Introduction Germany, in the modern sense, is less than two centuries old. The war in 1866 was the final step on the long road to German unification, but it was not the only step. The main reason for Germany‟s unification was the increasing permeation of the two great political ideals of the 19

th century: nationalism and

liberalism. The man responsible for the introduction of both these ideas was, ironically enough, a Frenchman, a rather famous Frenchman by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was Napoleon who, in his invasion of the German states, first opened the possibility of a single German state, and his position at the head of the Glorious Revolution of France exported the first examples of liberalism to the German masses. This is perhaps Napoleon‟s single greatest contribution to the map of modern day Europe, and ensured that his influence is still felt today.

Germany in 1800

At the beginning of the 19th century, Germany

was virtually unrecognisable. It was still part of the Holy Roman Empire, which meant that it was a mass of around three hundred individual states, each run by an independent monarch. These monarchs were completely autonomous, with marriage or war the only prospect for a state‟s expansion. Depletion and constant wars, however, had led to a period of stagnation within the German area. There was no possibility of expansion westwards, as the miniscule German army could not hope to mount a challenge against their well-equipped French counterparts. The monarchs of the German states were presided

over, nominally at least, by the emperor, Francis II of the Habsburg line. In reality, the emperor held no real power at all, and the Habsburgs were given the title originally as a means to limit their power, also being the rulers of the most powerful state, Austria. The monarchs of the states did make one small

The Emperor and the Eagle

Ed Green explores the links between Napoleon’s conquests

and the origins of German nationalism

Germania - A product of 19th century romanticism

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sacrifice. They were called Princes, not kings, as a mark of respect to the emperor. Apart from that, the Princes acted as they pleased, and felt no real need to encourage democracy in their states. The German region was a country living in the 19

th century, but with

feudal ideals which had more in common with the Middle Ages.

Enter the French

Luckily, the Germans‟ neighbours in France had, in 1789, experienced a (supposedly) liberal revolution, when the ordinary French people threw off the shackles of the aristocracy and embraced universal suffrage. Initially, the French and the Germans were politically polar opposites, the freedom of the French contrasting sharply with the conservatism and monarchy of the German people. The French, unhappy with just starting a revolution in their own country, began to „liberate‟ their autocratic neighbours. Having gone through Spain and the Netherlands, the French turned to the east, and saw the weaknesses within its organisation. In November 1799, a young French General by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the Republic. He appointed himself First Consul of France for life, and later became Emperor of France. With full military and political control of his country, Napoleon‟s word was law not only in his own country, but in all of mainland Europe. He looked to combat the growing opposition to his republic by conquering central Europe, and in so doing he destroyed the Holy Roman Empire, one of the oldest organisations in the world.

The Fall of the Princes

When Napoleon made his intentions clear concerning the German states, the Princes were powerless to resist him. Their states were completely unprepared for war against the battle hardened French Army. Both sides were looking to avoid unnecessary conflict, Napoleon because he needed his armies in the best shape for the coming war with Britain and the rest of Europe, and the Princes because they were sure to be obliterated and deposed if Napoleon were to invade. Even the biggest German states realised that resistance was futile, and Prussia, so often held up as Germany‟s protector, was the first state to

Welcome to ...

THE SHOARDIAN!

The Shoardian (named in honour of the infamous MGS History teacher, Mr Shoard) is a History magazine created entirely by MGS students. Contributors write on any field of history that interests them and the magazine aims to cover as broad a historical scope as possible. This edition most emphatically succeeds in that aim, with articles ranging from The Medici family to Mao, from Mongols to Marxism. As well as reviewing recently published works, we also aim to bring you exclusive interviews with leaders in the field, this time with Dr Conrad Leyser, History Tutor at Worcester College, Oxford. This is to be the final edition of the magazine produced by the current Upper Sixth, so if you would like to contribute to the next edition, don‟t hesitate to contact new editors, Huw Spencer (spenhu-y06), Ed Green (greeed-y06) & Hugh Williamson (willhu-y06). Many thanks to Mr Hern, Mr Harrison and to all the contributors.

Jake Dyble, Editor.

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acquiesce to Napoleon. In 1795, having made gains in Poland, the Prussian king struck a deal with the French that he would be left as sovereign provided that he made no move to combat the French movement into the Holy Roman Confederation. The Princes of the other, smaller states were not quite so fortunate, and were prepared to sacrifice virtually anything to Napoleon in order to survive. This was music to Napoleon‟s ears, in part because he was running out of members of his family to appoint as rulers of countries, but also because the Princes would fit perfectly into the Napoleonic sense of government. Under Napoleonic rule, the Princes were nothing more than puppet leaders, who had to obey the French dictator or risk replacement and execution. By 1806, when Napoleon declared the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, he united all the states under one man, and formed the mould for a unified, independent Germany.

Napoleon’s Reforms

Although by declaring himself emperor of France he effectively nullified the very principles of the new, liberal France, Napoleon did pass on some of the ideas to his new German colonies. He introduced universal suffrage, for example, and freed the peasants from the tyrannical rule of their Princes. All states now had to adopt a liberal constitution, if not the French one, then something very similar. The Princes were also required to adopt the French system of law. In 1803, under the direction of Talleyrand, he created an estate office that handed out the free cities and the ecclesiastical states to other, larger states. This signalled the change from 300 states to 39, so often attributed to the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon, with his violence and aggressive stance towards the German states, had accomplished what no emperor had managed before; to unite the German area under one rule, with one man, and one future.

Conclusions

Napoleon‟s entrance into Germany in the early 1800s did not singularly cause German unification. Napoleon, after all, kept the despotic Princes and made no effort

whatsoever to politically unite the states. Although they were under the ultimate control of the emperor of France, there was no organisation between the states, and probably would never have been so. One of Napoleon‟s great contributions to the unification was changing the political landscape in Germany. The Princes position was changed irreversibly, their medieval ways were restored to them at the Congress of Vienna, true, but only temporarily. The growth in liberalism and nationalism amongst the people of Germany, however, was permanent and irreversible. The people were awake, but, as the next six decades, the nationalist movement was very small. Perhaps Napoleon showed the German states that what was truly required for Germany to become a single country was a single state, with the military capacity to dominate the others. Violence would be the only thing that could unite the German people, and a country founded on violence cannot often escape its past. Ironically, Germany is Napoleon‟s true European legacy.

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55 million excess deaths. That is the horrifying figure with which Frank Dikötter ends his award-winning book. And I can assure you, the journey itself is no less horrifying. Nevertheless, meticulous research combined with a clear and fluid writing style makes his latest an excellent read, and one you won‟t forget for quite some time.

Look before you leap The Great Leap Forward was, in essence, Chairman Mao‟s attempt to take advantage of China‟s vast resources of manpower and turn her into a powerful industrial nation. In November 1957, Mao announced that China would outstrip Britain‟s industrial capacity in 15 years. In order to do this, the Chairman introduced 600,000 backyard furnaces, a work-point system and the people‟s communes (the result of an amalgamation of the smaller farm collectives. Now each commune contained up

to 20,000 households), as well as a series of economic targets such as increased grain and steel output. However, due to serious weaknesses in the government‟s economic policies, ignorance on the part of China‟s leaders and an inexplicable disregard for human life the Chinese economy plummeted, and the Chinese people were plunged into famine.

Inflated expectations As Dikötter points out, one of the main causes of the famine was the target inflation that wreaked chaos throughout the country. As the party officials were constantly competing for the attention of the powers above, they set the output targets higher and higher. Mao himself pushed targets to the extremes. In 1957, the target for steel output was set at 5.35 million tonnes, which increased to 10.7 million by May 1958, 12 million by September of the same year, and by the end of 1960, Mao was convinced they would be able to achieve an output of 100 million tonnes within 2 years. In Mancheng, militiamen came to villages and conscripted people to work on the furnaces for days on end in an attempt to reach these targets. Refusal to work would lead to extreme punishments – even women who stayed home at night to look after their children were banned from the canteen, going without food for days. Some teams in Nanjing went so hungry that they fainted during work, and the heat of the furnaces of between 38 and 46 degrees Celsius caused many cases of heatstroke. However, even after all this labour, in many provinces less than a third of the iron produced by the backyard furnaces was usable, and one tonne of iron was estimated to cost twice the amount required by any modern furnace, as well as taking between 30 and 50 days to produce. It was a similar story with grain production. In order to cope with the escalating targets, workers would tear down buildings made of mud and straw to use as fertiliser. In one

Mao’s Great Famine

Huw Spencer takes a look at Frank Dikötter’s book on

Chairman Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward ‘

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commune alone, 50,000 buildings were destroyed. Farmers were forced to use methods such as close cropping and deep ploughing, which they knew were unsuitable, and which inevitably led to a 50% increase in soil erosion. At the same time, many farmers were mobilised by the militia to work on the backyard furnaces or irrigation schemes, and in total over 15 million were taken out of the countryside. As a consequence women with little experience of farming were brought in to work in the fields. All this meant that up to a third of the time devoted to agriculture was lost.

Healthy Eating for Comrades Nevertheless, when Mao visited the countryside in 1958, farmers were ordered to transplant rice plants along the Chairman‟s route to give the impression of a bumper harvest. After seeing this, and hearing false reports from all over the country about new records in rice, wheat and peanut production, Mao exclaimed “With so much grain, in future you should plant less, work half time and … eat more. Even five meals a day is fine!” Mao then said that a third of the land should be allowed to lie fallow, and Dikötter estimates that 23 million hectares were wasted because of this between 1958 and 1961. The villagers took Mao‟s advice on food to heart and, taking advantage of the people‟s communes, ate as much as they could for about two months. In some factories workers ate up to twenty bowls of rice a day and any leftovers were either poured down the toilet or fed to the pigs. These superfluous feasts made the reading of the next few chapters evermore painful. As famine began to strike in the spring of 1958, with 670,000 starving in Shandong, and 1.3 million destitute in Anhui, the leadership barely reacted. On 25 March, Mao in fact ordered that a third of all grain should be procured, far higher than previous rates, and stated that “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” A year later, when the country was severely struggling with the famine, the state actually exported more than 4 million tonnes of grain, in order to keep up its international image. The living conditions during the famine were

atrocious for workers and farmers alike. By 1961, up to half of the workforce in Beijing suffered from famine oedema. In Guangzhou the dormitories provided no more than half a square metre of bunk bed per person. In the newly built iron and steel plant in Jinan, the toilet facilities were so poor that workers urinated and defecated directly on the factory floor. Meanwhile an investigation by the Guangdong Provincial People‟s Congress showed that in Nanxiong county 2533 of the 2832 local granaries were infested with rats. In the most devastated regions along the Huai Riving in September 1961, one party chief reported seeing women and children stark naked, and many families of 5 or 6 shared one blanket, even in the midst of winter. Disease was also rampant. In the summer of 1960 up to a quarter of all villagers in parts of Wuxi suffered from malaria and in the cities of Hubei one in five people were suffering from Hepatitis by 1961.

Resistance is futile Punishments for the most insignificant of crimes were equally horrific. When a boy stole a handful of grain in Hunan, the local boss

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forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. In another commune in Hunan, pregnant women who did not appear at work were made to undress in the middle of winter and forced to break ice. One eighty year old woman who admitted to stealing rice was drenched in urine. Of the million people who died in Xinyang, Henan, in 1960, Dikötter estimates that 67,000 were beaten to death by militias. These are merely a few examples of the hundreds of acts of brutality that Dikötter catalogues in chilling detail throughout „Mao‟s Great Famine‟. Of course, there were those who tried to resist the Great Leap Forward, before and during its reign of terror. Mao, however, met his adversaries with typical brutality. By March 1960, some 190,000 people who disagreed with Mao‟s policies had been denounced and humiliated in public meetings, and 40,000 cadres were expelled from the party. Over 40,000 anti-party leaflets were distributed in Hainan, with slogans such as „Why are the people of our country starving? Because all the grain is being shipped to the Soviet Union!‟, but any traces of opposition were destroyed as soon as they were spotted. 3000 „counter-revolutionary groups‟ were reportedly detected by the public security forces, and in Qinghai in 1958, open rebellion continued for months on end. These organisations and uprisings rarely troubled the party however, as they were easily crushed by the army. Interestingly, Dikötter argues that the main reason no credible threat to the party appeared was that even in times of mass starvation, the public still believed that Mao had the best interests of his people at heart. They thought their misfortunes were the fault of their abusive and corrupt cadres, and not the semi-god by the name of Mao. „If only he knew, everything would be different‟, and it was this hope that stopped any serious resistance from emerging.

To Err is Human: to forgive...? It was only when Liu Shaoqi, the second ranking member of the regime, visited his home in Hunan in April 1961 that the full extent of the damage done by the Great Leap finally became apparent to the leadership. Although Liu did not blame Mao for the disastrous state in which he found his home village, he admitted that all the leaders were in

part responsible for the grave errors that led to the disaster. With the help of other colleagues, including a highly influential Li Fushun, Liu managed to persuade the Chairman to retreat. Mao was then side-lined until the onset of the Cultural Revolution which, in the words of Dikötter, „would tear the party and the country apart‟. 55 million is a huge number and, all things considered, only speculative. Dikötter himself estimated that there were around 45 million excess deaths during the period and the research he has done to back the figure up makes it scarily convincing. However, it is impossible to pinpoint an exact figure simply because so few reliable statistics were kept during the great famine. Figures provided by historians have varied greatly, from 20 to 60 million deaths, and until the archives are completely opened, such uncertainty is only natural. Perhaps Dikötter finishes with this final tally (and he by no means asserts it, merely points out its possibility) in order to add emphasis to the extent of the damage done by the Great Helmsman, as if that were really necessary. Throughout his book, Dikötter describes some of the many „abnormal‟ deaths and acts of brutality caused by Mao‟s Great Leap Forward in gruesome detail. But of course, he couldn‟t have written this book in any other way. By doing so, Dikötter manages to capture at least some of the horrors and atrocities suffered by the Chinese people during one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known.

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The Galleries of Power

Will Dufton puts forward his views on the Medici family’s

extended patronage of architecture and the arts

One of the signs of a great empire is its lasting influence, with many of history‟s most prolific powers enduring the tests of time and living on, in some sort of tangible way, in the present. The Egyptians have left humanity the Pyramids, the Romans gave us the Pantheon and the Greeks set out the foundations of modern science and medicine, to name but a few. At first glance the Medici family may not strike you as an empire by definition, at least not in the conventional sense. The Medici family created a business and political empire; one of the greatest of the Renaissance era considering it was started by a single merchant. When applied to the test of a great empire it can be seen that the Medici family‟s legacy does indeed live on today, in the plethora of art they commissioned by famous painters such as Da Vinci and Bottichelli, the engineering feats they backed, like the Château de Chenonceau and the dome of the Santa Maria Del Fiore, and to a certain extent, the philosophies and advances that came from the foundation of Humanism, which they were at the cutting edge. But why did the Medici feel the need to be so generous and wide reaching with their patronage? Was it simply to leave their mark on a flourishing society, or were there ulterior motives to their investments?

Serving Mammon

The Medici family believed that they owed a lot to the great city of Florence. It was the ideal Western hub within which Giovanni de Bicci could launch his banking career that sparked the astronomic rise of this simple trading family. The combination of wealth, independence and a cosmopolitan nature meant that it was an area of ambition and growth, It could thus be argued that without Florence the Medici may not have been as successful as they were. Their allegiance to, and love for, this city, is not only shown in the way they invested in its exchequer countless times in order to save it from despair, in the way they built up forces to protect it, but by the fact that Giovanni de Bicci and Lorenzo de Medici laid down a code for their successors to

follow that stated they must know the people of Florence as well as their own family and rule in their best interests. Moreover it could be argued in this context that their patronage was an act of giving back to the city to which they owed so much. The way in which they became the forefathers of the Florentine cultural revolution in the 15

th and 16

th centuries

via their commissioning, effectively making it the origin of the Renaissance, could perhaps be explained by a sheer love for the city, and a wish to see it, and its people, flourish and expand in a similar way that they had risen under the esteem of the city‟s culturally catalytic nature. Another reason the Medici were so liberal with their patronage could be to appease the people of Florence, thus gaining popularity and adding to their political support and control. Jacob Burckhardt believed that there were 3 types of power in Renaissance Europe; “state, religion and culture”. It can be argued that by adorning the city with fine works of art, statues and magnificent buildings, the people would look upon them as philanthropic investors in their own city, a characteristic that can only be viewed upon kindly. Then there is the way in which the Medici often put on magnificent displays of fighting, music and dancing for festival days which the whole city

Three Wise Men painted by Gozzoli. The Medici

are placed allegorically in the kings’ entourage

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could enjoy. If this was the motive of their patronage, to satisfy the people thus consolidating and legitimising their rule via popularity, it can be seen as working in a number of ways. When Pope Leo X (born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici) returned to Florence having won the Papal throne he was lavished for days on end with many expensive celebrations and luxurious gifts, thus showing the support and love of the Florentine citizens. In another vein, throughout their existence the Medici attracted a lot of jealousy from other power hungry families and factions, yet whenever a Medici was in danger or during the occasions that certain Medici family members were exiled, there remained a lot of support for them back in Florence, and on a number of occasions, Medici factions broke out against conspirators and worked to reinstate the Medici. For example, when they realised that the political ideas of a religious preacher called Savonarola were not for the betterment of the state, they worked to retrieve the Medicis from exile and restored them to their former positions. It could be argued that the fact the Medici managed to gain the trust and respect of people on almost all levels of society throughout their rule, including that of the “populo minuto” (the common people), meant that they must have struck a chord in some way. This concept is most likely to have been their policy on culture and entertainment, as during their rise to power they founded their family‟s name on a cornerstone of art and education. Thus their patronage became intrinsic to their rule, and during the time of the Renaissance, when academia and advancement was universally paramount, this would have been a wide reaching and popular investment that the majority of the populous would have been grateful for. Ergo it could be argued that their patronage was an instrument

for gaining adoration and therefore respect in order to acquire political support from a wide array of people.

All art is political Another facet to this conjecture is that their patronage could merely have been an extension of personal intellect and interest. For Giovanni de Bicci to make the initial step towards commissioning works of art and sculpture, he himself must have had an appreciation to begin with, demonstrated by the way he was elected to a council of judges to choose a winning design for some new doors for the Baptistery of Florence. This passion for art and culture could only have expanded in future generations simply because of the fact that from then on the Medici children received first class educations from some of the finest minds in Europe. Neither was their wider education neglected. The heir of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Piero, would often sit in on his father‟s Platonic discussion circles which included such outstanding philosophers as Giovanni Mirandola, ergo the Medici will have been brought up to appreciate and engage with culture. Pope Leo X was also known to have filled his household with singers, musicians and poets. The Medici gained a lot of intellectual gravitas as they established themselves further, leading to artisans of all kinds orbiting their influence. For people of such cultural merit, this would have been perfect. In this light it is possible to argue that their patronage was merely an extension of their own personal lust to make a mark on the cultural world which had been so intrinsic to their upbringing, thus by becoming so prolific in this area it would cure personal desires to advance their own ideas and tastes in a very tangible and fulfilling way.

Patronage and Power

The final explanation put forward is that in this era, art and property were specifically for the royal and the rich. Therefore by putting money into overt public displays of art, whether it was extravagant buildings or collections, showed off the Medici wealth and thus gave them an air of royalty. The fact that they had statues of themselves in great squares, such as Cosimo I de Medici having one in the Palazzo Vecchio,

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one of the main squares of Florence, and the way that some commissioned themselves to be included in paintings, such as Lorenzo becoming a famous Magi in Benozzo Gozzoli‟s „The Adoration of the Magi‟, shows that a connection with culture was a way of legitimising their authority. Not only this, but it made the Medici family an intrinsic part of Florentine society. Through their art and constructions they became perennial and unavoidable, thus making up for a lack of aristocratic lineage, giving a frontage of royalty and almost hereditary power. In this way, tied up with their patronage was a deep rooted claim to power and the notion of boosting their personal image to maintain their position of control. In conclusion though, if we look deeper at the true consequences of each particular motivation, it can be seen simply that culture is intrinsically rooted with power. Lauro Martines

notes in his book, „Power and Imagination‟, that Lorenzo de Medici did not bother to distinguish the payments for his commissions from those for charities and taxes when working out his finances, as they both served to one end: “the grandeur of his house and its power in the state”. By donating so much to the city they were setting themselves up to take credit for its beauty and its growth; by appeasing the people they were automatically winning them over in a political way to consolidate support; by extending their personal interest they were making themselves formidable leaders and were portraying their own intelligence in a very unsubtle way; and creating an air of royalty and legitimacy through austere displays speaks for itself in this sense. Patronage was key to Medici power, as their investments returned profits of more than one kind, whether it was wealth, power or popularity. At a time when their banking practice was officially illegal in the eyes of the Church, tying up a lot of their wealth in property and art was a very wise way to consolidate and secure their power against misfortune. All in all then, despite their patronage policy being multifaceted and having a number of seemingly different motives, it can be argued that their generosity all boils down to one thing; their desire to increase their power in the state and eventually the wider world. The Medici family didn‟t include popes, cardinals, dukes and queens of France for nothing, and patronage was one of the foundation stones of this rise.

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Editor’s Comment:

Hollywood and the Historian

Roman Holiday?

“Contains very strong language, strong bloody violence and sex.” For many it seems, such words can serve only as an emphatic recommendation for any film or television drama. Indeed, such is the apparent demand for such qualities, that one begins to wonder whether this is the sole brief given to directors of historical dramas, or at least those set in ancient Rome. I mention it because the above statement is in fact supplied by the British Board of Film Classification on the reverse of my Christmas present: Rome (Series One and Two), next to the bit which tells me it‟s only suitable for persons of 18 years or over (Sorry Middle School). Created as a joint venture by the BBC and HBO, the 22 episode drama spans the period from 49 BC, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, to 31 BC, when Augustus, Caesar‟s great-nephew, became unopposed ruler of the empire. The story is largely told through the eyes of two ordinary soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, whose fates become inexorably tied to that of the republic itself. Along the way we meet all the big names one may associate with this most infamous period of antiquity; Julius Caesar, Octavian, Pompey Magnus, Cato, Cicero, Cleopatra and a whole host of the other memorable personalities who crowd this

period of Roman history. Once past the slow opening, I found it enthralling, and would in fact thoroughly recommend it to all, not just to those interested in ancient Rome. Through its spectacular sets and costume design, it recreates an incredibly vivid Roman world, capturing both the squalor and spectacle at the heart of the empire. Nor is the plot content with focusing exclusively on the intrigues of Rome‟s upper classes, but also on the lives of the poor, through the characters of Vorenus and Pullo. Yet like so many of its type, its depiction of extreme violence is so prevalent as to feel gratuitous and unnecessary. To be sure, Rome was often a violent and dangerous place, and the Romans were exposed to extreme violence far more frequently than those living in 21

st century Britain. Yet I still

couldn‟t help but feel that the scene in which Atia is deluged in bull‟s blood as part of a sacrificial ritual added very little to my enjoyment of the production, not least because such a practice is completely ungrounded in historical evidence. Nor is this the only inaccurate detail which the astute classics student might pick up upon. The opening episode suggests that the death of Julia, Caesar‟s daughter and Pompey‟s wife, plays a significant part in convincing Caesar to march against Pompey and the republic, the last true bond between them severed. Yet Julia‟s

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death was in 54 BC, 5 years before the crossing of the Rubicon. The drama also completely fictionalises the career of Atia of the Julii. The little we know of Atia suggests that she was a deeply religious and conservative woman. In contrast, the character in the film is cruel and manipulative using sexual favours to achieve her political aims. Her second husband, Phillipus, to whom she was married from 56 BC, is never shown, and the Atia of the film lives beyond Augustus‟ triumph in 31 BC while in reality she died in 43 BC. In perhaps the most ridiculous scene in series 2, Mark Anthony enters the senate wearing eye makeup, to show he has „gone native‟ while with Cleopatra in Egypt.

Kingdom of Heaven; Historical Hell? While the historical inaccuracies in Rome are fairly minor and largely only apparent to those with an interest in the period, any student who has studied the Crusades, even those who have been erratically engaged at best, can recognise the glaring historical errors in Ridley-Scott‟s film Kingdom of Heaven. To cut a long story short, our hero is Balian the blacksmith, who turns out to be the illegitimate son of a nobleman, therefore making him Balian of Ibelin. In the 1180s (the run up to the third crusade) he journeys to Jerusalem, the crusader kingdom ruled by the leper-king Baldwin IV. Whilst there he strikes up a liaison with Baldwin‟s sister, Princess Sybilla but the actions of the pantomime villain Guy de Lusignan and his sidekick, the impetuous Raynald de Chatillon, shatter the fragile peace that exists between Jerusalem and Saladin‟s territories. This leads to the destruction of the kingdom, but not before Balian and Syblilla have made a heroic last stand in an epic 20 minute battle sequence. The acting, with the exception perhaps of Sybilla and Baldwin, is rather poor, and while Baldwin is certainly an intriguing character, the plot is highly predictable, though there are several huge battle scenes, if frenetic and gory action sequences are your thing. The crusader historian however, will be wringing their hands in a state of apoplexy, such is the historical inaccuracy of a film purporting to be “based on real events and produced in consultation with historians”. The anachronisms are too numerous to note here. One of the most ridiculous is Balian‟s seemingly effortless transition from Blacksmith to Lord, another is

the presentation of Sybilla, who was actually strongly devoted to her husband, Guy, who she helped place on the throne after Baldwin‟s death. The film adopts the out-dated view that the war between the Christians and Saladin was caused by rogue religious fanatics among the Christian lords, who continually attacked Saladin‟s trade caravans. In reality, Saladin‟s political hegemony relied on the continual expansion of his kingdom, and most historians would agree that this made an invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem a strategic imperative for Saladin, once he had united the Muslim territories of the near east. The most glaring anachronism of all however, is the sickeningly saccharine idea that Baldwin was trying to create a land of peace and harmony between Christian and Muslim, a true “Kingdom of Heaven”. Yuck.

Yet such criticism could be rightly seen to have descended into tiresome pedantry, and the question must be asked; are these deviations from the historical “reality” really of any significance? For all its faults, both as a film and a historical representation, I enjoyed Kingdom of Heaven. I have a copy of the DVD at home. Films are, after all, works designed primarily to entertain. Most historians and classicists would say that historical accuracy is important. After all, through the defence of

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historical accuracy, they, by extension, defend themselves and their profession, which by its very definition stresses its importance. Yet does it really matter whether the viewers of Rome know when the death of Julia occurred? Does it matter whether cinema-goers are misinformed as to the true character of Sybilla of Jerusalem? Criticism in this vein surely misses the point.

Kingdom of Heaven actually triggered a heated debate on this issue between Ridley Scott and several members of the historical community on its release in 2005. Jonathan Riley-Smith was the most vocal of Scott‟s critics, claiming wildly that the film, “reinforced existing myths,” was, “dangerous to Western-Arab relations,” and would even, “fuel Islamic fundamentalism.” In response to Riley-Smith‟s hyperbole Ridley-Scott responded, somewhat bewilderingly, that peace and brutality were concepts, “relative to one‟s own values,” and thus the peace of the 1180s was exaggerated to become, “accessible to a modern audience.” While it is certainly true that the Middle Ages were a far more brutal age than our own in many respects, this does not mean that their concepts of peace and war were alien to our own. Peace, after all, is the cessation of conflict, regardless of period. Moreover, this supposed modern unfamiliarity with violence does not seem to have dissuaded Ridley Scott from presenting his audience with a variety of mutilations and decapitations in the film itself. Moreover, this response sidesteps the main issue. The film still, fundamentally, projects anachronistic modern ideas on to the past: the idea that the rulers in the Levant attempted to create states of harmonious tolerance; that religious fundamentalism rendered peace impossible; that Islamic leaders like Saladin were models of chivalric virtue and eastern wisdom while the westerners were largely obtuse and barbaric. Such an approach misleads the public about the way the past worked in a significant manner. Moreover, by projecting our own values onto the past, it reinforces the idea that such values are constant and immutable, instead of reminding us that past human societies have often been driven by dynamics far different to our own.

This is the reason then, why I applaud the historical approach of Rome and criticise that of Kingdom of Heaven, despite the errors in

both. For while historical accuracy cannot be considered important, historical authenticity should be. In this Rome succeeds, for while considerable liberty has been taken the facts, it still conveys several core themes of the period. Just a few examples of this include an authentic portrayal of Roman values and attitudes towards foreigners, the cut-throat nature of Roman politics, recognition that the fall of the republic was not simply the result of the actions of individuals but of long term problems: the disenfranchisement of the vast majority of citizens from the political process and the dire economic and social effects of the continual influx of cheap labour in the form of slaves. Most intriguingly to my mind, the film conveys the enigmatic figure which Julius Caesar still poses to Historians. We will probably never know whether his rise to the position of „dictator for life‟ was the result of a long term plan, or simply opportunistic pragmatism, or indeed what his eventual aims for Rome were when he was assassinated in 44 BC. Kingdom of Heaven on the other hand fundamentally misrepresents these core themes and projects modern ideas and myths onto the period. Historical drama should not feel like a televised textbook, its purpose is to entertain. Nor is there anything wrong with using a historical setting. Yet if we value a public understanding of history, and an appreciation of the foreignness that characterises the past, we cannot praise a work which purports to be a historical representation yet in reality uses history as theatre for our own preoccupations.

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Interview Section

In this edition, Max Hudson talks with Conrad Leyser, a tutor

at Worcester College, Oxford , who specializes in Medieval

European history.

How old does something have to be to be history? Oh a millisecond. History is literally the past tense, so yesterday. Already people would argue about what happened yesterday and at that point, the point at which there are different versions then you need a discipline, history, to try to figure out which one might be more accurate. When did History start? [He laughs] I don‟t know enough about the Neolithic period but in practical terms the point at which there is some form of evidence you can get your hands on. So probably about 2500 BC the point where you start to get clay tablets, cuneiform and cave paintings, I guess, some kind of trace, something you can work with and interpret. So nowadays all this funky DNA may allow us to reach even further back. So I would say as far back as you can go. What is it that makes history important as a discipline? Following from the same principle I think history is social memory. As a discipline, history is an instrument or the set of skills that you need to preserve and discuss with precision and with complexity, social and cultural memory. And just as any one person has their memory, it changes, you think about it you lose it, so for the whole society, whichever society you‟re talking about, it‟s a better society. Just as amnesia and Alzheimer‟s are terrifying things, the importance of history as a discipline is that it allows you both to preserve but also to render complex the memory of groups. Do you think the study of history is improving? Yes actually, I do. As a discipline to study at university it‟s actually got quite a short history. Only from the late 19

th century can you do history at university and I think initially that was just about

collecting the evidence and making it as accurate as possible. For example with my period of history, the Middle Ages, all the editions of texts that we use are from studies from the 19

th century.

What happens in the 20th century is that the scope widens so it‟s not just about governments and

constitutions, it‟s about everybody. More recently things like the web have helped that widening in the sense that more people can participate and get access to the evidence and things like databases have meant that things that used to take years of expertise you can do really quickly. The fact that its scope has widened is an improvement. I think going back to the thing about complexity, people are… generally the discipline is more aware that complexity is the point and to be valued as opposed to trying to find out “well here‟s the answer. Bang.” People’s decisions are often shaped by the past. What is you view on this? Anyone who wants to argue that people‟s decisions aren‟t shaped by the past needs to show evidence for it. The dimension in which people move… it‟s not the only thing that influences them but there is no clean sheet , you are always the product of what has come before and in terms of

14

decisions it‟s precisely what you have decided before, what other people have decided before, who you‟re trying to be like, who you‟re trying not to be like, that influences them. Right now in world, in politics for example, the decisions that have been taken in the context of say, the war on terror, are all in a thick historical dimension. There are quite often bogus claims made about what the religious positions involve, what the Crusades were, what Islam is or isn‟t; those only make sense within a historical dimension So would you say that it’s wrong to look to the past for answers in the present? You can‟t feed a question in to a history machine and get an easy answer out the other side, but at the same time if you try to avoid the history machine things will go horribly wrong, because to have any sense of the facts in any given situation you need to have a sense of its past. If you could choose any historical site to go to, one trip, where would it be? This is very difficult! Hippo Regius in AD 397 when Augustine was writing the Confessions, which is one of my favourite texts. I love to teach it, I think everyone should read it, and we still don‟t know enough about what was in his head when he wrote it. What is it about medieval Europe that interests you so much? To make an analogy with personal memory again it‟s where we, whoever we are, come from, but it‟s different. So it‟s like looking at a family album from way, way back, you can just about see some connection but how that connection works…. So would you say that the connection breaks further back? Well yes if you like…. Well everything‟s connected, but I do think that in terms of Western Europe, the Middle Ages are when there‟s something recognisable. So it‟s the strangeness on the one hand, but with the element of recognition on the other and it‟s the tension between those two that I think really interests me. What in particular are you working on at the moment? Right now I am working on the emergence of the Church as an institution in the Latin West. At what point does being a priest become a job as opposed to, if you like, a hobby? At what point did men who became priests, mark that profession out as the first thing they would say about themselves as opposed to I‟m somebody‟s son or brother or father and then a priest in my spare time? At what point did it sort of tip over and become I‟m part of an institution; this is the most important thing about me? Did that happen in the East before it happened in the West? No, I actually think it happens in the West first and I think it happens in the 11

th century in the Latin

West. In the East there‟s greater continuity from the Roman Empire and I think for that very reason the Church remained bound up in social and political structures, and thus had less definition, whereas in the West, it crystallised in the 11

th century. Take something like clerical celibacy. It is not

a requirement for priests lower down the scale, but in the West it is a requirement that priests are without family and so they are marked out from other kinds of men in a new way. People still don‟t fully understand why it happened and I suppose that‟s what I‟m trying to figure out but I do think the Church in the West has a kind of autonomy that‟s not present in the East.

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Have you got any plans for what you want to move on to in the future? The Latin Church is going to keep me going for a while. In the broadest terms the kind of projects that interest me are ones that look at from say the 4

th century up until the 11

th century and ask

how that transition works. I imagine whatever I do it‟ll probably be that. One thing I was involved with in Oxford recently was a thing on global history and that‟ll be the new way to go. I mean taking China and comparing it with late medieval Europe. That‟ll be a new direction. Interesting that you talk about world history. Do you think that the idea of looking at European history is changing now? Do they study European History in other Countries? Yes, definitely. Because history was a discipline that emerged in the late 19

th century, funded by

European, Nation-State governments, a lot of history is taught that way. But that is changing now, along with the world order and it‟s becoming clearer and clearer that European empires no longer rule the world. China is becoming powerful and I actually think that that is going to change the history that is seen to be relevant, and that will be a good thing. Do you think there’s a danger of European history being neglected in the future? Not for a while. I mean so much of the discipline is founded on it. The important thing is that the discipline remains not necessarily focused on any particular piece of content.

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The real Genghis Khan, the infamous leader of the Mongol Empire, has been largely forgotten by history. Whilst many people know of him, they are unaware of just how revolutionary a figure he was in many ways, not least of which militarily, and it is this that I shall focus on. His army was often composed entirely of horsemen, something much more resonant with modern, mobile armies than with the lumbering foot-soldier heavy forces that the Europeans employed at the time. This army, in a mere 73 years, conquered the largest land empire ever formed, stretching from Hungary to China. His greatest general has almost vanished into the mists of history. The name Sobutai Bahadur means very little to most people, despite being the general who overran the most territory in history, leading campaigns that destroyed 32 nations and winning over 65 pitched battles. His army inspired fear for centuries after and can still provide lessons for modern strategists. How did the Mongols manage these feats?

Discipline above all else

The army itself was very different from the foes it often faced. The Mongolian element was composed entirely of horsemen, with a mixture of heavy and light cavalry. Foot support was given by auxiliary troops which were often demanded from subjected nations; failure to supply soldiers often meant the next campaign was directed against the offending nation. This meant that for large amounts of time Chinese soldiers and Persians campaigned alongside Mongols, although inevitably with Mongolian commanders. This provided them with the flexibility and versatility

that so many other contemporary armies lacked. This was coupled with the extremely strong discipline that held the forces together. This was largely created by Genghis Khan himself; he had the brilliant idea of making officers much more responsible than before, along with the power to damage them greatly. This manifested itself in two main rules. Firstly, the leader of an Arban (unit of 10) was

elected by the unit and made responsible for them. If any of them lacked gear that was considered essential, such as tinder or food, the leader was punished, often harshly. This forced leaders to look after their men. The next ranks up, that of Jagun and Minghaan, with 100 and 1000 men respectively under their command, were chosen personally by generals of Genghis himself. He ensured they were not the unmovable sort that many people consider the best leaders. Genghis is reported to have asked what use a general is who cannot feel the pain of his soldiers and understand what they think, since he would drive them to destruction. The final rank, that of Tuman, was the equivalent of a general, and was mostly held by people such as Genghis, or the later, the Great Khans, who he trusted personally. The leaders of the Jaguns also had their sons inducted into the ranks of the Khan‟s personal guard. This was a highly elite and, crucially, a highly disciplined force. These men were incredibly loyal to Genghis, and they could control the normal army. Thus not only was the son incredibly loyal to the Khan, he could overrule his father should the need be there. When multiple Tumans were involved in a conflict they were always ruled over by a General, or Khan, who had authority over others. These men were often Genghis‟

The Greatest Conquerors

Proving that World War II isn’t his only field of interest,

Elliot Cross provides us with a fascinating review of the

worlds least understood military force: The Mongol hordes.

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“warhorses”, most famously Subutai and Jebe, or their descendants and people they trained.

Weapons don’t kill people, but they do help

Of course no army can function without weaponry, regardless of how good their organisation and leaders are. The mainstay of the Mongols was their composite bow. Made out of wood, horn and sinew, it had a 160lb draw (imagine an 11 stone person being held by three fingers) and a longer range than an English Longbow by 300-350 metres. This could quite easily punch through any armour of the time; Mongolian bows can penetrate Kevlar armour. The archers were accurate on horseback at full gallop, having been in the saddle since they were three and using a bow from age 5. These archers would have to be accurate at a range of 300m whilst in formation at full gallop, putting down arrow storms that few could survive. This specialisation didn‟t stop at their bows either. There were several types of arrows that each man carried, such as whistling ones that acted like modern day tracer, telling people where they were supposed to be firing, broad-headed arrows for un-armoured opponents and toughened iron points for armour-piercing, which often had the penetrating power of modern bullets. These all had hollow-reed shafts, perfect for maximising the speed of the arrow, and so the damage. Battles couldn‟t be won with just bows, however, and as such the Mongols did use melée weapons, despite a strong abhorrence of melee brawls. Here they used traditional maces and curved swords, but also lances that the heavy cavalry carried. These were an increasingly common sight through Genghis‟ reign, as warfare shifted from the nomadic tribal skirmishes to all-out warfare and so a charge, to not only break, but decimate the enemy became necessary.

Once the Mongols had encountered the lances that the Europeans fought with, they quickly adapted them for their own use and used their tactics of „couching‟ them, where the lance is held horizontally and uses the momentum of the horse, rather than relying on stabs from the rider. This quickly turned Mongol heavy cavalry into deadly warriors.

Tactical Doctrine In battle the Mongols were innovative and almost unstoppable. Their traditional tactics revolved around pitched battles and so they quickly became very used to fighting in this way. This was done through lining up in ranks, with a line of light cavalry in front of the heavy cavalry, with more light behind. The Horse archers would then bombard the enemy whilst the flanks move to envelop the enemy. The reaction to this determined what would happen next. If, after the first line of archers had fired their 60 arrows, the enemy had lost cohesion, the heavy lancers would charge and scatter them. If they held firm a new wave of archers would move forwards. This continued until either the enemy finally did lose cohesion or the archers ran out of arrows. In the very rare situation where an army could hold discipline through a hail of tens of thousands of lethal, well aimed arrows the flanks would have surrounded them, leading to an all-round assault from heavy, fresh horses. This tactic was almost impossible to stop; the flanks often advanced under a smoke screen or around scenery whilst the cavalry were nimble enough to prevent counter-charges from hitting them. The arrow storm was concentrated on the lightly-armoured soldiers who often had less discipline. In one case, in Xi-Xia, a client kingdom of the Sung, only the elite guards held discipline against a Mongol force whilst the rest of the army was destroyed with very few casualties. After this the Xi-Xia only had about 2 divisions of soldiers to defeat an army.

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Needless to say, they were quickly overwhelmed.

Terror is a weapon This need for pitched battles was transmitted to the way the Mongols campaigned. In contrast to normal practice of the time, the main cities and strong points were left until last. The surrounding area was first pillaged, with all the inhabitants being killed, taken prisoner or driven off. This left the Mongols with many prisoners and the strong points bursting with refugees; they quickly started to starve whist the prisoners were forced to lead assaults and build siege weapons, damaging enemy morale and keeping Mongol casualties to a minimum. This ruthless application of citizens showed both the Mongol capacity for cruelty but also their sense of pragmatism; these weren‟t random attacks, but instead calculated attempts to reduce Mongol losses and defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. Not all citizens were used in this manner however; there are many cases of Chinese and Muslim engineers being attached to Mongol forces to build trebuchets whilst doctors from these places healed injured warriors. Terror was also used to reduce casualties as scouts were often sent into areas about to be attacked, proclaiming the Mongol horde‟s massive size and strength, packing the cities full of people. Once the Mongols had the cities besieged, cut off, filled with refugees and slowly starving they utilised Chinese siege technology to great effect. Triple-bowed ballistae could fire telegraph pole-sized arrows over 1km and they‟d still have the power to destroy walls, along with ceramic pots filled with gunpowder, molten metal, naphtha or, in some cases, rotting meat and excrement. The Mongols were essentially using trebuchets with high explosive bombs, napalm bombs and germ warfare. They also utilised bamboo sticks filled with Greek Fire and lit at one end;

this would spew Greek Fire out in a flamethrower like fashion, causing horrendous damage. The Mongols can therefore be seen to be centuries ahead of their time. Compare the armies that could, and did, cover over

120 miles in 3 days over any terrain and still be fit for battle with the advance of General Patton, which managed just 60 miles over two weeks on French roads. Their bows were the guns of the age, their strategies fluid and disciplined and their generals innovative and successful. They often defeated vastly larger forces, such as when they subdued the Jin using only 110,000 men compared to their foe‟s 650,000+. They had two weaknesses, however, and they proved their undoing. Firstly, they had to move back to their capital Karah Korum whenever the Great Khan died. This meant that the Mongols left Hungary after defeating not only the Hungarian army but the Polish as well, all in the space of two days. This also caused a reduction in the army in Syria from hundreds of thousands to a mere 60,000, who were then defeated by the Mamelukes. The other reason, perhaps the main one, was that they required large areas of pasture land to move. Each man had about 4-5 ponies so he could keep going for days at full pelt. These were essential to the Mongols as they quite literally needed them to move and fight; therefore pasture was essential. This means a reasonable Mongol force, such as the 110,000 strong horde that attacked China, would have had half a million ponies.

This required very large areas of land to graze which were simply not present in Europe, Syria or India, all of which the Mongols attempted to attack, but withdrew from, mostly out of choice. Therefore, the Mongols had a natural limit on their empire and regardless of how good their military forces were they could not overcome it without removing the one factor they relied on most.

The Mongolian Steppe - A breeding ground for warrior hordes

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Want to know more?

If you’ve particularly enjoyed an article in The Shoardian, you may

want to read on. Mr Hern provides some suggestions...

It seems paradoxical that

one of the most thoughtful

and enlightened books on

Prussia, and its role in the

creation of Germany,

should have been written

by an Englishman. For

most of us, our perception

of the country is defined

by penalty shoot-outs,

bratwurst and silly,

shouting men with

moustaches in brown leather shorts. However,

this masterful account shows how Prussia‟s

history can be seen in a more balanced

perspective than was achieved by most 20th

century historians, whose views were shaped

by their experiences of the catastrophic

imbroglios that tore Europe apart. Prussia

became a useful scapegoat for these

misfortunes: „the source of the recurring

pestilence‟ as Churchill called it. This

reputation was not entirely undeserved, but it

was a stereotype that failed to appreciate how

Prussia‟s capacity as an enormously creative

state, whose Hohenzollern monarchy threw up

a series of outstanding rulers (most called

Frederick). They created a state that was

defined by its military culture, but also created

an effective administration, was highly cultured

and enlightened, as well as socially

responsible and democratically vibrant (in the

context of 19th century politics at least). This

book skillfully weaves it way through the

formation of the Prussian kingdom; its forging

in the crucible of the wars of the 18th century

and its responses to Napoleon‟s challenge,

which in turn helped the rise of Bismarck and

the unification of Germany. It also

demonstrates how the ambitions of the last

Kaiser were destroyed in the mud of the

trenches, and the way this bitter experience

allowed the Nazis to debase Prussian

traditions in their archaic quest to subjugate

Central and Eastern Europe. Clark gives us

wonderful pen portraits of the kings and

courtiers, but also looks at the experiences of

ordinary workers and peasants, which creates

a rounded and balanced depiction of one of

Europe‟s least understood political entities.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Rarely have 67 words caused so much ink to

be spilt, and so much polemical frothing of the

mouth. In this excellently researched study,

Schneer attempts to place the Declaration in

its context. The words of Arthur Balfour, the

aristocratic foreign minister, were the product

of complex negotiations and arguments within

the ornately decorated British Foreign Office,

and pressure from outside. European powers

Christopher Clark Iron Kingdom: The

Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-

Jonathan Schneer The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-

Israeli Conflict (2012)

20

showed no interest in the Zionist project before

1914, but the war change all of that. Schneer

shows the significance of the overriding British

imperative of the First World War to ensure

victory while maintaining the integrity of its

Empire (even though with hindsight we could

argue these two issues proved contradictory).

The Foreign Office saw Britain‟s interests

predicated on establishing a strategic grip on

the Middle East so that the Suez Canal link to

India could be preserved. To this end the

British negotiated with everyone to maintain

alliances in its struggle against Germany and

to secure a favourable resolution for itself in

Palestine: the Ottoman government, the

Arabs, the French, the Russians and the

Jewish Community in Britain. This attempt to

promise everything to all men was, of course,

part and parcel of keeping as many different

allies in the field as possible, and explains the

vagueness of the Declaration. It also reflects

the intense debates that took place over which

group could secure British interests. The pro-

Arab line, argued most prominently by T.E.

Lawrence, ensured the crucial line of

preserving the rights of the non-Jewish

inhabitants. What Schneer does so well is to

illuminate the individuals behind the

memoranda that survive in the Public Records

Office and lay bare the mentalités of the

Foreign Office mandarins, highly educated and

articulate men who wrote beautifully

constructed treatises, which usually ended up

serving no purpose of all and demonstrate the

high-handed detachment of Britain‟s Imperial

élite. The other illuminating debate that

Schneer depicts was that which took place

within the British Jewish community. The

chemist Chaim Weizmann, the unofficial

leader of the Zionist movement, was strongly

opposed by the majority of Jews in England

who argued for an assimilationist line that

rejected the idea of a Jewish homeland. What

this excellent study shows is how hindsight

can warp memory. As Schneer says in his

opening line: “The Balfour Declaration was

not, in and of itself, the source of trouble in a

land that previously had been more or less at

peace, but nor was it a mere signpost on a

road heading undivertibly toward a cliff. No

one can say what the course of events in

Palestine might have been without it. What did

come was the product of forces and factors

entirely unforeseen."

If you have read Huw Spencer’s article you can give my review a miss! Dikotter‟s book is a triumph of research and shows how use of archives is imperative in preventing yourself rehearsing tired arguments that are only accepted because they have been constantly repeated. The book is organised into two parts. The first gives the history of the Great Leap Forward from the viewpoint of the central government. Mao‟s attempt to emulate (if not outdo) Stalin by forcing China through a process of rapid economic modernisation has long been a symbol of ideology triumphing over good sense. Dikotter picks his way through the history of the policy from inception to execution, through to the realisation that something had gone seriously wrong. Dikotter gives a gripping portrait of how Mao‟s ruthless control of the party and relentless egomania ensured that the flaws of his own policies could not be admitted and the famine that he provoked was blamed on imagined political enemies in the Party and countryside. In alarming parallels to Stalin in the 1930s, he felt people were starving themselves to death deliberately to undermine the correctness of his policies. The worrying lesson from all of this is that people were willing to carry out the ruthless purges he ordered in an attempt to solve the problems, which only compounded the tragedy and caused tens of millions to lose their lives. “In a moral universe where the means justified the ends, many would be prepared to become the Chairman‟s willing instruments, casting aside every idea about right and wrong to achieve the ends he envisaged.” It took two years for the true

Frank Dikotter Mao’s Great Famine (2010)

21

nature of the disaster to be learned, and in January 1962 Liu Shaoqui, the head of state, made a public statement that contrary to Mao‟s famous dictum blaming the majority of the famine on natural disaster rather than human policy “nine fingers to one,” the true picture was that human error had caused 70% of the problems experienced in the Great Leap. Mao tried to interrupt but Liu continued unabated placing the blame on the central leadership. Direct attacks on Mao were still impossible, and Liu stressed that the general party line was still correct, while Deng Xiaoping exonerated Mao by blaming himself. The damage was done, and Mao moved into semi-retirement, where he plotted his revenge on Liu by laying the foundations for the Cultural Revolution which would remove his perceived enemies and tear China apart again. Alongside this compulsive narrative of

unprecedented horror, Dikotter attempts

something which has eluded most historians –

he tries to give an accurate statistical

assessment of the Great Leap Forward. By

using his unprecedented ability to access local

party archives rather than just relying on the

central government records and officially

published figures, Dikotter shows what careful

investigative work can achieve. Even then, he

admits that an accurate total will never be

arrived at given that in many cases no records

were made of those who died in the disaster of

the Great Leap, while many records are still

locked away. While most recent research

based on official figures produces estimates of

25 – 38 million premature deaths, Dikotter

argues for a minimum of 45 million and his

instinct tells him that it is probably much

higher. Lies, damned lies and statistics

anyone?

Archie Brown The Rise and Fall of Communism (2009) David Priestland The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World (2009)

The most bemusing thing about the recent

crisis of capitalism is the failure to articulate

any clear alternative form of economic

organisation. Instead of a clear political

programme of action, most people‟s

responses have been variations on theme of

vague statements of discontent and cosmetic

alterations to a system based on ruthless self-

interest free of sentiment, or any other form of

moral restraint. The events of 1989 have a

great deal to do with this, as the collapse of

Communism in Eastern Europe and the brutal

military suppression of student protestors in

China, consolidated the conviction in most

people‟s minds the bankruptcy of socialism.

Despite the fact that no-one seems to be

suggesting that the lesson of 2008 is that the

state should now own the means of

production, the fascination with Communism

has never gone away, and recently has been

resurgent in the bookshops. Both of these

accounts have the advantage of dealing with a

subject that still remains fresh in the memory,

while possessing enough chronological

distance to begin the process of placing this

most dramatic of political movements into

some sort of historical context.

Piers Paul Read The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades (2003) Malcolm Barber The Trial of the Templars (2005) There is no much nonsense written about the Templars that I find it hard not to start frothing at the mouth, given that we are supposed to be living in a more sceptical age, and yet

22

people believe in a load of old bunkum on the basis that “they were a bit dodgy weren‟t they.” *shakes fist at world* Anyway, the whole problem stems from the dubious and fantastical accusations brought against the Templars (heresy, apostasy, necromancy, sodomy, voting Liberal Democrat etc.) when they were put on trial in 1307 by the French King Philip the Fair, and the order was brutally suppressed. The fundamental reason for this trial was Philip wanted their money. The Templars were enormously successful as they had developed from the enormously popular endeavour of crusading, and had provided a means of allowing enthusiasts to contribute the process by supporting an organisation of professional crusaders in the form of knights who had taken monastic vows. The trouble was that by 1300 the last bastions of the Holy Land in Latin Christian hands had been lost to the Mamelukes, and so the Templars lost their guiding purpose, and their unsurprising resistance to change (see the banking industry in the early 21

st century) provoked resentment.

Their sudden destruction, and the old intellectual standby of “there isn‟t smoke without fire” allowed all manner of legends to grow up in an absence of understanding, and this has led to the various eccentric conspiracy theories that were dreamt up in the 19

th

century and recycled more recently in certain volumes of pulp fiction that the Templars founded the Freemasons and that they last Templar still guards the body of Christ in a secret castle in southern France, aided by Cathars, the Illuminati and Elvis Presley who are all really lizard men. These two books provide a saner view of the Templars and their history. Mr Harrison hates the Piers Paul Read book, but I thought it was perfectly acceptable. Perhaps he is a lizard man too. Malcolm Barber is one the great historians of the Middle Ages and his books are always sane and well

written – this one is no exception, if quite scholarly.

Don't be so gloomy," said Harry Lime, the sinister anti-hero of Graham Greene's Third Man, "in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo-clock."

I would like to have the credit for locating this

quotation, but I‟ve pinched it from the writing of

that splendid contemporary thinker John Gray.

I haven‟t seen The Third Man for over 10

years. However, it does aptly sum up the

social context for the wonderful artistic

creativity of 15th century Italy: civil war, foreign

invasion, assassination, utopian revolutions

lead by monks – there wasn‟t a dull minute to

be had. The means of production were

controlled by a series of local oligarchic

families, and none were more successful at

manipulating the convoluted urban politics of

the Italian statelets as the banking family of

Medici in Florence. In this accessible and well

written book, Srathern takes you through the

various scions of the Medici family, and given

that they were all very interesting, this book

races along like an especially riveting novel.

Paul Strathern The Medici: Godfa-thers of the Renaissance (2003)

23

Timothy Snyder Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (2010)

Snyder‟s book got a savage review from Richard Evans when it was published, condemning its „moral equivalence‟ of Stalin and Hitler‟s crimes. As Evans concluded “What we need is not to be told yet again the facts about mass murder, but to understand why it took place and how people could carry it out, and in this task Snyder‟s book is of no use.” (London Review of Books 4

th Nov 2010). I think Evan‟s writing is great –

from the excellent trilogy on Nazi Germany to the indispensable „In Defence of History‟ which all potential Oxbridge candidates are forced to engage with. Then again, Evans does seem to enjoy attacking almost everyone, and was brave enough to admit that his review was revenge for Snyder‟s harsh review of his recent work The Third Reich at War. Such scholarly mud-slinging is quite good fun, but while many of Evan‟s criticisms of Snyder‟s occasionally excessive grandstanding is fair, I found his approach a useful perspective on a story that one would seem has exhausted the publishing presses. While most historians usually focus on Stalin and Hitler from the perspective of their respective headquarters, Snyder tells the story of the lands between their two heartlands – Poland, Belorussia and the Ukraine. By approaching the subject geographically, he is able to show the common threads that ran through these regions across the 20 years from Stalin‟s forced collectivization of the 1930s (and its accompanying famine) to the disaster of the Nazi invasion and occupation, finishing off with the re-imposition of Stalin‟s control and the various localized attempts to resist. He also rather aptly emphasizes the extent of collaboration between the two regimes when it came to eliminating their shared enemies – the Poles – between 1939 and 1941. That the region suffered such a series of tragedies across these decades is a better way of thinking than the snippet approach to the past that is obsessed with

national borders and small time periods that afflicts much history teaching. Snyder, contra Evans, does make it clear that the Nazi occupation was a league above Stalin‟s in the methodical, considered approach it took to mass murder (if one enjoys quantifying these things), but makes some telling comparisons. Both based their government‟s policies on utopian schemes, and were protected from the consequences of their disastrous decisions by several layers of bureaucratic flunkeys, who abrogated any moral responsibility by reporting the truth to further their careers. I‟m glad that can‟t happen again. Oh, wait a minute…. When confronted with the reality of their failure, both scapegoated innocent groups whom they blamed for their predicament. Snyder‟s argument is slightly weak in terms of the Final Solution, as he does fail to appreciate the extent to which this was preconceived, and he follows the recent line arguing that the Holocaust was a situationist response to the economic problems created when Operation Barbarossa ran into the sand. This is slightly overdone, but I agree that the Final Solution took on a new intensity as a means of ensuring the Nazis could achieve one major victory when it was clear to those not intoxicated by Hitler‟s insistence on sheer willpower that their dream of Lebensraum was dead.

Nickolas Haydock and E.L. Risden Hollywood in the Holy Land: Essays on Film Depictions of the Crusades and Christian-Muslim Clashes (2009) It is easy to foam at the mouth with rage at the portrayal of the past in film. Discrepancy and factual inaccuracy abound in these anachronistic tales of unmitigated nonsense. Then again, one should move beyond such sentiments and ask why they raise the hackles in such a visceral way. One answer is that film provides an absolute way of seeing the past, whereas the written word permits the reader to use their imagination and create their own version of the past in a way that can be overridden unless by an overload of visual stimulus. Another point is that a film is an interpretation of the past, which does not have the luxury that a book has of being able to present a series of alternative interpretations before plumping for the director‟s own choice of explanation. Thus the fault lies in the medium rather than with the artist per se.

24

Finally film wants to be relevant to the here and now, and so cannot even pretend to treat the past on its own terms and understand it for its own sake. This has never been truer than with the celluloid versions of the relationships between Muslims and Christians which are discussed in this book. The best recent example is Kingdom of Heaven which argues for compatibility between the two sides providing that both stay in their own respective areas and only meet occasionally for a cup of coffee to chat art and philosophy. While purporting to be about the Crusades in the 12

th

century, Ridley Scott‟s film is really about US foreign policy in the Middle East and the response to 9/11. All the great medieval epics are really commentary pieces on contemporary affairs. El Cid is not about 11

th century Spain,

but about the Cold War, with Charlton Heston‟s eponymous hero allying with various Muslim Emirs against the real threat of the Almoravid extremists (represented by that reliable villain Herbert Lom). For Anthony Mann cultural and religious differences are less important than the existential threat posed by extremism in whatever form it presents itself (here the Almoravids were a metaphor for revolutionary communism). In this sense then film, is far more like history than we dare to admit. For many centuries History has been a didactic, moralising subject aiming to make the next generation better by ensuring they don‟t repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. While it lacks

the acerbic vituperation which is often the most enjoyable aspect of reviewing historical films, this book‟s positive discussion of the medium makes for an interesting and enlightening read. Less heat and more light is not always a bad thing.

Timothy May The Mongol Art of War (2007)

Elliot Cross‟ article should tell you everything

you need to know about the astonishing way

in which the Mongol military machine

conquered its way across Eurasia. Nomadic

groups have always proved to be a military

threat to settled, urban civilisations. What is

often ignored given the terror that

accompanied their conquests, was that both

ways of life need the other. Nomadic groups

needed the foodstuffs and specialist tools

produced by the farmers, which they could

not provide themselves. Nomads provided

animals and military service in return. What is

interesting is why this mutually beneficial

arrangement broke down, and was replaced

by antagonism. Nomadic groups‟ harsh

discipline and capacity to resist physical

hardship have always allowed them to

triumph over their civilised neighbours, but the

nomads were always conquered by the

benefits of civilisation. So to the Mongols:

they lost their competitive advantage and

settled down to enjoy the fruits of conquest.

The pen is mightier than the sword after all.

25

Throughout history, there have been certain conflicts that by their very nature polarise public and historic opinion. The establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Palestine is one such event. To some, Israel‟s declaration of statehood was the prevention of a second Holocaust; to others it represented the largest travesty in the Middle East for centuries. It is perhaps ironic that the causes of this conflict owe as much to Britain, as they do to Palestinian nationalism, or indeed to Zionists desire for a Jewish State. What many people forget is that it was Britain‟s colonial interest in the area that sparked some of the conflict.

The Initial Movements The first major movement of Zionists into Palestine came at the turn of the 20

th century,

with the first group of what would subsequently be called the diaspora moving and settling alongside the Arabs. The majority of them came from Eastern Europe, in particular Russia, where the Jewish population were subject to religious pogroms, mass extermination campaign organised by the Russian tsar. In the first 14 years of the 20

th

century, over 60,000 Jews left the area and arrived in Palestine, only a fraction of the two and half million that left Russia altogether. This group was the first to begin to modernise Palestine, forming the foundations of what would become the institutions of Israel. They bought land from the native Arab population, much of it never cultivated before, and formed huge agricultural co-operatives, known as kibbutzim. From this, the first seeds of conflict grew. The Zionists had arrived in an area that was experiencing something of a nationalist renaissance. From the beginning of the 19

th

century, the Middle East, and their Arab residents, had re-discovered their desire to be either united as a single independent Arab state ruled by a single government, or as independent states but closely tied to each other. They were inspired in part by growing European nationalism, but also as a response to the problem of industrialisation. At the first

Arab Congress, organised in Paris in 1913, the representatives strived for autonomy, a more prominent role in the rapidly disintegrating Ottoman Empire and making Arabic an official language. Although never as united as the Zionist movement, the Arab movement posed a significant problem for the development of Zionism in Palestine.

The First Deal When the Ottoman Empire joined the First World War on the side of the Germans, Britain needed support from the local population in Palestine, in order to protect the Suez Canal. They recruited the Arab population, on the promise of future independence. In 1915, the British High Commander in Cairo negotiated with the leader of the Hashemites, Sharif Hussein, in a series of letters that became known as the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, which promised the Arabs land that was currently controlled by the Ottoman Empire, but excluded areas such as Alexandretta and Mersina as they „cannot be said to be purely Arab.‟ The deal made no specific mention of Palestine. The Arabs assumed that it was included, the British later claimed that it did not. Nevertheless, the stage

The Arab-Israeli conflict: A Colonial Legacy

Was the conflict a direct result of British imperial policy?

Ed Green reports

Lawrence of Arabia - promised freedom to the Arabs

26

was set for later conflict between not only the Arabs and Zionism, but now between the Arabs and the British.

The Second Deal The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence was not the only deal that Britain made concerning Palestine. By 1917 Britain was considering the Zionist cause as a potential ally. With pressure from intellectual Zionists in Europe, the British were convinced that they could sustain the fragile Eastern Front, and could also influence the Americans into entering the war. On the 2

nd November 1917, Arthur

Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, produced a declaration, stating that „His Majesty‟s Government viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.‟ The idea was never that Palestine would become a Jewish state, and Balfour went on to say that the British would only permit it on the condition that the Jewish state did not prejudice against the existing population. Again, however, it is easy to see how the Balfour Declaration could be interpreted as the British promising Palestine to the Zionist cause. For this, the British encountered even more problems from the Arab side. The British now had a major problem.

The Third Deal Britain made a third deal between the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence and the Balfour Declaration. In 1916, the British negotiated with the French, resulting in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement. Britain and France were to split the Middle East into zones, some controlled by Arabs but with Allied „advisor-ship,‟ others fully controlled by Britain and France. Their idea was to limit any Russian influence in the area, and in the case of Britain, to protect her long term interest in the neighbouring Suez Canal. The agreement made no mention of a Jewish presence in the area, but with Britain making a formal declaration the following year, this is perhaps unsurprising. Of the three deals Britain had made, the one she was most likely to honour was the agreement with France, as the First World War had made her see the value in her continental allies. This was the only agreement, ironically enough, that she was unable to complete at the end of the war.

The Mandate System The first problem Britain faced at the end of the war was that she didn‟t actually own the land that she was proposing to give. This was easily rectified, however, as she simply moved her forces into Jerusalem in 1918. The newly created League of Nations handed Britain the mandate for Palestine in 1922, with the ultimate objective of establishing a Jewish homeland, and to work with the Palestinian people, with a view to making Palestine autonomous. For Britain, this was the best possible outcome, as she no longer had to share the area with the French, and could gradually establish a self-governing Palestinian state with strong British ties. She could thereby protect her own interests in the region, but also be seen to do the right thing internationally. For the Arabs and Zionists, however, the British mandate in Palestine was a betrayal of trust, as independence for either side was not forthcoming.

A Colonial Issue? For most, the idea that the fight for Palestine

originated with a foreign power seems

ludicrous, but perhaps it shouldn‟t be. After all,

the majority of Zionists who had arrived in the

early 20th century were Russians and other

foreign nationals. Even today, the Israeli

military is sustained in no small part by

American investment. It is surely too simplistic

to say that the conflict evolved solely from the

British colonial interest in the Middle East, but

her desire to protect her waterways, as well as

her interest in the Iraqi oil fields, accelerated

and inflamed the existing tensions between

the native Arabs and arriving Zionists. There

will be no easy end to the conflict while each

side believes itself blameless, but Britain

should certainly shoulder her share of

responsibility.

27

Founded in the eleventh century to protect pilgrims in the newly captured Holy Land, the Knights Templar quickly grew to become an integral part of European society, seen as the primary defenders of the Christian states in the Middle East and of the Church as a whole, with over seven thousand members and eight hundred and seventy castles and estates by 1300. Described by St Bernard of Clairvaux as fighting „both against flesh and blood and against the spiritual forces of iniquity‟, the Order‟s members were seen as both monks and knights, respected and influential across Christendom, soon becoming both a powerful military force and effectively the world‟s first banking institution. But, in 1307, the Order‟s members in France and then across Europe were arrested and charged with heresy, on the orders of the King of France, Philip IV, and in 1312 the Order was dissolved by the Pope and its leaders burnt at the stake as unrepentant heretics. This article is an investigation into how such an Order declined so quickly and the French king‟s motives in bringing this about.

Devil worship and idolatry Perhaps the first question to address is the accuracy of the charges – could Philip have really believed the Templars were guilty of the charges of idolatry and heretical behaviour? Given that no physical evidence such as idols has been found and the testimonies (almost all of which were obtained through torture by French royal representatives and the Inquisition) were, according to historian Alan Forey, „self-contradictory and unconvincing‟, it is unlikely that the Templars really were a developing cult. Malcolm Barber suggests, however, that heresy was viewed as a „disease‟ in medieval Europe, making it a particularly powerful charge to use. Philip‟s administration had used it against Pope Boniface VIII himself in 1303 (who was seen as a large threat to French royal power) and a number of other rival bishops throughout his

reign, suggesting it was seen largely as a political tool. Despite the extraordinary nature of the accusations that the Templars worshipped a cat and the Pope had a private demon to advise him, it is still possible that the highly religious Philip (described by Professor Elizabeth Brown as „receptive to accusations of sin‟) was persuaded by his advisers to believe these charges. This leaves, however, the question of their motives in pursuing the Order‟s downfall.

An Order without a purpose Although the Order‟s concept had been criticized from its foundation and its numerous exemptions from taxation were unpopular and seen as greedy, criticism was particularly intense after the decline of the Crusader states throughout the 13

th century. Frequent conflicts

with their sister order, the Hospitallers, and actions taken independently from the rest of the Crusaders were seen to hinder the Christian cause. Although one of Philip‟s ministers alleged that it is „through their fault that… the Holy Land was lost‟, the facts that the prosecution paid little attention to the fall of the Holy Land and that these incidents had occurred quite some time before the actual dissolution of the Order suggest that whilst they may have made a successful trial against such an Order possible they were not an immediate cause of it in themselves – indeed,

The Most Christian King?

Will Barnes asks whether the Knights Templar was the victim

of medieval French politics

A Templar is led to be executed

28

the Hospitallers survive as an order to this day.

Royal Aims: Financial Motives One of the most common speculations as to Philip‟s motivations in dissolving the Order is that he acted in order to resolve his financial situation. After his father‟s war with Aragon and his own with England, coupled with his failure to develop what Malcolm Barber refers to as an „adequate and regular system of taxation‟ Philip‟s government owed vast sums – according to John Vann, by 1286 one sixth of the annual royal income was owed to the Templars. Given the Order‟s perceived wealth and the large sums received from the Hospitallers after the dissolution, it is certainly possible that Philip was motivated financially. Historian Robert Fawtier, however, suggests that Philip was slow to act and was complacent when it came to the allocation of Templar wealth (much of which went to the Hospitallers). Whilst he did make some financial gains, I contend that these were not his sole motivation.

Royal Aims: A Developing State

A final consideration is Philip‟s desire for a

powerful and central French government.

Some have claimed that Philip wanted to

merge the Templars and the Hospitallers and

place one of his sons as their leader, but he

appears to have made no attempt to do so.

James Given and Sophia Menache, modern

scholars, instead suggest that Philip acted in a

somewhat „theatrical‟ manner, in an attempt to

demonstrate his role as the „most Christian

king‟ (rex Christianissumus) or to establish the

people of France as being the „chosen people‟.

I suggest, however, that a clearer motive was

the ongoing removal of power from those

outside the royal court‟s influence. It is

possible to see this as an extension of Philip‟s

earlier conflict with Boniface, a Pope who

expected the Church to be held above the

temporal worlds – despite the objections of

Clement V (the Pope at the time), Philip

managed to effectively demonstrate his own

control over the trial of the Templars, saying

that „if the Pope does not act, then the

princes… will act in default of him‟. Although

as Alan Forey reminds us „over-confident

assertions are to be eschewed‟, I suggest that

it is very likely that the wider aims of the

French crown are the most successful

explanation for the attack on the Order – Philip

aimed to make his own royal court the sole

political force within the kingdom, an idea

conflicting fundamentally with the

independence of the Knights Templar.

The Temple Church , London headquarters of the Knights Templar

Phillip IV of France

29

‘The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.‟

Karl Marx

Excuse the epigraph; it is self-indulgence on my part. To the layperson, the title of this article may seem rather surprising – “surely the Soviet Union was communist?” I hear you say. To anyone who knows me, it may seem surprising for different reasons (those being that I am a Marxist student of Russian and thus it is immediately assumed that I am a fanatical admirer of the Soviet Union).

What we must first define is the term „Marxist revolution‟. For Marx, a successful revolution would have three stages: the bourgeois revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then communism, an ideal held by many (although this number is dwindling, thanks to the Soviets), yet reached by few.

The first stage sees the downfall of the oppressors of capitalist society, the bourgeoisie. These control what Marx calls the „means of production‟ – essentially, they are the businessmen, the factory-owners, the employers. It is the proletariat who bring about this downfall. These are the workers, the oppressed members of the capitalist society, those who have had the wool pulled over their eyes. It is this wool which must be removed in order for the first stage of revolution to come about successfully. This is what Marx called „class-consciousness‟, and it is necessary for this to permeate the whole of the proletariat in order to produce a successful revolution.

The second stage would be the dictatorship of the proletariat. During this, Marx expected to see a purge of bourgeois culture, an obliteration of the capitalist society, ready to produce an environment in which communism

could flourish. This stage is often forgotten, and that is why the Soviet Union destroyed any hope of success for communism; this brutal regime was seen by many as being the socialist “utopia” of Marx‟s dreams, and therefore highlighting the vast failings of this system. As a result of this, the final stage was never reached.

This final stage is the utopia envisioned not only by Karl Marx but also by every other socialist, including myself. It is the society defined by the famous phrase, „From each according to his ability, to each according to his need‟. With only the interests of each other at heart, it ensures harmony and happiness, as well as prosperity. It is a classless, stateless society in which people support one another, without the possibility of exploitation. Soviet Russia, you should be able to see, was far from this.

There are a number of factors which have prompted me to label Soviet Russia as the dictatorship of the proletariat.

First, the Nepmen. The New Economic Policy (NEP), created by Lenin (father of Soviet Russia) ironically saw a return to free enterprise in the sale of agricultural goods and light industry. This is something that socialism opposes, as free enterprise inevitably leads to inequality, which then gives rise to the opportunity for oppression. The Nepmen, as they became known, were the people who benefitted from Lenin‟s New Economic Policy; they essentially became the new bourgeoisie. Although classless by name, this certainly was not a society that was classless by nature.

Moving on to Stalinist Russia, a cult of personality, a classic trait of dictatorships across the world and throughout history, can be seen. This was, by nature, a form of

Marxism in Name Alone

The Spring 2011 issue saw Sam Poyner and Ish Hussain argue that

the USSR never succeeded in bringing about a true communist

state. Josh Berlyne takes this view even further, arguing that Stalin

successfully derailed the march towards a Marxist utopia

30

subversive superstructure. The abolition of religion by Stalin had been seen as a move towards openness and away from oppression, but instead it opened up the doorway for a new God, Vladimir Lenin, with Joseph Stalin as Jesus Christ reincarnate. He elevated himself and Lenin to such a position through the use of statues, artwork, ceremonies, celebrations and education, indoctrinating the youth through the re-writing of history to celebrate Russian communism and his own greatness. A society with such a rigid and effective superstructure, hidden by the abolition of religion and the apparent removal of the old, Tsarist superstructure, should definitely not be viewed as a society moving towards classlessness and away from oppression associated both with capitalist society and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Stalin‟s tight grip on the press is a second factor that should be considered. Those of you who have right-wing views will probably associate a communist society with very strict censorship and close control over „speech‟, so to speak – basically, a lack of freedom of speech. We have Soviet Russia to thank for this view, and its close, but false, association with true socialism. A true socialist is also a democrat, who would encourage freedom of speech and would encourage debate – this was seen within the Bolshevik party under Lenin, who openly encouraged factional debate. Stalin, being the dictator that he was, and being paranoid (like many dictators), looked to control the media as a means of controlling the people. By censoring bad press about him, he believed that he could create a saintly image of himself as part of the cult of personality. This was yet another feature that would not exist in an ideal, socialist, classless society.

The secret police, possibly one of the most famous components of Soviet Russia, was yet another method which Stalin used to enforce his laws and to deal with political enemies. A network of informants would root out the „capitalists‟. Many of these informants, however, would mark someone out as an enemy of Stalin just to improve their own position at work, or to take revenge on a past grievance. This type of corruption, epitomised by capitalism, was now rife in a supposedly communist state. Why? Because Stalinist Russia was not the communist utopia it was

made out to be (by that capitalist monstrosity known as the USA). There seems to be a pattern forming here, do you not think? Many of the aspects of Russia under Stalin seem to indicate anything but a socialist state, and a classless, stateless socialist utopia even less so.

So why did this happen? Essentially, the time

was not ripe for revolution in 1917. Class

consciousness appeared only amongst the

socialists, and this was a factor recognised by

Marx. He himself said that for the revolution to

succeed in Russia, a Europe-wide series of

revolutions would need to take place, to

motivate the proletariat and to legitimise the

revolutionaries‟ attempts at a coup. Lenin

recognised this, and naïvely believed that

Europe was on the eve of a great revolution.

Sadly, for socialism, Europe was not, and

communism‟s name has been tarnished by

dictatorship masquerading as communism.

31

Alex Doyle argued persuasively last year that Stalin‟s decision to remain in Moscow in October 1941 was of fundamental importance for the failure of Operation Barbarossa and thus the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany by the USSR. There is certainly some merit in this view. Stalin, after a brief psychological collapse in the immediate aftermath of the German invasion, managed to keep a firm grip on power in the USSR, and as a result was able to apply the bureaucratic methods of control and terror that had distinguished his policies in the 1930s to mobilise Soviet resources and defeat the invasion. There was also a more pragmatic approach by the Soviet leadership that downplayed Communist ideology while promoting patriotism and other traditional values. Thus, one can argue that Stalin‟s person was central to the survival of the Soviet system in 1941. It is also instructive to observe that, while Hitler was alive, Germany continued to fight well past the point at which anything except complete destruction was possible. As Ian Kershaw observes, the leading personalities in Nazi Germany continued to be dominated by a mindset where obedience to Hitler represented both an honourable and a correct form of behaviour, no matter how dire the wider situation was. This observation finds parallels in the Stalinist system, and illustrates how important the „charisma‟ of the leader was to the functioning of governments in the dictatorships of the first half of the 20

th century.

It’s not about the individual However, by placing such importance on an individual‟s decisions, there is the danger that one simplifies a more complex reality. So much historical writing and teaching lays stress on the merits and limitations of individuals: it is as if human events are entirely shaped by the choices made by a few people at crucial „turning points‟ in human history. There is moral comfort to be had in this didactic view of the past. As human beings, we like to believe we are in control of the events that we live through. There is much suitable

material from history that can be used for didactic orations, like school assemblies, that can proclaim the lesson, “If you‟re a good person, you will make good decisions with beneficial outcomes for all. If you‟re bad, then, you will reap what you sow (and not in a good way).” However, does this really work for the study of history? Decisions are not taken in a vacuum of course, but in a complex social structure which shapes the ideas and assumptions of the individual, which inform the decisions that are taken. We believe we are free to choose, but our options are in reality limited by social, political and economic factors over which we have no control. These factors themselves emerge from developments that slowly evolve over centuries, but can also be shaped by more recent political and social changes: revolutions can lead to a radical shift in mentalities, for example, and thus present us with a different set of options that are both plausible and palatable.

The danger of hindsight When attempting to answer the question set out in the title of this article, hindsight is crucial. While it is important to appreciate that many people alive in the early 1940s thought that Germany could win, I believe the German invasion of the USSR was doomed from the outset, and no amount of tactical ingenuity could have corrected such a major strategic blunder. I also believe that it is too simplistic

Could Hitler have defeated Stalin?

The last word in this edition of The Shoardian is given to our

very own Barbarossa - Mr Hern

32

to blame Hitler‟s personal ineptitude for the disastrous decision to commit Germany to Operation Barbarossa. This view is derived from the argument that Hitler‟s increasing monopoly of military command and his increasingly inflexible insistence on forbidding retreat doomed the German army to defeat. This certainly became an increasingly important contributing factor to the strategic and tactical mistakes made by the German army after the winter of 1941. From this point onwards Hitler assumed direct control over the Army Command (OKH) as well as the overall Military Command (OKW). The timing, however, just doesn‟t fit in. These developments came about because the Nazi regime could not accept that the war had been lost - they were not a cause of the fundamental failures of German strategy. Just because German soldiers got to within a few kilometres of the Kremlin in December 1941, doesn‟t mean that victory was in their grasp. Capturing territory is far less important than being able to hold it.

“I can make more generals, but horses cost money.” Abraham

Lincoln

The crucial reality is that Nazi Germany did not have the fundamental economic and military strength to conquer the USSR. Thanks to the impact of the losses of the First World War on the birthrate, the invading army of 3 million men that attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941 represented 85% of German able-bodied men between 20 and 30 years old. This represented the country‟s optimal fighting manpower reserves, and once they were incapacitated through death, injury or captivity, they could only be replaced by younger or older men who were not physically or mentally equipped for the brutal realities of modern, industrialised warfare. There is a myth firmly embodied in the popular consciousness that the German armed forces in the Second World War were the epitome of modern technological ingenuity, but this is a Cold War fantasy. In reality only 10% of the German army was motorized. Despite its high quality industrial and engineering sectors, the German economy in 1940 was only partially modernised. Much of the economy was still agricultural. Most of the army moved on foot, using the 750,000 horses mobilised in 1941 to transport supplies. The German invasion plan required complete military victory to be achieved within 500 miles of the Soviet border. After this point, transporting supplies used up more resources than could be actually be moved. These inefficiencies were of course magnified by the lack of developed road and rail networks in the USSR, and the fact that most Germans had only learned to drive when they joined the army and so were very inexperienced, leading to a far higher rate of losses through accidents than would normally be the case. German military, economic and military strength was thus too geographically limited in 1941 to wage a war of conquest in the USSR of the kind envisaged by Hitler. Germany could defeat a divided France militarily, but lacked the mobility to project their military power decisively into the USSR.

The problem with Stalin That is not to say the USSR was unbeatable. Soviet military weaknesses were very real. Stalin‟s destruction of his generals in the purge of 1938 robbed the Red Army of a particularly talented generation of leaders. Army commanders after this point were mainly defined by their political loyalty to Stalin based on common service in the Russian Civil War

33

rather than military ability. This lack of strategic acuity and chronic weakness in battlefield leadership contributed to the massive losses the Red Army suffered during the war. However, the Soviet leadership‟s political will to maintain power never collapsed, despite a few psychological wobbles in the summer of 1941. The ruthlessness that had seen millions die in famines and political murder in the service of Communist dogma in the 1930s was now applied to the war effort. The battle of Smolensk between July and September 1941 saw hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers forced to die in futile assaults on German positions, but despite their failure to stop the German offensive, they forced the Wehrmacht into a battle of attrition that inevitably wore down German soldiers and exhausted their equipment. The Russians could replace their losses using their vast manpower reserves and the equipment produced by the enormous factories created during Stalin‟s programme of industrialization in the 1930s. The indifference to human suffering that was shown in the quest to build a perfect society was ideal in fighting a modern war, where terror was applied to Soviet troops as much as their enemies. This negated German tactical superiority. The Soviet system also permitted a degree of ideological flexibility which allowed the war to be portrayed as a „Great Patriotic War‟ with the culture of old Russia reappearing to allow the purpose of fighting to be more of an individual decision. The brutal actions of the German occupying forces towards the civilian population of Belorussia and the Ukraine helped highlight that bad as the Stalinist system was, the alternative was worse.

The Myth of Blitzkrieg Another sacred cow of historical writing in World War Two is the idea that the Germans employed a coherent strategic and tactical doctrine of „Blitzkrieg‟. This is usually understood as the application of the technology of armoured vehicles and airpower to concentrate an attack on one point in the enemy lines and, in the subsequent breakthrough, encircle the enemy while cutting them off from their supplies to force their surrender. This was the response to the attritional stalemates of the Great War that allowed wars to be fought with limited

economic resources. Many historians now deny the Germans had any coherent strategy at all. “Blitzkrieg” was a myth created by German propaganda which has been followed slavishly ever since. The victories of Poland, Norway and France were all improvised wars thrown together at the last minute as a result of Hitler‟s opportunistic diplomacy. German strategic economic planning, as far as it can be reconstructed from the evidence, envisaged a war in 1943/4: they weren‟t ready for war in 1939. The unexpected success of the campaigns in the first two years of war came as a complete shock to the German High Command. This created a belief that they had hit on a magic formula of avoiding attritional war which they applied to the Russian Campaign, which was the only German campaign of World War Two that fits the definition of „Blitzkrieg‟ in terms of a specifically conceived enterprise.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail? It is inaccurate to entirely dismiss German planning as negligent and explaining their defeat as simply due to lack of preparation. The German army that invaded Russia was the strongest force ever assembled, being composed of just over 3 million men. The Germans certainly weren‟t ignorant about the Red Army. They knew Russian military capabilities better than any other country given the fighting on the Eastern Front in 1917 – 18 and the military co-operation between the

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Weimar Republic and the USSR that occurred in the decade after the secret treaty of Rappallo had been signed in 1922. German military intelligence knew about the production quantities of Russian weapons that were being produced and the size of their tanks which dwarfed German models. They had provided much of the initial expertise used to build them. However, the Wehrmacht had certain crucial weaknesses in 1941. They invaded with 3,000 aircraft, which was slightly higher than the number that had been used to defeat France, but given the scope of Soviet territory, the ratio of 10 planes per kilometre of front in 1940 was now reduced to 2 planes per kilometre in 1941. Although the Germans doubled the number of panzer divisions between 1940 and 1941, and the light tanks that made up the force that had invaded France were replaced by more medium Panzer III types, the number of tanks regiments in a division was reduced from 2 to 1. 40% of the German Army vehicles used in Barbarossa were taken from countries conquered between 1938 and 1941.

The folly of racism One needs to appreciate that Barbarossa was the product of utopian planning based on the ideological belief that the Soviet political system was so weak that it would collapse as

soon as the German army invaded. Few in Germany expected the Red Army to provide more than token resistance. The poor performance of the Red Army in Finland in the winter war of 1939-40 confirmed the racist and anti-Communist prejudices that the German High Command shared with the Nazi Party that believed the Soviet system was fragile and entirely corrupt. As Hitler famously said, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down". The Russians would not be able to stand up to the Germans, given their racial inferiority and their abomination of a political system. There was a lack of any thought into what would happen if the plan failed, as it was taken as an article of faith that it would. With hindsight we can see that the whole enterprise was flawed, but it is important to understand that the decision to invade had a coherent logic, and can‟t simply be attributed to Hitler‟s incompetence.

The Wrong War

One needs to appreciate that the major German strategic concern in 1941 was the USA, not the USSR. Germany‟s unexpected military victories of the first two years of the war had put them in a problematic situation. Conquest by Germany did not present occupied countries with any alternative to economic and political subordination. Lacking any incentive for co-operation, economic productivity in Europe collapsed. Germany did better from trade with free countries than it did by its policy of occupation. The country‟s lack of natural resources – in particular oil, metals and rubber – meant it was almost completely reliant on Soviet imports, which had been increased under the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Germany‟s inability to defeat Britain due to its lack of resources meant it was directly confronted by the threat from America, something Hitler explored in detail in his unpublished Second Book of 1928, which had identified the USA as the biggest threat to Germany‟s emergence as a world power. The weapons that Germany needed to fight the USA were quite different from those used to conquer Europe: a large bomber fleet and strong naval assets. This required a major reconfiguration of the arms industry, but Hitler was not prepared to be beholden to the USSR for the resources needed to achieve this. As

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the USA concerned itself with the threat posed by Germany, it would begin to mobilise its economic resources and strengthen. Hitler was trapped by the limits for growth in the „New Order‟ created by his conquests, which meant that Germany‟s position could only become relatively weaker over the next few years. Therefore the invasion of the USSR was a means of solving Germany‟s strategic dilemma by giving it an empire with the natural resources that would permit it to take on the USA and become a global power. After the war, many believed that Germany‟s defeat was caused by Hitler‟s refusal to mobilise Germany‟s economy effectively given his concerns for domestic morale. But this ignores the fact that Germany was actually at full stretch in 1940, and that rearmament had been prioritised over domestic consumption since 1933. The huge increases achieved in the production of tanks and planes by 1944 that allowed Germany to continue fighting until 1945 were not the product of a „miracle‟ created by the organisational genius of the Armaments Minister Albert Speer, as he was to claim after the war in his self-serving testimony to Allied interrogators and his famous memoirs. It was due to the capital investment and weapons research programmes that had been initiated in 1941 to fight America: assets which took several years to realize, and were too late to make a difference in the war.

Wise after the event As ever, misunderstandings of the past are products of how it is recorded. After the end of the Second World War German generals wrote copious memoirs, which were studied closely by western soldiers who were looking for lessons on how to defeat their new enemy in the Cold War – the Red Army. Many of these memoirs were apologist texts, which sought to peddle the self-justificatory line that the German army‟s professionalism was undermined by amateurism and ideological idiocy of Hitler and his lackeys. Erich von Manstein‟s Lost Victories is the most tellingly titled. Wise after the event, the generals convinced themselves that if they had been left to run the war alone they would have won. British and American soldiers concurred, and many of the memoirs were accepted as

valuable historical texts written by military professionals who had had no political role in the Third Reich: the ideal German soldier in fact. There was a respect for the German military performance during the war, and in an era where West Germany had been rearmed to become a military ally of NATO, and was staffed by many former Wehrmacht officers, there was a desire to reconstruct an acceptable version of the past that was politically convenient. This led to the myth of the „good Wehrmacht‟ which had fought the war honourably, but had had its honour besmirched by the atrocities carried out exclusively by the Waffen SS. These myths were very important in the creation of West Germany, and their origins can be seen in the last year of the war. As the German frontiers were overwhelmed by Allied armies, and fear of retribution by the Red Army created huge waves of refugees from eastern German were combined with unprecedented levels of Allied bombing to inflict huge suffering on millions of German civilians. People who had previously cheered Hitler‟s victories now saw themselves as victims of the Nazi régime, with some small justification given the increasing use of terror by the Nazi system against its own people. This permitted the belief that the evil deeds of Nazi Germany had been carried out by a small Nazi clique, and most Germans were also

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innocent victims of unspeakably evil men who had seized power by trickery.

I haven’t done anything wrong! In reality, no German general openly challenged Hitler‟s decision to invade the USSR. There were some concerns about the logistical problems that the campaign would create, especially when it came to occupying the country, but nothing like the tension that had been created when Hitler had instructed the army to invade France in 1940. The successes that Hitler achieved meant that no-one dared challenge his genius. But the later idea that the generals were forced to go along with Hitler despite their better judgement is a distortion of reality. Despite Hitler‟s move against the General Staff in 1938, which saw the removal of the independent minded commanders von Fristch and von Blomberg, the Nazi leadership did not have the complete control of the army that Stalin enjoyed after he had purged his generals in the same year. The striking thing about the von Stauffenburg plot of July 1944 was how little support it received from the German officer class, despite the serious strategic defeats and colossal losses the Wehrmacht suffered in the 18 months after the defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943. Hitler systematically rewarded his generals with huge cash rewards and estates, but it went deeper than that. The general staff shared many of the extreme nationalist sentiments that Hitler held. When the army became mired in Russia, in a war that they could not win, they did not revolt but became more intricately connected with Nazi ideology. German soldiers began to demonise their opponents and the local population, which allowed them to carry out atrocities on a horrendous scale. The butchering of the Jews in the East began after September 1941, when it became clear that victory in the east was no longer unproblematic. The German Army became more integrated into the Nazi political system, and thus culpable in the subsequent crimes against humanity.

The truth is out there My explanation for the failure of Operation Barbarossa lies in a text I used as an A-level History student. Noakes & Pridham‟s source collection Nazism 1919 – 1945 Volume 2: State, Economy and Society 1933 -39 has an

illuminating discussion on the Nazi political system. They argue that Nazi Germany was created by the grafting of a charismatic dictatorship (where the leader‟s omniscience could not be questioned) on to a modern bureaucracy that functioned according to a series of rules and procedures. This created a monstrous hybrid where political decisions could be carried out logically, but the fundamental validity of these ideas could not be discussed properly. “The final bankruptcy of Nazism was not just the product of the clash of the irrational goals of Nazism with the realities of the international situation. It was also encouraged by the apparatus of government itself, defects deriving both from Hitler‟s limitations as a dictator and from the kind of movement and regime which he had created” (pages 210-11). It was this system of government, created by Hitler and accepted by the German élites, which proved incapable of making rational strategic decisions and analytical discussion and sensible decision making was replaced with a near-divine belief in the genius of the Fuhrer, a system which took Germany to complete destruction. Barbarossa wasn‟t a fundamentally sound plan, badly executed, but the logical product of the Nazi system whose ideology of racial superiority and political infallibility could not accept that it was following fundamentally flawed strategies. The entire leadership class of Germany, Nazi or not, were prepared to collaborate in this system until its final destruction in the abyss of 1945. It proves a worrying example of human willingness to co-operate in its own destruction by focusing narrowly on its own area of competence, and failing to question why they were doing this in the first place. Who says history can‟t teach us anything?