
Many treaties re-wrote the map of Europe but also the Middle East and Africa. 3 factors shaped the post war settlement - The war aims of the allies; the failure of multi-ethnic empires and the principle of self-determination (followed less in the 'mandates' of the former Ottoman Empire) . Note though that self-determination was no cure-all – in fact it provided legitimacy to Hitler’s claims in the Sudetenland! Zara Steiner said, “The Paris treaties gave 60 million people a state of their own but turned another 25 million into minorities” (Steiner, The Lights That Failed, 259). The Statesmen in Paris it should be noted were often making decisions on the hoof and without advice! Often they were out of their depth – clearly illustrated by an MP3 recording of Diary Entry re Discussion on providing the Greeks; Italians and others with parts of Turkey in which Lloyd George attempted to offer Greek Islands to Italy thinking they were Turkish ones!
The Treaty of Trianon was the Hungarian Settlement - the decision to reduce Hungary to a rump - still highly unpopular today. Overturned in WW2 it was re-established and confirmed by the victorious Allies in 1945 - But it is still contested. In 2010 Hungary named 4 June (date f the signing of the treaty) as National Unity Day
The Paris conference was the 1st to include minority rights protection within its provisions - ‘Little Treaty of Versailles’, also known as the ‘Polish Minority Treaty’. It was the first attempt to set up rules for the protection of minorities on an international basis (although this was exactly what Hitler would use as his excuse for aggression in Poland and Czechoslovakia).
The Paris Peace Conference strengthened the idea that international disputes should be addressed by impartial courts, on the basis of international law. In retrospect, we can say that it marked an important step on the way towards a ‘world court’. There were 2 steps to setting up world courts - agreement to submit to Arbitration of the World Court from 1922. The Permanent Court of International Justice was established in The Hague 1922 - and it carries on to this day as the International Court of Justice. The World Court was in fact the only institution set p after 1919 that was taken up by the settlement of 1945. Today it is still housed in the Peace Palace in The Hague, and still functioning largely according to the same rules as those set in 1922.
The 2nd step was a discussion on war crimes. The peace treaties of Versailles (with Germany) and Sèvres (with the Ottoman Empire) made provision for the prosecution of persons that, in today’s terminology, would be referred to as ‘war criminals’. The Treaty of Versailles e.g. envisaged the prosecution of Kaiser Wilhelm II before an international tribunal; and required Germany to extradite ‘all persons accused of having committed an act in violation of the laws and customs of war’ (Article 228). These provisions provoked outrage in Germany, and were never effectively implemented, as the Netherlands refused to extradite the Kaiser. Germany also watered down the duty to extradite war criminals: it held war crime trials before German courts and ensured that they were conducted in a ‘minimalist’ way. As for Turkey, plans for investigating crimes committed against Armenians and others were never seriously implemented. While prosecutions after World War One never went very far, they are best seen as the ‘prologue’ to subsequent developments. After World War Two, the victors insisted on criminal justice – and prosecuted War Criminals at Nuremburg and in Tokyo. Since the 1990s International tribunals have continued to prosecute war crimes notably those committed in former Yugoslavia and Liberia. The Rome Conference of 1998 established a permanent International Criminal Court, competent to address genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.
The week concludes that the ‘Paris Peace Conference is easy to criticise, but much of the criticism is overblown.’ Margaret MacMillan's assessment from her book ‘the Peacemakers’ is quoted to end the week:
"if the peacemakers could have done better, they certainly could have done much worse. They tried, even cynical old Clemenceau, to build a better order."
Week 3
This week the work of the next generation of peacemakers who tried again to build a new world order after another even more destructive world war. It should be remembered that the League of Nations had done nothing to prevent the 2nd World War and that the world did not ‘sleepwalk’ into the war this time around – Germany (in particular) and Japan actively planned for it. Despite the failure of the League of Nations to prevent WW2, the idea of a world organisation survived to become the United Nations during and after WW2
We begin the week with the following quote:
‘when the victor Powers began to reorganise the world in 1945 …, they had no doubt that something similar to the League of Nations must be formed again’ (Northedge, The League of Nations, 278).
On 8 May 1945 Truman announced that ‘the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations’ reminding us today that the UN was not simply a post-war construct but had come into being as a concept, if not yet with a fully defined structure (this would come after the San Francisco Conference that ended whilst the war with Japan still raged) during the war and had come about by agreement between the major Allied Powers.
The fresh start required a new framework given the League’s failure and the founders of the UN (primarily GB; USA and USSR) had learned 3 crucial lessons – the need for universality, and the need to empower an executive body (the Security Council) to impose effective sanctions if the permanent five (France and Nationalist China were added at the last minute) members states acted in concert. Furthermore the peacemakers of 1945 did not tie the new project to the settlement of the war –unlike the creation of the League in 1919.
Unlike in 1919 the San Francisco conference, at which the UN Charter was finalised, was preceded by detailed discussions among the major powers that resulted in a near-complete text to serve as itskey reference document. This text contained the ‘cornerstone’ of the new international order: a general ban on military force in inter-State relations, which should henceforth only be used in self-defence or with the UN’s mandate.
A comparison between the League and the UN shows that they had similar structures but some very key differences. Both organisations had a Plenary Organ (the General Assembly at the UN); an Executive Body (the Sy Council) and a secretariat. A key difference however was that the Sy Council did not require unanimity to act it simply needed to avoid a Veto by a permanent member (of course this would cause many a block to action in future years as the Cold War took hold and even today can prevent Action e.g. Russian Support of the Assad Regime in Syria). Nevertheless the Sy Council could impose a wide range of military and economic sanctions, and it could do so by imposing upon UN member States binding legal obligations. The General Assembly’s powers were defined less clearly. The assembly was not to threaten the Security Council’s primary responsibility, and it could not impose binding legal obligations on members. Otherwise the General Assembly was free to take up matters at will which, given that it represented all the members (today nearly 200), it does with considerable legitimacy.
Like the League before it the UN also took up work to improve international co-operation in ‘technical’ areas but it has gone much further than the league as is evidenced by its support for and legitimation of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed as a (non-binding) resolution of the General Assembly in 1948; The Genocide Convention, denouncing genocide as a ‘crime under international law; and in its 1st resolution (Jan 1946) the setting up of the Atomic Energy Commission, to ‘deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy’.
The course discusses some of the difficulties of the UN over its 70 life span – not least the Cold War and the consequent inability of the Permanent Members to actually act in agreement in most cases, anotable exception being the Korean War when the Soviet representative was ordered by Stalin to boycott the meeting at which the resolution to intervene was passed. Issues with the permanency of the Sy Council members are raised in the discussion forums and it is certainly legitimate to query why powers such as Britain and France retain their permanent seats in 2014. Over its lifetime the UN has also expanded from 50 to nearly 200 members (the result of European empires de-colonisation being a major factor here); in 1973 West and East Germany were admitted. This growth gave the UN much more universality tan the League had ever known. Consequently the UN General Assembly is much less a mouthpiece for the Western Powers these days and the Assembly now regularly adopt resolutions opposed by the United States and western allies.
Since the 1970s the UN has provided a forum for the discussion of concerns around Human Rights and the environment (Stockholm Conference (1972) and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992)). Of course since the end of the Cold War the UN has at times been remarkably effective (1st Gulf War) and remarkably ineffective (Rwandan Genocide) and of course the , western States’ assertion of a right to use force, without a UN mandate, against Serbia in defence of rights of Kosovar Albanians, antagonised a majority of UN member States – who emphasised the ban on the use of force has challenged the nature of the UN but so far it remains on balance a force for good and is still a key player on the global scene
In the last part of this course we will look 3 case studies used to view the UN today. In the area of global security the UN can sometimes seem powerless – witness Russian Aggression in the Ukraine and Israeli aggression in Gaza where the Sy council is stymied by vetoes. Still in contrast the case of Hany Yousseff is used to show how effective the UN can be against terrorist threats. In Medicine, according to a UN report in 2011, an estimated 6.9 million children died from mostly preventable diseases – that is 19,000 children per day and yet the role of UN agencies - UNICEF; WHO; UNHCR etc have been at the forefront of the fight against Polio – under the aegis of the UN, 2.5 billion children have been vaccinated against Polio since 1988 which has led to a 99% reduction in cases. In ‘technical’ areas the UN has been instrumental – through ICAO and the World Customs Organization in facilitating global travel
The final 2 paragraphs of the course are spoken in the last of his videos by Christian Tams:
'In fact, even while we remember the centenary of a great war, perhaps we should be ready to admit that the real world order challenges of our generation come less from war and peace than from hunger, poverty, and disease, which every year claim many more lives than interstate conflict.
The peacemakers may have got many things wrong, but they were bold. They try to build a better world order. In their high hopes, they were bound to be disappointed. But if we look back after nearly a century, perhaps there's something we can learn from the spirit that brought statesman and activists to Paris in 1919.'
My own conclusion on this course is that it was superbly well presented. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
World War 1: Aviation Comes of Age University of Birmingham (and RAF Museum Hendon)
This is a 3 week course that in reality is a potted history of early powered flight from the Wright Brothers upto the beginning of WW2 so is misnamed which was disappointing as it was WW1 that I was most interested in. The course is presented by Professor Peter Gray . Throughout the course Video clips and voice recordings of early pioneers such as Sopwith and DeHavilland as well as an eye witness to Bleriot’s crossing of the Channel in 1909 are used to illustrate key points and for me these were some of the most interesting parts.
The 1st week of the course looks at Pre WW1 and how the fantasy of flight – as quoted from Tennyson – becomes tinged with realisation of the darker implications of airpower as a weapon of war as the Wright Flyer was developed into more practical types.
Week 2 aviation - looks at development of Aircraft; tactics and weapons during the 1st WW; the importance of Recce at Mons – where the RFC spotted that the French 5 Army had not kept up with BEF advance - exposing BEF flank – informed the retreat and then the BEFs stand at Le Cateau. At the Marne the RFC was also to play a major part when it spotted the gap between the German First and Second Armies, into which the BEF advanced and the result was the ‘Miracle of the Marne
The myths of Chivalric Jousting in air fighting and ‘lions led by donkeys’ nonsense are discussed as well as the advent of Strategic bombing - which led directly to formation of RAF. Though having little impact in WW1 the focus of RAF doctrine between wars and into WW2 would be based on the lessons of WW1 - hence strategic bombing. Also discussed in this week is the industrial scale production developed from cottage industries at the start of the war; also brought in is the introduction of women to traditional male jobs
In week 3 the development of air power through civil use and the doctrine of strategic bombing is discussed though not in a lot of detail – no mention is made of Douhet or Billy Mitchell which is a missed opportunity.
Compared to the other 2 courses I have taken this autumn, this one has been aimed at a lower level of learning – this is not a criticism as the whole MOOC (Massive Open Online Course ) concept is appeal to a wide audience so it is important that those with no previous experience have courses available to stimulate further interest though for me I would have preferred to concentrate on Aviation in the lead up to and in the 1st WW.
A key lesson learned for me this year is to do 1 course at a time! Doing 3 has meant that I could not dig ionto all the fascinating material provided by both ‘World War 1: Paris 1919 - A New World Order?’ and ‘Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds’ which is a shame – though at least the material is still available after the course. I already knew a great deal more than ‘World War 1: Aviation Comes of Age’ presented so I haven’t missed out here. Both the Paris 1919 and Shipwrecks course have inspired me to read more – Margaret MacMillan’s ‘The Peacemakers’ has been downloaded to the Kindle; Thor Heyerdahl’s and Tim Severin’s books have been taken off the bookshelf for a re-reading.
14 Oct 14
Future Learn Courses Autumn 2014
Future Learn is a private company owned by The Open University that partners with other Academic Institutions to provide free high quality online courses on a huge range of topics. For more info take a look at https://www.futurelearn.com/about . So far I have done 2 courses – England in the Time of Richard the 3rd – presented by Leicester University and Causes of War by King’s college London. The courses are typically between 3-8 weeks in length and require around 3-4hours online study per week though you can go faster or slower if you require. There is no pressure on learners and no qualifications are awarded (although most courses will provide certificates of completion if you wish them).
With the long days of Summer rapidly receeding I have decided to think about keeping myself occupied over the long nights of Autumn and Winter by doing 3 more courses all with a historical flavour:
Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds University of Southampton
World War 1: Paris 1919 - A New World... University of Glasgow
World War 1: Aviation Comes of Age University of Birmingham
Once I complete these courses I shall be posting here my key take aways from each course.
21 Jan 14
“A simple lie is easier to sell than a complex truth” - Alexis De Tocqueville
I suspect a number of people are falling over themselves to score political points regarding the anniversary of the start of World War 1. In my view too many people are reverting to ill-informed cliché to frame the iew of the conflict. Sadly these include the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove– with his overtly jingoistic ahistorical recent article in the ‘Daily Mail’. On one point though Gove was right in asserting that we need to get away from the myths surrounding the war – the Lions led by Donkeys nonsense and the USA ‘rescuing Europe’ myth of equal nonsense. To add something to the debate on this I have added some of my previous writing on these issues below. What I would ask people to do is to actually go away and read some modern history on the subject and stop perpetuating myth and misunderstanding.
"He presents to me in these red years the same mental picture as a great surgeon before the days of anaesthetics, versed in every detail of such science as was known to him: sure of himself, steady of poise, knife in hand, intent upon the operation; entirely removed in his professional capacity from the agony of the patient, the anguish of relations, or the doctrines of rival schools or the devices of quacks. He would operate without excitement, or he would depart without being affronted; and if the patient died, he would not reproach himself. It must be understood that I speak only of his professional actions. Once out of the theatre his heart was as warm as any man's." W S Churchill
Churchill’s statement is aimed directly at Haig’s war record and was made after Haig was safely deceased. What few realize today, thanks to the myths surrounding the war, was that Haig was hugely popular in Britain after the war. Churchill’s implication was that Haig, who assumed command of the BEF in December 1915, was a man of a previous era who had little understanding of modern warfare.
The statement is disingenuous and reflects the politician’s desire to shift blame for the horrendous casualties of the Western Front to the generals and away from their own culpability (Lloyd (LLiar) George pulled off the same trick in his memoirs also written after Haig’s demise). The same desire is one that led to panacea attempts to shorten the war by focusing on ‘Easterner’ answers that in truth were no less costly – see Churchill’s pet project Gallipoli (and his continued nonsensical attention to Europe’s ‘soft underbelly’ in WW2).
As a National commander Haig was subject to Government direction and limitations, such as Lloyd George’s insistence that the BEF fought at Arras in 1917(Sheffield, 2011 p199) . As the junior partner in the Western coalition before 1917 Haig could not choose his time and place of fighting – the Somme battle was brought forward (Haig would have preferred to have fought in Flanders and have waited until tanks were available) (Sheffield, 2011 p164) to relieve pressure on Verdun. Post war criticism of Haig focused on the number of casualties has tended to ignore the political imperatives that dictated offensive action (Sheffield, 2011 p372) thus forcing Haig to attack when the weapons available for the period 1915-17 tended to favour the defender.
Beckett (Beckett, 2007 p220) makes the point that in 1916 Haig did not understand artillery and criticizes him for continuing to seek a breakthrough battle, on the Somme when one was not in prospect. Beckett may have a point but the development of the BEF from 1916 to 1918, under Haig seems to support the view that Haig, and the army under him were able to adjust tactics so that eventually a breakthrough battle was achievable. This has been termed ‘the Learning Curve of the British Army’. Lessons learned on the Somme and at Ypres in 1917 were applied effectively in 1918. In particular Haig recognized the importance of artillery and in 1918 HAD ENOUGH available to provide heavy barrages at several points when earlier in the war there was insufficient artillery. As early as 1914 Haig had appreciated the importance of aircraft for reconnaissance and artillery spotting. By 1918 the technological improvement in this weapon allied to improved artillery techniques was decisive and supported by Haig.
The effective training of a newly raised army has been credited to Haig (Pugsley, 2011 p16) who appointed Solly-Flood to a newly created Training Directorate in 1917 for the specific purpose of disseminating Lessons Learned. Haig also supported development of doctrine for the use of Tanks (learning from the mistakes of the Somme in 1916) with infantry support.
Haig was no military genius, but neither was he a buffoon. His actions were constrained by coalition warfare, insufficient artillery early in his command and the need to train a citizen army from scratch as well as integrate new weapons and develop doctrine for their use. His victories in 1918 were the result of effective learning and command.
Regarding the influence of the USA the main impact of the US intervention was the power which the Americans could eventually bring into the war, rather than the size of the contribution they were able to make by the end of 1918. We shouldn't back-cast from the 2nd world war the USA's importance as an industrial/technological power - she was armed by France and Britain in 1917/18 rather than vice versa (Stachan 2000) . As a trading power her supplies of agricultural good (horses and food) was more important to the Entente powers than weaponry.
Nevertheless the main combatant states by 1917 were very strained financially, socially and militarily by the whole conflict. The idea that the war was going to be short and easily concluded had been shattered, in Britain the Liberal government had collapsed and a new coalition government needed to be formed. The civilian government in Germany had been steadily undermined by the military high command as the war dragged on and by 1917 the most important figures in German politics were Ludendorff and Hindenburg. Civilian rations were dwindling and the only thing which kept morale going on all sides was the idea that the war could not last indefinitely and that eventually the opposing side would be able to fight no longer. The US was a very important industrial power by the late-nineteenth century and possessed huge natural resources so the psychological blow of US intervention in 1917 was very significant though her actual fighting contribution was small relative to Britain and France. The governments and populations of the Central Powers must have wondered just how long the conflict could continue as American military resources arrived in Europe.
Further Reading:
The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War [Hardcover]
Professor Margaret MacMillan (Author)
ISBN-10: 184668272X
ISBN-13: 978-1846682728
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 [Hardcover]
Christopher Clark
Publisher: Allen Lane (27 Sep 2012)
ISBN-10: 071399942X
ISBN-13: 978-0713999426
The Making of the First World War [Hardcover]
Ian Beckett
Publisher: Yale University Press (2 Oct 2012)
ISBN-10: 0300162022
ISBN-13: 978-0300162028
The First World War: A New History [Paperback]
Hew Strachan
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Free Press; New edition edition (2 May 2006)
ISBN-10: 074323961X
ISBN-13: 978-0743239615
Footnotes:
i Sheffield,G. (2011) The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army; Aurum Press Ltd, London
ii Sheffield,G. (2011) The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army; Aurum Press Ltd, London
iii Sheffield,G. (2011) The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army; Aurum Press Ltd, London
iv Beckett, I F W (2007); The Great War: 1914-1918 (Modern Wars In Perspective) 2nd Ed; Routledge
v Pugsley, C (2011); Haig and The Implementation of Tactical Doctrine on the Western Front ;Central Library RMA Sandhurst
vi Strachan, Hew, The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, Oxford University Press, 2000, page 148
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF
AGRICULTURAL TRADE LIBERALISATION FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
9 March 2004
Introduction
- According
to The Economist, ‘the
World Bank estimates that a successful Doha round of trade liberalization
could raise global income by $500 billion a year by 2015 with over 60% of
that gain going to developing countries’ (The Economist 20 September
2003 p29)[1]. A
key aim of the Doha round was the agreement to liberalize trade in
Agriculture, a field in which developing countries have a comparative
advantage over developed countries.
This briefing note appraises the economic and political
implications of agricultural trade liberalization under World Trade
Organization (WTO) rules.
2. This brief describes the theory of comparative advantage to
outline the gains that can be made from trade but will also indicate that these
gains may not be evenly spread. One of
the factors that lead to the uneven spread of trade gains is the terms under
which goods are traded; this factor will be outlined. Finally, the political implications of
specialisation and interdependence in an anarchical world will be
reviewed.
The
Gains From Trade
- It is widely
accepted that there are mutual gains to be made from trading between
nations. This acceptance is based
upon Ricardo’s (1817)[2]
theory of comparative advantage which, although making a number of
assumptions and based on a simple 2 country / 2 commodity model, argues
powerfully that countries engaged in trade benefit mutually by
specialising in what they are good (or least worst) at. The example below (based on article
in http://www.systemics.com/docs/ricardo/david.html)[3]
shows why this is so.
Country
|
Rice
|
Computers
|
Cost/Unit
(man hours)
|
Cost/Unit
(man hours)
|
|
Developed
Nation (A)
|
10
|
15
|
Undeveloped
Nation (B)
|
15
|
30
|
Table 1 – Example costs of 2
commodities in developed and undeveloped nations (after Ricardo)
- In table 1, Nation
A produces both rice and computers at a lower cost than Nation B. However:
§
Nation B produces
computers at twice the cost that it produces rice.
§
For Nation B,
production of one extra computer has an opportunity cost (the cost of foregoing
an opportunity to do something else) of 2 units of rice.
§
For Nation A the
opportunity cost of producing one extra computer is 1.5 units of rice.
§
Nation A is therefore
relatively better at producing computers than rice. Nation B is relatively better at
producing rice than computers.
§
Because comparative
costs differ, it may still be advantageous for both countries to trade although
Nation A is better at producing both goods.
§
Comparative differences
in the nature and costs and in the factors of production (land, labour,
capital,[4]
technology[5])
vary between Nation A (skilled high cost labour in relatively short supply) and
Nation B (typically in undeveloped nations, large number of low cost unskilled
workers).
- Table
2 shows how trade might be advantageous.
Manpower costs of production are as set out above. Before trading takes place the
Undeveloped Nation B (with its large pool of unskilled workers) has 270
man hours available for production whilst Nation A has only 180 available
man hours. Total world output is
shown to have increased as a result of the 2 countries specialising in the
production of those commodities where they possess a comparative
advantage.
Nation
|
Units Produced
|
|||
Pre-Trade
|
Post-Trade
|
|||
Rice
|
Computers
|
Rice
|
Computers
|
|
Developed Nation (A)
|
9 (90 hrs)
|
6 (90 hrs)
|
0
|
12 (180 hrs)
|
Undeveloped Nation (B)
|
8 (120 hrs)
|
5 (150 hrs)
|
18 (270 hrs)
|
0
|
Total
|
17
|
11
|
18
|
12
|
Table 2 – World output
increase as a result of trade
6. For developing nations, that
possess large pools of unskilled agricultural labour the benefits of increased
agricultural trade liberalization, i.e. the widespread removal of tariffs and
subsidies, using this model, would include:
§ Export earnings through
access to new markets for their increased production.
§ Security of food supplies
through increased world production.
§ Economic growth from
increased national income (Bromley et al, 2004 p 60)[6].
§ Elimination of rich country
dumping.
Terms of Trade
7. The theory of comparative
advantage is a simplification of reality based on a 2-state / 2-item
model. In reality there may be downsides
to increased trade. Firstly, not everybody
benefits equally. Within countries,
those not employed in the industries with comparative advantage (e.g. steel
workers in the USA; call-centre workers in Scotland) may find themselves out of
work. In developing nations this may
literally lead to starvation.
8. The major problems for developing
nations that might arise through trade liberalisation is that they may not gain
at all. A country’s terms of trade
are given by the ratio of its export prices to its import prices (Bromley et
al, 2004 p 51) [7].
The price of goods on the open market is dependent upon the demand and
availability of those goods. Should
there be strong demand and limited supply of a good then its price will be
higher than if the opposite was true. It is, therefore, possible that increased
agricultural output by developing countries output might lead to a reduction or
stagnation in national income should there be no demand for the additional
output - immiserizing growth (Bromley et al, 2004 p 63)[8]. As far as the terms of trade ratio is
concerned, it is possible that income from exports might fall whilst
expenditure on imports from developed nations might rise leading to national
impoverishment of developing nations. In
1998, $456 billion-worth of agricultural goods was traded across borders, three
times more than 20 years earlier (The Economist 23 May 2000) [9].
However, in those 20 years, prices for Agricultural Raw Materials have fallen
by around 40% (UNCTAD 2002, p138) [10].
9. Developed nation economies
are usually highly diversified in the types and numbers of goods produced. Furthermore, they have a high ratio of
value-added to primary products (primary products are basic raw materials
including). This diversity insulates the
national economies from price collapses in one commodity (for this reason
diversification is a well-known stock market strategy to protect investment - Markowitz
1952). Developing nations do not
usually have the protection of product diversity. Typically, they have specialised in a few
primary products for the export market.
As a consequence, their terms of trade ratio has suffered when prices
have collapsed such as happened between 1995 and 2000 when prices paid to
coffee growers fell by 50% (UNCTAD 2002, p141)[11].
10. These examples indicate that
Developing nations have had to trade larger and larger quantities to receive
less Developed country output. During
this period, developed countries have made the problem worse for the poorer
nations by protecting and subsidising their own agricultural producers. This has allowed them to undercut developing
country industries and to prevent a move away from primary good production
manufactured goods production. A good
example of this is the Senegalese Tomato processing industry (Bromley et al,
2004, p 38)[12]
that was decimated subsidised EU imports.
It may be that the EU did not set out to destroy the Senegalese industry
but that this was an outcome of the EU acting in the interest of its own
citizens.
Political Implications of
Specialisation
11. International relations may
be considered from 2 viewpoints:
§ Anarchic – whereby each
state is constrained solely by the need to act in the interests of itself and
its citizens (as indicated in paragraph 10).
§ Governed – whereby states
are constrained by a set of rules of conduct to grapple with collective
problems (Stokke 1997, p 28)[13].
12. In this paper, we will
examine only the anarchic viewpoint, although it is worth noting that the
existence of not only the WTO but also of the EU would indicate that there is a
strong argument for the consideration of supra-national governance. The anarchic view is based upon Waltz’s
realist theory of international politics (Waltz 1979, reported in Bromley et
al2004, p110), which itself is based upon the Hobbesian view of sovereign
power. Hobbes argued that in nature
individuals prize their own security over all other interests. To achieve security individuals are willing
to forego personal freedoms and will subordinate themselves to a sovereign
power (the level of the state) that will guarantee security. This act removes anarchy (the dispersal of
political authority) from the internal state to the field of international
relations.
13. Waltz aimed to develop a
theory of the structure of international politics based upon observation and
economic models. Waltz argued that:
§ All political systems are
based on 3 criteria:
i. Organising principle of the
actors.
ii. Degree of functional
difference.
iii. Distribution of resources
and capabilities.
§ The organising principle
between states (actors) is anarchical.
§ States will be functionally
similar, as they will not wish to rely upon others for their security.
§ Therefore, the need for
security will:
i. Tend against specialization.
ii. Tend against trade.
§ States are, therefore,
differentiated not by function but by power (derived from available resources
and capabilities).
§ The power that is
distributed across the states system changes as resources and capabilities
change.
§ To ensure their security,
states will seek to improve or maintain their relative power position to other
states.
14. The logical conclusion to
Waltz’s argument is that states will only engage in trade, despite the benefits
mentioned above, if:
§ It does not increase their
vulnerability in strategic interest areas such as food supply.
§ It does not diminish their
relative power to other states.
15. Seen from this perspective,
the rules governing international trade should be viewed as reflecting the
interests of the most powerful states.
Despite this developing country are able to increase their own power
provided they are willing to work together and with special interest groups.
Summation
16. Developing nations have a
great deal to gain from liberalisation of agricultural trade. These gains may come from:
§ Increased output because of specialisation.
§ Free access to markets and
elimination of rich country subsidies.
17. Not all people, or all
nations benefit equally. Within
countries factor endowments determine this balance. Internationally the terms of trade are very
powerful determinants of benefit.
18. In an anarchic international
order the powerful nations have inordinate control over trading rules, however
coalition building by developing nations has a redressing influence.
[1] The Economist 20 September 2003, London
[2] Ricardo. D (1817) ‘On the Principles
of Political Economy and Taxation’
[3] http://www.systemics.com/docs/ricardo/david.html
viewed 4 Mar 04
[4] Bannock. G et al (1998) ‘Dictionary
of Economics’, Penguin, London
[5] Author
[6] Bromley. S et al (2004) (ed) ‘Making
the International: Economic Interdependence and Political Order’, London
and Sterling Virginia, Pluto Press in association with The Open University
[7] ibid
[8] ibid
[9] The Economist 23 May 2000, London
[10] UNCTAD (2002), The Least Developed
Countries Report 2002: Escaping the Poverty Trap, Geneva, United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development
[11] ibid
[12] Ibid
[13] Stokke, O.S. (1997) ‘Regimes as
Governance Systems’ in Young, O.R. (ed) ‘Global Governance: Drawing Insights
From the Environmental Experience’, Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press.
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