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Against a backdrop of pressing economic and strategic concerns shaping British policies after the Second World War, Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, embarked on an official tour of Africa in November-December 1947. He visited South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, as well as other African territories. Montgomery's controversial report and the reactions to it cast light on British attitudes towards and perceptions of her African empire in the immediate postwar period, as shaped by Labour government defence and developmental policies. At the same time, it invites reconsideration of Montgomery's place in imperial and military historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-examines the civil war (1963-1976) between the Sultanate of Oman and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO), particularly the U.K.'s support of the government. Using archival evidence and private papers, it argues that the counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign's image as "population-centric" is flawed, and that the British and Omani governments relied more on military measures against the PFLO to recapture Dhofar province than on the "hearts and minds" and civil development programmes emphasised in traditional accounts. It counsels against using Dhofar as a possible example of indirect military assistance in contemporary COIN, arguing that the conflict's specific historical characteristics may not be replicated now or in the immediate future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural efforts to mobilise populations behind the war in Britain and its Dominions, Canada and Australia – especially through the exhibition of war trophies – solidified after the Armistice into state-supported institutions creating and promoting a culture of victory. This culture was most pronounced, and most centralised, in Australia. Wartime propaganda institutions grew into national war museums which effectively froze the victorious national war effort, and the moment of triumph, in three-dimensional form. The institutions, and the people who ran them, did not demobilise with the peace. These museums used substantially the same objects and techniques they had used in wartime to support the war effort to create a postwar narrative in which victory established a clear (and martial) national identity, and also justified the war itself. At the same time, the narrative of a British imperial victory was used to create claims of unity which denied the reality of divisions in society. Trophies wrested from wartime enemies were used as pride-inducing objects to fundraise for peace, and fashioned into war memorials that were at once sites of mourning and monuments celebrating military dominance. Visions of postwar peace and progress could not be disentangled from victory and the violence that enabled it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis explores British perceptions and roles regarding the negotiation of the West German-Soviet Moscow treaty of 1970. Whilst supportive of West German Ostpolitik, Britain has received a very marginal role in the historiography of the treaty. By exploring the consultation process in the so-called Bonn Group of the United States, Britain, France, and West Germany, this exegesis explains that Britain played a leading role in building consensus and forming schemes to resolve the issue of the treatment of Quadripartite Rights and Responsibilities concerning Berlin in the Moscow treaty package. As background, this essay also explains the policies of the Harold Wilson's Labour government and Edward Heath's Conservative government regarding European détente in Europe, including West German Ostpolitik. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connection between Aboriginal people and the British Crown is well established. Less understood is their appreciation of, and reliance on, British democratic traditions in their politics. Drawing on the archive of Aboriginal activist, William Cooper, this article explores the way he used the language and practices associated with British democracy to advance his political claims in interwar Australia. With Protestant Christianity, Britishness represented a cluster of values and attributes which Cooper claimed as the Aborigines' own. In drawing on an 'imperial ideology of democracy', he was part of a global black political renaissance characteristic of the times demanding justice, freedom and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians on the influence by experts on foreign policy decision making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of experts on British decision makers through the use of informal networks below the level of Cabinet ministers whilst debating the future of the city of Danzig at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists to interpret their actions as subverting the official role and function of the Foreign Office, sufficient evidence can be found to suggest that through the use of back-channels to David Lloyd George, the prime minister, via Philip Kerr, his private secretary, some officials, such as James Headlam-Morley, within the Office managed to influence high-level decision making at Paris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1927 Michael McDonnell, a diasporic Irish Catholic, was appointed Mandatory Palestine's Chief Justice, being directed to institute firm British-style legal-judicial foundations for future self-governance. This entailed common, equal status for Arab and Jewish Palestinians, implicitly de-privileging the Jewish National Home. McDonnell was resisted in this by the British Mandate's Anglo-Jewish, pro-Zionist Attorney General, Norman Bentwich. McDonnell prevailed but only at the cost of being characterized lastingly as a pro-Arab, Catholic anti-Semite. McDonnell's continuing defence of a supreme, independent judiciary antagonized the Palestine Executive of High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope, who tried to co-opt rather than subordinate Zionist interests. Consequent frictions culminated in 1936 with McDonnell adjudicating against supra-legal British repression of Palestine's great Arab rebellion. For this he was dismissed and ostracized, subsequently publishing critiques of British policy in fringe right-wing organs. Yet McDonnell professed explicitly non-racist views, reflecting a liberal-minded, constitutional Irish nationalist equation of Palestine with Ireland, seeing comparable settler-colonial abuses and native distress as remediable only by transcendentally impartial justice. Britain reneging on these principles led McDonnell, like those Irish imperial servants noted in India, to identify with colonial subjects against colonialism. His case is one of empire as a system of domination being challenged from within, although his removal foreshadowed emerging imperial counter-insurgency's tendency not only to repress subject populations but deny civil-progressive alternatives for managing post-colonial transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the economic and political impact of the Second World War upon a small outpost of Britain’s informal empire. It analyses the multiple ways in which the economy, trade and governance of the Trucial Coast were disrupted, disturbed and challenged by the exceptional circumstances of the war. In response to these circumstances, a variety of emergency arrangements were introduced, resulting in an unprecedented degree of involvement of outsiders and foreign agencies in the management of the local economy. The transformation of Britain’s traditional policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of the Trucial Coast is traced back to the exigencies of wartime conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to explore and illustrate some “dynamics of transition” across some six decades of British protection of the Brunei Sultanate, 1906-1967, with particular reference to the interaction of traditional administration and the new system of governance of a Residency, especially in the part of Tutong district that was home to the Dusun/Bisaya ethnic minority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article publishes for the first time selections of the private correspondence (placing them in their historical context) of John G. T. Shipman (1939–2016), who took up his position as assistant adviser in the Eastern Aden Protectorate at the end of 1962 just as the first signs of political and social change were appearing in South Arabia. He served from this position in different parts of the Eastern Aden Protectorate until 1967. Shipman's correspondence allows for an unmediated appreciation of how people on the ground experienced the historical events at the time, including the British withdrawal in 1967, and highlights the extent of their own grasp of the goings-on when contrasted with the historical record. In this sense, the scope of this article is to allow the voice of one of the many British colonial officials to directly narrate their encounters during the last five years of British colonial rule over southern Arabia. The perceptive eye of a young political officer coupled with the ephemeral character of his handwritten correspondence, which providentially survived for more than five decades although it was never intended for publication, offers a fresh insight into the political and social life of the Eastern Aden Protectorate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During World War One, both Arabs and Zionists sought to become "the tools of British imperialism." The British exploited both as their own interests dictated, without giving a thought for future consequences. In 1915, the MacMahon-Husayn correspondence – conducted between Britain's High Commissioner in Cairo and a non-representative Arab Bedouin leader from the Arabian Peninsula – ended inconclusively, without agreement. In contrast, the Balfour Declaration - the culmination of 6 months of British-initiated negotiations with the Zionists, was published in order to further Britain's military, strategic and propaganda interests. At the time, the British considered it to have been a 'brilliant coup'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of land has both a particular historic significance and an enduring contemporary political importance in modern-day Zimbabwe. The unresolved issue of compensation for far-reaching land restitution also poses a continued impediment to any improvement in British–Zimbabwean relations. Given the impassioned accusations against the British government for its failure to fund a substantial land transfer scheme at independence, which gathered pace and vehemence in the late 1990s, this article offers new evidence of British officials’ deliberations on whether or not to implement a far-reaching land transfer scheme in 1979, repeating the approach towards another white settler colony, Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From 1946–1963, MI5 operated a South-East Asian regional headquarters in Singapore: Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE). This article responds to growing interest in theatre-level intelligence organisation and the importance of intelligence to Britain’s Cold War and decolonisation by examining the performance of SIFE. On the organisational level, SIFE was strongest when it remained wedded to its charter functions and closely adhered to the priorities of its principal consumer: the Commissioner-General for South-East Asia. Its assessments were influential in shaping decision-makers’ understandings of key regional developments, although this did not always translate into public policy. Lastly, SIFE enjoyed success in developing lasting liaison relationships to cement British influence, but failed to utilise these to improve its intake of raw intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Eklogi was published in 1945 by the Political Warfare Executive to be transferred, the following year, to the British Embassy. It belonged to the category of the International Digest issued by the Central Office of Information (COI) in several languages. The magazine was distributed to a wide range of recipients. A special cooperation between the Embassy and the PEAT (suppliers of newsagents) ensured sales in the provinces. Reader's Digest was its main commercial rival. Yet, evidence available to the Embassy showed that Eklogi continued to make 'its special impact'. At the height of the Greek civil war the FO believed that Eklogi would be 'one of the most obvious channels to be so used' of disseminating offensive propaganda in Greece. Eklogi closed in 1950. Its title was transferred to Eleni Vlachou of Kathimerini. She continued the magazine for another decade, using articles supplied by COI, and consulting the Embassy on the overall content of Eklogi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of Great Powers in processes of secession and recognition has attracted increasing attention from scholars in recent years. This analysis examines how Britain rallied international opposition to the November 1983 unilateral declaration of independence [UDI] of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” [TRNC]. The British Government tried hard to prevent the UDI. Once it occurred, Britain led efforts to condemn the move. It resulted in United Nations Security Council Resolution 541, which declared the TRNC illegal and called on states not to recognise it. As well as exploring the diplomacy behind the counter-secession efforts, this examination also answers a long-standing question as to whether any countries aside from Turkey ever recognised the TRNC. It also challenges the widely held view amongst Greek Cypriots that Britain invariably supports the Turkish Cypriots on the Cyprus Problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article the rise and fall of the position of the labor attaché in British diplomacy during the Cold War is analysed. Experts from outside the diplomatic corps worked, and continue to work, in British embassies alongside diplomats. Labor was a prominent domain of expertise during the entire Cold War era, but this has almost disappeared today. It could therefore be claimed that British diplomacy was able to adapt to changing political circumstances. However, this is a story with multiple layers and contains not only elements of change but also continuity over the longer term of the diplomatic enterprise that, despite flexibility and increasing openness, remains a world apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE GOUZENKO AFFAIR IS REFERRED TO as the event that started the Cold War. This article draws on recently declassified documents that shed new light on Britain's role in this affair, particularly that of the Foreign Office and the British High Commissioner to Canada. The documents reveal how the British had a major part in directing the response to Igor Gouzenko's defection in 1945. This event revealed the need for increased counterespionage security, but it also became a spectacle that directed the public's attention away from the British connection: specifically, the role of Alan Nunn May, a British nuclear scientist who had provided the Soviets with classified information. Instead, the public's interest was centred on Soviet spies, communism as a subversive force, and the brewing Soviet-US conflict. These newly declassified sources demonstrate how it was the British intelligence services and the British government that went to great lengths to help focus the public's attention in this direction. They took great pains to direct Canadian policymaking, which included working to discourage Canada's prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King from handling the affair privately with the Soviet ambassador, and were likely behind the infamous press leak to US reporter Drew Pearson that forced King to call a Royal Commission and publicize the affair. With the help of the British government and intelligence services, the Cold War began. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British government had played an important role during the 1950s and 1960s as a mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict, most notably through the development of Project Alpha between 1954 and 1956, and through the negotiation of United Nations Security Council resolution 242 in 1967. Between 1977 and 1979, British Prime Minister James Callaghan played a supporting role to US President Jimmy Carter as he negotiated the Camp David Accords of 1978. Callaghan adopted a pro-Israeli stance, cultivating close relations with the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and defending Begin’s position over key issues, particularly his reluctance to remove settlements from the occupied territories. In this respect Callaghan’s government departed from established British policy, even abstaining over United Nations Security Council resolution 446 in March 1979 which condemned continuing Israeli settlement activity. This resulted in damage to Britain’s relations with moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines British representations of the Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It does so through focusing on records of political activism and humanitarianism, offering a counterpoint to the key studies of this subject in the 1990s that were based primarily on analysis of travel writing and literary texts. The subjectivities of the political culture that inspired engagement with Balkan questions are scrutinized, exposing the complexity of British perspectives on the region and highlighting intersections between international and domestic debates. Attention is drawn in particular to the idealization of Balkan peasant society and the ‘village community’ in British Liberal political discourse. This is related to tensions around land reform at home, and to the perceived impact of industrialization and urbanization on British society and citizenship. Reassessing the complex imaginative geography of the Balkans in this way provides a fresh transnational perspective on aspects of British domestic political history. It also raises broader arguments about the need to integrate historical analysis of the ‘cultural’ and ‘political’ aspects of British encounters with foreign lands and peoples in the era of the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "British Fiction and the Cold War," by Andrew Hammond is presented. Topics mentioned include the termination of Cold War in 1989, the international and domestic policy by Great Britain during the Cold War, and the development of anti-communist campaigns. Also added is the existence of several writers during the Cold War including Evelyn Waugh, Constantine Fitz Gibbon, and George Orwell.

As the recent and current French military interventions in West Africa have illustrated, France succeeded in establishing long-lasting security relationships with its former colonies during the transfer of power. In Britain’s case, by contrast, decolonisation was largely followed by military withdrawal. This was not, however, for lack of trying. The episode of the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement clearly illustrates that Britain, driven by its global cold war military strategy, wanted to secure its long-term interests in sub-Saharan Africa. The agreement was first welcomed by the Nigerian elite, which was not only anglophile and anti-communist, but also wanted British military assistance for the build-up of its armed forces. Yet, in Nigeria, the defence pact was faced with mounting opposition, and decried as a neo-colonial scheme. Whereas this first allowed the Nigerian leaders to extract strategic, material and financial concessions from Britain, it eventually led to the abrogation of the agreement. Paradoxically, Britain’s cold war grand strategy created not only the need for the agreement, but also to abrogate it. In the increasingly global East-West struggle, the agreement was strategically desirable, but politically counterproductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imperial federation was a movement in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that sought to turn the British Empire into a global federal state. It focused on the self-governing parts of the Empire that included the United Kingdom and the Dominions of Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Newfoundland. The unofficial motto of the Imperial federalists was ‘federate or disintegrate’. Many argue that the European Union of today is facing a similar choice. This article will examine Imperial federalist proposals for constitutional reform in the legislative, executive and judicial spheres. It might be expected that the main centres of opposition to Imperial federalism lay at the peripheries of the Empire in Dominions such as South Africa and Canada. This article argues that successive governments of the United Kingdom, the mother country of the Empire, proved to be the most consistent and determined opponents of Imperial federalist initiatives. This article will examine why the government of the United Kingdom acted as the leading opponent of most federal proposals involving constitutional reform. This analysis will also assess the importance of law and popular perceptions of legal tradition in attacking federal schemes throughout the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At a time when uranium commanded attraction and became a currency for powerful states enmeshed in the Cold War, South Africa was courted, since its uranium was a commodity needed for both peaceful and military purposes by these principal state actors. J.D.L. Moore and G. Berridge gave two contrasting explanations for the British role in atomic South Africa in 1955 and 1956. The former claims that Britain was inevitably more modestly influential than the Americans. The latter claims that British anxiety about future deliveries of South African uranium forced it to make major concessions, such as the handover of Simon’s Town. I argue that both claims are incorrect. On the first claim, the output of South African uranium was determined largely by the US, through the mechanism of the Combined Development Agency. On the second claim, South Africa was in such a precarious situation that it was impossible for it to use its uranium for so much leverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 1920s, distrust and contention marked Anglo- Soviet relations, culminating in the diplomatic break in 1927. In 1929, the incoming Labour government successfully pursued its objective of re-establishing diplomatic relations with Moscow, but the follow-up in terms of ambassadorial appointments was far from routine for either side. This analysis shows that internal pressures complicated decisions about whether to appoint career diplomats or choose political figures. Resisting both claims from enthusiastically hopeful Labour backbenchers and criticisms from the left wing media, the British foreign secretary, Arthur Henderson, chose a Russian-speaking career diplomat. On the Soviet side, the first choice was a controversial politician, but then replaced by a financial expert, albeit one tainted as a defeated political opponent of Josef Stalin. Whilst both ambassadors could be considered "professionals," neither was able to have a deep impact on the relationship, which remained troubled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occurrence and outcomes of the Cod Wars defy both popular and academic expectations. Iceland, a microstate, essentially won four disputes against the UK, a great power. The two states furthermore belonged to a Western security community, sharing significant institutional, economic and cultural ties. This article reviews the history and international relations literature on the Cod Wars to explain and evaluate why the Cod Wars occurred and why Iceland won them. This article also explains what lessons international relations scholarship has learned from the Cod Wars for liberal international relations theory, realism and asymmetric bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Chatham House project entailed the building of institutions in the Anglo-American world devoted to greater public enlightenment on questions of foreign policy, led by a liberal and networked elite. In the British dominions, problems of geography and dispersed populations proved obstacles to institution building. In South Africa, divisions within the European population no less than racial exclusion constrained the early activities of the South African Institute of International Affairs. Lionel Curtis, having been strongly associated with the movement to achieve political union in South Africa, was unable to confront the inconsistency manifest in building an institution devoted to engage and mould public opinion from which the concerns of much of the public were excluded. After Hailey'sAfrican Survey, Chatham House eventually sponsored the Institute of Race Relations in London which increasingly focussed on the regional and Commonwealth instabilities generated by exclusionary regimes. The appearance of a short-lived East African manifestation of Chatham House was the final instalment in the implementation of the old model of organisation; the establishment of the Nigerian Institute was a portent of future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many contemporary academics and policy analysts have revisited the Anglo-German rivalry before 1914 to predict what may await China and the United States in the twenty-first century. However, few, if indeed any, have specified in what sense this comparison can be made. This paper attempts to fill this gap with a detailed analysis of the strategic parallels between the Anglo-German rivalry then and the China–US competition now through the lens of the Crowe Memorandum. The author argues that the basic parallel between the rise of Germany and the rise of China lies in the challenges they posed or pose to the dominant maritime power and system leader – Great Britain then and the United States today. This parallel also explains the similarity between the Triple Entente initiated by Great Britain prior to 1914 and the Rebalance to Asia launched by the United States in 2011. Furthermore, as in the case of the Anglo-German rivalry before 1914, the most crucial problem underlying the mounting China–US competition in recent years has been America’s deepening apprehension about the development of China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) and naval capabilities. This development, from the US perspective, is threatening to deprive the US of its most crucial instrument to influence the strategic equilibrium on the East Asian littorals. Based on the lessons of the Anglo-German rivalry prior to 1914, the essay also examines the potential for mitigating, if not eliminating, the mounting competition and misgivings between China and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article concerns British official policy and political propaganda disseminated in the first year of World War II towards Hungary and Romania. The story is told in the broad framework of the relationship between foreign propaganda, foreign policy implementation, and war strategy. As these embody short-term strategic aims and long-term political objectives, the analysis throws light upon the often differing requirements of British diplomacy, war strategy, and post-war plans. This context is discussed through the prism of the British evaluation of the minority and territorial dispute in Transylvania between Budapest and Bucharest. Such a perspective has been of little concern in the historiography, although it provides a means for putting into question certain basic assumptions underpinning existing models in the history of British policy towards the region. Although these countries lay on the periphery of British war strategy, London aimed at expanding its political influence there during and after the war. For one, the analysis of this dichotomy tells us about the paradoxes, dynamics, and interplays of short- and long-term political, economic, and strategic interests; for another, it answers the question, whether any broad patterns could be reached about British Central and South-East European policy, or did actions distinctively differ towards individual countries? Regarding this last question, it is offered here that, precisely because these countries lay outside of primary imperial interest, standard diplomatic and strategic procedures were subverted, criteria were less carefully calculated, and historical reflexes and prejudices governed British viewpoints and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just over twenty years into its new era of democracy, South African foreign policy appears to be undergoing important changes in orientation and global positioning. Indeed, post-apartheid South African foreign policy has been steadily shifting away from a preoccupation with more traditional partnerships to developing alliances and coalitions with emerging economies and actors seeking to reform the global governance order. The paper seeks to understand the implications of this shift for South Africa's relationship with its most pivotal and enduring traditional ‘partner' – the United Kingdom. Thus, the paper proposes that this relationship can be best understood by considering it on different and at least partially contradictory levels, reflecting South Africa's own ambiguous identity as an emerging middle power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

British mandated Palestine has attracted scholarly attention for its role in the development of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Some aspects of the time period, however, remain somewhat overlooked, and one prominent example is the reversal of the Passfield White Paper in 1931. Following extremely violent anti-Jewish riots in Palestine in 1929, the British Government in Westminster utilized two commissions of enquiry – the Shaw Commission and the Hope-Simpson Commission – to justify a change in policy. Rather than adhere to Britain’s original Zionist commitments, articulated in the Balfour Declaration and official mandate, the government decided to limit Jewish immigration and land purchase in Palestine, articulated in the Passfield White Paper, before reversing the policy months later. Subsequent explanations of this decision have been sparse and focused almost solely on the efficacy of Zionist lobbying. Why the British Government was susceptible to pressure and how this process took place has remained largely unexplored. In order to provide a more thorough analysis of why the Passfield White Paper was reversed, this article reassesses several assumptions within the literature and places the decision within the context of a Labour Government’s need to maintain internal unity, as well as cross-party support, on foreign and particularly India policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers two aspects of historiography about the 1967 Arab–Israeli War – American and Soviet foreign policy in the region – to better appreciate the Soviet role in the outbreak of hostilities, as well as how the war concretized the US–Israeli ‘special relationship’ and weakened American–Arab relations. Relying especially on research from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library and Foreign Relations of the United States, this paper argues that Soviet officials had little interest in pursuing measures to prevent war during the pre-war crisis because the situation promised to undermine American interests in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the history of military recruitment in Iraq during wartime. The conflict between Great Britain and the Ottoman empire over Basra in 1915 is discussed as well as the history of the military partnership between the Assyrians and the British. Also tackled are British military presence in Iraq during the Ottoman era and the history of the Levies and Assyrian recruitment.

This article explores attempts by British colonial officials based in Aden to extend systems of political administration to the colony's tribal hinterland during the late interwar and early wartime period. Commencing initially with delicate attempts to recast faltering relations between tribal chiefs and their subjects, the policy would culminate a decade later with the despatch of British military units throughout the furthest extents of the protectorate in support of a range of direct political agreements with local rulers that would eventually set the conditions for federation. The intervening years featured a series of little-known debates among various officials on how precisely to cement British influence in the tribal areas, and the philosophy of administration to be pursued to that end. These would expose an element of confusion as to which techniques would best satisfy British policy, and reveal a preference on the part of some for the application of methods atypical of those used elsewhere under Colonial Office jurisdiction, and which drew their inspiration instead from systems of control used on India's volatile frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the significance of London, England as New Zealand soldiers' second home front during World War I. Topics include the reverse colonisation of cities that occurred during the war are discussed as well as how it led to the development of a separate national identity. Also tackled are the relationship between New Zealand and Great Britain and reconstruction of London as a home for Kiwi soldiers.

This article discusses the international consequences of the trial of British businessman and spy Edgar Sanders in Budapest at a critical juncture of the early Cold War. Convicted of espionage on the basis of a 'confession' in court, the defendant was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. The failed attempts tofree the English prisoner led to a breakdown in bilateral relations and a British trade embargo. The related trial of American executive Robert Vogeler has received extensive coverage in Hungarian-and English-language sources. By comparison, the Sanders case has attracted little scholarly attention. This article is the first comprehensive treatment of the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines British official policy towards the Hungarian angle of the 1938-39 Czechoslovak crisis, focusing on the British evaluation of the territorial and minority dispute between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The story is told through an analysis of the relationship between decision-making criteria in the Cabinet and foreign policy implementation by the Foreign Office regarding the re-drawing of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border. This perspective has been of little concern in the historiography, although it provides a means for putting into question certain basic assumptions about British policy towards the region, such as the relationship between pragmatism and personal prejudices in policy-making. The article claims that analysis of this Hungarian angle provides an effective new instrument for examining why British actions distinctively differed towards individual countries in the region. It argues that, contrary to the historiographical consensus, Hungary played a significant role in Britain's anti-German plans, although any such calculations were hampered by Hungary's constant territorial ambitions in Czechoslovakia, which in effect overturned British regional strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper offers a theory of military retrenchment by states in relative decline. I argue that a declining state will choose to withdraw foreign military deployments and security commitments when there exists a suitable regional 'successor' to which it can devolve its current responsibilities. The degree of a successor's suitability and the strategic importance of the region to the declining state interact to determine when and how rapidly retrenchment will occur. Importantly, this devolutionary model of retrenchment predicts significant variations in retrenchment patterns across a declining state's multiple regional commitments. It advances the literature by producing nuanced predictions of precisely where, when, and how quickly retrenchment will occur. This paper assesses the theory empirically through an examination of Great Britain's varying regional retrenchment strategies prior to World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores early twentieth-century British political and humanitarian engagement with the Balkans. It focuses on the Balkan Committee, a liberal pressure group that served as the main hub for British interest in the region in the decade before the First World War. Whilst drawing attention to the specific challenges presented by the Balkans to the British liberal mind, it is argued that the Balkan Committee was part of a wider movement of humanitarianism and political activism that encompassed both continental and colonial questions. The issues around which the committee campaigned are related to humanitarian protests against the use of forced labour in Africa, in particular the Congo Reform Association, as well as to the Persia Committee, formed in protest against the 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement. This approach highlights how ‘Europe’ and empire were interconnected agendas within an overarching liberal-internationalist worldview and reformist conscience, despite the different cultural lenses through which humanitarian questions in different parts of the globe were viewed. It is suggested that research into British interaction with the Balkans offers a fruitful means by which to integrate historical analysis of the continental and imperial aspects of Britain's external relations in the ‘age of empire’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The decolonization process in the 1940s and 1950s in Middle Eastern states under Great Britain's informal influence did not aim at recognizing the same type of independence of these states as that enjoyed by Britain and the United States. In the 1940s Washington laid the groundwork for its leading role in Iran during and following the Iranian oil crisis, whilst London with the assistance of the Americans in part reasserted British influence after the crisis. The United States achieved a paramount position in Iran with the assistance of its oil companies and through cooperation with Great Britain, and at the expense of the latter and the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]