British Archives Research Articles

Arabischsprachige nationalsozialistische Propaganda während des Zweiten Weltkriegs und des Holocaust

Abstract During the Second World War and the Holocaust, Arab exiles living in Berlin, led by Haj Amin el-Husseini, enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazi regime to produce Arabic language radio and print propaganda aimed at North Africa and the Middle East. The resulting propaganda displayed an ideological fusion between National Socialist ideology on the one hand, and elements of radical Arab nationalism and Islamist ideology on the other. Previously under-utilized or unused evidence from British, German and American government archives make the most extensive account to date about this campaign possible. National Socialist Arabic language propaganda constituted an important chapter in the diffusion and merging of Nazi with Islamist forms of Jew-hatred during the Second World War and thereafter in the Middle East.

Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible (review)

Review(s) of: Black lives in the English archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible, by Habib, Imtiaz, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008; hardback; pp. xvi, 415; 6 b/w illustrations, 11 tables; R.R.P. US $99.00, 60.00 pounds; ISBN 978075465695.

From “allies without alliance” to concerted action: Romania and Finland in the aftermath of the Operation Barbarossa (1941)

This study describes the relationship between two small and lesser states joining the German attack against Soviet Union in an attempt to recapture the territories lost to Soviet Union in 1940. It is conceived as an in-depth analysis of the Romanian-Finnish relations based on the criticism of archival sources discovered in the Romanian, Finnish and British archives. Becoming “allies without alliance” almost overnight, the relations between the two countries acknowledged a quick shift from low profile bonds to an agreement based on a combination of balance of power and joint action. The aim was to remove the threat Russia was posing to the two countries and to increase their influence at a peace conference to be open following the expected defeat of their big neighbour. Romania was the advocate of closer ties between the two countries keeping in line with its search for influence rather than autonomy in its foreign relations, while Finland was more prudent consistent with its choice for autonomy rather than influence.

The ‘Missing Dimension’: Britain's Secret War against France in Syria and Lebanon, 1942–45 – Part II

The article provides the ‘missing dimension’ in the historiography of Syria and Lebanon in the Second World War. It is based on secret British and Syrian documents obtained by the French intelligence from their agents in the British Legation in Beirut and the Syrian government in Damascus, never published before. These documents, recently discovered by the author, shed new light on the activities of the British intelligence agencies in the Middle East during and after the war. They reveal that these agencies played an important role in shaping Britain's policy in the region by securing the tacit collaboration of prominent Arab nationalists in Syria and Lebanon and other Arab countries. In Syria (and Palestine), Britain conducted a ‘dual policy’: one purported to mediate between the French and the Syrians, details of which are found in British archives, and a tacit policy aimed to evict France, of which few traces remain in official documentation. Hence de Gaulle's accusations that Britain secretly engineered the expulsion of France from the Levant were indeed justified, and that the Syrians' claim that their country was the first Arab state to secure complete independence is questionable. The article also discloses that Britain was behind the Hashemite schemes to integrate Syria in a Greater Syria or an Iraqi-led Hashemite confederation. Copies of more than one hundred of the documents are annexed to the article, including a secret agreement from 29 May 1945 revealing that President Quwatli was coerced into granting Britain a dominant position in Syria.

“Only the USSR Has… Clean Hands”: The Soviet Perspective on the Failure of Collective Security and the Collapse of Czechoslovakia, 1934–1938 (Part 2)

The second part of this two part essay focuses on the Czechoslovak crisis in 1938, based on papers from the Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii in Moscow and the recently published journals of Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan M. Maiskii. The essay is also grounded in British, French, and Romanian archives, and the standard document collections, including the American and German series. The Soviet Union did all that it could do, given Anglo-French abdication, to help the Czechoslovak goverment defend its independance against Nazi Germany. The British and French portrayed a manipulative Soviet Union, seeking to abandon treaty commitments to Czechoslovakia, while at the same time they fled from obligations to Prague and projected their own evasions onto Moscow. In spite of everything, the Czechoslovak president, Edvard Beneš, might have held the fate of his country in his own hands. Would he do “something crazy”, would Czechoslovakia fight alone at the outset, hoping that public opinion would force France and Great Britain into war? Tragically, Beneš would not bid va banque and indeed was complicit in the Anglo-French abandonment of his country. By its reckoning, the Soviet Union escaped the crisis with “clean hands”, though a clear conscience was no consolation in Moscow, where the government had to contemplate the ruin of collective security and its own isolation in Europe.

“Only the USSR Has … Clean Hands”: The Soviet Perspective on the Failure of Collective Security and the Collapse of Czechoslovakia, 1934–1938 (Part 1)

The first part of this two part essay is a re-examination of the Czechoslovak crisis (1934–1938) based on papers from the Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii in Moscow. The essay is also grounded in British, French, and Romanian archives and the standard published collections, including the American and German series. It is about the development and conduct of Soviet collective security policy in the key years leading to the “Munich crisis” in September 1938. Evidence from the Moscow archives demonstrates that the Soviet government was serious about collective security and that it was ready to participate in an anti-Nazi alliance. Its initiatives were repeatedly rebuffed in Europe, notably in Paris and London. Even in Prague, the Czechoslovak president, Eduard Beneš, was an undependable ally. These rebuffs led the Soviet government to be cautious during the Munich crisis. The Soviet Union would not act unilaterally, but what it actually did do was intended to defend Czechoslovak security within the constraints of Anglo–French abandonment in which Benešš himself was complicit.

Potemkin in Spain? British Unofficial Missions of Investigation to Spain during the Civil War

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the international repercussions of the Spanish Civil War by analysing the numerous British missions of investigation that visited both sides during the conflict. Drawing on the travellers’ own accounts and the documents from Spanish and British archives among other sources, it argues that these missions were in fact organized tours, first used as propaganda by Republicans and their Comintern advisers, and subsequently copied by Nationalists on a more limited basis. Although some involved genuinely impartial observers, most of the visitors were already committed to the cause they pretended to investigate. Spanish war tourism thus almost invariably succeeded in producing favourable publicity for both sides, yet failed to affect the majority of the British people, who were influenced primarily by their Government’s neutral stance. Regardless of its outcome, the experience aptly illustrates the extent to which persuasion and commitment determined foreign responses to the conflict.

Nicholas Oldisworth and William Davenant: Moors and Slaves in Early Modern England

UNTIL the publication of Imtiaz Habib’s Black Live in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), it has been fairly routine to deny the significant presence of people of African descent and of the institution of slavery in Caroline England. John Aubrey reports how Davenant ‘gott a terrible clap of a Black handsome wench that lay in Axeyard Westminster’, but until Habib’s remonstrance, this report of the infection that eventually led to the loss of Davenant’s nose following the drastic Early Modern cure, was seen simply as one concerning a black-haired, perhaps olive-skinned, prostitute who plied her trade in a cul-de-sac on the west side of King Street some time between 1628 and 1630 when Davenant was seeking Court preferment. Habib’s insistence that the term ‘Black handsome wench’ refers to someone of African descent is corroborated by Nicholas Oldisworth’s epigram ‘On a Moore’: Wonder not, if a black wench I desire: What apter things, than Coales, to kindle Fire? (Bodleian MS. Don. c. 24. fol. 30v)

Nixon, Kissinger, and U.S. Foreign Policy Making: The Machinery of Crisis. By Asaf Siniver. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xviii, 252 pp. $80.00, ISBN 978-0-521-89762-4.)

This fine study of the structures and processes of the Nixon administration's foreign policy making, especially within the Washington Special Actions Group (wsag), is based on recently declassified documents from American and British archives. Asaf Siniver examines the role of wsag in four international crises: the incursion into Cambodia in spring 1970, the Jordanian crisis in September 1970, the India-Pakistan War in December 1971, and the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Other cases are excluded mainly because of insufficient archival evidence. Siniver uses the late political scientist Alexander George's method of “structured, focused comparison” and examines six components of the crisis decision-making process. Siniver argues that the design of the National Security Council (nsc) system requires a clear hierarchical chain of command intended to protect the president's time and energy. When used properly by the president, it has the potential to deliver outcomes of higher quality than if ignored or bypassed (p. 9). The wsag was a functional division within the nsc, charged with crisis management. It met regularly during the Cambodian crisis, but its role ranged from marginal (up to April 28, 1970) to more significant, as the crisis continued. Siniver contends that the decision-making process during the Cambodian crisis was shaped mainly by Richard M. Nixon's personal anxieties and gut feelings (p. 89). He chides Nixon's frantic management of the crisis. Although the wsag met frequently during the India-Pakistan War, the most important decisions (the policy “tilt” toward favoring Pakistan, the cutting off of aid to India, and Task Force 74 [a U.S. naval force sent to the Bay of Bengal during the fighting]) were not adequately debated in this forum and the decision-making process was seriously flawed (p. 180). In comparison, the decisionmaking process during the Jordanian crisis and the Yom Kippur War was of high quality, and the wsag deserves much of the credit (p. 217). Nonetheless, the author suggests that Henry Kissinger, not the wsag, often functioned as the key decision-making unit during the Yom Kippur War. Kissinger managed almost single-handedly the most serious crisis of the Nixon administration, making important decisions without prior consultation with the president or the president's permission to make decisions on his behalf, as Nixon was plagued with the ongoing Watergate investigations (p. 222).

Culture and evidence: or what good are the archives? Archives and archivists in twentieth century England

Archives have the potential to change people’s lives. They are created to enable the conduct of business and accountability, but they also support a democratic society’s expectations for transparency and the protection of rights, they underpin citizen’s rights and are the raw material of our history and memory. This paper examines these issues in the context of the historical development of archives and archivists in twentieth century England. The research lays the foundations for understanding how and why the modern archives and records management profession developed in England. This paper will investigate the historical conflict (or is it a continuum?) between archives as culture and as evidence. The story identifies and highlights the contributions made by many fascinating individuals who established archives services and professional practice in England in the twentieth century. They shaped the archive in a very real way, and their individual enthusiasms, interests and understandings set the course of the English archival profession. To a great extent, it was these individuals, rather than government or legislation, that set the boundaries of English archives, they decided what was included (acquired) and what was not (of archival value.) The conclusion will consider the more fundamental questions: what are archives and what are they for, or perhaps, ‘what good are the archives’?

Documentary evidence of climate variability during cold seasons in Lesotho, southern Africa, 1833–1900

This study presents the first 19th century cold season climate chronology for the Kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa. The chronology is constructed using a variety of documentary sources including letters, diaries, reports, monographs and newspaper articles obtained from southern African and British archives. Information relating to cold season weather phenomena during the austral autumn, winter and early spring months were recorded verbatim. Each of the cold seasons from 1833 to 1900 was then classified as “very severe”, “severe” or “normal/mild”, with a confidence rating ranging from low (1) to high (3) awarded against each annual classification. The accuracy of the document-derived chronology was verified against temperature data for Maseru for the period 1893–1900. Excellent correspondence of the document-derived chronology with the Maseru instrumental data and also with other global proxy temperature records for the 19th century is achieved. The results indicate 12 (18% of the total) very severe, 16 (23%) severe and 40 (59%) normal/mild cold seasons between 1833 and 1900. The overall trend is for more severe and snow-rich cold seasons during the early part of the study period (1833–1854) compared with the latter half of the 19th century (with the exception of the 1880s). A reduction in the duration of the frost season by over 20 days during the 19th century is also tentatively identified. Several severe to very severe cold seasons in Lesotho follow after major tropical and SH volcanic eruptions; such years are usually characterized by early frosts, and frequent and heavy snowfalls. The blocking of solar radiation and the enhanced northward displacement of polar fronts that are directly or indirectly associated with volcanic events, may account for many of the most severe Lesotho winters during the 19th century.

‘Noises Off’: South Africa and the Lancaster House Settlement 1979–1980

In the existing historiography on the final settlement of the long running Rhodesian UDI crisis, the role of the South African Government has received relatively cursory consideration. The memoirs of key British players hint at the importance of Pretoria's policy towards final Zimbabwean independence, and the imperative need for the new Thatcher government to manage this aspect of the Rhodesian imbroglio. However, these accounts fail to elaborate sufficiently on the policy and behaviour of the Nationalist Party Government under its new hard-line Prime Minister, P.W. Botha, and the extent to which this interacted with the incoming Conservative government's diplomatic initiative to resolve the Rhodesian issue. Newly available archival material in South Africa casts a fascinating light on the attitudes and behaviour of the South African Government, as well as the interaction between Pretoria and London. Although the British archives covering the period of the Lusaka Conference and subsequent Lancaster House Conference remain closed, oral testimony of key British players – both politicians and civil servants – points to the centrality of importance of the role of South Africa – both in terms of British policy making, and South Africa's own highly conscious management of this long running crisis for the RSA. Thus, just as in the period 1964–65 in the run up to UDI when South African policy occupied a key place in the origins of the original confrontation between Salisbury and London, so South Africa as a key regional player occupied a critical position in the final peaceful transition to majority rule in Zimbabwe in April 1980.

Black lives in the English archives, 1500-1677: imprints of the invisible

Contents: Preface Introduction: the missing (black) subject Early Tudor black records: the mixed beginnings of a black population Elizabethan London black records: the writing of absence Black records of 17th-century London: a benign neglect and the legislation of enslavement Black people outside London 1558a 1677: the provincial backdrop Indians and others: the protocolonial dream Afterword Chronological index of records of black people 1500a 1677 Works cited Index.

U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story

U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story

Authorship and Authority: The Writings of James VI and I by Jane RickardBlack Lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible by Imtiaz HabibFlaunting: Style and the Subversive Male Body in Renaissance England by Amanda Bailey

Authorship and Authority: The Writings of James VI and I by Jane RickardBlack Lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible by Imtiaz HabibFlaunting: Style and the Subversive Male Body in Renaissance England by Amanda Bailey

Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible ‐ by Imtiaz Habib and Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires ‐ Edited by Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo and Maureen Quilligan

<i>Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible</i> ‐ by Imtiaz Habib and <i>Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires</i> ‐ Edited by Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo and Maureen Quilligan

A CHRONOLOGICAL CALENDAR OF BAPTIST AUTOGRAPHS AT THE JOHN RYLANDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MANCHESTER, 1741-1907

Dr Whelan has made a study of Baptist letters in various British archives. The introduction to this calendar, which is helpfully collated with letters in the Isaac Mann Collection, looks at how the Rylands’ collection was assembled. Whelan’s transcriptions of many of these letters will be published in Baptist Autographs at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845, Mercer 2009.

Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944 (review)

Reviewed by: Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944 Polymeris Voglis Violetta Hionidou, Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2006. Pp. xxvii + 261. 14 b/w plates. $99.00. The famine in Greece during the Second World War was, together with the one in Holland, the most lethal in the occupied Europe. When Greece capitulated in April 1941, the first signs of food scarcity appeared already in the summer of the same year. Flour, vegetables, and olive oil either disappeared from the market or their prices soared on the black market. As the collaborationist government was incompetent and the occupation authorities were unwilling to supply the starving population with food, a deadly famine broke out. In the winter of 1941–1942 thousands of people died of starvation or hunger-related diseases, literally in the streets of cities, especially Athens and Piraeus. Due to the humanitarian disaster, the Allies were obliged to lift the naval blockade and reached an agreement with the Germans allowing thousands of tons of wheat and other foodstuffs to be transported to Greece every month and distributed to the population under the auspices of the International Red Cross. There was no such degree of starvation in the subsequent years of the Nazi occupation, although scarcity of food continued to occur in different places and at different times due to shortcomings in the distribution of the relief and German retaliatory campaigns. Violetta Hionidou’s monograph is about the famine in occupied Greece and is the first book-length study on the subject. In it, she examines the causes of the famine in the cities and the countryside and then focuses on three islands—Mykonos, Syros, and Chios, discussing in more detail the impact on the local populations. She consulted the International Red Cross Archives and Italian and British archives to draw a general picture of the famine in Greece, while her findings for the three islands are based on material from the local archives, local newspapers, and interviews. The author divides the occupation into three periods to examine the changing characteristics of the famine: May 1941 to March 1942, April 1942 to April 1943, and May 1943 to the end of the occupation. The most severe famine occurred during the first period when the urban centers of Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki were severely affected. Workers and artisans were the groups that suffered the most. In the second period, mortality levels were reduced thanks to the relief efforts, but the food crisis continued, albeit in different forms. In Athens and Piraeus high inflation and rising food prices put pressure on the poor and middle classes whereas in other parts of Greece high mortality occurred for different reasons. For instance, in Thessaloniki there was a malaria epidemic. In the third period, the food crisis was not as severe, but the population suffered from the combination of galloping inflation, German retaliation, and the curtailment of relief activities. The famine brought both death and other miseries. Hionidou repeatedly hints at the broader social and political consequences of the food crisis, but does not shed light on the radical changes that occurred in wartime Greece. After this general examination of the famine and the food situation in occupied Greece, Hionidou proceeds to examine the causes of the famine. She avoids any single-factor analysis and instead discusses many causes, assessing the [End Page 499] role that each played in the famine. First, the ineptitude of the Greek government and the conflict over decision-making between the Greek administration and occupation authorities created administrative chaos. It should be pointed out, however, that it was the primary responsibility of the occupation forces to provide food to the population and that they failed to do so. Second, plundering by soldiers, rather than the requisition of foodstuffs by the occupation forces, seems to have played a role in the famine since it drove the peasants to hoard their produce. This leads Hionidou to consider another factor that for a long time was believed to be prominent in the outbreak of the famine—the decline in agricultural production. She argues, as Yiorgos Margaritis has suggested, that agricultural production did not decrease...

ALEXANDER BITIS. Russia and the Eastern Question: Army, Government, and Society, 1815-1833. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006. Pp. xv, 542. $120.00

Studies of Russia's relations with the Ottoman Empire and Iran tend to focus on diplomacy, while others examine Russia's military doctrine and wartime performance. Alexander Bitis succeeds in integrating both sets of concerns into a single narrative. The period covered here saw consequential developments, including wars between Russia and both of its southern neighbors as well as the Russo-Ottoman Treaty of Hünkâr Iskelesi (1833), which caused exaggerated alarm in Europe, especially Britain, about Russian expansionism. Although the main interpretations presented in this book are largely in keeping with the scholarship of the past generation, the author's research in Russian as well as British archives enables him to present fresh evidence to buttress his points. One of the book's strengths is its examination of debates among high-ranking Russian military officers about how to fight the Ottomans. The prevailing view at the highest levels was that there are rationally derived laws of warfare that apply in all settings, at all times. In contrast, some officers in Russia's Second Army, based in the southern part of the country, argued for the importance of the particular, the need to know not only specifics of geography but also the way a foe's culture shapes his mentality and thus his behavior in combat. Underlying this practical disagreement among men who had fought wars and expected to fight again is an epistemological debate on the relative significance of the universal and the specific that continues to this day among scholars as well as policy makers. Bitis sides with the Second Army officers. Yet in presenting their views, he does not consider one essential issue: what if the assessment of a specific foe is based on faulty information and biases? He reports, without questioning, Colonel I. P. Liprandi's stereotype of Ottoman soldiers as characterized by Muslim fatalism, superstition, fanaticism, and panic.

Les femmes dans les ateliers d’artistes en Europe du Nord au Moyen Âge

Women in Northern Europe artistic workshops at the end of the Middle Ages. The author proposes to explore the presence of women in the workshops and the gender relations in cultural production at the end of the Middle Ages. She also links with the question of public and private space devoted to women. The contribution is based on unpublished inquiries in French, Flanders and English archives. Even if mentions of women in workshops are very few, it doesn’t mean that the wife, the sister or the daughter of an artist don’t take any part in the process of creation. In northern Europe, in France, in Flanders, in Germany and in England, women are members of crafts, by their own, or as widows of a dead master. In Paris, women are numerous in the artistic crafts, they are six “orfévresses” in 1292 according to the “Taille” register. Widows, wives, sisters and daughters are considered as members of the family workshop. Here, the gender notion seems to come after the importance of lineage.