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Fire was both a domestic utility, a prevalent war technology and, by the same token, one of the major threats to early modern urban life. Observers and rumours used to impute urban fires to divine will and misfortune on the one hand, physical conditions, social discontent and conspiracy, on the other. Discussing the presence of a relationship linking these two sets of causes and a mutually reinforcing effect between fires and arson rumours, this article tries to classify the military, religious, economic and political contexts of Ottoman city fires, the uses to which they were put, the rituals and ritualized forms of conduct around them, together with the alleged expectations and benefits of potential perpetrators. It aims to demonstrate that being a common denominator of multiple contexts, fire was both an immanent actor of urban politics and a polysemantic sign, socially recognized and interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses evidence from the English High Court of Admiralty to examine the problem of mutiny and indiscipline among seafarers in the transatlantic trades during the 1680s and 1690s. It focuses on a venture of 1688, which is of particular interest not only for the light it sheds on maritime conditions, but also because it involved Daniel Defoe, a young and ambitious trader who was trying to establish a commercial opening in Chesapeake Bay. The article contextualizes this previously unknown venture, relating it to the development of the tobacco trade and its dependence on an expanding market and widening patterns of consumption. The failure of the voyage, in association with other business problems, had serious consequences for Defoe, leading to bankruptcy in 1692 and his withdrawal from direct involvement in overseas trade. Against a broader background of other voyages, the legal testimony heard by the court draws attention to the wider problem of mutinous conduct at sea. These cases were provoked by a range of grievances including pay, labour conditions and discipline. Repeatedly they raise questions about the conduct of masters at sea, including their rights and responsibilities. At the same time, the article argues that the upsurge in mutiny and indiscipline at sea, while revealing the inexorable tension between pay and productivity, also exposed deeper issues regarding seafaring custom and contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the beginning of the First World War, atrocity stories about German depredations against Belgian civilians circulated throughout the Allied world. Caricatures of German soldiers rapidly degenerated into depictions of monstrous ‘Huns’ who were subhuman beasts, prone to acts of rapine and banditry. The most prominent producer of ‘Hun’ cartoons in Australia was artist Norman Lindsay, who published extensively throughout the war. Through an analysis of the antecedents of Lindsay’s monstrous ‘Hun’, this article will demonstrate that the rapid creation of the ‘Hun’ in Australia was made possible by the pre-existing racial caricatures of non-European people that were popular during this period. Chinese and Japanese people who were excluded from Australia by the White Australia policy were the previous targets of Norman Lindsay’s racial caricatures; as stories of German atrocities filtered into Australia, Lindsay transferred traits of Asians on to the German ‘Hun’, thus transforming him into the enemy ‘Other’. These traits were products of British imperial propaganda, and part of an ideology that asserted it was the job of the white man to civilise the barbaric coloured man. By ‘Asianising’ the German, Lindsay used a well understood language of racial caricature to reduce the German to the status of a barbarian. Race was therefore one of the central paradigms through which Australian propaganda operated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On April 15, 1797, at the height of the French Revolution and amid a flurry of invasion scares, the Channel Fleet of the Royal Navy mutinied. The news captured the public's imagination and dominated newspaper coverage for months. Politicians in and out of office recklessly used the news of the mutiny to further their ambitions, to influence public opinion or to force a resolution to the crisis. This article examines the success and failure of those efforts, shows how an aggrieved minority used the medium for its own purposes and considers how newspapers still managed both to keep an eye on government and to keep the public informed. It seeks to prove (or disprove) a specific accusation of manipulation by tracing a story from its source to its appearance and interpretation in various newspapers. Finally, it considers the media's role in the messages they are meant only to deliver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experience in the first half of the twentieth century had shown that military law had been unable to distinguish between serious and trivial cases of mutiny. The offence could be committed both in cases of the violent overthrow of commanders during wartime and in minor cases of peacetime disturbances. While in the post-war era the military authorities firmly opposed any dilution of the offence, events ‘on the ground’ persuaded the authorities, including politicians and civil servants, that a more discriminating policy for prosecutions was required. Administrative directions rather than changes in the law offered the only practicable drafting solution. However a drastic decline in the incidence of collective protest since the 1960s eventually rendered otiose the problem of what we today may describe as unfair labelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the issues which triggers mutiny in a combating armed force unit. Mutiny is a form of military rebellion that can happen to any military formation, in any war. According to the historical record certain factors contribute to mutiny in bodies of a well-organized, reasonably equipped and trained soldiers. The circumstances necessary for mutiny has no set formula to be explained. For a soldier his beliefs and values hold true play key roles in motivating him for war. The central reason, why men are willing to continue fighting, is provided by the primary group of a fighting organization.

The article focuses on court-martial sentences given during the war. The data of court-martial sentences are presented in two recent letters of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, on the subject of "Military Justice During the War." The first letter was published in the U.S. official bulletin for March 10, 1919; the second letter was published as a pamphlet, by the war department, on March 29, 1919. Both letters cover substantially the same ground, as to sentences of courts-martial; but each contains important data and comments not given in the other. The articles of war provide that a person guilty of mutiny shall suffer death or such other punishment as the court-martial may direct, irrespective of a state of peace or war. The offense of disobeying a superior officer is punishable, under the articles of war, by death or such other punishment as the court-martial may direct; it is covered by the same article of war that deals with assault on a superior officer, but obviously it should usually rank as an offense of lower grade. The total number of convictions for this offense was 785.

The article presents abstracts of articles related to armed forces. They include "Cautious Reconciliation: The Change in Societal-Military Relations in Germany and Japan Since the End of the Cold War," "The Mutiny Wagon Wheel: A Leadership Model for Mutiny in Combat," and "Discourses of War: The Landscape of Congressional Rhetoric."