Category Archives: History

History, Japan, United States

Barack Obama and his work to heal the divisions with Japan

THE UNITED STATES & JAPAN

Intro: It has taken some considerable time with a lot of delicate negotiations, but it looks as if Barack Obama has cemented for his country a much better relationship with Japan. That legacy must be held in tack.

More than seventy years have passed since the infamous and devastating aerial attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces. The attack imperilled more than 2,000 Americans and drew the United States directly into the Second World War.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has now become the first Japanese leader to make a public visit to the memorial for those killed in the bombing, and the first to the visit the Hawaiian naval base since 1951.

This momentous visit comes seven months after President Obama’s historic trip to Hiroshima, when he became the first sitting American president to visit the site where his predecessors authorised the dropping of a nuclear bomb in 1945. During the intervening years, the world has changed dramatically since the Pearl Harbor raid and it may seem inconceivable that we would ever again be at war with Japan. Two countries who are now close allies lies in stark contrast to the bitterest of enemies they once were. The significance of these recent gestures, however, cannot be underestimated.

Mr Obama’s presidency which will shortly come to an end will be largely remembered for his impressive skills within international diplomacy. Yet, it has taken his full eight years in office to create and cement this new understanding and heal the wounds that have been festering for many decades.

Of concern for many now is what may happen when he departs the White House next month and is replaced by Donald Trump. Mr Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017. Let’s all hope it doesn’t take him any more than a few minutes to undermine and unravel an important bilateral relationship – one that has taken a good part of a century of careful work and stewardship to piece together.

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Arts, Books, Britain, History

Book Review: ‘The History Thieves’…

BOOK REVIEW

the-history-thieves

In this important new book, Ian Cobain offers a fresh appraisal of some of the key moments in British history since the end of WWII.

THIS carefully written and well-researched book takes deadly aim at the official version of modern British history. During our school years, we are taught that we are a decent and tolerant nation, and that the state does not assassinate its opponents, use torture or commit atrocities. Ian Cobain argues that this picture is both complacent and untrue, and he provides chilling evidence and testimony that the British state has routinely committed appalling crimes. Many of them, he argues, have been fought in wars well away from the public eye.

How many people know, for instance, that it was Britain – not the French or Americans – who launched the Vietnam conflict, airlifting the entire 20th Infantry Division of the British Indian Army to Indo-China in 1945 with orders to suppress a Vietnamese attempt to form their own government?

Who knows, too, about the four-year-long war fought by the British in Indonesia in the Sixties, or the decade-long counter-insurgency campaign in Oman on the Arabian Peninsula?

Cobain methodically calculates that British forces have been engaged somewhere in the world every year since at least 1914. Between 1949 and 1970, Britain initiated 34 foreign interventions. No other country, not even Russia or the United States, has such a record.

Yet, for the most part, British people are blithely unaware of any of this. Cobain argues that the reason for their ignorance is a culture of national secrecy more thoroughgoing than that of France or the U.S. He shows that the brutal Oman war went unreported for many years. And when wars did get reported, it was by tame journalists passing on doctored version of events.

Many of these events and wars also remain a mystery to historians. Cobain proves the British authorities have arranged the suppression – or destruction – of documents that portray Britain in a bad light. Thousands of incriminating files have been incinerated or dumped at sea, while others remain hidden in secret archives.

Cobain calls this “an extraordinary ambitious act of history theft”. He maintains “the British state of the late 20th and early 21st century was attempting to protect the reputation of the British state of generations earlier, concealing and manipulating history – sculpting an official narrative – in a manner more associated with a dictatorship than a mature and confident democracy”.

The author explains that the problem is getting worse because of recent legislation pushed through by the Coalition enabling suspects to be tried in secret courts, meaning that defendants do not even know the charges being made against them. The real reason for much of this secrecy, suggests Cobain, is not to ensure justice, but rather to protect the reputation of intelligence officers complicit in crimes such as torture and rendition.

Cobain is an honest and accurate reporter, but there is one serious criticism of the book. It does not give enough voice to the Whitehall figures whose job it is to fight terrorism and make sensitive decisions about British foreign policy.

They have the grave and very difficult task of ensuring atrocities are not carried out on the streets of Britain – and, in recent years, they have been successful in this vital and largely thankless task. Their need to work in secret is all too understandable.

Whilst we have nothing in our recent history comparable to the appalling atrocities committed by the French in Algeria, or the Belgians in the Congo – let alone the mass murders of Stalin, Mao or Hitler – most Britons should continue to believe that we live in a fair and honest country.

Nevertheless, Ian Cobain has written an important book which deserves to change the way we see our recent past. It warns us against complacency, and exposes why we should challenge what we have been taught from a young age.

–     The History Thieves by Ian Cobain is published by Portobello for £20.

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Arts, Britain, France, History

Battle of Waterloo and its 200th anniversary…

WATERLOO

This month marked the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated in present-day Belgium by a military alliance commanded by the Duke of Wellington.

The legacy of the battle remains contentious today, with France at odds with Belgium about how it should be commemorated.

Fought on Sunday 18 June, 1815, near Waterloo, in what is now central Belgium, the battle was contested between Wellington, with his British, Dutch, Belgian and Hanoverian army, and Napoleon Bonaparte with his French Imperial Guard. It was a clash of the titans: both men were military giants, they were the same age, celebrated strategists and had several victories under their belts.

Napoleon, who had risen through the ranks of the army during the French Revolution (1789-1799), had taken control of the French government in 1799 and became emperor in 1804. He was desperate to build a military empire, but a series of defeats led to his abdication and immediate exile in 1814.

In 1815, he returned to Paris with 1,000 supporters alongside him. The new king, Louis XVIII, promptly fled. With his ambitions for an empire rekindled, Napoleon then embarked on what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign, prompting Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria to declare war on him.

In June, he invaded Belgium, then part of the Netherlands, in the hope of capturing Brussels. Separate armies of British and Prussian troops were camped there. On June 16, Napoleon’s men defeated the Prussians, who were under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher. Two days later, his army faced Wellington, who was based south of Brussels, near Waterloo.

A significant factor leading to his defeat was his decision to wait until midday to attack the British. There had been heavy rain the previous evening and Napoleon wanted to allow the sodden ground to dry. However, the delay allowed Blucher’s remaining troops – as many as 30,000 according to some historians – time to march to Waterloo and join forces with the British. This proved crucial.

The two sides fought for ten hours. Napoleon committed a number of tactical errors and also appointed inappropriate men as commanders. The arrival of Blucher’s men tipped the balance against him. However, Wellington said afterwards that the victory was by no means crushing. He described the battle as ‘the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life’.

The fighting ended when the outnumbered French retreated in defeat. Both sides faced horrific losses. Historians estimate that Napoleon’s army suffered more than 33,000 casualties, while British and Prussian casualties numbered around 22,000. The battle was the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Wellington went on to serve as British Prime Minister, while Napoleon was forced to abdicate for a second and final time. He was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. He died there in 1821, at the age of 51.

Belgium hosted a major reconstruction of the battle, which included 5,000 actors and some 300 horses, while in Britain the National Army Museum hosted a collection of objects from the time. The Royal Albert Hall also staged a 200th anniversary concert, featuring a series of scenes and music.

Earlier this year, the earliest artistic image of the battlefield of Waterloo – depicting the naked bodies of fallen soldiers – went on display after being discovered in a private collection.

OPINION

Undoubtedly, the Battle of Waterloo was a decisive moment in European history. It was also one of Britain’s greatest military victories, albeit with strong support from the Prussians. Yet 200 years on, the commemorations are relatively muted. In-part that is just a consequence of the passage of time: the days of weapon-wielding cavalry and red-coated infantry seem impossibly remote. But it is also due to Britons being disinclined of tub-thumping over battlefield successes.

We celebrate the ends of conflicts: most notably that of two world wars, but the overriding emotions on those occasions tend to be sorrow and relief. Patriotism is normally the common feature that provides the backdrop of such commemorations, but jingoistic revelling in the success of British might is a feature that is distinctly absent.

Military events that really seem to capture our imagination are the unmitigated disasters or where Britain has found itself battling against the odds. Dunkirk is the prime example, an occasion which illustrates that, whilst not exactly victorious, the country was at least not defeated. Other synonymous military campaigns of Britishness that fall into a similar category include the Battle of Britain, Trafalgar, possibly too even the Falklands War – victories, yes, but very much defensive ones.

Whether we can commemorate war without guilt is a point often borne out. Seeing off potential invaders and being on the receiving end of almighty catastrophes might not require a complex debate about culpability, but commemoration treads a fine line with those who wish to glorify war in whatever shape or form. There again, we rarely celebrate Britain’s ‘successful’ wars of colonial aggression, either. Our roles in the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, has led us more towards introspection than pride.

For all our past expeditionary vim – perhaps, even, because of it – Britain is not a militaristic nation. It is notable that public anxiety about the current cuts to the defence budget is relatively muted.

In France, there is far less appetite in commemorating Waterloo. But that may reflect the fact that, whereas Britons are cautiously wary of celebrating the victory, our neighbours in Europe still refuses to accept that Waterloo was a defeat.

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