Showing posts from category: Regional History
The Zoo as Cultural Adversary in Cold War Berlin
In the 1950s and ‘60s Berlin, bisected into eastern and western sections, was ground zero for the Cold War. One surprising arena for the head-to-head competition between the rival political systems/ideologies was the public zoological park. Before 1955 there was just one zoo in the divided city, the historic Zoologischer Garten in West Berlin, immensely popular and well patronised, not just by West Berliners but by citizens from the Eastern sector as well𝟙. In that year the East German Communist state established its own (East) Berlin zoo, called the Tierpark (literally “animal park”), to counter the popularity of the Zoologischer Garten. The rivalry between the two Berlin zoos for hegemony sustaining itself over the next 30-plus years would be a personal as well a political one.
Heinrich Dathe (Photo: Katrin Böhme, Ekkehard Hölxtermann, Wolfgang Viebahn: Heinrich Dathe – Zoologe und Tiergärtner aus Leidenschaft)
Zookeepers at 40 paces! The new zoo in the East has the advantage of a dynamic, forceful director, zoologist (Curt) Heinrich Dathe, who managed to wrangle funds out of a cash-strapped GDR to enhance the zoo’s collections and facilities impressively. Construction of the new polar bear habitat for instance was financed by the Stasi (State secret police). When Heinz-Georg Klös took over as director of the Berlin Zoo in 1957 the competitiveness between the two zoos became deeply personal, with a bitter hatred developing and enduring between Dathe and Klös𝟚. The two directors were constantly engaging in contests of oneupmanship…if one zoo acquired a rhinoceros the other zoo got one, or as Jürgen Lange, director of West Berlin Aquarium, described the two men’s relationship: “if one of them buys a miniature donkey, the other buys a mammoth donkey” (Mohnhaupt). Sometimes Klös would get the upper hand…knowing that it was hard for the GDR to get certain exotic animals and that there was a shortage of raw materials in the East, he built an ape house which Dathe couldn’t muster the resources to reciprocate (Mohnhaupt & Frisch). Notwithstanding this, under Dathe the Tierpark was an instant success, so successful that by 1958 it was attracting 1.7 M visitors, 200,000 more than was going through the turnstiles of Berlin Zoo and Aquarium combined.
Source: etsy.com
Baby Vietnamese elephant, Tierpark (Photo: archiv Freunde des Haupstadt)
Proxy cultural war Dathe modernised the look of his zoo with innovative flair while the Zoologischer Garten remained more of a traditional zoo…in 1963 the Tierpark opened the Alfred-Brehm-Haus, at that time the largest and most modern animal house in the world. Containing a massive 50,000-foot state-of-the-art facility for big cats, the Brehm-Haus boasted the first barless enclosures for lions and tigers. The Tierpark, with the advantage of boundless space (set on 160 hectares), eventually became the largest zoo in Europe𝟛. The GDR loudly trumpeted its modernised zoo, heralding it as a triumph of socialism over capitalism, the zoo which due to a shortage of labour in East Germany was built partly by citizen-volunteers. Meanwhile Klös anxious to keep up with Dathe, was busy adding to the Berlin Zoo’s species collection, making it the most biodiverse zoo in the world. The duelling zoos in Berlin had become showcases for each side in the Cold War conflict (Rotondi). When either zoo notched up some success it was taken as an endorsement of its political system, a symbol of superiority and the validation of its society.
Zoo Berlin (Source: Reddit)
End of the zoo wars This cultural competitiveness between East and West, the preoccupation with demonstrating “who’s got the better zoo?”, purportedly asserted to be an indicator of a superior society and way of life, persisted right up to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Wiedervereubugung (German unification) in 1990…it was only in that year that “Professor” Dathe relinquished his iron-grip hold on the Tierpark. With unification came a thaw in the combative climate and a subsequent rapid shift from rivalry to cooperation between the Berlin zoos, symbolised by the appointment in 1991 of a single director in charge of both zoos.
(Elephant Gate, Zoo de Berlin)
Footnote: Zoomania As can be inferred from the above, zoos were and still are a big deal in Germany (in both the bisected and unified eras), a product of the salient fact that the Germans are basically “animal tragics”…it’s said that Berliners love animals more than people (Mohnhaupt), a measure of which is the astounding number of zoos Germany has, in a country smaller than the US state of Montana, they number more than 880!
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𝟙 zoos provided the perfect diversion for Berliners from both sectors during the Cold War, availing them of the opportunity to escape from the city of walls and connect with the world of nature (Rotondi)
𝟚 the relationship deteriorating even to the point of a physical confrontation between the two zookeepers in Berlin Zoo’s elephant enclosure
𝟛 cf. the much smaller, cramped, inner city Zoologischer Garten with little space to expand
Bibliography
J.W. Mohnhaupt, The Zookeepers’ War, (2020)
‘Even Before the Wall, Berlin’s Zoos Were Already Cold War Rivals’, J.W. Mohnhaupt & Shelley Frisch, Time, 12-Nov-2019, www.time.com
‘The Cold War Rivalry Between Berlin’s Two Zoos’, Jessica Pearce Rotondi, History, 08-May-2023, www.history.com
Britain’s Compulsive Afghan Complex: Venturing Thrice into the “Graveyard of Empires”
“To plunder, to slaughter, to steal … these things they misname empire.”
~ Tacitus, (Roman historian) c.AD 98.
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For much of the 19th century and beyond Britain had a preoccupation with the country of Afghanistan. Basically, it was all about Russia and India. Britain was engaging in a power struggle with Tsarist Russia for influence and expansion in Asia and Africa, part of what later became known as “the Great Game”. Russia had slowly grown its empire through “expansion creep” over several centuries, eastward to the Pacific but also pushing south deep into Central Asia. Britain’s concern was the security of its greater Indian sub-continent which provided the vast treasure trove of riches and resources which bankrolled Britain’s industrialisation juggernaut as well as paying for the upkeep of its other imperial territories. Russia’s systematic conquest of the Muslim states of Central Asia signified to Britain the likelihood that British India was also on the Russians’ radar.
Afghanistan found itself in the middle of this emerging 19th century conflict, stuck between the imperial ambitions of Britain and Russia. From the British perspective, Afghanistan, commanding the strategic northwestern passes into British India, its value to Britain was as a buffer state blocking Russian expansion any further south. British policy, hell-bent on preventing Russia getting a foothold in Afghanistan, led directly to war between Britain and Afghanistan in the 1830s with a British invasion (First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-42)…a war not universally popular in Britain as a number of politicians believed the Russian threat to India was highly exaggerated.
Britain invaded Afghanistan with its “Army of the Indus” comprising East India Company troops including a large number of Indian sepoys. The army had early successes, capturing the seemingly impregnable Ghazni Fortress in 1839 and was able to march on the Afghan capital Kabul unencumbered. The British turfed out the ruling amir Dōst Mohammad and replaced him with the previous ruler Shah Shujā. This turned out to be a grievous misreading of the political situation by Britain which held a false notion of Afghan national unity (at best the country was at that time a loose grouping of semi-autonomous tribes) [Jones, Seth G. Review of Imperial Britain’s Afghan Agony, by Diana Preston. The National Interest, no. 118 (2012): 52–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42896440.] Shujā, of the deposed Durrani dynasty, far from being a strong, unifying ruler, was an oppressive tyrant extremely unpopular with the masses. Consequently insurgency broke out in Kabul and in different regions of the country, forcing the British force to abandon Kabul and retreat from Afghanistan. The retreat was calamitous, one of the worst calamities in British military history. Beset by harsh winter conditions (subzero temperatures) and rugged terrain, the straggling army “was eviscerated as it battled through biting cold, knee-deep snow and apoplectic tribesmen” (Jones). Of an original 4,500 soldiers and 16,000 support personnel, only a handful of men made it back to safety.
Stinging from the catastrophic defeat and the loss of an entire army, a disgrace for nation and empire, the British Raj command launched a retaliatory raiding party from India several months later which sacked Kabul, but this was only ever, after the main event, a pyrrhic victory for the British. In 1843 the hated Shujā was assassinated and Dōst Mohammad and the Bārakzai dynasty duly resumed the Afghan throne.
1878 Afghan war
The British made a victor’s choice for the new amir of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan (Sher Ali’s nephew), who agreed to Britain taking control of Afghanistan’s foreign policy (making it a protectorate of Britain) while London promised to not interfere with Afghan internal affairs (the status quo within the country was thus resumed). Within several years Britain and Russia reached a deal which demarcated the northern frontier of Afghanistan[̊𝓪], clearly defining the southern limit of Russian expansion in Central Asia [Azmi, M. R. (1984). RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA AND THE AFGHAN QUESTION (1865-85). Pakistan Horizon, 37(3), 106–135. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41393703].
Panjdeh incident
Before the Russo-British accord was reached, a diplomatic incident at Panjdeh, just inside the Afghan border with Turkmenistan in 1885 brought the rival empires to the brink of war. Owing in part to the poorly-defined boundary, a clash ensued between a Russian army and a force of the amir’s Afghans, with considerable casualties on the Afghan side. In the end diplomatic negotiations and a timely intercession from the amir averted war. Afterwards Russia and Britain nutted out an agreement on the issue which allowed the Russians, despite having been the aggressors, to keep the Panjdeh territories.
1919 Afghan war
A palace coup in 1919, bringing a new amir, Amānullāh, and the “war hawks” party to the helm of Afghan politics, was the spark for an Afghan military incursion into eastern India in the aim of encouraging rebellion in India’s northwestern frontier and regaining lost Pathan lands. Amānullāh had timed the invasion to take advantage of British and Indian war-weariness from four long years of world war. The fighting was pretty indecisive but with the British blocking Afghan invasion routes into India both parties soon agreed to a ceasefire[̊𝓫]. The subsequent Treaty of Rawalpindi handed Afghanistan one definite positive from the war, Britain finally extended full recognition of Afghan sovereignty[̊𝓬], and for the British, the peace of mind of having the Durand Line reaffirmed as the undisputed frontier between Afghanistan and British India.
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[̊𝓪] establishing what British Prime Minister Disraeli called a “scientific frontier”
[̊𝓫] beyond the peace maverick Afghan tribesmen continued to raid British forces in Waziristan and along the northwest frontier
[̊𝓬] accordingly Afghans also refer to this conflict as the War for Independence
Peculiarly Portuguese?: Salazar, Luso-Exceptionalism, Enduring Mythologies
Portuguese Empire (image: Vivid Maps)
The fifteen or twenty years following WWII witnessed a very uneven pattern of decolonisation in Asia and Africa, with a number of the old European powers slow to cast off their coloniser mantle…the Belgians in the Congo; the French in Algeria and Vietnam and the Netherlanders in Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) in the end were extracted only after engaging in costly and unpopular wars. As the global wave of decolonisation gathered traction and other colonisers from the Old World divested themselves of their imperial territories, the Estado Novo regime of Portugal steadfastly clung on to its possessions – Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Africa (Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe), Goa (plus four minuscule enclaves on the western Indian coastline), Macau and East Timor.
Salazar: saviour of nation and empire
Portugal had been the first of the European powers to establish overseas colonies (enthusiastically followed closely by Spain), its earliest colonies date back to the 15th century. The Portuguese colonisers’ attitude towards the peoples they colonised in Africa, Brazil and elsewhere was really no different to any other rival European imperialist power of the time…undertake a Christian civilising mission to enlighten(sic) the “savages”, while economically exploiting them and their territories. In the 1950s with decolonisation starting to gain momentum, Portugal, a unitary, one-party state headed by dictator Antonio Salazar, looked for strategies to preserve its empire, aware that it faced a backlash from newly independent states in Africa and Asia who were a growing voice in the UN demanding it and other imperial powers decolonise ASAP. In 1952 Portugal effected a constitutional change, overnight the empire ceased to exist, Lisbon officially rebranded all of its overseas territories as províncias ultramarinas (overseas provinces). On paper it seemed Portugal had no colonies to decolonise, but the bulk of international observers saw the transparency of this, a technicality by Salazar to try to ward off criticism of the country’s failure to decolonise (a ploy that did buy Portugal some time but was always only a delaying tactic)[Bruno Cardoso Reis. (2013). Portugal and the UN: A Rogue State Resisting the Norm of Decolonization (1956–1974). Portuguese Studies, 29(2), 251–276. https://doi.org/10.5699/portstudies.29.2.0251].
‘The Masters and the Servants’ (source: errancias.com/)
Enter Freyre and Lusotropicalism
The Estado Novo in the Fifties turned to a Brazilian writer Gilberto Freyre for guidance. The noted sociologist had developed a theory⦑ą⦒ in the 1930s concerning the effect of Portuguese culture on its former colony of Brazil, a phenomena that became known as Lusotropicalism⦑ც⦒. Basically, Freyre’s thesis was that Portugal and Portuguese culture diverged from other late-stage imperialist countries because of two factors, the first Portugal’s unique history as a “pluricontinental nation”, in the pre-modern era being inhabited by Celts, Romans, Visigoths and Moors et al resulting in extensive integration between the different groups⦑ƈ⦒. Freyre contended that (extensive) miscegenation in Portuguese metropolitan and colonial societies was a “positive” in that it led to the creation of “racial democracy” across the empire (ie, Portuguese and Lusophone society was “non-racist”)…as supposed evidence of this Freyre and conservative apologists could tender the de jure eligibility for Portuguese citizenship availed to non-white people, the attainment of assimilado status. The stark reality however is that the Portuguese authorities put so many obstacles in the way that made it virtually impossible for blacks from the colonies to ever secure the same legal rights and status as white citizens [Almeida, J. C. P., & Corkill, D. (2015). On Being Portuguese: Luso-tropicalism, Migrations and the Politics of Citizenship. In E. G. RODRÍGUEZ & S. A. TATE (Eds.), Creolizing Europe: Legacies and Transformations(pp. 157–174). Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1gn6d5h.14]⦑ɖ⦒.
Lisbon street scene, late 16th century
Just your warm and friendly colonisers?
The other component of the Freyre thesis concerns the Iberian climate. Portugal’s warmer climate, Freyre argued, made it more humane and friendly, and more adaptable to other climates and cultures⦑ꫀ⦒. The combination of these two factors led Freyre to conclude that the Portuguese were “better colonisers”. A question arises, given that Spain shares the same climate and its “biological stock” and culture has undergone the same process of multinational hybridisation over epochs of history as its contiguous neighbour, why wouldn’t Spain be equally good as assimilators and have a similar experience of inter-racial harmony?
Salazar (source: WSJ)
Salazar, though initially wary of a controversial philosophy which had at its centre a “glamourised” miscegenation and pseudoscientific mythologising about race, eventually reshaped Freyre’s theory into his regime’s official doctrine, a framework staking Portugal’s claim to ideological legitimacy to continue its anachronistic practice of colonisation. Lisbon’s politicians and diplomats were unleashed in the UN to burst forth with volleys of rhetoric about the soi-disant “special” relationship between the homeland and the overseas provinces⦑ᠻ⦒: the two were indivisible; the provinces were an integral part of Portugal’s unique, singular, multiracial nation; Portugal’s very identity depended on their retention, etc. [Cristiana Bastos, ‘Race, Racism and Racialism in Three Portuguese-Speaking Societies’, in Luso-Tropicalism and its Discontents, edited by Warwick Anderson, Ricardo Roque and Ricardo Ventura Santos (2019)].
Portuguese military in the colonial war with Angola
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Pariah state or defender of the West?
A spate of new decolonisations, speedily attained after 1960, leveraged even more pressure on Lisbon to decolonise – or at least to seriously begin a dialogue about a path to decolonisation, Salazar dugs his heels and refused to do either. Portugal was condemned in the UN as a practitioner of “colonisation in denial and in disguise” and was even more trechantly criticised after the coloniser engaged colonial rebels in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea in wars of liberation. Lisbon responded by making a Cold War pitch to try to shore up Western solidarity on the issue…Salazar claimed to be defending Western civilisation in Africa against the menace of communism. This earned them few brownie points in Washington where the Kennedy Administration was among those pressing Lisbon to decolonise, while at the same time not going too hard, remembering its own vested interests (US was using the Azores Islands as an military base courtesy of Portugal). To its UN detractors and to the international community, Portugal throwing itself in full-scale colonial wars to prevent decolonisation was not a good look, resulting in further condemnation (Reis). Portugal’s international position was further undermined when, first, India overran the Portuguese colony of Goa by force in 1961 and annexed it, and later in the decade, another blow to Portuguese prestige, it lost control of its tiny enclave Macau to Communist China. Portugal, against the tide of history, continued to cling doggedly to its small portfolio of overseas possessions long after it could be said to amount to anything worthy of the name empire.
The Carnation Revolution overthrows Portugal’s “New State” (Image. lisbonlisboaportugal.com)
Postscript: Old habits
Significantly, the Lusotropicalism mindset didn’t end with the overthrow of the Estado Novo dictatorship in 1974, despite the new democratic government moving quickly to grant independence to the Portuguese colonies…conservative apologists in Portugal’s democratic era continue to celebrate and romanticise “mixedness” as “something inherently progressive” [‘Luso-tropicalism’, Global Social Theory, www.globalsocialtheory.org]. It seems the Portuguese politics has still not freed itself from the national myth-making that its long-dead leader Salazar had institutionalised in the 1950s…in 2017 the Portuguese head of state at an international meeting in Senegal was happily extolling “the virtues of Luso-exceptionality” (Bastos).
Endnote: Social integration myth The Lusotropical notion which claimed that Portuguese colonists integrated with the colonised subjects in a superior way was contradicted by the Portuguese town planning model for Africa, the colonatos. This scheme envisaged whites-only settlements which were intended to be “miniature Portugals”. When put into practice in Angola and Mozambique the colonatos were organisational disasters, poorly planned, little infrastructure and technical assistance, poor transport lines, etc. [Cláudia Castello, ‘Creating Portugal in Colonial Africa’, Africa is a Country, 25-May-2020, www.africasacountry.com].
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⦑ą⦒ labelled a “quasi-theory” by some scholars (Cláudia Castello, ‘“Luso-Tropicalism” and Portuguese Late Colonialism’, Buala, 28-May-2015, www.buala.org)
⦑ც⦒ Luso = pertaining to Portugal + tropicalism
⦑ƈ⦒ with transference to Brazilian society through its coalescence and integration of Europeans, enslaved Africans and native Amerindians
⦑ɖ⦒ with regards to colonial Brazil Freyre in his best known work The Masters and the Slaves misrepresents slavery as “a mild form of servitude” and he has been further criticised for exonerating the absolving the colonisers of any racist practices in modern Brazil and glossing over the iniquities of the slave trade [Wohl, Emma (2013). ‘“Casa Grande e Senzala” and the Formation of a New Brazilian Identity’,
Invoking Italy’s heritage: the glory of Rome (photo: ISTOCK.COM/MUSTANG_79)
Italy’s Acute Case of Empire Envy in the Early 1900s
In the late 19th century the Kingdom of Italy was still in its infancy as a fully-fledged, unified state in Europe, nonetheless Italians were casting an envious eye over the smorgasbord of colonial possessions other European powers were snaffling up (seemingly effortlessly) in the free-for-all known as the “Scramble for Africa”. In a climate of burgeoning nationalist sentiments Italian politicians were quick to underscore the country’s historical association with Ancient Rome by way of its imperial credentials. By the turn of the century Italy had secured a minor foothold in Africa with two East African colonies, in Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, but what it really wanted was a base in North Africa, a prerequisite for expanding its sway into the Mediterranean (mare nostrum – “our sea“𝟷̷). Real estate options in Africa had rapidly dried up however, France had already established colonies in Tunisia, Algeria and (shared with Spain) Morocco, and Egypt was a British “veiled protectorate”. The Italian focus turned to the one remaining Mediterranean territory in North Africa, Libya, then comprising several provinces, the principal ones being the Regency of Tripoli or Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica, both semi-autonomous vilayets of the Ottoman Empire.
Illustrated map of Italian campaign with fleet blockade of Libyan ports (source: Media Storehouse)
Italian imperialist designs: Search for a casus belli Italian nationalists and imperialists, whipped up by the frenzy created by the jingoistic Italian press, started to agitate for Italy to annex Tripoli. The territory being in close proximity to the southern tip of Italy made it attractive as a base from which to control the central Mediterranean𝟸̷. As the groundswell for war in Italian society gathered momentum and pressured by war hawks in his own cabinet, Italian Prime Minister Gioltti sounded out the European powers, most of whom voiced no objections to Italy’s plan for occupation of Libya𝟹̷. The Italian government tried to provoke the Ottoman regime into war…drumming up pretexts for intervention, eg, the small Italian community in Libya was supposedly being mistreated (highly exaggerated!). On the strength of this Gioltti issued an ultimatum to the Ottomans to immediately cede Tripoli to Italy. The Ottoman government of the “Young Turks” vacillated before asking Rome to accept a Britain/Egypt style solution (the would-be coloniser assumes real power in the colony while the former coloniser retains nominal suzerainty over the colony). Italy refused this counter-offer point blank, declared war in September 1911 and commenced preparing its invasion force.
Port of Tripoli, ca.1910 (image: delcampe.net)
A settler-colonial society Italy’s motives for acquiring a colony in Libya were not entirely about national pride and resurrecting the glory of the Roman Empire. The Italian state, post-unification, had serious social problems. The underdeveloped national economy was incapable of coping with the exponential growth in population, for which there was insufficient work and insufficient food for all the people. A new colony in North Africa just over the sea, the politicians surmised, would solve this dilemma, a receptacle to drain off surplus Italian population with the emigrants becoming small agricultural producers in Libya (‘The Italo-Turkish War’, Osprey Blog (Gabriele Esposito), 17-Sep-2020, www.ospreypublishing.com).
Italian troops in action, Libya 1911
Italian expectations, strategy and stalemate When war was declared Italy’s superior navy was easily able to intercept and prevent attempts by Ottoman naval vessels to transport troops and equipment to Libya. Turkish commanders Enver Pasha and Mustafa Kemal and other army personnel had to resort to smuggling themselves into Libya, mainly via Egypt. Italian forces having landed in Tripoli quickly took control of the coastal regions of Libya necessitating the Ottoman military units and Arab Bedouin fighters to withdrew to the interior. Italy had expected a quick victory in the conflict and had counted on the native Arab population welcoming the Italian soldiers as liberators from the Turks, it was wrong on both counts. Arab and Bedouin tribesmen (Muslim Senussi clan), combined together with the Ottoman units to staunchly resist the invading Christians (the Arabs’ irregular forces (hamidiye) proved to be quite effective fighters). The invasion force also found itself fighting the Libyan conditions, harsh landscape, extreme heat, wind, etc described by one historian as scatolone di sabbia (a “box of sand”) (Charles Stephenson, Box of Sand: The Italo–Ottoman War, 1911-1912, (2014)). The Italians were further hampered by the utter inadequacy of its maps of the region (relying on old maps, some of which were from the Ancient Roman era!) The Italian military strategy was to try to draw the defenders into engaging in open, full-scale, conventional battles, the Ottoman and Arab resistance refused to oblige them, rather the defenders resorted to fighting a guerrilla war, a mode of fighting which the Italians failed abjectly to adapt to (‘Italy-Turkish War’, (documentary), The Great War series (2021)). A stalemate ensued…despite putting a force in the field in Libya of up to 100,000 soldiers (including Somali mercenaries), the Italians could not make any military headway inland and yet at the same time the desert-based defenders couldn’t expel the invaders from the country.
Mustafa Kemal with Senussi tribesmen, Tobruk 1911
Air, land and sea With no progress in sight on the land front the Italians in 1912 opted for a new strategy, launching a naval campaign against the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman possessions in the Aegean Sea—the province of Rhodes and other islands in the Dodecanese chain—were attacked by gunboat and captured. The Italian navy heavily shelled the cities of Beirut and Smyrna in Asia Minor, blocked the Ottomans’ Red Sea ports and even made an unsuccessful assault by sea on the Dardanelles.
Ottoman surrender of Rhodes to Italians (source: La Domenica del Corriere, May-June 1912)
As the costly and increasingly unpopular war dragged on much longer than anticipated, the mounting concern of European states prompted them to initiate peace talks between the warring parties. After a few failures a peace agreement was eventually reached in October 1912 with the Treaty of Ouchy (AKA First Treaty of Lausanne) on terms favourable to Italy. The Constantinople government ceded Tripoli and Cyrenaica to Italy who promised to return the Dodecanese Islands to Turkey, however a turn of events in the region prevented this from ever happening.
Pax (source: Media Storehouse)
Fallout and Aftermath The Italo-Turkish War’s biggest consequence was to contribute to the destabilisation of the Balkans. The impact of that was felt immediately – one day after the Treaty of Ouchy was signed Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire, with the other member-states of the Balkan League doing likewise a week later, setting in motion a war continuum that would lead to the catastrophic Great War in 1914 and further reversals for the Turks. The Ottoman Empire emerged from the 1911-1912 conflict with its reputation as the “Sick man of Europe” further tarnished. Italy, though the victor, must have had some mixed feelings about its decision to commit to the military adventure. The war dragged on for over a year, drained 1.3 bn lira from the Italian coffers and cost several thousand Italian lives either killed in action or from disease. Yes, it won itself a colony in the North Mediterranean but this in itself brought further headaches for Italy as Arab and Bedouin rebels in the Libyan hinterland doggedly continued their violent resistance to their new colonial masters for decades afterwards (‘The Great War’).
Footnote: A series of martial “firsts” Despite the Italo-Ottoman War being one of the lesser known international conflicts in modern history, it is significant for a number of innovations in warfare. It was the first war to utilise aircraft in combat missions, and the first to practice aerial bombing of the enemy lines. The Turco-Italian War also marked the debut of armoured vehicles. And it was the first three-dimensional war, ie, fought on land, sea and air. The Italians’ use of airplanes in warfare however was not particularly effective militarily in flight missions. It’s much greater benefit was in their reconnaissance value – aerial photographs, and intelligence allowing the Italians to spy on ground troop movements, etc (‘The Great War’).
Italian airplane raiding Turkish-Arab ground troops (source: suttori.com)
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𝟷̷ Mare nostrum, deriving from Roman antiquity, was a concept “deployed to anchor Italian imperialism in Africa” at this time and during the later Fascist period, Agbamu, S. (2019). ‘Mare Nostrum: Italy and the Mediterranean of Ancient Rome in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries’; Fascism 8(2), 250-274. https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-00802001.
𝟸̷ Mussolini would later describe Libya as impero italiano’s quarta sponda (“fourth shore”)
𝟹̷ Germany and Austria-Hungary were not so positive about the Italians’ move
🇮🇹 🇹🇷 🇱🇾
Outer Mongolia and the Dream of Pan-Mongolism: Caught in a Realpolitik Power Game Betwixt Russia and China
At the onset of the 20th century nationalist feelings were on the rise in east and central Asia. For the Chinese they were fuelled by the humiliations of the First Sino-Japanese War and the intervention of foreign powers and foreigner-imposed concessions in China following the Boxer Rebellion, allied with a powerful sense of anti-Manchurism towards the ruling Qing Dynasty. To the north in Outer Mongolia, also within the realm of Qing control, nationalism was also spiking. Hastening the sense of Mongolian nationalism was the recently introduced Qing government’s policy of Sinicisation, an attempt at Han colonisation and cultural assimilation of the Mongol people (subordination of the Mongolian language to that of Chinese, exploiting Mongolian natural resources including the converting of pasture lands into agricultural production fields).
1911 Xinhai Revolution (Chinese commemorative anniversary stamp)
The spread of Chinese nationalism and aspirations to modernise China culminated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and the collapse of the Qing monarchy in February 1912, ushering in a new political landscape in China. While republicanism gripped China Mongol nobles and lamas took advantage of the upheaval to declare the independence of “Great Mongolia”, establishing a de facto absolute theocratic monarchy under the Bogd Khan (“holy ruler” or “emperor”). The newly established Beiyang government refused its recognition, affirming that Outer Mongolia was an integral and legitimate part of China’s territorial inheritance from the former Qing rulers. Under a 1915 agreement between Tsarist Russia and China Bogd Khan was forced to accept a status of “autonomy under Chinese suzerainty”…the deal also opened the way for Russia to colonise contiguous Tannu Tuva (an enclave within northwest Outer Mongolia which Tsarist Russia had established a protectorate over).
Bodg Khan’s Green Palace, Ulaanbaatar
Russian Civil War comes to Mongolia In 1919 Chinese troops under Xu Shuzheng occupied the Outer Mongolian capital Urga (or Niislel Khüree)⧼a̼⧽, deposing the Bogd Khan and ending Mongolia’s autonomy. Mongolian revolutionaries responded by organising themselves into a resistance group and a new political force, the Mongolian Peoples Party (MPP), emerged. The Mongol activists solicited support from the new Bolshevik government which had overthrown the Russian Romanov monarchy. Meanwhile, a White Russian (anti-communist) force under Baron von Ungern-Sternberg entered Outer Mongolia, sweeping away the occupying Chinese troops. Ungern restored the Mongol Buddhist leader to the throne while setting himself up as a warlord in Outer Mongolia. Soviet Red Army units eventually routed Ungern’s White Guards in southern Siberia and he was executed.
Roman von Ungern AKA “The Mad Baron” (image source: 2.bp.blogspot.com)
Mongolian Revolution The Mongolian Revolution that took place in 1921 was, according to Fujiko Isono, “a logical outcome of the declaration of Mongolian independence in 1911” (Isono, Fujiko. “The Mongolian Revolution of 1921.” Modern Asian Studies 10, no. 3 (1976): 375–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/311912.). Mongolian rebels, both of a nationalist and a socialist bent, in unison with external assistance from Ungern’s cossacks and the Bolsheviks, defeated and drove out the remaining Chinese troops occupying Outer Mongolia. Nationalist Dogsomyn Bodoo was elected prime minister in the new provisional government and the monarch’s powers were limited (upon Bogd Khan’s death in 1924 the monarchy was allowed to lapse). The MPP (renamed the MPRP – Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party) proclaimed independent Outer Mongolia a People’s Republic. A power struggle between nationalists and communists ensued, from which the Soviet-backed communists emerged triumphant and Bodoo was removed from the PM post, tried as a counter-revolutionary and summarily executed in 1922.
1921 Mongolian Revolution
Mongolian sub-branch of the Soviet Great Terror The power struggle within the ruling MPRP for leadership and control continued, becoming increasingly violent and bloody. Purges of the party hierarchy and attacks on Mongolian Buddhism were stepped up…the upshot saw military strongman Khorloogiin Choibalsan gradually consolidate and then cement his hold on power in the 1930s. Having removed all of his political rivals one by one in classic Stalinist style Choibalsan waltzed into the leader’s job in 1939 uncontested.
Choibalsan with his role model, Stalin
Soviet satellite and internal terror The Choibalsan-led Mongolian communist regime freely aligned itself with Moscow to the point of becoming a puppet of the Soviet Union, with Choibalsan even taking direct orders from Stalin on internal Mongolian matters. Choibalsan identified with the Soviet supreme leader to the extent of almost cloning himself on the personality of Stalin…slavishly imitating the ruthless political style of Stalin right down to the cult of personality and the mass purging of “enemies of the Revolution” (including some former prime ministers and heads of state), show trials, gulags and executions⧼b̼⧽. Choibalsan’s unquestioning, all-the-way with the Kremlin stance entrapped Mongolia in a perpetual state of economic and political dependency on the USSR—a policy perpetuated after 1952 by Choibalsan’s Sovietphile protégé and successor Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal⧼c̼⧽—condemning the country to a client status relationship with Moscow. This dependency paradigm was only broken after the collapse of the Soviet Union, compelling Mongolia to move tentatively towards democracy, social reforms and economic liberalisation.
Channeling Genghis (Chinggis) Khan : Gigantic Ulaanbaatar statue (photo: Viator.com)
Footnote: The Pan-Mongolia pipe dream Pan-Mongolism was an irredentist idea that has been kicking round in Russian/central Asian circles since the late 19th century. It postulates the creation of a “Greater Mongolia”, a vast area comprising both Inner and Outer Mongolia, Buryatia, Dzungaria (northern half of Xinjiang), and sometimes including Transbaikal, Tuva and even Tibet, a theoretical geographical amalgam which has been described as a kind of “twentieth century Mongol Empire redux” (‘The Spectre of Pan-Mongolism’, Mongolink, 21-Feb-2017, https://mongoliainstitute.anu.edu.au/). One interested onlooker in the region who could appreciate the benefits of fostering a sense of Pan-Mongolism was imperial Japan. From the early 20th century it was eyeing off eastern Asia as an potential territorial acquisition to funnel surplus Japanese population into. The Japanese blueprint envisaged a client state stretching from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok which would include Outer Mongolia. Carving out one large united Mongolia, they reasoned, “would help exert pressure on China and create favorable grounds for the Japanese occupation of the Russian Far East” (‘Pan-Mongolia’, 29-Feb-2019, www.mongoliastore.com; (S.C.M. Paine, Imperial Rivals, (1996)). During WWI the Japanese gave to backing to Grigory Semyonov, a Russian Cossack ataman of Buryat descent with a Pan-Mongolian agenda…Semyonov’s plan was to unify Buryat-Mongolia, Khalkha-Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, but it floundered due to a Bolshevik counter-attack and seemingly also due to Khalkha Mongols’ suspicions of the Buryats (‘Buryatia: Residents Concerned about Moscow’s Intentions’, 23-Oct-2010, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, www.unpo.org). In the 1930s a composite, Mongol borderland state named Mengjiang was created comprising the central hub of Inner Mongolia. Supposedly an “autonomous or independent state” nominally ruled by a Mongolian nobleman Prince Demchugdongrub, it was in reality a puppet state of the Empire of Japan𓇽.
Signing of the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship & Alliance (source: Peter Chen / endofempire.asia)
Postscript: China and its interests were not represented at the 1945 Yalta Agreement (between USSR, USA and UK), leaving Stalin with the tricky task of settling Mongolia’s future directly with Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese republic. After tortuous negotiations with China’s premier Soong Tzu-wen Stalin brokered a deal – China would give up on its territorial claim to Outer Mongolia and (reluctantly) recognise Mongolia’s independence. In return Stalin gave the Chinese an assurance he would not (or no longer) support either the Chinese Communists or the separatists in Chinese Xinjiang⧼d̼⧽. Stalin’s accord with Chiang effectively snuffed out the last flicker of Choibalsan’s dream of achieving a Pan-Mongol state (‘Khorloogiin Choibalsan — Stalin of the steppe’, Sergei Radchenko, Engelsberg Ideas, 21-Jun-2021, www.engelbergideas.com). Moscow’s interests were well served by the outcome, geopolitically, an independent Mongolia would be a buffer for the USSR against China while also being open to influence from the Kremlin.
Modern Mongolia (admitted to the UN, 1961)
𓇽 for the Mengjiang story refer to the July 2019 post on this blog, “Mengjiang: The Empire of Japan’s Other East Asian Puppet State in Inner Mongolia” at https://www.7dayadventurer.com/2019/07/02/mengjiang-the-empire-of-japans-other-east-asian-puppet-state-in-inner-mongolia/
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⧼a̼⧽ later renamed Ulaanbaatar (literal meaning = “red hero”) ⧼b̼⧽ called in Mongolia, Ikh Khelmegdüülelt (“Great Repression”) ⧼c̼⧽ Tsedenbal went one subservient step further than his mentor petitioning Moscow (unsuccessfully) in the 1950s for Mongolia to be incorporated into the USSR ⧼d̼⧽ when the Chinese Communists took control of the nation in 1949 Stalin had to debate the question of who owns Mongolia all over again with Mao who doggedly argued for Outer Mongolia to be unified with Inner Mongolia but as part of the PRC. Stalin refused to budge from the position that Mongolian independence was not negotiable and in the end Mao, with the PRC then a brand new Communist state needing to establish a good relationship with the world’s leading socialist state, had to acquiesce (Radchenko)
Big Troubles in Little Hong Kong: Unrepresentative Government and Civil Unrest in a British Colony in the Shadow of Communist China
Rioting in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, 1956 (source: simtang / gwulo.com)
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Social unrest has been the norm in Hong Kong over the last decade as we’ve witnessed the clash between the centre and the the periphery, between mainland China and the people (or at least a very significant chunk of the people) of its regained territory. Such polarisation and disharmony is hardly without precedence in Hong Kong however as a cursory glance at the postwar history of this long-existing Pacific colonial outpost of the British Empire reveals. Confrontation between the state as represented by the colonial government and its unrepresented Chinese citizens has erupted and spilt over into violent rioting and conflict on several occasions.
Double-10th riots (photo: scmp.com)
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“Double Tenth” Riots, 1956 In the 1950s tensions developed between right wing pro-Kuomintang settlers (many of which had fled to the British colony(𝒶) following the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949) and pro-CCP inhabitants of Hong Kong. What triggered the riots that erupted in 1956 was to observers an act of “petty officialdom”. In the middle of National Day celebrations, an official tore down a Republic of China flag and decorations in a resettlement estate in the city. Enraged Nationalists railed against the police trying to defuse the tense situation but this eventually escalated into widespread rioting by the pro-KMT protesters with gang members joining in…attacks on property, arson attempts, looting, violence against the local police and against leftist workers and trade unionists across North Kowloon and Tsuen Wan. With the HK Police overwhelmed by the rioting the colonial secretary Edgeworth B David (acting on behalf of the governor Alexander Grantham) responded by bringing in a British army unit which eventually quelled the disturbances using force. Although brief in duration the riots resulted in 59 dead (including the wife of the Swiss vice consul) and around 500 injured. Although the Nationalist agents in the riots were politically motivated in their actions, another dynamic in the riots represented protests from the anti-communist refugees forced into overcrowded living conditions and blaming Chinese politics for “forcing them into Hong Kong in the first place”. (Wordie).
(photo: toursbylocals.com)
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Star Ferry Riots, 1966 The Star Ferry riots in 1966 started innocuously enough with a peaceful protest by commuters against the government’s decision to allow the company to increase fares for the cross-harbour journey by 25%(𝒷). As with what occurred ten years earlier, a heavy-handed reaction by the authorities to a minor kerfuffle provoked many Hong Kongers, especially its youth, to protest en mass which led in turn to widescale rioting and looting in Kowloon with police stations and other public facilities attacked and fire-bombed. The police fired tear gas into the crowds. Again, British forces were parachuted in to forcibly impose and maintain a curfew in the city. As a consequence of the disorder and rioting one rioter was shot and killed by police, dozens were injured and over 200 imprisoned.
Hill-side squatter huts, Tai Hang, 1965 (photo: Ko Tim-keung)
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1966, beginning of civic activism The 1966 riots lacked the involvement of Chinese Triad gangs and rightist KMT malcontents that had been part of the 1956 troubles. Underlying its eruption was a widening disaffection of residents with the status quo in 1960s Hong Kong…in part it can be seen as a protest against the widening discrepancy in HK society between rich and poor and the appalling living and working conditions the masses had to contend with (overcrowding, ongoing housing dilemma, etc.), and a manifestation of the public distrust engendered by the corruption of officialdom and police.
Protesting tram workers clash with HK police, 1967
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The 1967 Riots The 1966 riots produced perhaps the colony’s first large-scale social movement, however they were a prelude for a much more serious disturbance to Hong Kong society just one year later. What started as a minor industrial dispute involving workers at a plastic flowers factory in San Po Kong, striking over unreasonable work conditions, escalated into full-blown demonstrations, protests and violence by the Chinese inhabitants against the “iniquities” of British colonial rule with the HK governor David Trench taking a hard line with the malcontents.
Military patrol streets after Macau riots, Dec 1966 (Video, Papa Osmubal Archive)
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Spillover from the Cultural Revolution and the Macau disturbances The political climate in Communist China at the time—Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution was very much on the upswing—played its part in stirring the pot of discontent among left-leaning Hong Kongers and emboldening them to defy their imperial masters. Another source of inspiration for the leftist rioters was the recent success of their counterparts in nearby Macau (themselves encouraged by the energy of the Cultural Revolution) in what became known as the 12-3 Incident. Conflict between the Chinese and the Portuguese authorities, brewing since July 1966, exploded at the end of the year…a dispute over a school building project triggered a series of Macau Chinese protests and rioting with the active participation of Mao’s Red Guards against corruption and colonialism in Macau. The Portuguese colonial police’s violent response to the Chinese protestors resulted in eight deaths and over 200 injuries. Under pressure from Chinese business owners and Beijing Macau’s Portuguese governor was forced into a humiliating public apology for the police crackdown and had to accede to the protestors’ demands. Consequently the balance of power in Macau was altered totally and irrevocably: Red China now had de facto suzerainty over the colony, reducing Portugal’s role in its governance to a nominal one only(𝒸).
Riot police using tear gas against 1967 protestors (photo: scmp.com)
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Smouldering Pearl As the Hong Kong riots gathered momentum the demonstrators resorted first to strikes and property damage, then to the indiscriminate use of home-made bombs (branded by the government as “urban terrorism”). Governor Trench took a hardline in retailiation, imposing martial law in the colony, responding with tear gas and raiding the pro-CCP protestors’ strongholds like North Point. Whitehall took a laissez-faire approach to the 1967 riots leaving its management to the HK administration and the local police. The terrorist strategy adopted by leftist protestors—random bomb attacks coupled with some targeted assassinations—had the effect of alienating them from the majority of Hong Kong Chinese. By October 1967 Beijing had had enough, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the Communist protestors to halt the bombing campaign, and by the end of the year things were quiet again in the colony. The riots resulted in 51 dead, 832 injured, numerous arrests and some provocateurs deported to China.
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Trampling the seeds of democratisation 1967 witnessed the bloodiest, most violent riots in Hong Kong’s colonial history. The trauma of a succession of riots in the 1950s and 60s demonstrated one thing, the desperate need for reform of the political system and institutions in Hong Kong. While there was some labour reform and social improvements in the colony as a consequence of the 1967 unrest, overall HK governors overall contributed very little to this cause. One exception to this was Mark Young (governor in the 1940s) whose Young Plan called for wider political participation by creating a new Municipal Council to give the populace a greater stake in the colony. However Young’s plan was sabotaged when his successor Grantham opposed its implementation and it was blocked by the Legislative Council, never getting off the drawing board. Instead, it wasn’t until after 1984 with Hong Kong’s fate post-1997 firmly settled that HK governments made any overtures at all in that direction, by that time the horse has bolted!(𝒹).
Endnote: Chinese takeover of Hong Kong? At the height of the 1967 riots rumours were circulating in the colony that China was planning to seize Hong Kong, to which the current hostilities were a prequel. There had been such a plan however the top echelons of the Chinese regime had never seriously countenanced it. Beijing was content with adding to the HK authorities’ internal troubles by despatching Chinese villagers over the border into the New Territories to launch attacks on police stations…for Beijing it was not the time for anything more. Perhaps it was as one observer noted, “the Chinese had no desire to take over Hong Kong at that time in their history…their proxy intervention had been no more than a demonstration” (Jan Morris, Hong Kong). And a test! It’s plausible that Beijing through its proxies was testing the HK regime to see if it would bow to pressure as the Portuguese Macau authorities did six months earlier. Ironically, at the height of the riots, Whitehall investigated evacuating Hong Kong altogether but the idea was strongly opposed by Governor Trench and the British Army command in Hong Kong on the grounds that it was deemed logistically too hard to pull off. A further objection was the danger to British citizens in the crown colony if a full-on evacuation was attempted (Yep).
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(𝒶) along with a criminal element affiliated with the KMT
(𝒷) the actual trigger for the riots was the spontaneous action of one HK vicenarian—inspired by urban councillor Elsie Elliott who dissented from the price hike decision and organised a petition against it—to stage a hunger strike at the TST terminal of the Star Ferry
(𝒸) the Chinese Communists subsequently moved to eliminate all pockets of Kuomintang influence from Macau
(𝒹) Governor Murray MacLehose was also of a reforming bent but he focused more on eradicating police corruption (establishing an ICAC) than on institutional reform
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Articles consulted:
‘What sparked Hong Kong’s Double Tenth riots’, Jason Wordie, South China Morning Post, 07-Aug-2016, www.amp.scmp.com
‘Fifty years on: The riots that shook Hong Kong in 1967’, Foreign Correspondents Club, 18-May-2017, www.fcchk.org
‘Whose Sound and Fury? The 1967 Riots of Hong Kong through The Times, Haipeng Zhou, global media journal.com
Yep, Ray. “The 1967 Riots in Hong Kong: The Diplomatic and Domestic Fronts of the Colonial Governor.” The China Quarterly, no. 193 (2008): 122–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20192167.