The examiner 3 v2

The Examiner The KES History Department Magazine October 2015

To what extent was Russia ripe for revolution in 1914?

Toby Saer

The great contradiction of Russia under the Tsars was its attempt to be one of the great powers of the modern world while retaining its status as an autocracy. No matter how much the Tsars tried to assert their absolute authority over the population, they were not able to stem the tide of obshchestvennost’, a more educated and engaged public, over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. More political engagement from the people led to demands made of Alexander II, alienation under Alexander III and finally disenchantment under Nicholas II. A wedge was driven between government and population both by repressive policies and lack of political representation. The situation could not have endured, but whether a revolution was necessary and inevitable by the time the First World War broke has been debated by historians. On one hand the government under Nicholas was not likely to have given up its power easily, but on the other hand, apart from a few small radical groups, the opposition movements were not in a position either practically or ideologically for full-scale revolution. Revolution by disorganised opposition groups was a possibility, but despite major strikes in the years preceding the First World War, the extent of discontent among the population was not enough to justify removal of the Tsar. Of course it is impossible to know what would have happened, but it appears that Russia was not ready for revolution in 1914, but no matter whether the war had happened or not, revolution (the removal of the power of the Tsar by force) would have taken place eventually due to the growing dissatisfaction of the people and the inability of Nicholas to implement political reform.

Tsar Nicholas II 1894-1917

Each side of this deteriorating relationship must be examined. Firstly, one must examine the strengths and failings of the Tsar himself and the extent of the control of the government in 1914. Nicholas idolised his father,

holding up the idea of the autocracy just like Alexander III before him: as a mandate of God. He even commissioned two great statues of his father, one in St Petersburg and a larger one in Moscow (his preferred city – Moscow was the traditional home of Russia, while St Petersburg was far more Westernised). The statue in St Petersburg was nicknamed “The Hippopotamus” and was left alone by the Bolsheviks during the Revolution to represent the power of the autocracy, but in a far more terrifying way than was originally meant by Nicholas.

Despite his formidable view of the autocracy, even he could see that he was not the right man for the job. He was far smaller than his imposing father, he was uninterested in the affairs of state, and so when his father died he burst into tears and cried “What is going to happen to me and to all of Russia?... I know nothing of the business of ruling.” This temperament divided between idealism and incompetence was a major theme throughout his rule, and was a large part of why there eventually had to be a revolution.

This resistance to any sort of reform can be seen in October 1905, at the height of the crisis, it was clear that something had to be done, and the October Manifesto was drawn up, but Nicholas refused for a long time to sign it, instead looking at repression as an option. It was only the threat of his uncle, the Grand Duke Nikolai, to shoot himself there and then that eventually made him sign it. Even having signed the document and with a Duma established, he refused to follow the spirit of the reforms and saw it as simply an advisory body over which he had control, continuing to call the state an autocracy, despite it now being technically a constitutional monarchy. As such, the first two Dumas were simply dissolved by the Tsar after he saw anti-autocracy feeling proliferate. The deliberate blocking of any political enfranchisement on the part of Nicholas led to disengagement and disenchantment, shown in the large increase in strikes for political reasons between 1912 and 1914, with only 8 000 striking in 1911 up to 550 000 in 1912 and 1 059 000 in the first six months of 1914. However the next few years were going to play out, the Tsar’s inability to accept reform or any challenge to his autocracy would help to trigger more dangerous action.

The effectiveness of the conservative government (excluding the Duma as being in opposition to the Tsar) and its policies is also a key factor in determining whether or not a revolution was likely. Between 1905 and 1914 there were several attempts at implementing reforms to the system, particularly focused on the peasants. The man primarily responsible for this was Stolypin, whose most important policy was the agrarian reform introduced in 1906, a policy directly related to emancipation nearly 50 years before. Stolypin’s reforms were an attempt to win the support of the peasants by encouraging the notion of private property; all land held allocated by the village commune could become personal property. This was also part of Stopypin’s “wager on the strong” in trying to encourage a small number of peasant entrepreneurs who would both support the government and raise agricultural productivity, while reducing the power of the backward-looking mir. Although he tried to work through the Duma, Waldron claims that “It is indicative that the only one of Stolypin’s reforms to come into force – the agrarian reform – was enacted outside the normal Duma procedure”, instead passed by emergency decree under Article 87, since it was opposed by most of the left in the Duma who wanted full property confiscation.

Stolypin eventually played a large part in dissolving the second Duma and hugely restricting voting privileges for the third. Unfortunately, his policy of agrarian reform did not have enough time to work. By 1914 there was no sign of the politically conservative group that Stolypin had wanted. Though initially popular, the number of villagers adopting it later declined rapidly, which Hosking takes as a sign that the offer was primarily taken up by those who had “already left the land and were merely tidying up their affairs”. By 1916 the proportion of peasants who held communal land only fell by 16%. It is debatable whether they would have worked if left for a longer period of time, but it seems clear that events were happening fast in Russia and any benefits would not have been able to stem the tide of discontent in the short or medium term. Stolypin’s reforms therefore never really took hold, leaving the peasants dissatisfied, and instead of creating a stronger base of support for the Tsar, his actions towards the Duma – dissolving and suspending it while passing laws by decree – won him more enemies than supporters, leading to the political dissatisfaction felt by all neglected parties in 1914.

This is not to say that the government was without allies in the period between 1905 and 1914. Within the Duma there was a moderate liberal faction in the form of the Octobrists, who believed that the October Manifesto had been enough. They were in support of the Tsar and of private property and were Stolypin’s allies in trying to pass

legislation through the Duma. In the third Duma, where franchise was severely limited, the Octobrists gained a large proportion of the seats. This resulted in Stolypin being able to pass many of his reforms, including extended land reforms, modernisation of the armed forces and compulsory primary education between the ages of 8 and 11. However even this was handled poorly by Stolypin, who tried to force a bill through to create zemstva in western border provinces. This was defeated, but Stolypin threatened the Tsar with his resignation unless he would suspend the Duma for 3 days, during which he passed the bill by emergency decree. Even his educational reforms during the same Duma were alienating to the government’s oldest ally: The Orthodox Church. The Church was largely responsible for education throughout Russia and objected to the new reforms. This left Stolypin with no allies left at all. Rogger claims that “He now had the backing neither of the emperor nor of the legislature. If an assassin’s bullet had not killed him in September 1911 he would in all likelihood have been dismissed”. The army, though it remained loyal to the government, was unreliable. It had shown during the latter part of 1905 and throughout 1906 that it would not necessarily always be there in support, with at least 211 mutinies between 15th October 1905 and the end of the year and over 200 in 1906. If the government needed to deal with a revolution, its main peacekeeping ally may not have been trustworthy.

The other ally of the government was the organisation known as the Union of the Russian People, established in 1905. It “spoke of the restoration of the popular autocracy which it believed had existed before Russia was taken over by the Jews and intellectuals”. This was, in effect, a radical conservative terrorist organisation. The Black Hundreds “marched through the streets beating up anyone they suspected of democratic sympathies.” Their violence was particularly focused towards the Jews, with over 3 000 reported murders in 690 pogroms during the two weeks following the October Manifesto, a document they saw as the Tsar giving in to democratic elements. The Tsar and the government even supported the Union, financing its newspapers and secretly channelling arms to it. Nicholas even wore the Union’s badge and made it clear he approved of the pogroms. While this group brought a certain unifying force to many pro-Tsarist groups in the form of a spirit of anti-Semitism which many people got behind, in the end it was a bad influence on the Tsar. Nicholas was very much persuaded by the anti-Semitic argument, particularly when he read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document forged by the Okhrana in 1902 purporting to be a record of Jewish elders planning to take over the world. A copy was found among the Tsar’s last effects after his murder in 1918, showing how much he was affected by it. The Union encouraged this sentiment as well as the idea of complete autocracy. Nicholas took the Black Hundreds’ actions to be his people fighting back for him, and he became even more set in his ways and less motivated to accept any reform. Of the four main allies of the government, therefore, two were alienated by the government’s actions, one was unreliable and the other encouraged a sentiment which was unachievable and even more alienating. The government was driven more and more into the arms of the URP, which in turn was pushing the government more and more into a situation where revolution would be inevitable.

However, it is also important to examine exactly what the views of the majority of the population were with regards to the government, particularly peasants and workers; a revolution cannot succeed if it has no popular support at all. There was initially a very high turnout among peasants and workers in the elections for the Duma and they sent many representatives, few of whom supported the Tsar as expected, though. However, when the Duma failed to support them and listen to their views, political engagement shrank, particularly when franchise was significantly reduced for the election of the third Duma. Nevertheless, after 1907, strike action reduced considerably along with peasant disturbances, possibly because of successful harvests and therefore more prosperity. This changed in 1912, though, with the demonstration of gold miners on the Lena River. The government, with its usual tactlessness, sent in the army to massacre 500 workers on the 17 th April. This, much like Bloody Sunday in 1905, provoked many sympathy strikes across the country among both workers and students, with three million people involved in 9 000 strikes over the next two years, increasingly led by the Bolsheviks.1 This culminated in a huge general strike in Moscow in July 1914 which only ended with the outbreak of war in August,

perhaps showing some patriotism which overrode a desire to protest, but equally possibly just some practical acknowledgement of the fact that war was going to be hard on the people.

Some historians have argued that the huge turnout at the Romanov anniversary in 1913 shows the people’s devotion to the Tsar and the regime. Emmerson claims that “Many were struck – and surprised – by the real devotion of ordinary Russians to the person of the Tsar. They noted the peasants who waded waist-high into the Volga to catch a glimpse of him.” He uses this to argue that in fact there could have been an alternative outcome, that revolution was not the only path to have been possible. If not for the war, the support may have carried Russia gracefully into a constitutional monarchy. However, Figes argues that “The Romanovs became victims of their own propaganda” and that they were incapable of the reform needed to save Russia. Curiosity must not be confused with support, and just because many people arrived to catch a glimpse of him, it does not mean that the Tsar was popular. The increase in revolutionary activity in the 2 years before the start of the First World War (with over a million striking in the first six months of 1914 alone) are an indication that the general population was becoming disillusioned with this system which had failed it. While there was no widespread appeal to remove the Tsar completely, reform was needed if Nicholas was to regain control of his people.

However, when one considers the eventual outcome of 1917, one must examine how close to revolution the radical opposition groups were in 1914: the strength of these groups must be judged in order to consider whether revolution was inevitable. After 1905, several groups including the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries had become more cautious, regarding 1905 as a case of “premature extremism”. As such, these groups had declined in power and influence following the revolution. By their own admission, they had little sway over the peasants, even announcing to Socialist International in 1910 and 1914 that “in spite of continuing efforts to organise the peasantry, prospects for revolutionizing it were remote”. Because of this, both groups were advocating trying to change Russia from within the system rather than by revolution. In this way, neither were in a strong position to act in 1914.

Nicholas II and his family at the Romanov Tercentenary, 1913

The third wing of the Socialist movement, however, was far more proactive. The Bolsheviks under Lenin were heartened by the events of 1905, believing that the mere fact that a revolution had happened and that millions had taken part was cause for celebration. Although membership of Bolshevik groups fell to just 10 000 by 1910, it was soon to grow rapidly after the Lena massacre in 1912, particularly as working and living conditions were falling as a result of large-scale movement to the cities in the years before the war. However, as much as Lenin would have liked to have capitalised on this, the Bolsheviks “lacked the organisation and funds to consolidate their gains”. So despite these three factions of the radical left wing eventually wanting to implement a socialist state, only one was willing to carry it through in 1914, and they did not have the resources to carry it out. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before they fully rebuilt their power base.

Before the outbreak of war, therefore, Russia was standing in political deadlock. The fourth Duma was unable to act, there were many strikes going on in St Petersburg and the Tsar was desperately trying to maintain control.

Although the revolutionary groups did not have the means to launch a revolution, they were certainly growing

in strength. Emmerson argues that the economy was growing fast in Russia and it was becoming more prosperous, looking towards a brighter future, but the contradiction of a medieval king ruling over a 20th century industrialised nation would not be able to stand. Reform would be needed, but reform was not possible, simply because Nicholas lacked the political awareness to see that it was necessary. Christian says that “the most dangerous aspect of the government’s position was the political naivety of the tsar. He simply did not see how isolated his government was.� It is possible that a situation may have occurred similar to October 1905 where Nicholas would have been pressured into signing away his powers, but it seems that the strength of his convictions shown by his refusal to accept even the moderate demands of the October Manifesto would have been too much: he would never have given his power away willingly. Even without the war to jumpstart the revolutionary movement for real, Nicholas would have maintained his idealised autocracy until a revolution came to take it from him. Russia was not ready for revolution in 1914, but whatever happened next, it was clearly visible on the horizon.

To what extent was the colonisation of Africa by European nations after 1875 due to economic incentives rather than issues of national prestige and international power?

Matt Barber To answer this question, I have focused mainly on the first colonial action taken by different European powers in Africa after 1875. I will be explaining each one and then analysing the reasons behind the actions taken.

Firstly, before most of Africa was still uncharted territory for Europeans except some countries having outposts on the African coast, remnants of the European slave trade in Africa and the West Indies. The interior however was still a complete mystery and fascinated a number of Europeans to discover new riches and untapped wealth.

The result of the Scramble for Africa: Africa in 1914

During the 1850s a number of European explorers had explored the interior of the continent to search for access points to allow European trade and commerce to enter Africa.

Probably the most famous of these explorers was the British David Livingstone who first explored Southern Africa between 1852 and 1856. He had the motto, “Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation.”

However apart from small exploration missions, large scale colonisation of Africa was restricted by the prevalence of diseases such as malaria and dysentery and the European susceptibility to these diseases.

But with the widespread emergence of quinine to treat malaria, more European action could begin to take place in Africa.

I personally would say that the Scramble for Africa began in January 1876 when King Leopold II of Belgium, reading the mornings Times shipped in by special courier, saw a small article on page 6 from the Times correspondent in Loanda (Portuguese Angola) about a certain Lieutenant Cameron who had just finished a three year journey across Africa from east to west. Cameron spoke of a land of “unspeakable riches” that only needed an “enterprising capitalist”. Leopold was fascinated. For some time before this he had been on the lookout for a colony for Belgium. In July 1875 he had summoned the British ambassador to Brussels to discuss whether Belgium could create a colony on the island of New Guinea which was in the sphere of influence of Australia. The ambassador was confused at first but after orders from above, was told to discourage Leopold in his little project. This wasn’t the first time he had been rejected by other nations; the Spanish had refused even to discuss handing over the Philippines, the Portuguese with Angola or Mozambique as well as the Dutch over

Java. But Leopold was not to be swayed and he soon began inquiries into Africa. That small article in the Times was what Leopold had been waiting for. He organised a conference for all the most famous explorers and geographers of the time in Brussels in September 1876 to discuss a venture of creating a Belgian colony in the Congo basin. The King presented it as a moral philanthropic crusade to open Africa up for civilisation but it was simply to be a Belgian colony under the control of the King. Leopold only needed one thing before he could start; Henry Morton Stanley, a welsh explorer on a three year expedition to Africa to find what Livingstone and Cameron never achieved, following the river Lualaba to the sea.

In his exploration, Stanley succeeded in his mission finding where the river met the sea and it was in fact the Congo River. Stanley's return to Britain and campaign to set up a British colony there were met with lukewarm responses at best. The Disraeli government was not interested in establishing a new colony for reasons I will explain later and in addition to this the British public had no appetite for another tropical colony. Nevertheless this disinterest from the British was exactly what Leopold wanted to here. Stanley was invited to Brussels and soon tasked with the establishment of Belgian missions in the Congo.

The reasons behind Leopold's desire for a Belgian colony of any kind are complex to say the least. He personally was one of the richest men in Europe, inheriting 15,000,000 francs (£600,000) from his father and had increased it through investments in Suez Canal shares. He would personally fund his African colonial desires. This seems to suggest that it was Leopold alone that wanted a colony for his own prestige rather than solely for economic reasons. This argument is supported by the fact that Leopold's own government laughed at him; his chef du cabinet Jules Devaux wrote of the Kings pet project, “a toy which it is true will do no harm to anyone, and delight the geographers, but makes us here all laugh.”

However Leopold was only motivated by the talk of unspeakable riches and the need of a capitalist to invest in the opening up of Africa, could he be that capitalist? So from this point of view there seems to be scope for it being about both economics and prestige. A quote from Leopold, speaking to the British ambassador about a Belgian acquisition of a colony, seems to support

this argument, “What my country needs is a safety valve for her surplus energies.” To me this suggests both economical and egotistical reasons behind wanting a colony. One the one hand surplus energies could be economic potential and a colony could allow Belgium to experience economic growth (something Europe was lacking after the 'Panic of 1873' caused Europe to enter a depression until 1879). However this quote could also be interpreted as the metaphorical energies of a country such as the desire to explore or expand and the thirst for knowledge.

Either way, the quest of Leopold to attain imperial status for Belgium is, for me, the first step in the Scramble for Africa. However there were multiple reasons behind the Scramble for Africa apart from it being a matter of economics or prestige. As I said before the British government in 1876 showed no interest in Stanley's discovery in the Congo. I think this was mainly because British attention was focused on somewhere else in Africa, the Cape Colony.

The British had taken control of the Cape Colony in 1806 having won the Battle of Blaauwburg against the Dutch. It was officially ceded to Britain in 1814.

In response to this, many of the Dutch settlers there, the Boers, began the Great Trek in the 1830s and established numerous Boer republics in the North East of modern South Africa, the most famous being the Transvaal Republic.

Before 1877 the British were hampered by many rebellions by local African tribes and preceding 1877 the British annexed all the Territory up to and including Natal to try and provide stability for the Cape colony. In 1877, Lord Shepstone also announced in the main square in Pretoria that the Transvaal Republic had been annexed by the British. The Boers were outraged and their natural leader, Paul Kruger, went to London a number of times to appeal against the annexation but was rejected each time by the Disraeli administration.

However in the short term this was accepted by the Boers, for their natural enemies, the Zulus, were now angering the British. This boiled over and in 1879 spilled over into the Anglo-Zulu war. It was a British victory and Zululand was annexed by the British.

The British at the time, put by Cedric James Lowe, were 'reluctant Imperialists', not purposely trying to increase their imperial authority over more

territory. However the annexation of the Transvaal and other republics in the area including Zululand seems to contradict this theory completely.

However reluctant never suggests they actively tried to not expand, the British expansion around the Cape Colony was done by necessity, not out of a desire to expand like the Belgians. In 1877, the British Empire was already the largest in the world and the pride of it was India. For Disraeli there was no need to expand into Africa. The annexation of the Boer Republics and Zululand was simply as protection for the Cape Colony and was, in the long term, part of a plan of the federalisation of the Cape Colony with all the other Republics as well.

This type of expansion was very different to that of the Belgians, borne of out necessity rather than an existing desire to expand and have colonies. The later expansion of British territory in Southern Africa was chiefly down to Cecil John Rhodes himself, seen as the creator of many Southern African nations (for better or for worse) even naming one after himself, Rhodesia. The British also saw expansion in the North of Africa, in Egypt and the Sudan.

In 1878 the Khedive of Egypt was made into a Constitutional monarch after the French and British created the dual system of governance over Egypt. This happened in return for the debts of the Khedive being taken over the France and Britain.

But in 1879 the Khedive made a grab for power by having a stage managed revolt of army officers in central Cairo. He dismissed the senior French and British officials citing that they could not solve the problems of the country. His dream was to create a larger Egyptian Empire. However his dream failed to materialise when he ran out of money. He was replaced by his son by the British and the French.

This action in Egypt by European powers was simply to gain greater control over the Suez Canal, the main shipping route to the Far East and the colonies there, including of course India.

This action prompted the Anglo-Egyptian war of 1882 after the Urabi revolt. The war was to secure the Suez Canal for European ships. France also sent warships to Egypt, but it was Britain who effectively occupied Egypt until 1922 when more powers were handed back to the Egyptian

government.

Even though this can simply be seen as maintaining stability in the region to protect British interests it still was part of the wider Scramble for Africa. In this way Britain expanded its colonial possessions in Africa although Egypt was technically a protectorate. Britain, as I have said before, expanded out of necessity, unlike Belgium.

The Scramble for Africa had begun by this point and other nations, such as France and Germany, had begun their acquisition of bits of Africa. By 1914 Africa had only two independent nations left, Liberia and Abyssinia. Everything else was under the control of foreign powers. I have looked at the reasons behind why Britain and Belgium had expanded their Empires in Africa but there were other reasons other than economic and nationalistic ones. France, for example, was also keen to get its hands on sections of the Congo basin and there was a race between Stanley and the French expedition under Brazza. The end result was that Belgium got the majority of the Congo region and France got the north west part, modern day Republic of Congo. The incentives for this colonial expansion by France were mainly due to Brazza’s own colonial desires, rather like Rhodes, but also support from key members of the French government. However it could also be a more simple reason such as France didn’t want to miss out on what Belgium was doing. Both nations were very secretive about their colonial plans and this could be a reason behind the rivalry that appeared in the 1880s between European nations as the Scramble came into full swing.

In conclusion, the nations that really began the Scramble for Africa after 1875 all had differing reasons for their activities in Africa, whether it be economical, strategic or a case of national pride or not missing out on the action so to speak. I will not come down on either side of my question and I will conclude with it being a combination of many factors that culminated in the Scramble. Whatever the case, the actions of European nations in Africa would change the continent completely and it could be argued that it was because of colonialism that we have the problems that plague Africa today, but that is a whole other article in itself.

My Family’s involvement in World War Two and the Battle of Monte Cassino James Osman Within these two thousand words I am going to focus on three key elements. Firstly I will be looking at my great granddad, Jesse Charles Lacey and his involvement in the Second World War. I will then be looking into the role of my great uncle, Earnest George Alfred Turner, through the Second World War. Finally I will be concluding by talking about the Battle of Monte Cassino in which both my great granddad and great uncle featured.

Jesse Charles Lacey or Charlie as he prefers to be called was in military service throughout the war and was given the rank of sergeant. He originally joined the Territorial Army (TA) in 1938. From speaking to him he told me that his main motivation to join the TA was the £5 one of enlistment payment known as a bounty. This five-pound bounty doesn’t appear on face value as a large payment however in today’s money that five pounds would be worth six hundred and sixty four pounds, showing how big of an incentive the bounty was. He had two weeks training per year whilst serving in the TA in 1938 this training took place in Netley and in 1939 this training took place in Stranraer. He was based out of a building opposite the Mayflower Theatre on commercial road. Besides the bounty for joining the TA another perk was that he was able to choose which regiment he went into. This meant that he was able to serve with his friends, which he did.

When war was declared he chose to join the Royal Artillery unit. He didn’t Charles Lacey’s artillery unit whilst get deployed overseas until early 1942, however he spent the first three training before deployment years of the war at local gunneries in the new forest and then Kent. Before his deployment in 1942 he was sent to Bristol for further training before being deployed to Algeria. During the landing in Algiers, Algeria, he told me that the troop ships came under attack in the harbour, the ship next to him was destroyed and all the men on it were killed. He said, “My introduction to combat couldn’t have gone worse”.

His role in the royal artillery during his service was to plot the course of the German planes using radar and then to instruct the British anti-aircraft guns on where to aim to hit the planes. This role saw him away from the actual conflict zones however this job was crucial in helping the allied forces to firstly move through German occupied North Africa and then through Italy. During the Italy campaign he was billeted at Naples, the closest location for the radar operators to Monte casino. His role was once again to plot the course for the British gunners whilst being out of the combat zone. After the battle of Monte casino, he was based in Rome until the end of the war.

After the war, like in Germany, Austria was separated into 4 zones, the British, French, American and German zone. He was stationed in the British sector of Austria in order to keep the peace. This assignment lasted for 1 year as Austria unlike Germany was allowed to join back together and formed a single country relatively promptly after the end of the war.

Finally after his year in Austria he then had to spend three further years in the TA where he was stationed at the Shelmex factory on the Hamble River. This took his total time in the military up to 11 years before he was discharged.

During his time in the military he received five medals; the Africa star for his service in the North Africa campaign, The Italy star for his service in Italy, the 1st army efficiency medal, the defence medal and the war medal.

Even considering the five medals that he won, his most longstanding memories that he took from his time in the military were not these. I was once told a story about his time in the military. When he arrived in Algiers his section found some chickens that were running around un-caged. During the entire campaign in both Italy and North Africa he kept these chickens in a crate and carried them around with him. He did this to ease the discomfort of the war and also to give him and his friend’s Lacey’s discharge certificate fresh eggs. However when the end of the war was declared and part Charles stating his eleven years and twenty-two of his unit got discharge orders, they realised that they wouldn’t be days of service able to keep the chickens when they went back to England. So to celebrate the victory, the chickens that he and his friends had looked after throughout the war became part of the celebratory dinner. This is how his unit eased the burden of the war however for frontline units they were not able to have these luxuries.

My great uncle Earnest George Alfred Turner or, as he preferred to be known as, Bill. He followed a similar path into the military. He joined the Territorial Army three years before the start of the war. He was sent to guard the Shelmex factory pre-war. He was then able to choose which regiment he went into and he entered the Royal Hampshire Regiment as a regimental sergeant major warrant officer 2nd class. He wasn’t actually sent to the front lines until late 1942. During the first three years of the war he was stationed at King Edward VI School Southampton, on the very site that we learn at today.

On deployment overseas he joined the 8th army, 5th battalion in North Africa. He was part of the frontline force that pushed the German army under Rommel back through Africa and up Italy. He then took part in one of the most gruesome battles from the whole conflict, the battle of Monte Cassino. He can be considered in some ways to have come out very lucky to come through the battle with his life in tact even if it was Earnest George Alfred Turner in Rome after it slightly dented. He was shot in the foot during the allied was reclaimed from the Germans. advance on the German stronghold. Once the allied advance had liberated Rome this is where he was stationed until the end of the war. However he took on a different role after this, he became special operations executive or an SOE. His work as an SOE in Rome lasted until the end of the war, which was where he returned from at the end of the war. On his return for Britain he was not fully demobilized until 1946.

Whilst working as an SOE his commanding officer, R.T.Hewitt OBE was a Lieutenant Colonel and was the commanding officer of the allied No.1 Special Forces in the Italian campaign and wrote a letter to Earnest George Alfred Turner telling him when he was mentioned in dispatches. When a soldier was mentioned in dispatches it meant that the commanding officer wrote an official report with their name in and this was sent to high command. For a soldier to be mentioned in dispatches it describes when a soldier was gallant or meritorious in the face of the enemy. For my great uncle to be mentioned in dispatches it was a great honour as the Lieutenant Colonel mentioned in the letter he sent to Earnest.

The letter also mentioned sergeant Lummis, who was my great uncles closest friend whilst in the force. They stayed in touch throughout their civilian lives and remained very close friends. Both Sergeant Lummis and my great uncle died over the same weekend The letter sent by Hewitt to Earnest about being which even though it is purely coincidental it is mentioned in dispatches. interesting to see.

The battle of Monte Cassino is one of the places that both Jesse Charles Lacey and Earnest George Alfred Turner would have worked together both fighting the same battle. Even though their roles were different in the battle each of their actions would have affected the others. The frontline royal Hampshire regiment would have made the meters in the attack on the German fort whilst the royal artillery would have made tried to keep German air attacks to a minimum.

Monte Cassino was a highly important location for many factors. Firstly the Monastery that stood on this location was very important on a religious and cultural nature. However from a military standpoint it was even more crucial. It was the blockade from southern Italy to the north. The Germans biggest blockade stopping the allies from reaching Rome.

The makeshift hilltop fort that Monte Cassino had been turned into formed a crucial part of the Gustav line. The German General von Vietinghoff commanded the area and The aftermath of the battle of Monte he realised the importance of holding this position. The whole Cassino showing the destruction to the campaign on Monte Cassino cost the allied troops over fifty five historic hilltop abbey. thousand casualties. The Germans suffered an estimated twenty thousand casualties. The nature of the final advance on Monte Cassino also cost Italy one of the most historic abbeys in the world. The allied bombardment of Monte Cassino was the final effort to pass the Gustav line.

It completely destroyed the German fortifications but as a coincidence also destroyed the abbey. The total allied casualty figures for the Anzio Campaign (the wider plan to reach Rome by the allied forces including the landing on mainland Italy and the assault on Rome) was one hundred and five thousand; this included the four battles of Monte Cassino. The scale of the devastation caused both to and by the allies on the assault on Monte Cassino is why I find it truly astonishing that both my great granddad and great uncle came through the campaign with just one injury to the foot.

Both of my family members followed a very similar path, TA members pre-war and then being part of the North Africa and Italy campaigns, even though they never met in the army, they influenced each other’s

outcomes, which can be most clearly seen at Monte Cassino as the infantry and the artillery combined determined the victory for the allies. Monte Cassino was a turning point for what Winston Churchill called Germanys soft underbelly so for both of my family members to have been involved in this I feel very honoured and proud.

How far was the conduct of Charles I the main cause of the English Civil War? James Maunder

The English Civil war of 1642 was a momentous event in the history of the British Isles and the greatest threat to the British Monarchy since the peasants’ revolt of 1381. How is it that such a mass of anger and protest could be felt towards the monarchy less than forty years after the death of the popular Elizabeth I? There are a number of events which lead to Charles I and his army raising the royal standard in Nottingham in August 1642, an action which would eventually cost the king his life after one of the bloodiest wars in his country’s history.

It is widely regarded amongst Historians that Elizabeth I managed to abate much of the fire between Catholics and Protestants during her reign by recriminating the extreme Jesuits and puritans on both sides whilst appeasing Catholics and Protestants alike with a new modelled Church of England. Although Elizabeth did a lot with the Church of England it was in effect a compromise so it merely papered over many cracks which would later come to bear. Charles I was much less tactful on this matter than both Elizabeth and his father who was given the unofficial title of ‘the greatest fool in all of Christendom’. He himself was much more tilted towards the Catholic side of the religion and made a number of reforms of the Church through his archbishop William Laud whom he appointed in 1633 during his personal rule. Although James I shared his son’s contempt of Puritans, he knew better than to make this so obvious.

Charles’ appointment of Laud had been coming for some time as he had promoted him from bishop of St David’s in 1625 to Bishop of Bath and Wells, to Bishop of London to eventually Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. With his new position of power he carried out his shared aim with Charles of supressing Puritanism and increasing the influence of the church. He encouraged the erection of Altar rails at altars to separate the priest and the congregation, he encouraged the moving of the altar to the east end of the church supressed Puritan teachings and pamphlets as well as punishing outspoken Puritans such as Pyrnne, Bastwick and Burton in 1637. Laud became detested by Puritans and Parliament alike and was beheaded in January 1645.

Much of Laud’s work has been praised however with one of his main aims to bring back a sense of order and uniformity to the church. He restored many older and more dilapidated churches and bring back much of a parishes pride in their church and strengthen their beliefs.

Many of the new Laudian clergy were improvements on their predecessors due to their greater knowledge and educations. Also Lauds changes to the layout of the Churches interior, although they had religious motives were also much more practical and respectful with accounts of dogs urinating on the communion able and stealing the communion bread form the altar in one Suffolk church. For much of Lauds ministry it was not the reforms and changes he brought in but the manner in which he introduced them as well as his timing which seemed to much of the public a bombardment of ‘foreign’ Catholic legislation.

Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck in 1636

Laud’s greatest error was probably his decision to introduce the new, and much more heavily Catholic, Book of Common Prayer to his people and to first introduce it to Scotland, traditionally a much more Presbyterian region. Many Historians argue that it was Charles’ influence to introduce the book into Scotland due to his Caledonian ancestry, having been born in Firth with a Scottish father, however it was clearly unpopular with a stool being launched towards the Bishop reading from it in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. Charles and Laud together were an inflammatory pair, and mutually reignited the hotbed which was the Church of England in Early Stuart Britain.

Whether Laud is to blame or not for each individual matter is largely extraneous as it was Charles who appointed him and had the power to remove him at his own discretion, proving that the King was not politic and stoked much of the fire which ended up engulfing him in the form of a civil war.

King Charles I Another of Charles’ allies and an even more detested one was the Duke of Buckingham. An old ally of his fathers the king was flattered that Buckingham befriended him of his death, however Charles’ association with the Duke did his public image a great deal more harm than good. Buckingham sealed his hold on the young king by accompanying him to Spain in 1625 to meet his lover and future bride Queen Henrietta-Maria.

Buckingham was able to control the impressionable young king and influenced him to do as he wished and subsequently landed himself in command in a number of campaigns against the Spanish. He attempted to capture the port of Cadiz, and on a separate occasion intercept and ambush the Spanish silver fleet. Botha attempts were failures and along with a number of other foreign affairs catastrophes worsened his reputation amongst parliament even further. Buckingham was already unpopular due to his control of James I court and grew ever more so during his time under Charles I, Parliament attempted to impeach him on two occasions, both times halted by Charles who dissolved Parliament. Buckingham was assassinated on 23 rd August 1628 much to the delight of parliament and the dismay of Charles who is said to have wept solitarily after hearing the news. Although the King viewed him as a friend, Buckingham brought little else but ruin to Charles’ reign by setting him off to a bad start with Parliament, however the King was young and easily impressionable so blame could be directed to Parliament and the royal household for not protecting the vulnerable young king from Buckingham’s roguish character.

Charles decided in 1629 to embark on a period of personal rule dubbed the ‘eleven years tyranny’ by his opponents. During this period parliament was not called once and he ‘forbade’ speak of another. He took control of the running of the country and made it clear that, at least for the foreseeable future he favoured the idea of an absolutist monarchy with next to no government intervention. Charles dissolved Parliament due to the attempts of a number of MPs headed by Denzil Holles and John Eliot to pass the ‘Three Resolutions’ legislation concerning the two main topics of the time the paying of tonnage and poundage, and the idea of Arminianism. The group restrained the speaker, barricaded the Commons doors and attempted to pass the law, however no law was passed and Charles arrested the pair along with seven other conspiring MPs and

dissolved parliament whilst making a speech defending his position. Charles I decision to dissolve parliament may be viewed as despotic however due to the raucous scenes in Parliament concerning the three resolutions it is understandable that he had some concerns with parliament’s conduct and decided to take matters into his own hands. Whilst it is argued by some that it was Charles’ failings to come to an agreement with Parliament which sparked the actions concerning the three resolutions, it must be considered that the majority of the house whether they agreed in principle to the resolutions or not, did not support the actions of Eliot and Holles.

In November 1641 Puritan MPs compiled a list of 206 complaints they had with the King and his system of government and amendments they would make to his rule. It was heavily biased against the king and served dually as propaganda, it was entitled The Grand Remonstrance. Such complaints were usually presented to the King himself however the remonstrance was passed over him to the Press. The press’ distribution was critical of the king and spread the disgruntled feeling towards the king around the country. This coincided with other MPs consulting a printing press and publishing the first ever newspaper, the MPs had started to wage the first great propaganda war documented in history against their own king. They swung a great deal of the public opinion as the printed word was taken almost as fact by many in the 17th Century as all else they had seen in printed word was the bible. The Remonstrance was put before Parliament by the leading Parliamentarian John Pym and voted on in the Commons. It was passed by 159 votes to 148 with just under 200 MPs abstaining or not attending the session. Pym decided not to put the Remonstrance before the Lords because he knew that they would reject it but was aware of the stir which the Commons decision would cause. This stirring by the Parliamentarians was not merely to cause trouble it was based on an actual feeling of disparity from Charles’ monarchy but it further raised the prospect of war by raising the masses of the country and turning many against their King. The impact of the remonstrance and the implementation of Puritan propaganda on the general public must not be disregarded in the context of causing the war.

The King became increasingly paranoid after the publication of the Puritan newspaper and the passing of the Remonstrance in the Commons, became worried of a Parliamentarian plot to rally the London mob against him and try to kill him. This led to the King absconding to Whitehall. He then stormed in to Parliament on January 4th in an attempt to arrest five members including Pym. Fortunately for the Parliamentarians they had been forewarned and the King returned empty handed. Not only had he failed he had led many to believe he was becoming tyrannical and was prepared to resort to force to assert his authority. This rash action had damaged his authority and further weakened his position.

When the Civil War finally came about in August that year, much of the Parliamentarian anger was directed at the king himself as he was viewed by many radicals as untrustworthy and dangerous. Although the King had had a number of hapless advisers and demagogic opponents, he still himself showed a remarkable absence of tact and political skill, to confront his opponents and almost directly opposed to reaching any form of a compromise. This makes it hard for historians to defend the king and his actions as he seemed to do little to help his cause. However it must be realised that the king recognised the issues with parliament, that many MPs were either weak or inflammatory and took the decision to dissolve Parliament to do so. This mirrors his support of many of Laud’s policies, that he backed them not for pride or personal gain, but because he believed that they were right, and to many people they are. However the mark of a great king is knowing what to do for the sake of the bigger picture and although each of Charles’ actions can be justified in isolation, when placed side by side seem devoid of sense to all but the most untrained of eyes. Charles clung to the likes of Laud and Buckingham in the face of furious parliamentarian opposition as they offered him a friendly face. Whilst for many Charles was an ideological Monarch, he was unable to adapt to the post medieval necessity of also being a good politician.

To what extent was the execution of Charles I a “cruel necessity”?

William Ward Introductory Statement I chose to look at the events surrounding the English Civil Wars for several reasons. It was mentioned several times in the AS course in the context of the effects of the French Revolutions on Britain and I wanted to examine it more closely to understand how it relates to these events. I was also interested in what caused the English to take such a drastic measure to deal with their king and whether it was a justified reaction or not.

It is said that after the execution of King Charles I, the result of the English Civil Wars of 1642-46 and 1648-9, Oliver Cromwell, a leading member of the Puritan Parliamentarians was heard to mutter “Twas a cruel necessity, twas a cruel necessity” by the soldiers guarding Charles’ dead body [1]. At face value, this seems to be a fair assessment of the situation, the execution of the King was certainly cruel and from the view of the Puritan Roundheads, Charles’ actions and behaviour certainly made it necessary.

The question of whether the execution of someone is cruel is more of a humanitarian issue rather than a historical one. Many would say that the execution on anyone is cruel by whatever standard, however in the context of 17th century England, executions were very common and were a widely accepted method of dealing with a criminal. The possible controversy here is the nature of the King’s trial that sentenced him to the execution. The procedure of Charles I’s trial was improper and unfitting considering the huge weight of the situation. The court that was present at the trail was full of Roundheads and Puritans who had been at war Charles and his Royalist supporters for the last 7 years and bickering with them in courts and parliament since the start of Charles' reign in 1625. The remaining Royalists that may have been able to help Charles in his trial were either in hiding or doggedly trying to fight the overwhelming force of the Parliamentarian New Model Army and were certainly not able to turn up in a court full of Roundheads to support the King. Even among the Roundheads many were reluctant to commit regicide and abstained from the decision. This left only the hard core of the Parliamentarians who had already planned to ensure the execution of the King. With the help of their supporters, including Colonel Pride (a Roundhead military commander), the Roundheads were able to ensure that the King would face the axe. Colonel Pride removed any opposition to a vote against the execution by bringing a troop of his soldiers to turn away any MPs or Judges that were known to not be in favour of the execution of Charles. These soldiers were supposedly there to ‘ensure the safety of the king and the judges’. Of the 135 Judges requested to be present, only 68 attended, 59 of which actually passed the warrant, many of which later claimed to be under pressure from the strong Parliamentarian presence, especially Oliver Cromwell [2]. This shows how the trial of King Charles was heavily one sided and represented the views and aims of a very small minority of the Parliamentarians, even at the The trial of Charles I higher echelons of the group.

King Charles also refused to defend himself in the Parliamentary Court on the basis that he saw the unjust nature of the trail and did not accept the legitimacy of the court that was trying him. This may well be seem as his own fault for not recognising the seriousness of the situation. This was likely due to his own arrogance and high self-regard, evidenced by his unwillingness to raise his hat upon entering the court room and disrespect for all people present at the trial. Furthermore he only began to

defend himself after the verdict was passed, possibly also showing his naiveté and egotism. Nevertheless the trial that was faced by Charles was ultimately neither fair nor just and was doomed to result in his execution, giving him no chance to prevent his death, even if he had accepted the legitimacy of the court. This is certainly a cruel way to end someone’s life, the grouping together of a minority to use their power for a devious agenda.

Even Cromwell would later come to lose conviction in his push for the execution of Charles, ultimately questioning if it was the right thing to do. Several accounts of the execution show the beheading was met with groans from the crowd, further proof of the lack of support from the majority for Charles' execution.

Cromwell’s view that the execution was a necessity is much more debateable, unlike the cruelty of the execution. The actual sentence, passed by parliament was for treason against the people of England. This was based on his use of foreign forces against his own citizens. These foreign soldiers were mainly from Ireland and the continent. His crime was to use foreign forces to kill his own people which was seen to be an act of treason (against the English people rather than the King). This seems like a fair justification for Charles' execution as treason had always been a crime punishable by death. Charles had also tried to take more and more power from the people throughout his reign. Many Parliamentarians believed that this had culminated in Charles trying to take full power for himself by removing parliament by force. On the other hand, the royalists saw the fight against parliament as the suppression of a radical revolutionary uprising and support for Charles' God given right to rule. It is unclear as to which side really started the war so perhaps it is best to look at each side on the basis of their actions during the war, and in this case Charles’ use of foreign armies to fight his own people can be seen as a malevolent manoeuvre and a treasonous action. This made Charles dangerous, especially in the eyes of the Parliamentarians and hence justified his execution.

Charles I’s dangerous actions did not stop at his use of foreign forces. His treachery and habit of going back on agreements made it very difficult for parliament to deal with him, Speaker of the House of Commons kneels to Charles as he attempts to arrest 5 MPs who even when he was imprisoned and had no real hope of any other he believed were trying to inspire revolution resolution to the war. When imprisoned by the Roundheads he accepted defeat multiple times, however, between these recognitions he would do things like try to escape from his cell and send messages to the Scottish to persuade them to invade, retake the country and restore him to the throne (which resulted in the Second Civil War of 1648-49 between the Parliamentarians and the Scots). This was all under the guise of accepting the loss of the Civil War. While parliament was often willing to compromise, Charles was not which ultimately made them feel that they had little choice about the execution. At the time of his death, he was seen by many as untrustworthy, arrogant and unscrupulous.

Moreover, he was often unwilling to negotiate with parliament throughout his reign. When parliament tried to make deals and negotiate with him before the Civil War he would often sign the agreement then not long after, make a complete U-turn on the issue and go back on his word. He often attempted to silence MP's that opposed him and he tried to take full power for himself multiple times, culminating in him dismissing parliament for 11 years between 1629-40.

One stand out quarrel between Charles and Parliament was when Parliament refused to allow him to continue to raise taxes for wars on the continent and rebellions in Scotland. This resulted in him dismissing parliament three times between 1625 and 1629. His stubbornness and firm belief in the Divine Right of Kings (the belief that Kings are appointed by God and are unanswerable to anyone else) made him disregard the views of parliament and ultimately made it impossible for them to do anything while he was in power. If parliament ever tried to oppose Charles, he would dismiss them. These problems with Charles made it impossible for parliament to deal with him when he was in control.

The problems of Charles' stubbornness and egotism continued into his time in the Tower when the

Parliamentarians were trying to negotiate a deal with him to reduce the power of the crown. Charles refused to accept any of their proposals, insisting that he be returned to the throne immediately. This was going nowhere and left the Roundheads with few options. They were unable to keep him imprisoned as he would have eventually escaped or been broken out by anxious foreign leaders who wanted to see Charles restored and the ‘revolutionaries’ executed. For similar reasons he could not have been exiled or forced to abdicate.

With the whole of Europe and parts of England eager to get Charles back on the throne, parliament believed that they didn’t really have any alternative to executing him. The Civil War had been long and bloody and many wanted it to end one way or another and removing Charles permanently was seen, by the most powerful parliamentarians like Cromwell, as the best solution. They felt that by removing Charles, they could take power for themselves and form a fairer system and unite the British Isles in a way that Charles had failed to do with his religious reforms.

Charles had not been a particularly successful king. Some would say that he lacked the personality and traits required for a good ruler. His shyness and insistence that nobody other than his queen could sit in his presence at court infuriated those who did not like him, especially the Parliamentarians. This contributed to his sense of detachment from various issues. He had the misfortune of having a speech impediment and was not particularly tall or imposing. Furthermore he had not particularly wanted to take the throne, it was meant to be left to his much more popular and likeable brother who unfortunately died of typhoid before he could take the throne. Charles' personality and actions meant he alienate a large portion of his people. For example, his push towards a more Catholic style of worship was particularly unpopular throughout the British Isles.

Catholics were seen as a notable danger since things like the Spanish Armanda of 1588 and the more recent gunpowder plot of 1605, still easily within the living memory of the English. This made Charles’ pro Catholic actions, like marrying a Catholic princess and trying to restore old Catholic monasteries destroyed by Henry VIII, unsettling. The uprisings in Scotland mentioned above were caused by Charles trying to force the use of a new prayer book in Scottish congregations. Charles' aim was to try to draw them away from the increasingly popular puritan style of worship that they favoured and closer Charles' preferred method, which involved much more grand and colourful ceremonies. This angered the Scots greatly and resulted in popular unrest and violence. This led to Charles trying to increase taxes, like the famous 'Ship Tax' to pay for the army to try and crush the disturbances. The Ship Tax was originally paid by coastal towns to pay for the navy during war times as these towns were the ones that would benefit from naval strength the most. Charles tried to extend this tax inland to areas that would not necessarily profit from it in order to fund his fight with the Scots (and numerous wars on the continent), this was done without parliamentary approval. Another example is his appointment of positions. He would often give positions on favour rather than merit, this occurred in the Church, Army and many other areas. He also had a very unpopular friendship with the Duke of Buckingham who used his influence for his own personal gain which often went against the wishes of parliament. Charles refused to do anything about this. The King's inflexible attitude on these issues quickly lost him popularity and many lost faith in his ability to rule. This, coupled with his unwavering desire to rule on his own, without parliament, even after he lost the Civil War made it far easier to justify his removal.

However in spite of Charles' rather substantial shortcomings there is a case to say that he didn't need to be executed. As mentioned before, the execution of Charles was the will of a minority group, not choice was given to the general public. Many did not want to see the execution of the King, partly because it was seen to be the breaking of over 1000 years of tradition. Kings had been killed in the past, but only in battle and they were replaced by others who normally had a strong claim to the throne. In the case of King Charles, he was publically executed and then replaced by a Council and then a man of the middling gentry. This was certainly a shock to people in Britain and Europe. People soon began to want the return of a king and it only took 11 years for people to openly request the return of Charles II. Oliver Cromwell tried to pass on his title of Lord Protector to his son, Richard who didn't want it and willingly allowed the return of Charles II. Despite this, Oliver Cromwell was a very capable leader. His tactical skills on the battlefield were matched by few and he was a much more imposing and impressive figure than Charles. Unlike Charles, he operated his army and government largely as a meritocracy, promoting only those that were able to fill their position. This was one of the things that made his New Model Army so successful, especially against Charles' mostly rather inept commanders. Cromwell also crushed the Scottish and Irish armies that rose up after the execution of

Charles I, thus ensuring total control over the British Isles. The British Navy crushed the Dutch in the Anglo Dutch war of 1652-54, ensuring that Britain held a monopoly over trade. Further wars in colonies and against the Spanish were similarly successful he also made an alliance with France to ensure that they could not help Charles II's attempts to regain the throne.

The execution of Charles I brought about a period of instability to England as parliament struggled to sort itself out. Cromwell became fed up with the Long Parliament, which had been in office since the start of the Civil War and starred to become corrupt and untrustworthy. It should be noted that Charles I never really had the problem of corruption as he would always do, what he thought, was best for the country and could not be influenced by money or power. Parliament went through several iterations before Cromwell eventually decided to take matters into his own hands and became 'Lord Protector', with a much smaller parliament, where he essentially ruled as a dictator until his death in 1658. Cromwell refused to officially take up the crown on multiple occasions and so he became King in all but name, even passing on his position to his son Richard.

Successes in Cromwell's domestic policy was mixed. He allowed the return of Jews to Britain after 350 years, hailing them as the great wealth creators of the world. However the new laws introduced by Cromwell were stifling, they followed strict Puritan values and banned things like the theatre, pubs and even Christmas!

Cromwell and his strict laws quickly became hated by many and resulted in Cromwell's use of force to crush the discontent. Taxes were also raised to fund the wars in Scotland and with Spain. Cromwell would also often dismiss the new forms of parliament created throughout his reign, deeming them insufficient or ineffective.

Ironically it seems that several parallels can be drawn between the reigns of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell.

In conclusion, the answer to the question as to whether the execution of Charles I was cruel is rather a simple one. The trial was heavily biased and unrepresentative of the will of the people and only took place because the Roundheads were unable to find an alternative. Whether the execution was necessary is much more debatable. On the one hand, Charles was a rather weak but stubborn King, unwilling to negotiate or work with Parliament yet ruling rather unsuccessfully on his own.

On the other hand the rule of Oliver Cromwell was little better at home but far superior aboard.

The Commonwealth started by Cromwell did not last and when the crown was restored, his body was dug up and beheaded. His head was put on a spike and displayed outside of Westminster Hall where it remained for over 20 years. The head was removed after this and went through the possession of several families before it eventually found its way to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where it still rests today.

The 'execution' of Oliver Cromwell

Magna Carta: is it really so important?

David Pugh Magna Carta has been enshrined in law not only of England but across the world for 800 years. Its great champion Edward Coke MP called it ‘the most majestic document’. The charter itself that was predominantly used to protect the wealth of the aristocracy now has famous clauses that can be found in the declaration of human rights, US constitution and still is part of the British constitution. In 1215 the Barons of King John Rebelled and decided to rise up against the king’s tyranny. The Barons managed to force him to negotiate on a field outside Windsor. Here at Runnymede one of the most influential documents of political history was given the royal seal.

But was it really that influential? Did it really challenge the Crown for rights? Or is this just our idealised view of a medieval document?

The history of Magna Carta is quite simple yet it would lead to what many of us see as the start of human rights. King John succeeded his more popular brother Richard the Lionheart who despite only spending 11 months in England throughout his life was popular and has been preserved as the great chivalrous crusader king. John however was not as popular and often abused his power to gain money. He removed many county sheriffs and replaced them with his own loyal mercenaries who used any means to collect the royal revenue.

This would give rise to the popular Robin Hood myths and the sheriff of Nottingham who was infamous for ruthlessly collecting the Kings tax. This abuse of his regal powers would lead to resentment between him and his powerful barons. This led to a civil war between John and a group of 25 of the most important barons in England in which the French dauphin was invited to claim the English crown. Just as Louis, the dauphin, set sail to join his new English allies John met his barons on the meadow outside Windsor at Runnymede. The charter was agreed between King John and a group of leading barons, led by Robert Fitzwalter, exasperated at the king's arbitrary rule and high taxes. It was in effect a peace treaty designed to head off armed conflict. It failed. King John would largely ignore the charter he had agreed for the rest of his life. He tried to get it annulled immediately by the pope who for complex reasons John had given crown of England to avoid a French crusade. The pope was the de facto Lord of England and johns feudal lord.

This would also complicate the charters significance as John had agreed to these conditions without his feudal lord’s permission. Within weeks of its signing, Magna Carta was a dead letter. The king disowned it, it was condemned by the Pope, and John found himself at war with his rebellious barons. The following year, 1216, a French army invaded in support of the rebels. By then John was a sick man and he died at Newark in October 1216. John seems to have agreed to the terms of the charter very much to secure himself a breathing space, and basically scarcely had the seals settled on Magna Carta than John sent a fast galloper to Rome to say please absolve me of my oath, because it was exacted from me under duress.

John wrote to the pope who was outraged and declared the charter ‘null and void of all validity for ever’

effectively allowing John to dismiss the demands of his Barons. The pope would also declare the document "illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful to the English people", which today we see as a contradiction as it is the start of our rights. This papal approval would add to the already great disregard John had for Magna Carta.

This shows us how a cornerstone of our rights was at its conception disregarded not only by the secular king but also by the Church.

Magna Carta is infamous for sections such as Clause 39 ‘No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.’ "Free men" in 1215 accounted for less than half the population - the rest were serfs, to whom the charter did not apply and "men" meant men - women, except for widows, merit barely a mention in Magna Carta. This has been hallowed as the beginning of human rights and this clause is often cited as the first time kings were confined by law and common men were protected. However King John would barely recognise the rights given here and would get the pope to dismiss the document, many of the people in Britain wouldn’t benefit from this for many more years as they aren’t dictating the terms. No surprise that the Noble Barons who had the army that encouraged John to accept had very important clauses protecting land and inheritance put into the charter. It would take until 1225 for a new charter to be drawn up accepting these basic freedoms. Historian M. Paris called it ‘the Charter of King John which Henry III swore to observe’. John thought that the charter was a disgraceful attack on his rights as king and would largely ignore the charter for the remaining year of his reign. Henry III and Edward I would re issue the charter and would swear to abide by it more often giving the charter the respect we see it with today, even though the clauses are still mostly ageing concerns of chief feudal tenants and hold no bearing today. Magna Carta was finally enrolled on the statute book by Edward I in 1297 82 years after the tense negotiations at Runnymede. Edward I was desperate for money to wage war in France and Scotland at the same time, and everyone protested at their levels of taxation he was demanding they demanded the reissue of the Charters, that meant Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, so that they could have their rights once again enshrined in law. So very much they were considered at that time a pair – the great Charter and the little Charter. Today, only three of the original 63 clauses remain on the statute books. Of these three survivors one defends the liberties and rights of the English Church, another confirms the liberties and customs of London and other towns, and the third gives all English subjects the right to justice and a fair trial. Magna Carta was also only help for the Barons at its conception and has many clauses protecting land inheritance and Ensuring their heirs and revenues were protected from the king. The reason for the rising was the John’s abuse of his Barons and demands for money. John would also assume control of lots of land. This caused the barons too feel threatened by Johns disregard for the rules that was understood to be abided by in feudal England. Only half of the population were free men at the time of the 1215 charter and only a very small group of that where the land owning aristocracy to whom the laws of the charter apply, dealing with property ownership, the workings of the justice system, and taxes with no modern equivalent such as scutage. Other clauses that we have dispensed with include a law banning fish weirs on rivers, the dismissal of specific individual royal servants, and the standardisation of weights and measures we do not use any more. This shows us how Magna Carta has no relevance today as many clauses are little more than assistance for scholars. The Charter of the Forest issued by Henry III when his regents left out some clauses in his reissue of Magna Carta in 1217 is more relevant to the mass of the population than the Magna Carta,

because it is really all about the King’s powers to raise revenues from his greater subjects, the actual feudal landowners. The Charter of the Forest was concerned with forest law that applied to large areas of England which were designated royal forest, and were not necessarily forest in the sense we think of forest today. So in that the Forest Charter is specifically about forest law, which affected large numbers of ordinary people. It may well be that this was of rather greater practical importance. It’s estimated that at the time about half of England was forest, and even though the Charter of the Forest applied only to royal forests, they were a significant proportion. It wasn’t that the King was thinking I’ll give my ordinary people freedoms, of course it wasn’t, but because of the restrictions he placed on what landowners could do, this indirectly gave freedoms to other people who lived in the forest. This obscure predecessor of the charter turns out to be more of a commitment to the people’s rights of the time than Magna Carta would have been.

Many of the US states that have parts of Magna Carta in their original charters and declarations do not use the infamous 1215 charter but the 1225. The charter also can be seen to have failed as between the 13th and 15th centuries Magna Carta was reconfirmed 32 times. By the mid-15th century, it had ceased to occupy a central role in English political life, as monarch’s reasserted authority and powers which had been challenged in the 100 years after Edward I's reign. By the time of the English civil war much of the belief that kings where confined by law as much as any free man, a crucial effect of Magna Carta had gone as the royal prerogative to rule by divine choice had become common practice.

The Charter at the time was not revolutionary; it didn’t affect the common man, it asserted the barons authorities, and was largely ignored by the king and pope. Despite John’s reluctance to accept the terms and the very limited freedom granted to the common man, Magna Carta remains a crucial part of the English nation used in politics to defend our freedoms. It is still seen today as the start even if it is not the momentous change. The laws of the 1215 charter have little relevance to political theory today. Magna Carter is however the rallying cry of English democracy that has been adopted around the world and symbolises the first plight for human rights. The creation of Magna Carta in 1215 marked the first time limits were imposed on a king of England's powers, making it clear that the king was subject to the law, not above it. We can see the basic principles of Magna Carta very clearly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - penned in 1948 just after the Second World War. The great charter quickly gained a central place in English political life and remains a touchstone of English liberties. This is why Magna Carta the limited and forgotten document of its time is now so important 800 years after its original conception.

To what extent was internal weakness within the Aztec triple alliance the most important reason for the Spanish conquest of the Mexica in the sixteenth century?

Harry Elton-Dobbin The defeat of the Mexica by the Spanish after the fall of Tenochtitlan was due to a number of important interrelating events and factors. Internal unrest within the Aztec triple alliance specifically towards the Mexica combined with highly localized Mesoamerican identities both played a huge role in the success of Hernan Cortés’s expedition. However the repeated epidemics of New World diseases and the cultural factors that aided their spread, previous colonial experience and superior weaponry against Mexica war practices that had evolved in a completely different military context had huge significance.

The role of native allies was vital throughout the conquest. In many battles the Mexica outnumbered the Spanish greatly such as at the siege of Tenochtitlan were estimated forces of 250,000 Mexica fought against 2,000 Spanish. However also present and fighting for the Spanish were many natives. Conservative estimates for the Tlaxcalan numbers alone range from 85,000-125,000. These numbers were not atypical of the support Cortés received throughout the expedition. Native allies proved critical at many points during not only direct conflict with the Mexica but also provided rest and supplies. Even Cortés admits in his infamously hispocentric accounts of the conquest ‘many of the natives were our allies and would assist’. The overwhelming native support for Cortés was largely influenced by the highly localized sense of identity seen throughout the Americas at the time. Many natives, especially in Central America saw themselves as member of a specific community, rarely as part of a wider social or language group such as Nahuatl and let alone as ‘natives’. This discouraged collaboration with other native groups and encouraged collaboration with the Spanish for personal gain with no sense of moral responsibility for the plight of other natives. This individualism can be seen as causing the swapping of allegiances of Texcoco, a previous member of the Aztec triple alliance before the siege of Tenochtitlan. A collective native effort would undoubtedly have greatly aided the natives in defeating of the Spanish. It is highly likely that Cortés would have failed to conquer the Mexica in the way that he did without Tlaxcalan support. Let alone if the Mexica fought alongside the Tlaxcalans.

A strong sense of local identity was combined with an equally strong hate for the Mexica amongst their subjugated states. The hegemonic structure and tribute system, where conquered cities were not subjugated to Aztec culture, religion or rule but instead had to pay a tribute in the form of taxes, gifts and military provisions to Aztec armies as they passed through conquered territories caused very negative views, especially of the Mexica as the more of the tributes went to Tenochtitlan than went to Tlacopan or Texcoco. This style of empire allowed for rapid and efficient expansion however it meant that the empire didn’t solidify its power and influence in the areas in the way a stronger presence would. Additionally by allowing a state to keep its rulers and culture chances of rebellion increased due to a maintained strength of individual identity. These rebellions were common and often took place in perceived times of weakness such as after the death of a Mexica Tlatoani. This was seen after the death of Cuitláhuac 80 days after the death of Moctezuma during

the conflict with the Hernan Cortés and the conquistadors. This prompted mass rebellions throughout the Aztec empire. The loss of incoming tribute meant that especially during the siege of Tenochtitlan food and other essential supplies were even lower. Additionally many such subjugated peoples such as the Zapotec and Mixtec joined the Spanish forces in order to help bring down the Mexica.

The timing of Moctezuma II rise to power also helped to further alienate the Mexica. New Mexica tlatoani (literally translated as ‘he who speaks’ but often translated as simply ruler) were expected to prove their ability through a series of military campaigns. Moctezuma’s were particularly large. Extending across an area of 240,000 km² and took up the Zapotec and Mixtec into the Aztec subjugation between 1505 and 1510. Both of these groups were present on the side of the Spanish at the siege and subsequent fall of Tenochtitlan.

Moctezuma’s military expansion further strained already tense relationships with the Tlaxcalans. Tlaxcala was never conquered outright in the many conflicts between them and the Aztecs however the conquering of the surrounding territories of Tlaxcala isolated Tlaxcala both politically and commercially. The deterioration of the Tlaxcalan position perhaps proved motivation to invest so heavily in their relationship with the Spanish. Native alliances helped the Spanish to a great degree. Their allies outnumbered them in almost every conflict. An example of the importance of native allies occurred at the battle of Otomba. The loss of over 1000 men, most of their horses and most of the heavy guns at La Noche Triste put the Spanish at a disadvantage only made worse by the presence of 20,000-40,000 Mexica warriors. Despite being outnumbered by between ten and twenty to one the battle proved to be a decisive victory for the Spanish losing just 73 men compared to the 13-17,000 Mexica deaths. Effective use of cavalry as shock troops, repeatedly charging at the Mexica forces in order to break their lines proved to be highly effective. However without the significant Totonacs and Tlaxcaltec presence the shear Mexica numbers would have very likely proved insurmountable. Another example of the degree of native support was at the siege of Tenochtitlan where up to 200,000 natives including some Teponac warriors helped Cortés take Tenochtitlan. This meant that not only did the superior weaponry lie in the hands of the Spanish but the numerical advantage was significantly less significant than it had been at other points in the conflict.

Another great ally of the conquistador was disease. A greater number and greater variety of domesticated animals meant that the Europeans had immunity to diseases that the Mexica had never encountered.

Measles, flu and especially small pox killed far more natives than the Spanish ever did. Approximately 25% of the Aztec triple alliance and 40% of modern day Mexico died due to disease in a 50 year period. These percentages are similar to those seen in Europe due to the Black Death however these deaths occurred over a much smaller time period. The extent of the mass death is well documented in both Mexica and Spanish sources. A Spanish monk that witnessed this epidemic, said: “It became such a great pestilence among them throughout the land that in most provinces more than half the population died; in others the proportion was less. They died in heaps, like bedbugs.” Another priest claimed that. Smallpox affected more than just the Mexica it spread throughout the continent destabilising the whole region. The spread was so rapid it actually beat the Conquistadors to Peru killing two Inca rulers before Pizarro reached South America. However Tenochtitlan suffered particularly badly prompting one Spanish priest to claim, ‘the streets were so filled with the dead and sick people that our men walked over nothing but bodies’. The timing of the initial spread of smallpox was also particularly devastating for the Mexica. The initial spread began during the time Cortés spent in Tenochtitlan before La Noche Triste. This meant that people began to die in large numbers just as the Spanish had lost over 1000 men, all of their cannons and most of their horses. The Conquistadors were arguably as vulnerable as they had been in the expedition and the Mexica response was delayed severely by the death of Mexica most notably of the new Tlatoani Cuitláhuac just 80 days after succeeding Moctezuma.

His death not only allowed the Spanish to retreat and replenish their supplies but it also encouraged opportunistic rebellions against the Mexica which caused the Spanish forces to replenish in number.

The structure of the Mexica army meant that Smallpox was particularly devastating. The Mexica had no standing army that could be isolated from the general public in order to prevent spread. Instead every Mexica male received military training from a young age and was expected to fight when called upon. This meant that every Mexica death due to disease was also the death of a soldier not just the death of a farmer, a labourer etc. Smallpox also made the Spanish siege of Tenochtitlan more effective greatly speeding up the Mexica’s downfall. Sufferers of smallpox are far more susceptible to the mass starvation that occurred during

the siege of Tenochtitlan.

In addition to disease and native allies the Conquistadors also had access to weaponry that the Mexica had never seen before that was in many ways superior. The largest advantage the conquistadors had was steel.

The steel sword was longer and less brittle than the largely obsidian weapons wielded by the Aztecs. Obsidian, despite its proclaimed ability to be able to decapitate Spanish horses in one swing was brittle and was prone to shattering early in battle. Steel swords however allowed Spaniards to kill in large numbers. The utility of the sword was noted by Francisco Pizarro, famous for his conflict with the Inca who preferred to fight on foot due to the increased ability to manipulate his sword. The horse also proved to be of the upmost use to Cortés.

Horses were in very limited supply during Cortés’ expedition. Few were transported to South America and horses were a uniquely European animal so could not be found in Mexica territory or anywhere in the Americas. However when used in combat they were ‘worth their weight in gold’ as one Spaniard proclaimed.

Due to their absence on the continent thousands of years of military tactical evolution had not taken place in the Americas. This meant that the Mexica were intimidated by what many perceived to be ‘large deer’ and did not have the understanding for much of the expedition of how to counter the Spanish cavalry charges.

Longer spears were developed later in the conflict however they were never fully implemented amongst the Mexica ranks. Cannons and firearms actually had quite limited practical use in the conflicts against the Mexica.

Whilst undoubtedly useful as an intimidatory measure, the use of guns was limited by a number of factors including the weather, style of combat and Spanish technology. Much of Central America is sub-tropical.

Tenochtitlan for example was located on top of a lake and surrounded by swampland. In such conditions the gunpowder became too wet to fire which rendered the cannons useless. Additionally the larger guns such as the cannons were heavy and cumbersome making transporting them difficult. This meant that frequently when retreating such as after the events of ‘La Noche Triste’ the cannons were abandoned and therefore not used again until new supplies could reach Cortés from Cuba.

The firearms in the form of Harquebuses had little practicality. Like the cannon they required dry powder to fire but also needed their barrels supported by tripods. Additionally the musket would not be invented until decades after Cortés’ arrival in Mexico. Therefore the less reliable and slower reloading Harquebus meant that Spaniards who did manage to get off a shot frequently had to reverse the weapon and use it as a club or drop it all together due to insufficient time to reload and the absence of volley fire techniques which allowed more constant fire. Whilst the effectiveness of Spanish guns can be questioned steel’s supremacy cannot be.

Hardier melee weapons with more ranged combined with steel armour gave the conquistador a supreme advantage over his Mexica counterpart who possessed impressive weaponry of his own.

Harquebuses similar to those used by the Spanish

Military traditions observed by the Mexica also put them at a disadvantage. These included the practicing of long, elaborate and highly religious pre-battle ceremonies that eliminated the possibility to launch surprise attacks. Additionally the differing perceptions of the purposes of war also greatly hindered the Mexica. For the Mexica war was a method of obtaining captives in order to sacrifice in religious ceremonies and the Spanish mass slaughter was just as abhorrent to the Mexica as the human sacrifice practices were to the Spanish. This idea of war as a method of capture was stressed in the military culture from the early teenage years at which a Mexica male would begin his military training. Inexperienced soldiers who had not taken many captives were identified by their topknot hairstyle which was only cut after a certain amount of men

were captured. The Eagle Warrior status was only available to the most prolific capturers in Aztec society. This culture is also evident in the ‘Flower Wars’, conflicts were both sides would agree to send a set number of warriors to fight with the sole purpose of obtaining men to sacrifice. Practices such as the cutting of hamstrings and Achilles tendons were not feasible against the Spanish whose sole purpose was to kill as many Mexica as possible. Long range weapons also made getting sufficiently close to carry out the incapacitating but not lethal blows difficult for Mexica warriors.

Colonial experience was also vital in the efficient and ruthless Spanish conquest of the Mexica. Earlier expeditions that Cortés had been a part of such as those to Cuba played a valuable role in Cortés decision making in Mexico. The capture and employment of native rulers as puppets had been practiced extensively across the Caribbean including the Haitian ruler Coanabó, as had the practice of public mass executions by burning and by dog as a native suppressant. This experience in the Caribbean gave Cortés, who had no military history at all prior to the colonial adventures, valuable experience and the ability to lead men with similar lacks of military experience. Almost none of the conquistadors were soldiers by trade.

Additionally the practice of gathering native translators was also extensively and successfully practiced.

However the translator Cortés found, a woman by the name of Malinche, was notable for her ability to not only speaks the Nahuatl but the language of the Maya to the south. This meant that despite her inability to speak Spanish she could communicate with Cortés through another Spaniard known as Aguilar who had been shipwrecked a number of years earlier so had learned the same Maya language. Malinche was from a town in the Yucatan subject to Aztec tribute. This perhaps explains the absence of guilt in aiding the Spanish that prompted many other translators to flee the Spanish. Finding a reliable translator was of the upmost importance for Cortés. The Spaniards refused to teach a Spaniard Nahuatl as they saw it as ‘the inferior language of ignorant people’. Therefore a reliable translator was needed to build allegiances such as those with the Tlaxcalans that were needed to defeat the Mexica. However it could be argued that experience in the Caribbean has limited application due to the differences in culture and development. Gómara, another conquistador on Cortés’ expedition noted his surprise upon reaching Mexico at seeing natives wearing clothes.

Also the cleanliness of Tenochtitlan was widely recognised as superior to many European cities. Mexica levels of development made some of the Spanish tactics redundant however many of the most effective actions such as public massacres and the kidnapping of Moctezuma certainly were influenced by the effectiveness their equivalent actions had in the Caribbean.

It is too simplistic perhaps to attribute the fall of the Mexica to one cultural factor. The fall of such a complex society is bound to have equally complex triggers. The introduction of new world diseases certainly had a profound impact. The loss of many Mexica soldiers and the massive destabilising effect is put Cortés in a much easier position. Steel and military tactics more akin to mass slaughter allowed the Spanish to kill in droves.

Also colonial experience offset any lack of formal military experience was replace by experience as a conquistador. However it is clear that from a purely mathematical perspective despite diseases reducing the number disparity and superior weaponry and military culture making the disparity less important it would

have been almost impossible for CortĂŠs to overcome the sheer numbers of Mexica warriors without his native allies. These native allies increased his numbers by up to a 100 times, gave the Conquistadors much needed supplies and gave the Spanish knowledge of the strange environment and people they encountered in the new world. Without this factor CortĂŠs would have struggled to conquer the Mexica.

To What Extent Were the Punic Wars Inevitable?

George Goodhand The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between the Roman Republic, and the great city of Carthage between 264 and 146 BC. At the time, these wars were likely the largest ever fought, culminating in the complete destruction of Carthage. The Roman Republic at this time was not the sprawling empire that it later would be. At this point, it was still conquering the Italian peninsula, completing this process around 217 BC. It did however have influence and ‘hegemony’ over many Latin cities around the Mediterranean, and was spreading its imperial dominance in this way. Carthage was a large and powerful democratic sea-faring city state with a vast commercial network of dependencies. It was rivalled only by Rome in power and wealth.

Rome had large and permanent armed forces, whereas Carthage relied mostly on mercenaries to fight its wars. The Punic wars are often described as the Cold War of the ancient world, two great powers, fighting for supremacy in the Mediterranean. Thus, some sources would argue that they were natural enemies. This combined with the nature of resolving conflicts in the ancient world; e.g. either by war or by submission, suggests that conflict between these two great powers was inevitable, one source saying that ‘the Punic Wars... were as inevitable as the winter.’ However, is this view correct? Were these two powers always doomed to go to war?

There is substantial evidence that refutes this argument. For two and a half centuries before the first Punic War, the Romans and Carthaginians (old and established powers) had been linked by treaties and trade. One of these treaties, (signed in 509 and renewed in 306) as well as allowing free trade between the Italian Peninsula and North Africa, agreed that any ‘Latin’ city captured by Carthage must be given to Rome. This effectively enrolled Carthage as an aide in spreading Roman power, making the argument that Carthage saw Rome as a rising power that had to be stopped as somewhat redundant. This view is contested by an agreement in the same treaty limiting the areas in which Rome could settle. This treaty has also been criticised as more of a ‘quick fix’ treaty to ensure that both Rome and Carthage left each other, and each other’s interests, alone.

Another piece of evidence that shows that coexistence was attainable is the joint military action that Rome and Carthage engaged upon when King Pyrrhus of Epirus arrived in Rome with an army in 279. So not only was Carthage helping to spread Roman control, she was also defending the Roman heartland from attack.

However, after troops from Syracuse attacked Messina in Sicily, the city asked for help from both Rome and Carthage. Both responded, and began fighting each other.

The nature of the beginning of the First Punic war (264-241 BC) does not suggest inevitability, rather more a small skirmish escalated into a war. This appears strange at first, when looking at Rome and Carthage’s diplomatic and trade history, that the two powers would go to war over a small Sicilian city. This can however be explained. Carthage had interests in Sicily, and perhaps Roman intervention in Sicilian affairs was ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ in terms of Carthaginian tolerance of Roman expansionism. If this is truly the reason that Rome and Carthage went to war, it is clear and strong evidence that war was inevitable, lending credence to the argument that two expanding powers in such a small area were natural and inexorable enemies.

After suffering a loss following 25 years of war, Carthage was dissatisfied with the enormous war indemnity it was forced to pay Rome. This is described in Livy’s History of Rome; ‘…the Carthaginians… considered that in their subjection it had been lorded over them with haughtiness and avarice.’

Carthage was also irked by the actions of the Roman Republic during the inter war period, for example, the snatching of Sardinia; ‘…Sardinia, during the disturbances in Africa, had been treacherously taken by the Romans, while, in addition, the payment of a tribute had been imposed.’

These actions can perhaps attribute to the public opinion in Rome that the ‘Diktat’ peace agreement had been too lenient, and can perhaps be seen as the start of deliberate Roman aggression. Following a squabble over the Hegemony of Saguntum, a Hellenised Coastal town with ties to Rome, Carthage laid siege to the town, beginning the second Punic War. There is a discrepancy here, one which does not allow the Second Punic War to be condemned as inevitable.

The discrepancy arises when looking at the three and a half years of renewed goodwill between Rome and Carthage after 241 BC. This did indeed turn bitter when the Romans seized Sardinia, but the two continued to have a few diplomatic encounters in the 230’s and 220’s.

Why then, did Rome and Carthage return to war over a small quarrel about a small town, and who it owed allegiance to? Carthage had already tolerated the Roman invasion of Sardinia, so it would seem strange that small encounter would push them over the edge. There are again, a few explanations. Rome could have been being deliberately aggressive, hoping to bait the start of another war, although this seems unlikely when their lack of readiness is observed. It could have been Carthaginian self-defence, feeling threatened by a challenge over what they perceived as their own territory could have tempted a pre-emptive strike on Rome. They could also have both felt they had a genuine claim to Saguntum, and mutual suspicions resulted in war.

Again, this can be seen as evidence that if both Rome and Carthage were determined on aggressive imperial expansion, a war between them was indeed unavoidable. However, had their aims been different, the war could almost certainly be prevented.

The Second Punic war (218-201 BC) was fought largely in and around Rome and the Italian peninsula, with Hannibal crossing the Alps with dozens of Elephants. However, the war was eventually taken to Africa, where Carthage was defeated, and Carthage’s control of the Mediterranean reduced to the city itself only.

Even though Carthage’s power had been significantly reduced, the cities commercial fortunes recovered greatly over the next fifty years. These riches were envied by the Roman merchant class. Consequently, the combination of the desires of these influential people, and the determination of certain Roman politicians that Carthage had to be destroyed, led to the beginning of the Third and final Punic War (149-146 BC). The Romans issued more and more unreasonable demands to Carthage, such as five hundred of the leading nobility’s children as a ransom, and that Carthage its self be torn down and rebuilt further away from the coast. Carthage was attacked by an ally of Rome in 150 BC, and when the attack was resisted, the Romans

declared war. Carthage wanted peace, but instead after two years of siege, Carthage was torn down and destroyed, and its people forced into slavery. The site on which it stood was condemned to forever remain desolate.

Again, by this point, Rome had conquered swathes of Europe, and was well established in its aim of building an empire. This would indicate that the Third Punic War was fairly inevitable………..

How did the Tea trade benefit Britain and contribute to the establishment of The East India Company?

Beth Gaunt The British tea industry was established during the reign of Charles II in 1662. He married Catrina Henriqueta de Braganca (Catherine of Braganza) who was a Portuguese princess. One of the reasons Charles II needed to marry was because the country needed some new money, and the princess’ dowry had many valuable assets of which one was The Seven Islands of Bombay. This was particularly significant to Britain and the expansion of its empire as Charles II rented the islands to the East India Company. Arguably this establishment was the foundation of future British rule in India and the start of Britain’s Indian trade that became integral for the country in order to uphold its prestige and power in the 18th Century world.

In order to assess how the Indian Tea trade directly affected Britain, we need to first study the operations of the East Indian Company which was one of the greatest benefits of the tea trade. The Governor and company of merchants of London trading with the East Indies received a royal charter in 1600 from Queen Elizabeth I. Wealthy merchants and members of the aristocracy owned the company- it is important to note that the British government had no shares at all therefore only had indirect control. It wasn’t until 1612 when the British won against the Portuguese in the Battle of Swally that the Company was formally recognised by the Mughal Emperor. In 1617 the East India Company was given exclusive rights to build factories- the first was built in Surat (later factories were also built in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta). Originally the British presence was disliked and although the factories provided jobs for the locals (23 factories with over 90 workers) there were frequent attacks from local resistance, most notably in 1689 when a Mughal Fleet attacked the East India Company in Bombay, this resulted in the company setting up a new base in Calcutta 1690.

There was also great competition between the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company.

At first the trade in spices was unsuccessful as the newly established British trade was not competitive enough to compete with the Dutch- who already had firm foundations and links, however, the company went on to establish a lobby in the British Parliament and the tradesmen in Parliament passed a Deregulating Act in 1694 which allowed any English firm to trade with India therefore increasing trade opportunities and British competitiveness with the Dutch. By 1700’s the British had secure trading ‘stations’ in Madras, Bombay and Bengal.

In 1698 the British government attempted to establish a new ‘parallel’ company that was backed with £2million by the state. It quickly became clear, however, that this would be unsuccessful and by 1708 the two companies merged. Economically the East India Company was an extremely important component of the British economy as by 1720 over 15% of British imports were from India.

By 1750 the Mughal Empire was in a state of collapse, consequently the East India company became a powerful force and after the Battle of Plassey, the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the Company- at this point the company became not only concerned with its own direct interests but also those of the surrounding area. The military force which was established enabled the British to fight off local resistance. Moreover, we can see that if it hadn’t been for the establishment of the East India Company’s military, the victory of Britain in the Seven Years’ War may not have occurred. This victory was of extreme importance as it gave Britain the start of its colonial power in the East Indies. The British success here allowed the company to become involved in the politics and the running of the province. This now made a British company head of the civil, judicial and revenue administration of India’s largest province that had over 20 million inhabitants.

In an attempt to please Charles II, the East India Company brought small gifts of tea over for Catherine of Braganza. However, it was not until 1668 that the company saw tea as a worthwhile commodity to trade in.

Moreover tea was not only becoming an important good for the British economy but also a crucial component of British society. Following Catherine of Braganza’s example, tea became a symbol of wealth and honour and it eventually became socially accepted among the aristocracy. We can see evidence of its role in society through its appearance in many plays and novels such as Lewis Carroll’s, The Mad Hatter’s Tea in Alice and Wonderland. Tea was an expensive good and, unlike today, only the aristocracy could afford it until the 1750s when it became a popular drink of the lower classes with the turn of the industrial revolution.

Tea was originally sold in coffee houses for around £6 to £10 as a medicinal drink; Thomas Garraway was one of the first to sell it in 1667.

Coffee houses were seen as hubs of society, business and trade and by 1700 over 500 coffee houses were established. During the reign of Charles II coffee houses were seen as a threat because of the activities taking place in them and in 1675 Charles II tried to shut them down… he was unsuccessful. On the one hand tea benefitted Coffee houses, however there was distress among the Tavern owners due to the decrease in the usual beverage of Ale and Gin. This threat did not last long as by the 18th-Century tea was being consumed in homes which saw many coffee houses turn into gentlemen’s clubs. This was when the infamous coffee house established by Edward Lloyd, Twinings of London was set up.

There was also an array of problems linked with the popular import of tea. It was one of the most common goods to be smuggled into England. During the 18 th Century it is estimated that around 4/5 of tea being drunk had not paid duty. This brought a number of problems for the government, as the benefits of this thriving trade were not being reaped. Smuggled goods were not taxed therefore the government was losing out on a large percentage of tax revenue on tea. The smuggling problem was acknowledged however through Pitt the Younger (17591806). His economic reform introduced new barriers to reduce the smuggling trade such as The Hovering Act, 1784 and the Bonded Warehouses scheme. The import tax on tea was also reduced through the Commutation Act, 1784, from an absurd figure of 119% to 25%. This encouraged all trade to be done legitimately and aimed to reduce smuggling.

The tea industry was not recognised formally as a thriving trade until 1776 when the government introduced an Act that taxed tea and also made coffee houses apply for licences. As for the benefits to the British economy, tea was accounting for a tenth of tax income and Britain was now importing over 15 million pounds of tea. Consumption had increased 200 fold from 1700 to 1750. From 1650 to 1700 Britain imported 181,500 lbs of tea and this increased to 40 million lbs of legally entered tea in the 1750s alone. Notably the growing tea trade is also mirrored by the increase in imports of cane sugar from 1690 to 1750 which also benefitted the British economy. It is often questioned why the tea economy overtook the coffee industry in Britain however the economical nature of tea made it overall cheaper. For example tea leaves could be used more than once and still give the same desired effect and until the middle of the 19th century when the price of tea significantly dropped, second hand tea leaves could be bought from the aristocracy.

In conclusion, we can see that the role of the East India Company was not the only imperative in the founding of the British tea-drinking phenomenon but also for Britain’s colonial establishment in the East Indies. Furthermore it also impacted the British economy by securing trade connections with India and providing British dominance in India. Tea drinking itself became part of the lifestyle of the British aristocracy and the classic British tea party was a sign of wealth due to the expensive nature of tea and of sugar. Throughout British history tea has played an important role. There are many theories on the benefit of tea to the health of the nation especially during periods like the industrial revolution, such as that of Alan Macfarlane who thinks that tea may have decreased the number of water-bourne diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and cholera because it had to be made using boiled water. We can see that tea’s prestigious nature has changed from that of its origins from Catherine of Braganza and royalty and is now a universally drunk beverage in England throughout all of the social classes.

To what extent can the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in 2003 be seen as a sensible decision?

Toby Gill On March 19th 2003 coalition forces led by the United States of America, The United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. The invasion lasted until the 1st May 2003. According to the US President at the time, George W. Bush, and British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the invasion was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." However what is clear from Bush is that even before 9/11 he wanted Saddam Hussein (the 5th President of Iraq) out of power.

Even in his election campaign in 2000 he took an aggressive stance over Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

Bush was even aware of Hussein’s unsuccessful attempt to assassinate his father in 1993 in Kuwait and it could be argued he wanted ‘revenge’ for the incident. It can also be argued that Bush, along with other world leaders, viewed Hussein’s regime as a threat to political stability in the region, this is shown with Bush’s statement: "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade ... Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror." Whether or not the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 turned out to be a good one or a bad one has been debated over the years and can be examined by assessing the impacts on both the Western world and the impact the invasion has had on the Middle East since 2003 as well as whether the objectives were successful or not.

The main reason why coalition forces say they entered Iraq is because they believed Saddam Hussein was producing WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) there was also the claims of Saddam Hussein’s regime having ties with al-Qaeda. Even to this day that is still said to be the reason and it is clear from when Tony Blair replied to a question in parliament prior to the invasion that he was keen on a change in regime for the people of Iraq through the removal of Saddam Hussein. This argument was supported by Andrew Bacevich of Boston University who says that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. There is also the argument that the invasion was about the maximisation of Persian Gulf oil flows to avoid a global energy crisis as Iraqi oil reserves are predicted the fifth largest in the world at 140 billion barrels.

The war was taken largely as a positive within Iraq, with successes that were substantial to the Kurds. The Kurds were able to gain territory; known as Kurdistan or the ‘Other Iraq’ which has become a safe haven for thousands of Iraqis as well as many Christians, and even today they benefit greatly from the production and sale of oil and gas in the region. There is also the prospect of an economic boom which is on a continuous

rise with Kurdistan receiving 17% of the Iraq budget with living standards as well as job opportunities and international business investment increasing. Kurdistan now even signs many oil contracts with international companies independently from Baghdad. Whilst the invasion of Iraq in 2003 may not be totally justifiable from the UK and US it is however clear that the invasion enabled the Kurds to have the independence that was promised to them in the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and also enabled them to gain a strong foothold in the country and region of the Middle-East which draws investors from around the globe. Another group who gained from the war were the repressed Shia’s who were in the south of Iraq. They now do not have to live under the repressive regime of Hussein. Even the Sunni’s who were treated better than other Iraqis were split with a divide of those who were pro war and those against to end Hussein’s regime.

There is also the case, that the Korean War, which resulted in the loss of 36,000 lives in 1953 and ended in a deadlock on the 38th parallel, had a far greater cost than the more recent Iraq war. In 1953 there would not have been many people who shared the belief that South Korea would turn into the technological hub that it is today nor would people believe that South Korea would become one of the freest countries in the world.

Granted that this effect happened over 50 years since the war and it may be a little premature to say that the same will happen in Iraq but this argument can hold that the Iraq war could have significant positive effects on the country, this is even shown with the prosperous Kurdistan region. The fact that Iraq is now more democratic and is experiencing economic growth, however slow, under the new regime just goes to show that the war has led to a great deal of change for the country. However just as we may not know what Iraq holds for the future under the rule of Haider al-Abadi of the Islamic Dawa party, we do not know either what Iraq would be like today under the rule of Hussein or one of his sons. We can however assume that Hussein would have continued his repressive regime against the Kurds and Shias with UN embargos and there was still the possibility of the production of WMDs. Because of this we cannot completely evaluate the benefits of the invasion but assume that the removal of Hussein and his sons has been a good thing for Iraq and the region.

It can also be argued that had the war not taken place and the UN had kept its sanctions on Iraq then the country may have experienced worse effects. It’s claimed that of the sanctions placed on the Iraqi government they had a greater and worse effect on the Iraqi people. The deaths of an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children can be blamed on these sanctions which included a near-total financial and trade embargo (imposed by the security council of the UN).

However the untold losses and failures are enormous. Over 4,400 US lives have been lost as a result and over a trillion dollars spent to fund the war in Iraq. This does not account for the numerous amounts of Iraqi civilians who have been displaced, left unemployed and lost family and friends. The concerns of the millions of US people who opposed the war due to their thoughts of seeing American troops die as well as the countless amounts of dollars spent funding the war which could easily have been spent elsewhere.

These views have spread across America and the world and can now be justified given the damaging effects the war has placed on the US economy. There is also the issue of the allegations made against Hussein by

Bush and Blair before the invasion. The allegations of the production of WMDs and ties with al-Qaeda were seen as false.

With the added damage to US credibility due to the false claims of WMDs, the strengthening of Iran in the region and the damage to Iraq from war it seems that the war was a bad decision for the US and this becomes clearer when the route that was taken is evaluated. The US and other countries who wanted Hussein out of power could have placed a number of sanctions, embargos and started a campaign of diplomatic quarantine, isolation and military deterrence to end Hussein’s regime. This route could have worked better for the US and Britain and is shown with the emergence of the Arab Spring which resulted in many demonstrations and the removal of dictators such as Gaddafi from Libya. The spring did aid many regime changes in the region, for example Libya, Tunisia and Egypt and went to prove that regimes that offer little more than repression and a low standard of living do fall eventually under the weight of international and internal pressures. This outcome may have been the case for Iraq had the invasion not taken place and would have decreased the number of coalition force deaths significantly as well as allowing the US to avoid the loss of credibility and reduced the cost of war which could have been spent on numerous other problems the US faces today such as education, healthcare and infrastructure rather than being spent on causing damage abroad. The coalition forces have also come under pressure from the UN and international law. Before the war broke out the UN secretary general issued a statement stating “The use of force without Council endorsement would "not be in conformity with the Charter"”. The actions of the coalition forces have now come under scrutiny from legal experts who suggest that the war was an act of aggression that violated international law.

The US failures inside Iraq have also had a huge impact on the lives of the Iraqi people. The US had plans to rebuild infrastructure and increase employment along with the aim to help displaced refugees have all been mismanaged. With this in mind many think that the full effects of the war will be felt by the Iraq population for years to come. The Bush administration also claimed that Iraq is now more democratic than under the Saddam regime. This statement may be true but was it worth the human sacrifice to not even achieve total democracy? Organisations such as Freedom House still do not view Iraq as a functioning democratic nation but as a system that functions on much corruption.

12 years after the invasion there is still the debate of whether the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces was a good decision. From the point of view of the coalition forces it can be said that it was not. The US and UK, along with Australia and Poland, lost over 4,400 soldiers during the conflict, the cost of the war is expected to reach a total far over a trillion US dollars of taxpayers money and the internal opposition to the war. It is said that 18% of Americans say that the war was worth it for America according to a CBS/New York Times poll.

With this in mind the decision to invade Iraq was a bad decision. The US and UK could have avoided the embarrassment of revealing the truth of no WMDs and had they waited perhaps a few years they may have benefited more from a possible revolution in Iraq and the start of the Arab Spring. However the aims and objectives of the coalition force were achieved; the capability for Hussein, or his family, to produce WMDs was stopped, the Iraqi people were given significantly more freedom from the Hussein regime as Tony Blair said and finally by April 14th the US declared that all of Iraq’s major oil fields were under coalition control.

Therefore the main objectives of coalition forces were achieved. The benefits to the Iraqi people are very significant as well. The gains made by the Kurds in the new Kurdistan region have clearly shown that the war was worth it for them and the supressed Shias were able to establish themselves in Iraq and now have a Shia leader of Iraq. However whether the loss of life and financial cost to both Iraq and the rest of the world have made the invasion worthwhile will only be answered in the future when Iraq has had time to recover and rebuild and the effects of war have drifted away. What is clear from the invasion is that there have been benefits to most of the groups involved from the removal of Saddam Hussein and each group has benefitted one way or another from the war, be it the achievement of objectives or the gaining of political rights in the country.

The Life, Luck and Determination of Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, Britain’s Unkillable Soldier Hamish Traill History is full of great men and women and often the reason why they are regarded as great is because of their achievements, discoveries and more often than not, conquests. But if one were to disagree with that view and say that there are other qualities that make men great and worthy of study and historical recognition, then there could be no better argument than Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart.

Born a Belgian in 1880 but a member of the British army between 1899-1923 and 1939-1947 he served a total of 36 years, fighting in the Boer Wars, the First World War (in action at both the Somme and Passchendaele) and the Second World War as well as advising on a number of campaigns for foreign governments in various capacities. He survived two plane crashes, tunnelled out of a prisoner of war camp, became Churchill’s personal representative to Generalissamo Chiang Kai Shek in China and was awarded the Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order and the Croix de Guerre, among many others. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of his life is that he was wounded no less than 11 times in battle, being shot in the head, face, ear, stomach, groin, ankle, leg and hand, most notably losing an eye and a hand but returning to the military after each injury. When a doctor refused to amputate his fingers he tore them off himself and when asked to comment on the First World War said: “Frankly I had enjoyed the war.” A description of his whole life could fill a book (and does) so for the purpose of this article we will be focusing on his life until the end of the First World War, the period where the majority of his injuries were sustained.

Born on the 5th of May 1880 in Brussels, Belgium into an aristocratic family, he was the son of Leon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart and lived in Belgium until the age of 6 when the death of his mother prompted a move to Cairo, so his father could practice international law. In Cairo he learned Arabic while already being proficient in English and French to become tri-lingual at a young age. Growing up in Egypt he spent a great deal of time being ill and bedridden but when he was well he would be found engaging in his first and most lasting love, sport, after he was given a polo pony as a gift. At the age of 11 he was sent to a boarding school in England by his stepmother where he remained, indulging his passion for sport and becoming Captain of Football and Cricket. After this, and on the wishes of his father, he attended Balliol College, Oxford, to study law.

His first attempt at the entrance exam was a failure and he only got through on the second attempt; similarly, his studies at Oxford were not successful and he failed his Law Preliminary.

However, it was at this point that the South African Republic refused to grant voting rights to immigrants, and so sparked the Second Boer War. Carton de Wiart’s love of fighting, which had previously manifested itself in his love of sport, now emerged to its fullest extent and in 1899, at the age of 19, and without notifying his father, Wiart enlisted under the pseudonym Trooper Carton, age 25, to go to South Africa and fight. In fact he enlisted twice: the following day he returned to the recruitment office in disguise to enlist as his friend, who was too shortsighted to pass the medical but who was also determined to fight. Such was his desire to fight he commented later on in his career: “if I couldn’t sign up with the British I may very well have gone to Africa and joined the Boers.”

“He was shot and sustained a bullet wound to the groin, much to his consternation.”

After a few months of dull and tedious (to Wiart’s mind anyway) training in a yeomanry (cavalry) regiment, Wiart and his regiment were placed on a troopship which soon arrived in Cape Town, where, to Wiart’s horror, there was even more training; however the atmosphere was extremely relaxed, and can best be shown in one of his stories, in which he was given the task to fetch some freshly arrived horses from the docks and bring them back to camp, but they were wild and untamed, and Wiart became so sick of them that upon leaving Cape Town he released them into the wild, an event that went unnoticed. Finally the day came when his regiment was sent up to Orange River to fight, but Wiart was in hospital with fever and could not accompany them. On emerging from hospital he joined up with a local corps that was in the area but just a few days later, on trying to cross a river in full view of some Boers, he was shot and sustained a stomach wound and a bullet through the groin, much to his consternation. Thus was his first taste of war but his streak of bad luck continued as, while he was in hospital his true identity was uncovered, his parents (who thought he was still studying in Oxford) were notified, and he was invalided out of the army.

However, his father forgave him and sent him back to Oxford where he was treated, rather undeservedly to his mind, like a hero. Yet still his blood-lust was not yet satisfied and that Christmas he plucked up the courage to ask his father if he might take soldiering on as a permanent career. His father who, realising he could not win, conceded and Wiart at that point, “came to life.” On arriving in South Africa for a second time, Wiart successfully enlisted in the Imperial Light Cavalry, considered one of the best colonial corps at the time, and with the most rigorous and intensive entry tests that only 5% of applicants passed. Soon after this he was promoted to Corporal but it says something about his truculent and quick-tempered personality that the very next day he was demoted for threatening to hit his sergeant over a disagreement. At this point he received a commission in his regiment and set out to fight the Boers. He writes in his autobiography that “weeks were spent without cover of any sort” and that “the rough open life hardened us physically and mentally” but also, and again I think this says a lot about his character, “but somehow we enjoyed it”.

Then in 1902 he was offered a permanent commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the 4th Dragoon Guards and was transferred to India. However while stationed in India, he engaged in remarkably little fighting. Instead he and his regiment spent the majority of their time playing sports. Wiart’s favorites were shooting and pigsticking, a most interesting sport in which one pursues a wild pig while on horseback and endeavors to halt its progress with the business end of a spear. However this was also a rather dangerous sport for the rider, with Wiart sustaining a fractured shoulder on one occasion and cracked ribs and a badly sprained ankle on another. After two years of such delightful employment the regiment was transferred to South Africa where he was asked by Sir Henry Hildyard, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in South Africa, to join his staff as an aide-de-camp, an offer that was quickly accepted. In Sir Hildyard’s service Carton de Wiart accompanied him on expeditions throughout South Africa, switched the sport of pig-sticking to play polo very proficiently, and met a number of the great men of the day, including generals Smuts and Botha, Wiart little knowing at the time he would one day take over a command from General Botha. In 1906, Wiart had to return to England for an operation on an old wound and was given a number of weeks leave to recuperate and being unable to do sport, he travelled to Vienna and lived the high life until he was forced to return to South Africa.

However in 1908 Sir Hildyard was due for retirement and after spending a few months with his old regiment Wiart returned to England and rejoined another old regiment at Brighton where his determination and mania for sport can be shown in not only how his polo team won the inter-regimental cup but in how he broke his leg in the quarter finals but carried on, not wanting to leave a job unfinished. It is important also to note that until 1910 Wiart was not technically a British subject and it was only in 1910 when soldiering in England that he became a fully-fledged citizen. At that time soldiering in England was uneventful and Wiart used the easyto-come-by leave to become better acquainted with the continent, visiting Austria, Hungary, Bavaria and

Bohemia, staying with aristocratic relatives and royalty, meeting a great deal of very prominent individuals of the day and engaging in a great deal of shooting. It was while staying with Prince Colloredo of Bohemia he met Colonel Bob Sandeman of the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, who offered him the position of his adjutancy, which he accepted, knowing the life of a yeomanry adjutant to be an enviable one and that Gloucestershire was the heart of good-hunting in England.

Then in 1914, Wiart’s luck took a serious downturn. In January he received a letter from his father declaring that he had crashed financially in Egypt and could no longer afford to send him an allowance. This meant he could no longer afford to soldier in England and was forced to re-enlist in the Africa Corps. It was upon arriving in Somaliland that he learned that Britain was at war with Germany and he was incredibly disappointed as it meant he was thousands of miles away from the main conflict, engaged in a tiny side-war against the Dervishes and the Mad Mullah. During an assault on a Dervish fort Wiart was shot in the ear and the eye, fortunately a near-by doctor was able to sew up his ear there and then. However, when attempting to assault the fort again he was shot in the same eye forcing him to retire from the fighting as he was practically blind, though he still described the experience as “most exhilarating fun.” Due to the serious nature of his injury he was forced to go to Egypt to seek medical attention where he was told the eye would have to be removed, however he refused to allow it as he knew it would likely prevent him from ever fighting again and so was sent back to England for treatment. But again the verdict was corroborated and so he submitted to having his eye removed. During the operation they found a sharp piece of metal in the eye socket which had been causing him significant pain since the incident around a month beforehand in Somaliland. For recuperation he was sent to King Edward’s Hospital but was not fond of the place and so one day put himself in a taxi which took him to Sir Douglas Shield's Nursing Home at 17 Park Lane. A nursing home he would so often frequent over the next few years because of injuries that he was given the same top-floor bedroom every time and they even reserved a pair of silk pajamas with his initials sewn on especially for him. He then went before the army medical board, requesting permission to go and fight in France, initially and understandably they were very shocked at the request and they argued for some time before the board conceded on the condition he could find a satisfactory glass-eye, so the Germans wouldn’t think they were reduced to sending one-eyed men. However the eye was so uncomfortable that after being passed fit for service by the board he hailed a taxi and during the journey threw the eye into the street and wore an eyepatch ever after. Then, in February 1915 Wiart boarded a steamer and left for France and the Western Front.

“I wish you’d duck when those shells come.”

Wiart joined his regiment, the 4th Dragoon Guards, at Mont des Cats in Flanders as an Infantry Squad Leader and his first experience of the war was the Second Battle of Ypres, where at the beginning of the battle an artillery shell exploded so near to him that he was thrown quite some distance while his second-incommand who had been standing not two feet away, was killed, having just commented to Wiart: “I wish you’d duck when those shells come.” That same night his regiment was ordered to relieve some infantry, however on the way they became lost and marched into German territory where Wiart was shot in the hand and became separated from his regiment and had to return to the barracks in the dark and with a wounded hand. Upon arriving at the barracks he realised that the bullet had taken off a good deal of his hand and wrist, had left two fingers hanging by small bits of skin and blown much of the workings of his wristwatch into his already gory wrist and when a doctor refused to remove his two dangling fingers,

he claims in his autobiography “I pulled them off myself and felt absolutely no pain in doing it.” Then after a stint in a battlefield hospital where he was mostly cared for by another patient whom he would eventually meet again and know as Brigadier-General Alfred Burt, Wiart returned once again to England and 17 Park Lane. While at Park Lane Wiart received the news that his father had died which only added to his depressed state, such that the nursing staff were convinced he would die during his sleep. His state was not improved by the numerous operations on his hand he had to endure and eventually he insisted it be amputated.

However that very afternoon, his run of bad luck finally ended.

It was while eating a post-operation meal that into his room walked his very good friend Tom Bridges who had just taken command of the 19th Division and wished to offer Wiart a job in it. The improvement this had on his health was remarkable, and within three weeks was out of hospital and by March 1916 had passed the medical board and was back with his regiment in France before being made second-in-command of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. At this point he and his regiment were shipped off to Amiens to train for the Somme, and here he had a brief meeting with General Haig, whom he found singularly uninspiring. Just before the Somme Wiart was placed in command of the 8th Gloucesters and inherited from his predecessor a servant named Holmes whom he described as “a delightful scoundrel” and who would go on to save Wiart’s life.

Wiart was a great believer that a commander should lead from the front and together with Holmes they were a great source of inspiration and moral for the men. Wiart had forbidden Holmes from using a rifle after letting it off in his ear one day and Wiart never carried a revolver fearing he might one day lose his temper and use it on one of his own men and so together they would advance across the battlefield, Wiart carrying only his walking stick and Holmes Wiart’s blanket and primus stove with their only offensive action being Wiart occasionally hurling grenades after removing the pins with his teeth. It was like this that Wiart led his battalion during the Somme, to capture La Boisselle, a heavily fortified German position which had already withstood two assaults by allied forces and for which he received the Victoria Cross.

After some richly deserved leave Wiart and his battalion were instructed to take part in an attack on the German position at High Wood and when on his way up to the British line he was narrowly missed by a German artillery shell that left him on his face, severely dazed and with the back of his head in considerably pain. He was then dragged into a shell hole by Holmes who proceeded to dutifully keep Wiart conscious and focused away from the pain by “soliloquizing over the charms of shells versus machine-gun bullets.” When the shelling ceased Holmes managed to get Wiart to a dressing station, unfortunately the doctor there had no way of telling whether Wiart’s skull was damaged or not and so shipped him off back to London and Park Lane. After an examination by a surgeon in London, he (the surgeon) ordered some champagne and informed Wiart that a machine-gun bullet had passed through the back of his head without touching anything vital and that his skull was intact. Thereafter the only lasting effect was a tickle whenever Wiart had a haircut. After three weeks Wiart was back in France where he spent a short stint at Messines before returning to the Somme and upon visiting High Wood (out of curiosity) was able to relocate his lost walking stick but before long gallantly took a shell fragment to the ankle at Grandcourt and was once again returned to England, believing himself to have become an individual target for the Hun. Upon his return to France in December 1916/January 1917 Wiart was given a brigade, the 12th of the 4th Division and is thought to have been the youngest Brigadier-General in the allied armies at the time. After Wiart’s initial tour of his brigade he and his men went into training for the battle of Arras but the day before the battle he had his ear split by a bit of shell. But as in Somaliland he simply had it sewn up and was ready for battle the next day and succeeded in all his objectives with only 200 casualties, relatively few by the standards of the day. I think it really sums up just how brutal and different this war was from present-day wars that 200 casualties in a single engagement is only a “few” and also that officers regularly travelled by car and on foot between posts during artillery barrages against them. After a short interval of no major battles in which Wiart met George V he and his brigade were once again sent off for training ahead of summer 1917 and Passchendaele, during which he led an oddball army of men from various decimated battalions to success against a strong enemy. “only to find he was bleeding profusely from the hip.”

He was then ordered to take his men to the Arras front and divert attention away from Cambrai where British forces where preparing to seize and destroy the German supply point in the town and form a position allowing them to attack the German line to the north on a separate front. However on his way up to the line one day he was caught in the middle of an artillery barrage. He succeeded on making it to the line and it was on his return journey, painfully close to Battalion Headquarters when he thought someone had hit him from behind, only to find he was bleeding profusely from the hip. He was once again taken to hospital where he had to remain for another three months due to the fact that parts of his clothes had been blown into his wound and had turned it septic. It also says something of the both dutiful and scoundrel-like nature of Holmes that upon being told he couldn’t accompany Wiart back to England (not on leave but still as his servant) he suddenly appeared in Wiart’s cabin having snuck on board. And of course after recuperating Wiart was passed fit for active service and returned, yet again, to France.

However true to form he was very quickly injured and almost lost his leg and on his return to England, in a very disgruntled state, he was greeted by a clergymen who told him to cheer up and that he’d had none other than General Carton de Wiart through a few months before who had also lost an eye and arm but who was incredibly cheerful about it. He left quite upset at how the patient suddenly lost interest in the conversation after the comment. It wasn’t until October 1918 that he was finally able to once again return to France, be given command of the 61st Division (which he would command in the next war) and witness the armistice after which his command was switched to the 38th Division.

Such were Wiart’s years of actual front line soldiering and combat, he would later comment “Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.” However it was by no means the end of his career and adventures. After the war he became head of the British military mission to Poland where he would come to know Cardinal Ratti of the diplomatic corps who would go on to become Pope and the Polish Chief of State Jozef Pilsudski very well, and advise the Polish on their five simultaneous wars between 1918 and 1923. After the military mission to Poland ended, Wiart resigned his commission after a difference of opinion with the war office and retired to an estate in Poland gifted to him by a local prince who was a friend. There he would shoot every day (except for the winter months when he would return to England) and between 1924 and 1939 shot over 20,000 birds of many varieties. Then in July 1939 (at the age of 59) he was asked to resume his job as head of the British military mission to Poland and when that ended after Poland was overrun by German and Russian forces he was assigned command of British and French forces in Norway but was forced to pull his army out when the war office ordered an evacuation, having been content to just let Wiart’s army sit there doing nothing more useful than being a statement to the Norwegian government that we were on their side. Then after a brief stint commanding troops in Ireland he was made head of the British military mission to Yugoslavia in 1941 but unfortunately his plane taking him over to Yugoslavia was shot down and Wiart spent until 1943 in an Italian prisoner of war camp save for eight days in which he and a friend escaped from their fortress prison and made a good deal of progress towards the Swiss border despite Wiart’s appearance and his being unable to speak a word of Italian (luckily his friend was fluent).

They were ultimately caught and returned to their prison until 1943 and the Italian surrender. Then for the remainder of 1943 and until 1947 Wiart acted as Winston Churchill’s personal representative to the Nationalist Chinese leader Generalissamo Chiang Kai Shek and would have stayed on after as Shek’s personal advisor except for an accident in which broke his back after falling down some stairs at a friend’s house in Indonesia. After his recovery he went to visit relatives in Belgium and after the death of his wife in 1949 two years later 1951, at the age of 71, he married Joan Sutherland and retired to Aghinagh House, Killinardish, County Cork, Ireland, and the remainder of his days involved fishing for salmon and hunting snipe until his death at the age of 83 of the 5th of June 1963.

Ultimately the reason why I focused on the period of his life in which he was fighting on the front lines is not just because it makes for such a fantastic story, but because I think it best summarises his character and pure determination and is a most valuable lesson to be taken by all who hear. During roughly twenty years of service he was wounded no less than 10 times (not assuming separate injuries at the same time to be one injury) and broke any number of bones playing sport, not counting the likely numerous minor injuries he sustained both on and off the battlefield. Yet it never once stopped him from doing what he loved (fighting).

Every time he was injured he endured his rehabilitation and returned to the fight and this not only proves that he undoubtedly must be counted as one of history’s great men but teaches us that if he can endure all that he did and still ‘soldier on’ then really nothing should stop us, in our day of far superior medicine and technology, from doing whatever it is we love. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Footnote: if you are interested in reading about his life in more detail I highly recommend you read his autobiography: Happy Odyssey, as it is by far one of the most entertaining and inspiring books I have ever read and has a foreword written by Wiart’s good friend Winston Churchill.

The Nature of Opposition in Eastern Europe 1945-1953 Toby Saer By the time Stalin died in March 1953, the Soviet Union had created a huge Communist bloc in Eastern Europe which covered almost every Eastern European country. There was very little open opposition to be seen anywhere in terms of opposition parties or revolutionary movements. However, on the 17 th June 1953, East Germany woke up to the sounds of half a million people in demonstrations against the Soviet system all over the country. These strikes were quickly and ruthlessly crushed by Soviet tanks, but it was a scare for the Soviet leaders, for whom open opposition was a rarity by that point. So the question must be asked: how effectively did Communist parties and regimes deal with opposition during the establishment of their governments?

When it came to setting up the Communist states, it cannot be denied that the Communist parties did a very good job of eliminating the opposition parties. The Second World War had left Eastern Europe destroyed, particularly Germany and Poland, so when the Red Army liberated the countries, they were not seen as unwelcome, at least to start with. Free elections were promised in most countries, and the Communists thought they would get a large majority. Mátyás Rákosi, leader of the Hungarian Communist Party, reported to Moscow that he expected a majority of over 70% in Hungary, which was introducing universal suffrage for the first time. While other Soviet leaders did regard this as being optimistic, they were not prepared for the actual result. On election night in October 1945, Rákosi was shocked when he heard that the Communist Party only received 17% of the vote, placing it 3rd overall, while the Smallholders Party received a majority of 57%. These sorts of results were common throughout countries which kept their promise to hold free elections (of which there were not many). In Poland, a referendum was held as a delaying tactic, to which the correct Communist answer was “Yes” to all three questions. On the night of the referendum, however, it turned out that three quarters of the population voted “No” to at least one question, even after an extensive Communist propaganda campaign.

In most places, therefore, the Communist party had to use repressive tactics in order to win control of countries. Hungary’s Smallholder Party was removed as a serious force of opposition by the use of “salami tactics”: gradually whittling away the party piece by piece. After Smallholders’ General Secretary, Béla Kovács, was arrested on faked charges, the party’s leaders left the country one by one, meaning that the Communists could take control easily after the rigged election in 1947. While Yugoslavia was an exception to the rest of Eastern Europe because the Soviet Union had very little influence (the country having been liberated by Tito’s National Liberation Army instead of the Red Army), the measures it used were the same.

The King of Yugoslavia was deposed and the Communists were the only party on the ballot and hence won all the seats reasonably peacefully. The most violence was used in Poland, where the Polish Peasants’ Party (PSL) had a very strong following, being the only opposition party to the Communists. In the time between the referendum and the election, the entire PSL party leadership in Krakow was arrested and the party

headquarters in Warsaw was searched and sacked. Measures like striking PSL candidates from the ballot and having soldiers in every polling station were used. In the end, 80% of the votes were for the “democratic bloc”, the Communists and parties forced into coalition with them, a surprisingly small amount considering the circumstances. The PSL remained as a shadow party but was removed as a force for opposition. In East Germany, power was gained by forcing the Social Democratic Party, a party with a long heritage in Germany, into coalition with the Communists. The Christian Democratic Party was dismantled with arrests and repression, meaning that when elections came, the Communists could take power.

So the Communists took political power in Eastern Europe through means of repression and propaganda. While they were not the only political party, since there were some puppet parties which they controlled, they had total control.

Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, the Berlin city councillor, said that East Germany was “Not a one-party state, but, on the other hand, no room for any other parties”. Anne Applebaum, a historian, agrees, commenting that “By the end of 1948, politics had not come to an end in the People’s Democracies. But politics had become something which happened not between parties but within a single party. And so it would remain.”

However, what they then had to deal with were non-party opposition groups, the most significant of which was the Church. Having been the largest centre for resistance during the war, the Church was a very powerful organisation in 1945. But from the very start of the Soviet occupation during the war, it had been under attack.

Catholic priests had been sent to prison camps and Soviet authorities had gone out of their way to ban religious youth camps. The reason the Soviet leaders felt so threatened by the Church was because of the moral and spiritual authority the Church held over the people. However after the war ended, the Communists made a point of not persecuting the Church, allowing it to broadcast sermons over the radio in Germany. This was in order to distinguish the new order from the Nazi government. Similar things were happening in Poland, where the church was allowed to reopen the Catholic University of Lublin and start to publish “Universal weekly”, the intellectual Catholic weekly magazine. In Hungary, while the Church was never openly attacked, priests were portrayed in the media as corrupt reactionaries.

However, the Communists eventually got fed up with the Church and the influence it held and began to persecute it in earnest, moving from a position of being ignorant but tolerant to being actively hostile. Antichurch propaganda was stepped up, Church symbols were banned and meetings were disrupted. In schools in East Germany, “tribunals” were held: large-scale public events to investigate children suspected of having religious leanings, leading to between 300 and 3000 children being expelled for refusing to renounce religion, and far more from universities. Similar things were happening in Hungary: Church schools were being

nationalised and monasteries were shut down. In Poland the change in policy coincided with the death of the Polish Primate, and many closures and arrests followed swiftly. The most significant attack on the church, however, came in the form of an attack on Caritas, the Polish Catholic charity, which controlled 4500 orphanages, ran 241 soup kitchens and distributed foreign aid. Its nationalisation in 1950 sparked an outcry among priests, who were arrested and fined if they protested. 1000 priests were imprisoned in Poland by 1953.

After this, the Church split into two main factions: those who collaborated and those who resisted. This division is most clearly represented in the different approaches of the Polish and Hungarian Primates: Cardinal Wyszynski and Cardinal Mindszenty. Both men were strongly persecuted by the government, but Mindszenty was more political and more openly anti-Communist. After Christmas 1948, he was arrested, interrogated and tortured. He was put through a public show trial, during which he was forced to confess to a series of ridiculous crimes, including plotting to steal the Hungarian crown jewels. He remained in prison until 1956.

Wyszyński, on the other hand, was more cooperative with the Polish government; he tried to avoid open conflict as far as possible. He signed the “agreement of mutual understanding” between the Church and the state, a decision which bought him some extra time, kept some priests out of prison and allowed some church institutions open, but it was frowned upon by many priests, and he himself appeared to regret it later. His approach certainly lacked the clarity of Mindszenty’s, and many Polish people remained confused as to the Church’s attitude towards Communism.

Eventually, however, Wyszyński too was arrested and priests were forced to make the choice between collaborating and resisting. Some priests were forced to become informers for the Communist regime. Having stripped power from the Church, they wished to turn what was left into a useful resource for them. However, despite the opposition being neutralised, the priests who were “patriotic” were not much help as they were gradually alienated from the Church, making their function as a propaganda tool far less useful.

The Church was effectively removed as a powerful institution in Eastern Europe by 1953, which was very useful for the Communist regimes. The harsh methods they used to shut down open opposition kept that in check too. Stalin became more paranoid in the last years of his life, leading to many arbitrary arrests and imprisonments. In Hungary, 750,000 people of a population of 10 million were investigated and 150,000 were sent to prison or to camps. The policy of simply scaring opponents was finished. Public show trials and harsher prisons were introduced as well as more media ridicule and extensive propaganda. The secret police services became very active during this period. About the UB, the Polish security service, Adam Zamoyski poetically remarks that “It thrust its tentacles into every corner and crevice, gradually spreading fear throughout society as it became clear that there was no such thing as an innocent person.” These measures meant that there was very little open opposition. It would have appeared to the tourist that everyone was in full support of the regime. In fact, the wife of a Labour MP on returning from Warsaw in 1950 reported that there were “no signs of dictatorship” in Poland. This shows just how good the Communists were at repressing visible opposition, at least initially.

However, this was by no means the only form of opposition, and there were many people who were against the regime, but did not display it openly for everyone to see. Perhaps a more damaging form of opposition can be seen in examining culture in the Eastern European states in order to determine the general feeling of the population.

Many people were ashamed of the things they had to do to keep jobs and the hypocrisy they had to maintain.

They were unable to resist openly, so they were involved in activities behind the back of the party. One of these passive methods of opposition was in the clothes people wore. These were often deliberately chosen to contrast with Communist uniforms. For example brightly coloured shirts with wide ties in clashing colours were very popular. Girls favoured wide skirts in loud colours and patterns. Certain clothes were associated with “subversive” music as well, particularly jazz. Listening to jazz on the radio was politicised after it was banned, so just tuning into a jazz station was a dissident activity, and remained so until the regimes collapsed.

The reverse can also be seen, not just an embracing of music and styles which were banned by the regime, but a rejection of the culture imposed by the regime. At the German Academy of Art, leading musicologists

came together to discuss what dance music should be. In 1952 the Culture Ministry launched a competition with prizes to be awarded to composers of “New German dance music”. It failed completely and the population laughed at the official dance music suggested.

While dressing up in rebellious clothes or listening to banned music was primarily an affair of the young under Communist regimes, the preferred form of subversion for adults was jokes. Vladimir Bukovskii, a campaigner against the Soviet Union, particularly against their use of psychiatry, pointed out the jokes’ main purpose when he said “The simplification of the joke exposes the absurdity of all propaganda tricks… In the jokes you can find the thing that has left no trace in the printed sources: the people’s opinion of events.” For example, jokes made fun of the fact that even art was controlled under Communism: What is the difference between painters of the naturalist, impressionist and the socialist realist schools?

The naturalists paint as they see, the impressionists as they feel, the socialist realists as they are told.

It is clear, then, that the Communists failed in making every member of the population into that new species which Aleksandr Zinoydev called Homo sovieticus: Soviet man. The idea was that Homo sovieticus would not only never oppose Communism, but would never be able to conceive of opposing it. This perfect model was not achieved in any large section of any population in Eastern Europe, and this was what caused the most problems for the Communist regimes later.

While the Communist regimes managed to take care of all official opposition in the form of political parties and the Church, this was simply sweeping problems under the carpet, which would come back to bite them later. This was evident in the strikes and demonstrations which followed the death of Stalin and also in the events of the 1980s. 10 million Poles joined the Solidarity trade union, the first not to be controlled by the Communist Party, within a year. This shows the eagerness of the people to have something which was not Communist. This was reflected in other Eastern European countries. In this way it can be seen that the Communist failure to effectively deal with opposition in the form of simply not being Communist was what eventually led to the collapse of the regimes in the final decades of the 20th century. Homo sovieticus was never achieved on any large scale, and so however effectively the Communist government dealt with political opposition, a full, stable, lasting Communist society was impossible.

How democratic was Athens’ political system from 461BC to 431BC? Iona Todd Today we see Ancient Athens as the “cradle of democracy”, the origins of our own system of government and a beacon of civilisation in the war and chaos that was Ancient Greece. But how much of this is true? Does Athens really even deserve to be called a democracy?

First it helps to define our terms. The word democracy comes, unsurprisingly enough, from the Greek. It is made up of two terms: δεμος, meaning people, and κρατος, meaning power, therefore is literally power to the people. Democracy however has had many definitions throughout history and it has proved incredibly hard to sum up such a complex set of ideals in a few short sentences. Paul Woodruff believes it requires: freedom from tyranny, harmony, rule of the law, natural equality, citizen wisdom, reasoning without knowledge and general education. This is a highly idealistic definition and actually excludes our own system of government as majority rule is simply rule by and for the majority. Conversely, the Oxford Dictionary distils democracy to its simplest and most pragmatic characteristics: a system of government by the whole population or all members of a state. For the purpose of this article and having taken into account each of these definitions I will be using a definition that seems closest to what we today understand the word to mean: A system of government in which a majority of the people make the state’s decisions.

It is also important to note that the period of time I will be exploring was known as the Radical Democracy. It is from when Pericles came to power and shifted the balance of power away from an elite few and towards the people to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War when it becomes difficult to analyse the everyday workings of the Athenian system of government.

The εκκλεσια or the Assembly was the driving force behind Athenian democracy and it must have been a sight to behold. It met ten times a year, once every state-month and on average three to six thousand citizens over the age of twenty would gather beneath the Pnyx to discuss the political issues of the day. The Assembly could last from dawn until dusk and in the heat of the day tensions ran consistently high. Mob psychology meant quick and powerful changes of mind, with small but loud groups of individuals influencing the rest of the citizens, there was shouting, screaming and crowd raising rhetoric as hundreds of men tried to make their opinions known. The average Assembly started with a herald announcing any items on the agenda to be solved or discussed and then the debate would begin. Any man could speak so long as his lungs were sufficiently powerful and people were willing to listen. After all opinions had been aired a vote would be taken and counted by a show of hands. It was also possible for citizens to suggest their own policies however, in order to prevent men mocking the system by creating absurd notions, a truly terrifying penalty was attached to he who put forward an unsuccessful motion. Any man who suggested a law that was not passed was put to death.

The Assembly was very powerful when it came to running the state. It had four main duties: electing the few officials who came to power through elections, creating legislation, making executive decisions such as going to war or gifting citizenship onto a foreigner and trying political crimes. There seemed to have been very few safeguards to prevent the Assembly itself breaking any laws. When laws were broken it was assumed to be the fault of he who had proposed the action, not the Assembly which had decided to act. Obviously the Assembly had been misled. In this way every citizen could have a considerable individual influence on the state however, as with most Ancient gatherings, there were some limits on attendance. Many citizens were limited simply be geography as they lived so far away that the risk in leaving their land for so long was greater than the satisfaction of participating in the Assembly. Men in military service were also prevented from exercising their rights and as were those without the charisma and powerful voice necessary to influence the crowd. That said, the Athenian Assembly gave far more individual power to the citizen than the Representative Democracy we have in Britain today. Furthermore, this constant participation in affairs of the state also had the advantage of ensuring a high level of understanding of the political system among the citizens.

Another major component of the Athenian political system was the βουλη or Council of Five Hundred. This, as the name suggests, was a council of five hundred men with a far less exciting job then those partaking in the Assembly. The Council was responsible for most of the state’s administration but had far less room for taking the initiative or making its own policies than the Assembly. It was essentially an administrative body charged with the day-to-day running of the state and was in charge of implementing the policies of the Assembly. It is also in the Council that we can see the Athenian paranoia of anyone becoming too powerful, the Council went to enormous lengths to keep amateurs in government. Some would even say that the permanently amateur Council contributed to many of the city’s later problems.

As it was, the Council consisted of fifty men form each of the ten ‘tribes’ of the city therefore all areas of the city were represented and no one area sent a disproportionately large number of An artist’s interpretation councillors. These men had to be Athenian citizens and be over the age of thirty, they were also chosen by lot and could serve of the Assembly. no more than one year in their position. The lot was a vital element in limiting the advantages of social prominence and wealth as no matter how much money you had you could not manipulate chance. Moreover the introduction of a wage for public servants played a key part in moving Athens from its previous democratic state to its new radically democratic state. The wage was likely three obols, this was hardly extravagant but ensured that poverty did not prevent a man from taking part in governmental affairs.

Another stellar examples of to what an extent the power rested in the hands of the people was the incredibly small number of officials who did not come into office based purely by lottery. The officials of the state system to be elected were high ranking military officials. Even the Athenians with their paralysing fear of any one man gaining too much power were unwilling to compromise on the safety of their state under any circumstances. Understandably so as Athens was at war for three years out of every four. As such ten στρατεγοι, one from each of the city’s tribes, were elected by the Assembly. These men, unlike the Councillors, could hold office for as long and as often as they were voted in therefore the role was one of the few that allowed for an individual to gain influence over politics. However being στρατεγος for any length of time could have seriously dangerous consequences, when he spoke in the Assembly he would be listened to but if his policies were unsuccessful he could face any number of punishments, from a fine to a death sentence. Again, the requirements for standing for such a prestigious position were not based on wealth or family-name, but on whether a candidate was a citizen of good standing – he paid his taxes, had performed military service and looked after his parents – and was over the age of thirty. Having looked at only these positions one could say that Athens was no more democratic than we are now as the majority of the power rested with elected representatives, like our government today. While this is a point to consider it is worth pointing out that Athens had an almost excessively large number of officials who came into office through the lot. In fact Athens had around 700 domestic officials and a further 700 officials for affairs outside of Attica. Looking at these figures we can reliably calculate that roughly 5% of citizens would be in office at any given time. This figure is far higher than the one we have today and shows once again how much political influence rested purely in the hands of the citizens.

On the other hand though, the Athenian version of democracy had several key differences to ours that I personally find very hard to link to our modern ideas of democracy. To begin with, the Areopagus, a council made up of only elected citizens from the top two property groups who once elected became life members,

was a very conservative organisation. It had once governed the whole of Athens as an oligarchy however by the time in 461 it had lost many of its chief powers. That said, the leader of the court still gave his name to the tenth state month, for example while what we no call 402/402 was referred to as ‘the Arkhonship of Eukeides’ and the group still retained its function as a court, trying men for deliberate homicide, arson and sacrilege. Some say that the very existence of this oligarchic court made up of men who were decidedly not ‘the people’ (as they were among the richest of the city) shows that Athens was not in fact as democratic as we see it as today. Personally I don’t agree with this interpretation as the Areopagus had very little power in political affairs so were forced to abide by the decision of the Assembly, decision made by citizens.

What I see as the great obstacle preventing Athens from being considered democratic was its criteria for citizenship. For the Athenians citizenship was everything and far more real to them than it is to us. Losing one’s citizenship was the greatest disgrace an Athenian could face. An Athenian citizen was: male, over eighteen and Athenian parentage on both sides. If you were a woman you were not a citizen, not even if your father was Chief Arkhon and your mother could trace her bloodline back to the formation of Athens. If you had an Athenian citizen father but your mother was from another state you were not a citizen. If you lived in Attica for your entire life but had been born outside it, you were not a citizen. If you were a slave you were without legally enforceable rights of any kind. It was incredibly unusual for a non-citizen to become a citizen, citizenship was occasionally granted but only as a reward for some extraordinary service to democracy. It would then have to be voted on by the notoriously fickle Assembly so you would need a charismatic speaker to back your case. Looking at rough facts for the year 431 we can see that only a small proportion of the Athenian population were citizens. With about 50,000 adult male citizens but a population of 325,000 that makes 15% of the population citizens. Personally, I do not see that as rule of the people, I see that as just another form of minority rule so Athens was not, to my mind, a democracy.

In conclusion, the Athenian political system was very democratic. All citizens had the right to speak in the main governing body, the Assembly, and all had the chance to serve as a Councillor on the Council of Five Hundred. It was also almost certain that a citizen would at some point in his life hold a paid office of the state.

On the other hand, having the right to speak is not the same as having the chance, if a citizen was doing military service, lived too far from the Pnyx or simply found having his opinions heard in a loud crowd difficult he would be unable to exercise his rights. Furthermore only 15% of the population met the criteria for being a citizen. As such, although Athens is technically a democracy, power was in the hands of the citizens, it does not meet my more idealistic interpretation, power in the hands of the people, as in this case citizenship was only available to a minority of the people.

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Did the Easter Rising totally fail?

Edward Connolly The Easter Rising that took place in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 is regarded as a military failure as Irish insurgents were not able to hold the strategic positions they briefly raided and Irish casualties and arrests were high. However there is another view to the Easter Rising being a success or not; the aftermath to the Rising and the reaction to the rising by the British authorities outraged the population of Ireland and contributed to the radicalisation of the Irish population and can be viewed as the catalyst to change in Ireland, subsequently viewed as successful.

The rising that was initiated by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, later forming the IRA, was designed to end British rule over Ireland and establish a Republic of Ireland that had been previously attempted by Wolfe Tone and Daniel O’Connell in the previous century. The IRB saw 1916 as their opportunity to mount another attempt to free Ireland from British rule whilst Britain were engaged in World War 1. The uprising was initially a success as the British were caught completely unaware and the insurgents were able to take over key buildings including the General Post Office, where James Connolly set up his headquarters and by nightfall most key buildings were in the control of the rebels. After occupying the post office, the rebels raised two Republican flags and a proclamation of the Republic of Ireland was announced. The insurgents achieved their goal of holding their positions for the minimum time required to justify a claim to independence under international criteria. Therefore it can be argued that the first day of the Easter Rising was a success for the Irish Republicans as the British military were caught totally unprepared by the rebellion and their response of the first day was uncoordinated.

However the rebels failed to capture Trinity College and Dublin castle that acted as a base for the British rule in Ireland and once the British were able to reorganize and gather reinforcements they were quickly able to reclaim lost positions, including the GPO as the insurgents were forced to flee after the British launched an artillery attack onto the post office. With the new British reinforcements in the city the British troops and armed police heavily outnumbered rebel soldiers. This was a failure to the rebels as they had no option but to flee the city and then later Patrick Pearse accepted the British terms of unconditional surrender on behalf of all the rebel forces. Therefore it has to be said that militarily the Easter Rising was a failure.

The British authorities reacted strongly as Martial Law had been proclaimed in Dublin and extended throughout Ireland.

General Maxwell, the British commander in Chief, was ordering wholesale arrests accompanied by executions.

In total 3000 Irish men and women were arrested, the majorities were confined to England or Wales and 160 were imprisoned. 90 of the 160 prisoners were executed including the leader, James Connolly, who was so badly wounded he wasn’t able to stand for his execution as he was shot whilst lying on a stretcher. Fortuitously for Ireland, Michael Collins, the future IRA leader missed being including in the first round of executions. Michael Collins escaping execution is vital as soon after he was let

free he was already creating plans for the next time Ireland could create an uprising to end their ties with Britain.

The Easter Rising initially was not a success as the rising was hoped to spark a nationwide rising against British rule, however this was not achieved. Public reaction to the Dublin uprising was generally hostile and the Catholic Church in Ireland condemned the rebels. This shows that initially the uprising was a failure as the Irish population was not prepared to agitate against British rule and they were content at the time. The only significant action elsewhere was at Ashbourne, 10 miles North of Dublin. Even in Dublin many Dubliners at the time felt that the rebels were traitors, as they were stabbing Britain in the back when so many Irish men were volunteering to fight alongside the British in World War 1.

The rebels in Ireland also failed to receive any outside help as the Royal Navy intercepted a German ship that was carrying arms and supplies to support the cause at sea.

A British Postcard carrying a scene from the Rising

After the failure of the rising public opinion soon changed after the brutal treatment of prisoners and the harsh response from the British authorities. The reaction aroused horror and resentment amongst all classes in Southern Ireland. Rebels were given ‘moral credence’ which is an excuse the Republicans used to fight British rule in their country as the bad treatment to prisoners gave their actions a moral authority over the government that punished them. The deaths of the Rising leaders also inspired others to take up the cause known as blood sacrifice. Irish Nationalists were able to ignore the fact that the Rising had militarily been a failure as they were given the opportunity to highlight the mistreatment of the Irish prisoners to ignite public agitation across Ireland, which was absent before the Easter Rising. The Easter Rising may have failed as a battle, but in the longer war against the British, the Rising hardened anti British sentiments.

The aftermath to the Easter rebellion can be viewed as the most historic time period in Irish history as it led to political instability in the country, resulting in civil war ending with the settlement we have in place today.

Soon after the rebellion it was obvious Irish opinions were changing towards British rule. Asquith the British Prime Minister at the time concluded that a new effort must be made to secure Irish settlement immediately.

Lloyd George proposed a Home Rule solution to both Redmond and Carson, being Ireland would have their own government but would still be under British rule. This was based on the exclusion of the six-protestant counties of Ulster and Lloyd George covertly managed to get both sides to accept as Redmond who was a Nationalist was led to believe that the exclusion was temporary, while Carson who was a Unionist thought that the exclusion of the six counties would be permanent. The fact that Redmond was willing to accept this caused outrage in Ireland as he was in the centre of public condemnation and he was no longer recognised by important sections of Irish opinion, and his party declined. This led to the rise of Sinn Fein who were remodeled as a Revolutionary Party after the Easter Rising and now were starting to become a dominant force in Irish nationalism. Before 1916 Sinn Fein had little influence in Irish politics and they had an anti-war stance

but after 1916 their prestige and influence increased at the expense of the Irish Parliamentary Party led by Redmond. All this would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the Easter Rebellion of 1916 as it was the catalyst to changing public opinion, therefore in the long run it can be regarded as a success. Sinn Fein were even seen as taking credit for the Easter Uprising as the IRB turned into the IRA who were connected to Sinn Fein as they were the military side to the party. The popularity of Sinn Fein continued to increase due to the continuation of Martial Law and imprisonment’s, in particularly to Arthur Griffin who was the founder of Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein were now committed to the establishment of a new Irish Republic and they announced the Easter Monday Proclamation.

In 1917 Sinn Fein won 2 by elections in safe Redmond seats, which is evidence for the shift of opinion in Irish politics. The growth of Sinn Fein lead to de Valera being elected as the Sinn Fein MP for East Clare and he later became the successor to Arthur Griffin in 1917. De Valera was the head of the Irish Volunteers who had formed with the IRB into the IRA and he was now in charge of Sinn Fein.

In the 1918 election Sinn Fein more or less destroyed the Irish Parliamentary Party by winning 73 seats against only 6. In 1919 Sinn Fein set up the First Dail which was the first meeting of parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. Here Sinn Fein refused to recognise the United Kingdom and any ties they had with Ireland.

The Dail issued a declaration of independence and it demanded complete withdrawal of all British personnel out of Ireland and they were to set up a provisional government under De Valera. The Dail had support of the IRA who was led by the leadership of Michael Collins who had fought in the Easter Rising. This can be seen as a follow on from the Easter Rising proving it was a success in the long run.

Sinn Fein began to demand more and more as they were no longer open to the agreement of Home Rule as they now pursued a full Republic of Ireland. This was dangerous and it led to further violence. The civil war that began in 1919 escalated in 1920 as IRA attacks intensified. The most brutal part of the war was ‘Bloody Sunday’ when the Dublin football team was scheduled to play Tipperary in Croke Park. The night before Michael Collins sent men to kill the ‘Cairo Gang’ who were a team of undercover British agents working in Dublin and 14 British members died. 10 minutes into the game on Sunday 21st November 1920 Croke Park was raided by British forces (the Black & Tans) who opened fire immediately without direction at the crowd.

14 people were killed including a player of the Tipperary team where today a stand is named after him.

In 1921 the Anglo Irish Treaty was agreed and in 1922 Ireland formed the free Irish state, which was approved by the Irish Dail and accepted by the British government. Northern Ireland opted out of joining the free new state of the Republic Of Ireland. In 1949 the Republic of Ireland became a fully independent Republic and no longer had any attachment to Britain.

After the treaty there was a split between De Valera and Michael Collins as de Valera felt betrayed as Michael Collins had accepted the offer from Britain for the 26 counties as opposed to the 32 counties Republic of Ireland. A meeting of Sinn Fein was held in 1926 to discuss the future of the party. As no agreement was made Eamon de Valera resigned and created the Fianna Fail. This created disharmony between the followers of De Valera who now formed the Fianna Fail and Michael Collins forming the Fianna Gail party. This created the separate parties in Republic of Ireland. It can be seen that the Easter Rising didn’t fail in breaking ties with Britain, however it was not successful in uniting Ireland together into a stable climate.

If it wasn’t for the Easter Rising in 1916 Ireland could still today be a part of Britain just like Northern Ireland is today. Therefore in the long run the Easter Rising can be viewed as a success as it brought independence to Ireland. However initially as already explained the rebellion was not initially a success and success was only brought about by the harsh reactions by the British authorities that changed public opinion towards the British. The Easter Rising was the beginning of a long and bloody struggle for independence in Ireland that even today isn’t completely settled as in Northern Ireland there are still disturbances between the Catholic Republicans and the Protestant Unionists where both communities have to be separated by huge fencing that is guarded by Police to prevent trouble. The Ireland question was not fully answered by the Easter Rising as initially intended therefore it can’t be seen as a whole success but it did lead to a lot of change for Ireland.

To what extent was Gorbachev responsible for the fall of the USSR? Rory Creedon On 25th December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Some greeted the news with elation, whilst others were not so joyous. But were the reforms of Gorbachev the most important reason for this collapse of communism? Some argue that glasnost and perestroika were perhaps overly optimistic or poorly implemented and they were aggravated by policy failures such as the handling of the Chernobyl disaster. This view is opposed by others, who believe that the fall of the USSR was inevitable before Gorbachev came into power. The economic problems of socialism such as the lack of incentives combined with an identity crisis in the USSR were both very important factors in the fall of the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev was a communist. He had no intention of bringing about the collapse of the USSR, but felt that moderate reform was necessary for it to survive. This came about with his two key policies glasnost and perestroika. Glasnost means ‘openness’, and what started out as extending the rights of the Soviet peoples turned into freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Whilst this policy gained Gorbachev lots of international humanitarian acclaim, the policy had many negative side effects on the USSR. An example of this is the political unrest it incited when citizens found out about living standards in the west. Soviet citizens had been fed anticapitalist propaganda about obscene levels of inequality and they were extremely surprised to find out of the relative harshness that they lived in.

Similarly, glasnost eventually allowed freedom of the press and freedom of speech so anti-USSR propaganda could flourish and opposition to the Soviet government grew at a time of economic stagnation – when political unrest is historically at a high (also because of Afghanistan war and Chernobyl disaster). Furthermore, the policy received heavy opposition from the nomenklatura – the governing elite of the Soviet Union; a reason for this is the scatological amounts of corruption amongst these senior officials who feared a loss of power resulting from reform. These two examples give an insight into how glasnost may not have been beneficial for the USSR. As well as challenging the principles of glasnost, Gorbachev’s implementation of glasnost can also be criticised. When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, the Soviet economy was very weak and had huge financial commitments to the arms race and the Afghanistan war. It could be said that perhaps Gorbachev’s focus should have been on ensuring an economic recovery before attempting any political reform. This is because there is a pattern of political

unrest occurring in times of economic downturns, and this was the case with high profile opposition from figures such as Boris Yeltsin. However, it can be argued that an economic recovery would have been very difficult and time consuming as Gorbachev faced long-rooted issues resulting from the existence of a planned economy, so it would have been unrealistic to wait for the economy to recover before pursuing political reform.

Gorbachev did try to restore the fortunes of the economy – and recognized that it could not flourish under the limitations of a centrally planned system. He therefore introduced perestroika which meant market forces were brought into the economy. Gorbachev aimed to use a limited amount of private enterprise to stimulate the economy and make the USSR competitive again. A reason for this was the problem of a lack of incentives amongst Soviet citizens as they all knew that they would be rewarded with housing, health care and education regardless of the amount of effort they put into their work. This contributed to the lack of economic growth in the 1970’s and 80’s, as well as the problems that can occur from a planned economy as described in Austrian economist Frederick Hayek’s knowledge problem. The result of perestroika was not as planned. He intended that private enterprises would complement the planned economy; instead they took advantage of government shortages and enjoyed supernormal profits by pushing up prices. Essential food supplies ran low, and there were fears that they may not reach the major cities in 1990. This failure to stimulate the economy added to the political unrest that drove member states to leave the USSR. However, many ask the question of what else could Gorbachev have done? The neoclassical idea of the free market had disastrous effects when Yeltsin tried to introduce it – bringing about hyperinflation and many oligarchies, so perhaps the efforts of Gorbachev would never been able to recover the economy and save the USSR. Many feel that the structure of the command economy meant that the collapse of the USSR was in fact inevitable. During the 1970’s and 80’s, the Soviet economy had slowed down in growth and many feel this was because the economy had finally recovered from two world wars and a civil war. The command economy was not as efficient as the capitalist system used by the USA. The command economy was controlled by central planners who were responsible for the allocation of resources throughout the entire Soviet economy. However, this leads to problems such as the planners having a lack of knowledge held collectively by all the consumers and producers in the economy (Hayek’s knowledge problem) as well as the possibility of planners being corruption (possible with the inordinate level of corruption in the nomenklatura). This statement is supported by Soviet economist Nikolai Felorenko who said that it would take 30,000 years for a correct plan to be calculated .This is not to say that there was a misallocation of resources and market failure in the capitalist system, but they were not as large, bearing resemblance to Winston Churchill’s famous quote

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. With regards to the aforementioned incentive problem, the Soviet thinking of the time was that workers would be motivated by a desire to serve the community, yet realistically the profit motive is very difficult to remove. This is backed up by psychologist Steven Pinker saying that many socialist attempts lasted an average of two years before breaking up – perhaps due to the rational interests of humans to maximise profit, not social wellbeing. This assumption is a symbol of how socialism was perhaps an optimistic concept that was not very economically efficient. This was a very important factor as it was a long-term cause of the USSR’s economic woes.

The Cold War cost the USSR financially. Soviet spending became hugely inefficient, with inordinate sums of money going to efforts such as the space race and nuclear arms. Military spending was reported to being around 15-17% of GNP in the 1980’s – a huge figure considering that the UK’s current military spending is closer to the 2% mark. The extremely aggressive foreign policy that the USSR and perhaps unnecessary arms race it embarked upon was simply too expensive. The Soviet budget was not large enough to spend this amount of money on the military whilst maintaining living standards at home. In defence of Gorbachev, he quickly reintroduced détente and ended the arms race with Ronald Reagan, who had previously described the USSR as the ‘evil empire’.

When glasnost was introduced, the Soviet peoples became aware of their inferior living standards in comparison to the West. Aggravated by the fact they had been fed propaganda telling them otherwise, this led to political instability and the succession of many states, so was a major cause in the collapse of the USSR. The military spending also damaged the Soviet economy (over a long period of time) to a point that Gorbachev’s perestroika could not restore the economy’s fortunes.

The Soviet-Afghan War has been known as the ‘USSR’s Vietnam’ because it affected both public finances and public opinion. The USSR entered Afghanistan assuming that they would be able to suppress the rebels just like they had done to opposition inside the USSR. However, their attempt was not as successful as presumed, and the USSR found themselves dragged into a

quagmire that lasted nine years. The result only worsened their economic woes but the crucial factor was that opposition to the Soviet administration no longer believed that the USSR would crush them regardless of their efforts.

Historians Reuveny and Prakash wrote, “Prior to the Afghanistan war, pro-secession leaders in the non-Russian Soviet republics perceived the Soviet leadership as having the will and the ability to employ the military to crush them. The Afghanistan war changed this perception. Since both the will and the ability of the leadership were under a cloud, non-Russian movements were emboldened to openly preach secession”. Many will argue that news of the Soviet failure would not have been as widespread and calls for succession would not have been as apparent if it were not for glasnost. Gorbachev’s policy meant that the nonRussian Soviet peoples had the freedom of speech to openly express their discontent with Soviet rule.

This meant that simultaneous calls for countries to leave the USSR emerged – and when they eventually did this crippled the USSR to the point of collapse. Furthermore, the transparency that came with glasnost meant that the Soviet peoples were more aware of the situation in Afghanistan than they would have been under Brezhnev, so the calls for succession were increased. This point could be countered by saying that despotic control of the media would have been unsustainable in the long term for the USSR (like that of North Korea) – and may have even led to a civil war similar to the one that created the Soviet Union.

The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 was the worst nuclear accident in history. Although only 31 people died initially, it caused the deaths of over 500,000 workers cleaning up and resulted in a total death toll of almost a million. Gorbachev himself said that it “was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union”. Bearing many similarities to the effects of the Afghanistan War, it also affected both public finance and opinion – but it hurt the Soviet economy more than the Afghanistan quagmire. The USSR had to spend a total of 18 billion rubles: a figure that caused the Soviet economy a monumental amount of trouble.

The extent of this is shown by Belarus spending 22% of it national budget on Chernobyl in 1991, five years after the incident and still 6% in 2002, sixteen years later. Moreover, the disaster meant that approximately 800,000 hectares of agricultural land and 700,000 hectares of forest were not able to be capitalized upon for

production. The cost of the disaster also adverse effects politically. In an attempt to crack down on nomenklatura who had concealed information about the size of the disaster, Gorbachev expanded glasnost which affected the political climate similarly to the Afghanistan War. Political unrest developed as a lack of trust in Soviet government, which led to the ability of citizens to mistrust their government in other areas (such as Afghanistan) and the fall of the USSR. In conclusion, there were several long term causes in the fall of the USSR which were aggravated by Gorbachev’s reforms, especially glasnost. The

inefficiency of the command economy, contributing to Soviet financial and economic woes meant that a collapse was inevitable. Events like the Afghanistan War and the Chernobyl disaster, like glasnost, were catalysts in the fall of the USSR. Even without them, over time the unsustainable Soviet system would have fallen.

Boris Yeltsin’s aforementioned free market failure is a good example of how the Soviet economy was not growing with a planned economy, limited market forces or a fully free market and recovery would not have happened quickly enough to save the USSR regardless of Gorbachev’s actions which only sped the process up.

Why did the North win the American Civil War? Los Holmes There are several key factors that contributed to the Northern victory, including simply the numerical advantage, the industrial advantage, the failure of the King Cotton diplomacy, the general failings of their Southern rivals, and the re-election of Abraham Lincoln. Many would argue that the Civil War was a simple war; the North had significantly more troops and dominated industrially, and therefore the outcome of the civil war was inevitable. However, to the surprise of many historians, the South came close to winning the war. Therefore it is important to look at other key facts and events to decide how the North managed to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

The first considerable advantage for the North was that they simply had more resources and more troops, as stated by General Robert E.Lee when he mentioned that the Army of Northern Virginia had been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. There were 22 million people in the North compared with only 9 million in the South (of whom only 5.5 million were whites), which meant that the North was simply outnumbered. The North had almost 4 times as many free citizens as the South, and by extension a larger armed force, as well as more workers in manufacturing, meaning they had the advantage both militarily and industrially.

As a result of this the North benefited from a significantly larger pool of workers, and therefore in 1860 Northern states produced 97% of the USA’s firearms and 94% of its pig iron. The North controlled industry and armaments, which made it virtually impossible for the South to form any sort of opposition. A further industrial advantage of the North was that it had more than 70% of the nation’s railway lines, meaning that it could transport industry and armaments effectively and efficiently.

Geographically, the Union, or the North, was aided by the fact that four slave states - Delaware, Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky- remained loyal to the Union, giving the North further population advantage. In fact, many people within the remaining 11 Confederate (Southern) states were not actively supporting of the Confederate cause. The most obvious group of those in the South that were not actively supporting the cause were the slave population. More than 1/3 of the Southern population was made up of slaves, and none of these formed part of the armed forces. This firstly gave the South significantly less troops, but to make matters worse many of these slaves began to escape to the Union (the North). Once they reached the North they were free citizens, and were able to fight, and so many of them did so. The cause of the North, to end slavery, was clearly a profound cause for previous slaves, and meant that the Union gained significantly from what the Confederate cause failed to take advantage of.

The Union had a significantly more industrialized economy. The industry supplied the army with arms, munitions and all the necessary equipment to win the war, as well as food, while the South did not have the facilities for mass weapon production nor the food supplies to feed its forces and much less its civilian population. Furthermore, the severely underdeveloped railway lines and infrastructure in the South made sure that, even if the Confederate states did have significant food supplies, it would not be supplied to all civilians and its forces.

Many would argue that the American civil war was simply won on these two factors alone; the North’s numerical advantage, and its industrial advantage. Of course these two factors are vital, the side with the larger, more equipped army will always be the favourites. However, there were many stages in the war when, despite this, the South could’ve been victorious, as they had several of their own advantages. For example, when comparing armies, you cannot only consider the number of troops. The South had many of the best officers in the United States, including Robert E. Lee, who was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and was known to be the most accomplished Confederate general. Furthermore, it is said that the Southern troops had many qualities that made them good fighters, and many argue that man for man the Southern troops were better. Therefore it is also important to consider key turning points in the war to decide what the most important factor was in Northern success, because the war was certainly not decided upon numerical advantage alone.

One of these turning points was the failure of the King Cotton Diplomacy. The diplomacy refers to the methods employed by the Confederacy during the American Civil War to coerce the United Kingdom and France to support the Confederate war effort by implementing a cotton trade embargo against the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. The Confederacy believed that both the United Kingdom and France, who before the war relied upon Southern cotton for textile manufacturing, would be forced to supply food and armaments to the South in order to lift the embargo, as the European countries had inelastic demand on cotton, and would have to give in to Southern American demands in order to regain the cotton.

In theory, the diplomacy would give the South the international support it so desperately needed. If it could gain this, then the Northern industrial and manufacturing advantage would be significantly reduced. However, in practice the resulting cotton diplomacy was not favourable for the Confederacy. The embargo was indeed enforced, but it in fact transformed into a self-embargo which restricted the Southern economy. The predicted growth in the demand for cotton in European countries did not occur because both France and Britain had sufficient supplies of cotton, assisted by the fact that both countries had cotton deposits in India and Egypt, this meant that the embargo only restricted the sales of Southern cotton, meaning Southern industry was damaged by lower profits and the Northern industrial advantage extended.

Furthermore, it is important to consider the general failings of the Confederacy. Because, despite having less troops, the South still had a chance to win the civil war, but both militarily and politically let itself down and caused its own failure. Primarily, the South had no factories to produce guns or ammunition, and its railroads were small and not interconnected, meaning that it was hard for the South to move food, weapons and men quickly and over long distances.

The South also tended to fail tactically. Although the North were industrially stronger and more populated, the Confederacy still had opportunities to restrict this advantage which they failed to take. For instance, the South wasted their resources on early conventional battles which they had no real chance in winning due to the North outnumbering them. A much better use of these resources would have been to hold on to them and use them to destroy the Northern transport system, severely restricting the North’s industrial advantage by preventing the transport of industry and armaments throughout the North.

Another failing of the Confederacy occurred when the South tried to trade with potential European allies, which could have affected the industrial dominance of the North, however the North successfully managed to blockade the Confederate cause. The blockade was proclaimed by President Lincoln in 1861. The idea required the monitoring of 3,500 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline, including 12 major ports. There were actually many successful attempts to run the blockade, however those ships fast enough to run the blockade

could only carry very few supplies. The Union commissioned 500 ships, which went on to destroy or capture about 1,500 blockade runners over the course of the war.

Economically, the South were also weaker. For instance, the South chose to focus on cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, aiming to gain profits for its manufacturers, disregarding those crops needed to feed the Southern population. This is one of the cases where the South could’ve had the upper hand, in that agriculture in the South thrived significantly more than that of the North, and the South had a larger land mass. Yet, due to the focus on cash crops, the South in fact had a lack of food.

It can be argued that a further tactical failing of the South was that they were fighting against the cause to end slavery. This meant primarily that they failed to utilize a significant amount of their own population who were slaves, in contrast to the situation in the North in which free black men were permitted to enlist by 1862, following the passage of the Second Confiscation and the Militia Act, and most importantly Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This was issued on the 1st of January 1863, declaring that “all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free”. This meant that the North benefitted from all of this population, who were of course willing to fight for such a worthy and relevant cause.

Furthermore, the South’s viewpoint on slavery meant that it lost a lot of international support, particularly from European states such as France and Britain, meaning that events such as the King Cotton Diplomacy were made even less successful It is also important to consider the election of President Lincoln as an important factor towards the North’s eventual victory. Abraham Lincoln was elected president on the 6th of November 1860.

Despite only receiving 40 % of the vote, Lincoln became the first republican president. As soon as Lincoln was elected, with firm conviction he declared South Carolina’s secession illegal and pledged to go to war. Throughout the 4 years of civil war President Lincoln successfully steered the North to victory with both military and political ability, including the authorization of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Without President Lincoln’s election, the South would’ve been much better off, and there may not have even been a civil war.

As president, Lincoln was part of an established government, and he led this government effectively and as a result it was organized and worked together well. This organization was not found in the South, and without this leadership at the top the South struggled to remain organized both militarily and industrially.

There were of course several factors that contributed to the Northern victory during the American Civil War, but many would argue that it was a simple war. The North was more densely populated, with a population of 21 million, compared to the Southern population of 9 million that included 3.5 million slaves. Furthermore, the North was the industrial heartland of the United States. Their commerce and industrial base, along with railroads, was a huge advantage. By making many of their own supplies, they could replenish things far quicker than that of the Confederacy who had to rely on importation. The Southern States were firmly focused on the traditional agricultural background and a proud military history, but this was no match for the rapidly developing commercial economy of the North. However, despite this obvious advantage, there were points in the Civil War when the South held an advantage, so it is important to consider other key events to see why the North went on to win the war. Tactical failings such as the failure of the King Cotton Diplomacy played a significant role in the outcome of the war, because if the South had been more intelligent in their tactics there was a possibility for them to win the war. Despite this point, the industrial and population advantage that the North held was still the most important factor in the Southern defeat, in fact it was bizarre that the South even maintained any sort of chance of competing against the North, as they were so far outnumbered. The North was a rapidly developing economy, with a larger and rapidly increasing population, which meant that it held the upper hand, and meant that the Southern states didn't really stand a chance.