Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle: The Decolonisation of the British Caribbean in Light of the Anglo-American Special Relationship

The international collapse in the price of sugar, together with increasing immigration restrictions in the late 1920s and 1930s, produced great pressure on wages and employment throughout the British Caribbean. The underlying tensions reached their boiling point in the years between 1935 and 1938. The chronology proved fateful and speaks for itself: a sugar strike in St. Kitts, 1935; a revolt against an increase of customs duties in St. Vincent, 1935; a coal strike in St. Lucia, 1935; labor disputes in the sugar plantations of British Guiana, 1935; oil strikes in Trinidad and Tobago, 1937; urban riots in Barbados, 1937; and acute disturbances in Jamaica, 1938. While these disturbances, together with the radicalization of the colonial discourse, facilitated the archipelago's constitutional decolonization, attributing all social, economic, and constitutional postwar reforms to the riots alone constitutes an immense leap of faith. A careful analysis of the chronology, let alone a detailed study of the archival records, suggests a robust correlation between the islands’ constitutional evolution and the geopolitical worries of the Anglo-American alliance. The German threat, on the one hand, led Britain to re-articulate its colonial project and, on the other, compelled the US to make sure the British did not walk away from their responsibilities. The strategic importance of “the slums of empire” came to light dramatically once the theater of war became apparent. The Caribbean now became “the show window” where British and American interests collided against each other.     

Sir Eric Phipps, the British Government, and the Appeasement of Germany, 1933-1937

This article argues that Sir Eric Phipps' reputation as an “anti-appeaser” of Germany during his Berlin embassy 1933-1937 is not accurate. While Phipps was not in favor of placating Hitler by making territorial concessions, he had much in common with those who had sought a rapprochement with Germany in the 1920s through a policy of inclusion and reconciliation. Particular importance is placed on Phipps' attitude towards the League of Nations, with detailed consideration also being accorded to his relationship with the British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Office officials of the period, as well as his views on the Entente Cordiale.     

Some Men Named William Hunter

The Hunter family of Rhode Island produced two important American diplomatists of the nineteenth century. The elder William Hunter served for nine years as the American envoy to Brazil, where he exerted positive influence over the young emperor, Dom Pedro II. The younger William Hunter entered the Department of State in 1829 and spent fifty-seven years there under twenty-one Secretaries of State. For decades the department's third-ranking officer, he became its “mentor and authority.” The overlapping careers of Hunter and his two successors helped guide American diplomacy until 1937.     

In Pursuit of a Pacific Strategy:British Planning for the Defeat of Japan, 1943-45

This article seeks to explain why the British pushed for a role in Pacific operations during the Second World War when it faced other strategic priorities in Southeast Asia, as well as a powerful American military that maintained tight control over operational decision-making. Although several quarters in Whitehall, including the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had doubts about the necessity of a Pacific strategy, there were sensible reasons behind pursuing such a course. It would illustrate to an “anti-imperialist” America that Britain was not only interested in recovering its colonial possessions but also prepared to fight the Japanese on their homeland. More importantly, taking part in the main operations would allow the British to claim a voice at the peace table while helping to encourage the Americans to cement their close working relationship with Britain in the postwar period.     

The Anglo-American “Special Relationship”: The Lazarus of International Relations

Scholars have variously queried the existence of the Anglo-American “special relationship,” consigned it to history as “special no more,” or demanded that Britain choose between its European and American relationships. These critiques have become increasingly prevalent since the Cold War. Yet the current British government, like many before it, continues to portray a choice between America and Europe as a “false choice,” and the “special relationship” has arguably deepened in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. This article contends that international diplomatic history can contribute much to understanding the “Lazarus-like” quality of the “special relationship.” Specifically it argues that a number of critical continuities in post-World War II British foreign policy survived the end of the Cold War and have since contributed heavily to the determination of the British foreign policymaking elite to maintain the “special relationship” at the same time that Britain pursues a leadership role within Europe.     

“A Projected New Trusteeship”? American Internationalism, British Imperialism, and the Reconstruction of Iran, 1938-1947

Diplomatic histories identify an early cold war “paradigm shift” as restoring the troubled Anglo-American “special relationship.” However, an integrated analysis of Second World War and post-war Iran suggests continuity in ideologically based Anglo-American differences on the reconstruction of the postwar world economic periphery, and that this was the defining context for crucially elusive relations during successive crises to come. The Americans had embraced Iran as an exemplar of “new deal internationalism,” being as much opposed to competing British neo-imperialist political and economic models there as to Soviet encroachments. They continued to identify autonomous British policies and interests antipathetically during the early cold war period and beyond, not merely out of economic self-interest, but at crucial moments disavowing geopolitical realpolitik. This perplex also determined during future crises of British power, in Iran and throughout the Middle East, that US interests would shift to new relationships, whenever having to decide, with indigenous peripheral actors rather than neo-imperialist European allies, precluding institutionalized, comprehensive Anglo-American partnership, which Britain had hoped would preserve and extend its role as a regional power.     

Human Rights and Foreign Policy: Wilson and the Greek Dictators, 1967-1970

The military coup of 21 April 1967 brought to power a repressive dictatorship in Greece. It proceeded to deprive Greeks of their human rights and civil liberties, outraged international public opinion and strained transatlantic relations during the Cold War. The “Greek case” culminated in the withdrawal of Greece from the Council of Europe and calls for its expulsion from NATO. This article will analyse the foreign policy considerations that determined British policy towards the Greek junta during 1967—such as Cold War realities, alliance dynamics, economic and commercial imperatives, regional instability in the Mediterranean and domestic pressures. It will look at how these factors coalesced into shaping British policy towards the Greek junta into one in which human rights had little bearing. The article will also consider the impact of the “Greek case” on the image and credibility of the Labour government of 1966-1970 and explain why vociferous anti-junta activities in London were to create such policy difficulties for the British government.     

“Hut ab,” “Promenade with Kamerade for Schokolade,” and the Flying Dutchman: British Soldiers in the Rhineland, 1918-1929

This essay explores the social history of the “British Army of the Rhine,” especially their interactions with the German population, over the eleven-year period of occupation in Cologne and part of the Rhineland. It covers the initial, sometimes fraught establishment of the occupation and interactions with the civil population, especially the perennial problem of British soldiers' relations with German women. These were initially prohibited altogether, but the rule was quickly relaxed, and the British authorities even accepted and regulated the use of brothels, leading to criticisms back home. The essay also discusses the comparatively small number of serious violent crimes (including four murders) during the occupation, and concludes that the occupation was characterized on both sides by grudging acceptance and some degree of forbearance.     

伪满协和会分会规则的演变及成效

伪满协和会是近代日本侵略中国东北时期由日本侵略者勾结汉奸在伪满洲国发起成立的政治组织,分会既是协和会的基层组织单位,又是协和会开展活动的主体。1935年2月第一次调整协和会分会规则时,只调整了分会设置原则。1937年8月的第二次调整则对分会规则进行了全面调整。其目的都是为适应日本侵华政策的时局需要,最大限度地发挥协和会在伪满殖民统治的作用。经过这两次调整,分会数量大幅度增加,其恶劣行径所影响的范围也日趋扩大,给中国东北社会及东北人民带来深重的灾难。     

“Brighter Futures, Better Times”: Britain, the Empire, and Anglo-American Economic Competition in Cuba, 1898-1920

This article examines Anglo-American economic competition in Cuba in the crucial twenty years after 1898. Anglo-American economic competition on the new island nation suggest a number of things about the nature of British and American imperialism, the difficult position of smaller countries—and economies—like Cuba, and the “inevitability” of American economic pre-eminence in the evolving twentieth century. And as an important corollary to the British dimension of this question is the role that Canada and Canadian overseas investment played in the extension of Britain's economic power and influence in the wider world.     

South Africa: The Order of Good Hope

Past South African governments already felt the need for honours as instruments of diplomacy in the 1930s, but only instituted the Order of Good Hope in 1973. Inherited British attitudes to honours, the cessation in 1925 of the award of honours bearing titles, and long periods in which civilian honours were not awarded contributed to its frugal use. Wishing to recognize foreign assistance to the liberation movements, from 1994 President Mandela frequently put the Order to use, freely awarding leaders of foreign governments. However, restraint returned after the initial surge. Since instituting new orders in 2003, President Mbeki has emphasised substantial merit as the key to admission.

“Yes, I should have given more praise.” The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon, became Commander-in-Chief and later Prime Minister of Great Britain, when asked whether there was anything in his life that he could have done better.

     

Review essay: Alternative histories of revolutionaries in modern South Asia: context,chronology, and archives

Abstract

This review essay discusses two recent monographs on revolutionaries and political violence in South Asia, Kama Maclean’s A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence, Image, Voice and Text (2015) and Durba Ghosh’s Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919-1947 (2017). Ghosh and Maclean’s books contribute to an expanding body of scholarly work on anticolonial politics in India, a rich historiography on liberalism in the British Empire, and studies of visual culture and oral histories in modern South Asia. Specifically, Maclean’s A Revolutionary History centers on the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) in Punjab and Delhi in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Maclean reconfigures the political terrain of India’s independence struggle and illustrates the importance of revolutionary violence in nonviolent politics through unstudied visual sources and oral histories. In turn, Ghosh’s Gentlemanly Terrorists focuses on Bengal, particularly revolutionaries in the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar from 1919 to 1947. Complicating the history of colonial constitutionalism as a gradual expansion of rights and representation, Ghosh demonstrates how constitutional reforms that aimed to promote liberal governance in India were tied to repressive emergency legislation. This review essay addresses how Gentlemanly Terrorists and A Revolutionary History contribute to ongoing efforts to rethink both the political chronology and the wider political landscape of interwar India by incorporating revolutionaries into the story of independence. It also considers how Maclean and Ghosh creatively utilize non-state archives and vernacular sources, in conjunction with colonial records, to follow the retelling of revolutionary histories in different media.     

Distant Relations: Identity and Materiality in Elite Discourse on Britain's Overseas Territories

This article examines representations of identity in two British Overseas Territories: St Helena in the South Atlantic and the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. While local forms of representative government exist here, political authority over several significant areas of political life is retained by the British state. As such, the connections between sovereignty, politics and identity are less clearly demarked than in many states. Based on interviews carried out on the islands in 2011, the article explores the way in which national and local identities in the territories are understood in relation to their link with the United Kingdom. The research identifies the importance of geography and economics as key elements in the construction of identity discourses in these territories. This emphasis points to the importance material factors have in shaping the way communities are imagined, particularly where sovereignty is held externally.     

Malay press and Malay politics: The Hertogh Riots in Singapore

During the morning of Monday 11 December rioting began outside the Supreme Court of Singapore, where a largely Moslem crowd had gathered to hear the court’s decision in a case where the custody of a young Dutch girl, Maria Hertogh, was being contested. This riot was the first and only one of its kind directed against the British and Eurasians in Singapore by the Malay-Moslem community. Both the violence itself, as well as the circumstances which precipitated this Moslem protest, became the focus of a tangle of cultures and religions which aroused worldwide interest. The riot was considered to be the fault of the British colonial authorities, who had been guilty of racial and religious discrimination, and seen as an indication of anti-colonial feeling among the people of Singapore. The events in Singapore also aroused strong feelings of anger among the Malay political parties who felt that the Moslem religion had been humiliated by the judgement of the Singapore Supreme Court. As a result, British rule in its predominantly Moslem colonies, already under threat from the various pressures for decolonisation, faced a further challenge. Despite the significant impact which the Moslem riots had both in Singapore and elsewhere, they have understandably been overshadowed by the more systematic and enduring violence emanating from another quarter, the Communist presence in Malaya. This study therefore sets out to understand inter-racial problems after the Second World War which was also related to problems relating to security, religious and inter-racial relationship. During the war period social and racial relationship seemed to be tied closely due to the suffering and the majority of the people were trying to help each other however after the war when everybody were liberated, political and racial relationship seemed to be divided and fragmented.

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二战时期马来亚华人与印度人政治活动的比较分析

二战初期,英属马来亚华人就已展开轰轰烈烈的抗日救亡运动,支持中国抗战。英属马来亚印度人则主要通过举行罢工等较为温和的方式,希望英国殖民政府给予他们公平合理的地位和待遇。日据时期,马来亚华人开展富有成效的抗日武装斗争。马来亚印度人则通过与日本人的合作,借助日军的力量,掀起了一场较有声势的独立运动,希望推翻英国人在祖籍国印度的殖民统治。从民族主义和身份认同的角度考察,二战时期马来亚华人与印度人的政治活动既有共同点和相似性,更有明显的不同和差异。     

Major-General Sir Douglas Gracey: Peacekeeper or Peace Enforcer?

Current events in Afghanistan have once again placed the political context of British forces acting in difficult circumstances under the global microscope. This article focuses upon the high policy difficulties of administering peacekeeping duties by examining the controversial role of Major-General Gracey in South Vietnam and Cambodia in 1945. Gracey's British and Indian troops were deployed in French Indo-China to oversee the surrender of Japanese forces and the liberation of the Axis occupied territory. But they quickly became entangled in peacekeeping duties between the returning French colonial regime and the emergence of various Vietnamese groups determined to take advantage of the power vacuum. By examining both primary and secondary sources and scrutinising Gracey's private papers this article attempts to reappraise a difficult period in British history.     

“联邦特征”原则与尼日利亚民族国家构建

尼日利亚民族国家构建的困境源于英国殖民统治的影响和独立运动的缺陷,民族宗教问题及外部影响又给其添加不少变数,使得地方民族主义比民族一体化在尼日利亚更有市场。"联邦特征"原则作为消除地方民族主义、促进民族统一的一项基本原则对主体民族"三足鼎立"、少数民族众多的尼日利亚有诸多积极意义,其核心思想以宪法条文或不成文规定的形式影响着尼日利亚的政治发展,在某些方面推动着民族国家构建。由于该原则的缺陷和民族国家构建自身的复杂性,其有效性有待实践的进一步检验,尼日利亚民族国家构建亦需其他力量的推动。     

International Administration Between the Wars: A Reappraisal

This article traces the chronology of the interwar decline of European influence and power, arguing that its origins outside Europe are to be found as much in the paradoxical status of international administration of colonial and post-colonial areas as in the direct challenges posed to European stability by revisionist states in the early 1930s. It demonstrates that an inherent ambivalence toward the interwar colonial world and its relationship to Europe presaged and conditioned the collapse of Europe's own balance of power.     

Britain and the Collapse of Egypt's Constitutional Order, 1950-52

Britain's longstanding practice of intervening in the struggle between King Farouk, the Wafd and the constitution was one of the main causes of the demise of parliamentary politics in Egypt. Indeed, the sharp deterioration in the political situation in the winter of 1951-52, which paved the way for the Free Officers' coup on 23 July 1952, was the result of a breakdown in the Anglo-Egyptian defence negotiations. The Wafd government used the 'British question' as a distraction from its own internal shortcomings. Britain responded by pursuing a policy of toppling the Wafd and replacing it with a more amenable administration. To this end, British officials manipulated the United States into co-sponsoring the Middle East Command proposals of October 1951, aware that American backing would be required during imminent disturbances in Egypt. The subsequent Ismailia incident of January 1952 hastened the collapse of Egypt's constitutional order and also transformed British perceptions of the usefulness of the Suez base.     

‘A question between empires’: the restriction of Japanese immigration in British Columbia and the reassessment of Japan's foreign policy, 1907–1908

Abstract

Great Britain was the first of the major Powers that revised its unequal treaty with Japan, recognizing the success of Japan's modernization and its growing role in the international arena. However, British Columbia perceived Japanese residents as a threat to ‘the British character’ of this regions' population profile. After the movement against Japanese residents in British Columbia peaked during the anti-Japanese riots in Vancouver in September of 1907, Canadian Minister of Labor Rodolphe Lemieux headed a diplomatic delegation to Tokyo to negotiate the restriction of Japanese immigration to Canada. The dispatch of this mission revealed some of the complexities in relations between the Colonial and Foreign Offices in London on the one hand and the Dominion's and British Columbian governments on the other. Based on previously unused primary sources, this article will examine the interplay between the policy towards Japanese migrants in the British Dominion of Canada and the British policy towards Japan as a nation.