Diplomatic History Research Articles

The Ottoman-Polish Peace of 1630 in the Correspondence of the French Ambassador Comte de Césy and Diplomacy in Istanbul

Son yıllarda gelişen Osmanlı siyasi tarihi literatürü, XVI. yüzyılın ikinci yarısında Osmanlıların barışçıl bir dış politika izlediğine işaret etmiştir. Mevcut çalışma, XVII. yüzyılın ilk yarısında bu anlayışın bir uzantısı olarak Osmanlıların serhat bölgesinde barış anlaşmaları imzalamaya başladığına dikkat çekmektedir. Vaka analizi olarak seçilen 1630 yılı Osmanlı-Leh muahedesi örneği, hem Osmanlıların Rumeli serhaddinde yürüttüğü müzakerelere hem de Leh elçisi Aleksander Piaseczyński’nin şahsen bulunduğu İstanbul’da yapılan barış görüşmelerine odaklanmaktadır. Kaynak olarak İstanbul’da bulunan Avrupalı elçilerin raporları seçilmiş ve bilhassa Fransa elçisi Kont Césy’nin Leh otoriterlerle irtibatı muahedenin arka planına dair aydınlatıcı olmuştur. Nihayetinde iki tarafın da Kazak ve Tatar akınlarının durmasına ilişkin taleplerinin uzun vadede karşılıksız kalması, Osmanlı idaresinin barışın formel/resmi tarafıyla değil de birden fazla cephede savaştan kaçınmak ve siyasi çıkarlarını korumak için sulh yenilemekle ilgilendiğine işaret etmektedir.

An Ottoman mission to Tehran: Mehmed Tahir Münif Paşa’s second ambassadorship to Tehran and the re-making of Perso-Ottoman relations (1876-1897)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Mehmet Tahir Münif Paşa’s second ambassadorship to Iran (1896–1897) in the aftermath of Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar’s assassination in May 1896. It argues that the Shah’s death brought about a turning point in Perso-Ottoman diplomatic relations and that Sultan Abdülhamid’s decision to assign Münif as his representative in Tehran was an affirmation of a new age in Ottoman foreign policy. In what follows, the article will consider Münif’s second mission to Tehran in an attempt to bring greater specificity to Perso-Ottoman relations in the first half of the Hamidian era (1875–1896). It also seeks to explore how the rapprochement between the two states in the mid-1890s had unexpected consequences for Iranian émigrés in the Ottoman Empire, thereby considering how Perso-Ottoman diplomatic history is entangled with the construction and negotiation of the the life trajectories and circumstances of these trans-national actors in the Ottoman Empire.

Power and Culture Redux

John Gripentrog’s Prelude to Pearl Harbor: Ideology and Culture in US-Japan Relations, 1919–1941 is a throwback to a transitionary era in the historiography of U.S. foreign relations. On the one hand, it is a traditional, chronological diplomatic history of bilateral interwar relations, with six of its substantive chapters covering the 1930s. On the other hand, throughout the narrative, Gripentrog weaves themes of ideology and culture, the major preoccupations of the field in the last three decades. But the author’s approach to both themes dates to the 1980s, when historians like John Dower and Akira Iriye first started incorporating them into the study of war and peace between Japan and the United States. In Prelude to Pearl Harbor, ideology is how elites view the world, and culture is “the arts” (6). Despite this traditional approach, Gripentrog’s history of “ideology, cultural interactions, and conventional diplomacy” offers a thoughtful reassessment of the United States’ and Japan’s march to war (7).

Cold War Redux?

In The Twilight Struggle, diplomatic historian Hal Brands urges readers to revisit Cold War history to gain vital insights and lessons regarding the United States’ unfolding geopolitical and ideological competition with Russia and China, which he sees as unfolding in the ‘no-man’s land between peace and war’. The author does not believe that the Cold War is a perfect facsimile of today’s fraught global environment, but the struggles of the twentieth century are nonetheless startlingly similar, not least because the threats of failure, decline and even annihilation are as acute today as they were then. Brands’s timely book details the strategies employed by America’s Cold Warriors in their contest with the Soviet Union, suggesting that they remain relevant today. The question is whether the United States and the West are willing and able to heed the author’s warning and act accordingly.

Haydar Efendi’s Sefaretname in Iran

Osmanlı Devleti’nin kuruluş devrinden başlamak üzere yıkılışına kadar yüzyıllar boyunca devam eden diplomasi tarihinde elçilerin faaliyetleri ile ilgili sefaretname yazma geleneği sürdürülmüştür. Osmanlı devrinde kaleme alınan sefaretnameler arasında günümüze ulaşan sefaretnamelerin çoğu geçici elçiler veya onların maiyetinde bulunan kimseler tarafından kaleme alınmıştır. Daimi elçiler, tarafından yazılan sefaretnameler de mevcuttur. Çalışmanın konusunu oluşturan “Haydar Efendi’nin İran Sefaretnamesi” adlı eser İran’da daimi elçilik açıldıktan sonra kaleme alınan ilk sefaretnamedir. Bu sefaretname, Ahmet Vefik Efendi’nin Tahran’a 15 Haziran 1851’de büyükelçi sıfatı ile atanmasıyla heyetinde sefaret müsteşarı olarak görev alan Haydar Efendi tarafından kaleme alınmıştır. Sefaretnamede Osmanlı elçilik heyetinin yolculuğu ve İran tarafının Osmanlı elçilik heyetini nasıl karşıladığı ayrıntılı bir şekilde anlatılmaktadır. Ayrıca sefaretname, Osmanlı elçilik heyeti ve elçinin İran tarafından karşılama seremonilerine binaen sergilediği tutum ve davranışlarla ilgilide ayrıntılı bilgileri içermektedir.

An analysis of the Diplomatic Situation of the First Czechoslovak Republic and its Impacts on the Nation’s Demise after the Munich Agreement

Purpose: The objective of this research is to dive into the details of the First Czechoslovak Republic’s diplomacy and examine the impacts and significance of its diplomacy on its doomed national security.
 Methodology: This article primarily used qualitative research methods. By studying official historical documents from governments, the historical circumstances could be analysed. Secondary sources, such as books written by historians were also referenced to view this period of history from unique perspectives.
 Unique Contribution to this Field: Currently, most research about the First Czechoslovak Republic revolves around the time close to the Munich Agreement. This article innovatively studied the diplomatic history of Czechoslovakia since its formation and focused on its diplomacy in the 1920s.

Female Agents at the Royal Palace of Madrid: Political Interests, Favors and Gifts (ca. 1598-1640)

The rise of the New Diplomatic History in the late twentieth century led to a methodological revolution altering the foundations of traditional historiography.2 One of the principal consequences were a new recognition that there were multiple sorts of diplomatic agents that included artists, businessmen, men of the church, travelers, and women. It is this last group to which we devote this essay. In this paper we will analyze several case studies in order to offer a general perspective of the mechanisms used by these female agents so as to establish a pattern of behavior. We will focus on aristocratic women at the Madrid court during the reign of Philip III and Philip IV in order to know how the foreign ambassadors approached these women seeking information. These women get in return gifts and mercedes for them, their families and members of their patronage networks. Finally, we will study the multiple fidelities developed by female agents.

New Diplomatic History and the Study of the Global Nineteenth Century

The cultural turn in diplomatic history and the rise of the field of new diplomatic history since the end of the twentieth century has not, to date, had a great impact on the study of the global nineteenth century. This article argues that bringing the methods and perspectives of new diplomatic history to bear on the study of the global nineteenth century is fruitful in at least five respects. First, it encourages multivocality by including informal diplomatic actors in the study of cross-cultural diplomacy and colonial encounters; second, it calls upon the historian to pay equal attention to the motives, perspectives, and worldviews of Europeans and non-Europeans; third, it pays attention to the conditions and circumstances, including violence, coercion, translation, place, ceremony, and gifts, of cross-cultural diplomacy and imperial expansion; fourth, it highlights the long-term character of imperial and diplomatic relations; and fifth, it broadens the range of available sources to include a wide range of textual and non-textual sources. In all of these respects, new diplomatic history can help historians of the global nineteenth century to overcome the traps of Eurocentrism and teleological and macrohistorical biases.

Diplomats’ Wives and the Foreign Ministry in Late Imperial Russia, in Four Portraits

The infrequent publications about women’s agency in European diplomacy have concerned themselves with either the early modern age or the post-World War I period, but women remain virtually absent from the diplomatic history of the long nineteenth century. To determine their place in the European political world of this period, this article examines the experiences of four Russian diplomats’ wives. The biographical approach reveals contradictions in patriarchal discourse: it required a diplomat’s wife to be worthy of her role as a representative of the Russian Empire, yet effectively dismissed her from politics. From this another contradiction ensued: as a diplomat’s wife played no political role, the ministry turned a blind eye if her actions challenged traditional social and gender norms, even when such actions led to the neglect of her duties as her husband’s helpmeet.

Thailand’s Balancing Behavior, 1947–1991: Some Empirical Evidence

This study examines the determinants that shaped the balancing behavior of Thailand from 1947 to 1991 by testing hypotheses developed from arguments on three competing theories of balancing behavior, namely the systemic balance of power and balance of threat theories, as well as Martin’s simple model of balancing behavior. We found that a combination of power, geographic distance, and perceived offensive intentions was the factor that prompted Thailand to balance against threatening states. The finding was found using quantitative data extracted from the Correlates of War (COW) Project and the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) Project and those generated by Expected Utility Generation and Data Management Program (EUGene) software to test the hypotheses. The statistical evidence confirms the historical narrative of Thai diplomatic history: that is, Thailand did not try to balance against communist China, its giant neighbor, but rather against Vietnam and Cambodia, which were perceived as essentially dangerous to the country’s security and territorial integrity. In addition, we found that the major-power capability concentration of the Cold War international system had a mild effect on Thai behavior. However, it is difficult to generalize how such systemic attributes dictated directions in Thai foreign policy.

Singing Nuns and Soft Power: British Diplomats as Music Tourists in Seicento Venice

Historians of early modern statecraft and confessional politics have traditionally treated the arts as peripheral to the more official bureaucratic concerns of government agents. Meanwhile, musicological scholarship rarely centers the experiences and exploits of politicians who participated in early modern musical events. This case study on British envoys to Venice in the early Stuart period illustrates how musical activity and political work were, in fact, thoroughly imbricated within the daily mechanics of cross-confessional ambassadorship. Drawing on seventeenth-century diplomatic sources, I detail how both English and Northern Italian politicians made strategic use of sacred music-making—particularly vocal performance in local nunneries—to influence their dealings with foreign states, as well as how English diplomats in the Italian peninsula surveilled Catholic musical devotions in their covert correspondences to communicate information about international affairs. In revealing these moments of interconnection between music, religion, and geopolitics, I seek to further recent efforts in the New Diplomatic History to highlight the contributions of women and artistic practice within histories of international relations.

Contributors

Journal Article Contributors Get access Diplomatic History, Volume 46, Issue 2, April 2022, Pages i1–i3, https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhac021 Published: 31 March 2022

Business or Security? Goals and Decision-Making Inside the French Oil Policy of the 1920s

The article aims to explore the interplay between economic and strategic reasons, which influenced the oil policy of the French government and business in the 1920s. The author demonstrates the heterogeneity and complexity of this policy the diverse nature of motives and interests behind the different attempts to acquire access to the oil. The French case throws some new light on the role of the “oil factor” in international relations and Great Powers’ politics. The article comprehensively deals with the topics often divided between different fields strategic studies, international political economy, diplomatic history. The author uses French archives to place Paris’ oil policy into the broader context of the French strategy and diplomacy in the first decade after WWI. Additional documents from the British and Russian archives help understand essential aspects of the Anglo-French and FrancoSoviet interactions around the “oil question.” After underlying the new strategic importance of oil, which became evident during WWI, and describing the oil dependence of France from the Anglo-American trusts (“Standard Oil” and “Royal Dutch-Shell”), the author traces the three key aims of the French oil policy. First, to diversify the supplies; second, to acquire control or direct access to the oil sources; and, finally, to consolidate the French business interests with the mediation of the state authorities. French actions in these three directions were interlinked, and they mirrored a specific situation of power and weakness of France after WWI. The article concludes that the strategic and economic reasons were interwoven inside the French oil policy. Though the French authorities perceived the growing strategic importance of oil sharply, they were not prepared to follow the clear étatist economic policy and did not try to make a radical change of the established rules of oil policy both inside the Third Republic and in the relations with “Standard Oil” and “Royal Dutch-Shell.”

Mexico's Unique Role in Governing the Global Economy

“It is also silly to make the pretense that the Mexicans (even though their representative in July was, I understand, a graduate of the London School of Economics) and the Brazilians would discuss ‘at the expert level’…. Their function is to sign in the place of the signature,” wrote British Treasury official Wilfried Eady in a January 1944 memorandum on the Bretton Woods negotiations. Christy Thornton’s Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy is essentially written to prove him wrong. Moreover, it aims at dismissing the abundant literature that is constructed around similar such documents. Revolution in Development is an outstanding work of diplomatic history, based on an amazing number of original sources. It is not easy to capture the reader’s attention in such an effective way as Thornton does and to keep it alive while accompanying us throughout Mexico’s history during the twentieth century. Quite astonishingly, for someone who teaches in a sociology department, social history does not surface in this book. Nor does classic political history play a significant role, except for a swift mention of the socialist parties and their supporters in the early Cold War years. But this should not come as a surprise because what Thornton wants to show us is how Mexico could access the button room and influence the governance of the global economy, notwithstanding its role as an outsider in the glimmering world of economic diplomacy.

Contributors

Journal Article Contributors Get access Diplomatic History, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022, Pages i1–i3, https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhab104 Published: 28 January 2022

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Maritime Territorial Disputes in Asia and the Relaxation of Cold War Tensions: The Case of Dokdo and the 1965 Japan-Korea Normalization Agreements

Abstract This article continues the legal and historical inquiry into the dispute between Japan and Korea over Dokdo, an island that sits in the sea between the two nations, by examining the 1965 normalization agreement between Japan and Korea. Japan has argued that the agreement, in which Japan provided economic aid to Korea, settled all outstanding claims stemming from World War II between the nations, including those over territory. We analyze the meaning of international agreements by combining traditional international legal analysis with U.S. archival records, the standard tools of diplomatic history. Our conclusion from these materials is consistent with our earlier work on the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. The face of the 1965 Agreement does not mention Dokdo. There are no supplemental materials to the agreement from the parties that expressly address the island. Under standard approaches to international legal interpretation, we cannot read a text to resolve an issue that it does not specifically address. Because it did not seek to change the legal status of the island, the 1965 Agreement merely requires that the analysis fall back to the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which itself did not seek to change the status quo as it existed before 1905. American diplomatic materials confirm this reading of the 1965 Agreement. The United States played an all-important role in Asian security affairs. After the Korean War, U.S. leaders in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations wanted Korea and Japan to cooperate on security issues. American leaders believed that rehabilitating Japan and encouraging Japanese aid to Korea would reduce U.S. defense burdens in Asia and support more self-sufficiency on the part of its two closest Asian allies. The U.S. sought to defer any issues that might disrupt an agreement. The United States had pursued a similar kick-the-can-down-the-road strategy in the 1951 Peace Treaty. Dokdo became one of those intractable issues that the United States successfully excluded from the 1965 Agreement and left its resolution to the future.

Ivan Korostovetz — Russian Diplomat and Expert on China

Ivan Yakovlevich Korostovetz (1862–1933) was one of the most prominent Russian diplomats of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He played an extremely important role in the developing Russian-Chinese relations and a no less significant part in the development of Russian-Mongolian ties. Not a sinologist by education, and at the start not speaking Chinese, Korostovetz could understand the specifics of China so deeply and delve into the peculiarities of Chinese realities that he became one of the best experts on China at that time. Korostovetz actively popularized his knowledge on China among the Russian public by writing books and articles about the country. At the turn of the 20th century, Korostovetz became one of the most capable diplomats in the Russian Empire and contributed to an active Russian policy in China and Outer Mongolia. Having a deep understanding of the Russian geopolitical interests in the Far East, he was able to clearly formulate the main goals of Russia’s policy in this region at the time when the Xinhai revolution broke out in China. Unfortunately, after 1917, Korostovetz failed to find a place for himself in the diplomatic field, and so he became the author of many published and unpublished works on the history of diplomacy and international relations in the Far East. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of Korostovetz’ activities in various diplomatic positions in China and evaluate his role in the development of Russian-Chinese relations, as well as analyze his articles and books about China and show the depth in which he understood political development, history and culture of this country.

Diplomatic Protocol and Anglo-Russian Negotiations in 1662—1663

In the early 1660’s the Russian economy was in deep crisis. Needed in silver, the Muscovy government sent to England in 1662 a representative embassy of more than a hundred people, headed by Prince Pyotr Prozorovsky and the nobleman Ivan Zhelyabuzhsky. It is believed that the mission of Prozorovsky and Zhelyabuzhsky in London failed, because the King of England Charles II refused to give the Russian Tsar money in debt. In historiography this embassy is seen as an episodic event in the history of Anglo-Russian relations. The trip of the delegation of Muscovites to London was poorly reflected in Russian sources, whereas it was covered in detail by the English and Italian, which requires a more thorough analysis. The receipt of Prince Prozorovsky, found in the National Archives at Kew (UK), make it clear that the Muscovite delegation left London with money. However, the problem of the influence of Russian and English diplomatic protocol on the 17th century negotiation process and, in particular, on the results of Prozorovsky’s visit to England in 1662—1663 has so far escaped the attention of scholars. Using the actor approach of “new diplomatic history”, the author argues that it was a firm negotiating position that allowed diplomats of Muscovy to turn the course of Anglo-Russian negotiations on the financial issue and successfully conclude the mission to London.

Trade Must Go On. The Tar Trade, Nordic Rivalry, and Cross-Imperial Commercial Diplomacy, 1675–79

The Scanian War fought between Sweden and Denmark (1675–1679) is an example of an armed conflict, which uncovers the clash between the commercial and political interests. This article analyses the dispute between the political allies, the Danish Crown and the Dutch States General considering the trade with Sweden. The Danish naval officials had captured and confiscated the cargoes of seven Dutch tar vessels, heading to Amsterdam from present-day Finland in 1677, which resulted in a major political dispute between Denmark and the Dutch Republic. By drawing upon the methodology of new diplomatic history, the article analyses the negotiations between the diplomatic actors involved in the disputes relating to the confiscation of the ships, all of whom represented the various powers involved in the Baltic export trade.