Expedition turned Invasion: The 1888 Sikkim Expedition through British, Indian and Chinese eyes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
YI MENG CHENG
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
British Government ◽  
British India ◽  
Intelligence Gathering ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The Subject ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
Chinese And English

Abstract A fresh look at the 1888 Sikkim Expedition using both Chinese and English language sources yields very different conclusions from that of previous research on the subject. During the course of policymaking, the British Foreign Office and the British Government of India did not collaborate to devise a plan to invade Tibet; conversely, their aims differed and clashed frequently. During the years leading to war, the largest newspapers in British India gave plenty of coverage to the benefits of trade with Tibet, thus influencing British foreign policy and contributing indirectly to the outbreak of war. The Tibetan army was soundly defeated in the war, while the British troops suffered only light casualties. Although the Tibetan elites remained committed to the war, the lower classes of Tibetan society quickly grew weary of it. During the war, the British made much use of local spies and enjoyed an advantage in intelligence gathering, which contributed greatly to their victory. Finally, although the war was initially fought over trade issues, the demarcation of the Tibetan-Sikkim border replaced trade issues as the main point of contention during the subsequent peace negotiations. During the negotiations, Sheng Tai, the newly appointed Amban of Tibet, tried his best to defend China's interests.

Agent of Empire? The National Bank of Turkey and British Foreign Policy

1975 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Kent
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
British Government ◽  
Third Place ◽  
The Third ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
National Bank ◽  
The Subject

‘The National Bank of Turkey was founded in 1909 with British Government encouragement and support to further British economic enterprise in the Ottoman Empire’ so we are told in all die standard and respectable works on the subject. This is correct in form but incorrect in substance, for one cannot accept the implications it carries with it, in some cases explicitly stated. These are that, in the first place, the Foreign Office was instrumental in actually starting the Bank, in the second place, that the Bank succeeded very far in its objects, and in the third place, that it ever received much Foreign Office support in what it sought to do.

«Asian Backstage Diplomacy» in Building Bridges Between the USSR and Great Britain in 1924

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
А.А. Улунян
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
British India ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

В статье исследуется роль и место «азиатской периферии» в период установления британо-российских отношений в 1924 г. Британские архивные документы позволяют сделать вывод о сохранявшейся значимости для британской стороны действий СССР в сопредельных с британской Индией странах. Одновременно британские дипломатические службы и разведывательное сообщество обращало особое внимание на складывавшуюся в советской Центральной Азии обстановку с целью выяснения возможного её влияния на британские позиции в регионе, а также советское продвижение на Восток в приграничные государства. В статье делается вывод о стремлении лейбористского правительства Макдональда избежать обострения взаимоотношений с СССР во имя достижения главной цели – подписания и ратификации договоров с Москвой несмотря на очевидные активные действия последней в индийском прикордонье. Автор приводит документальные свидетельства и оценки британскими дипломатами, а также военными действий СССР как в самой Центральной Азии, где советское руководство начинало проводить новую национально-территориальную политику, так и в приграничных с ней странах. The study examines the role of the Asian periphery in the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Great Britain in 1924. British archival documents suggest that the United Kingdom regarded Soviet activities in countries bordering British India as extremely important. At the same time, the British foreign office and intelligence were paying close attention to the situation that was unfolding in Soviet Central Asia, trying to assess its impact on the British standing in the region, as well as the possible Soviet expansion eastwards into the neighboring countries. The article concludes that MacDonald's Labour government wanted to avoid confrontation with the USSR in order to attain its main goal — signing and ratifying agreements with the Soviet state, despite it being rather active near the borders of India. The author cites documents and assessments by British diplomats and military officers. These sources cover both Soviet actions in Central Asia itself, where the USSR leadership was beginning to pursue a new national and territorial policy, as well as in the countries bordering that region.

The British Foreign Office and the Siamese Malay States, 1890–97

1971 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandran Jeshurun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Malay Peninsula ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The Subject ◽  
British Foreign Office

Although the Foreign Office was theoretically the department of state responsible for British relations with the Kingdom of Siam, it has for some time been recognized that the strategic interests of both the Indian Empire and the Straits Settlements and Protectorates in the Malay Peninsula necessitated the active participation of the India and Colonial Offices in policy making. The role of the Calcutta authorities and their superiors in Whitehall in the formulation of British official attitudes towards Siam in the latter part of the nineteenth century has yet to be made known. But much has been done, including several recent attempts, to evaluate the extent of Colonial Office interference in the Siamese Malay States before 1909. To some extent, the renewed interest in the broader metropolitan implications of the subject is characterized by a desire to investigate the character of British imperialism itself.

To Be or Not to Be? The North Korean Challenge to British Foreign Policy, 1971–1976

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-237
Author(s):  
Tae Joon Won
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
North Korea ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The North ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Legal Duty ◽  
Illegal Activities ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
North Vietnam

This article seeks to explore the arguments that occurred mainly within the British Foreign Office and in its discussions with other government ministries in the early 1970s concerning the matter of affording diplomatic recognition to North Korea. Legal experts within the Foreign Office were concerned that London's non-recognition of Pyongyang could render Britain's position hypocritical and even illegal vis-à-vis its potential recognition of North Vietnam. British diplomats in Seoul however were adamant that North Korea should be not recognized for fear of angering both the South Korean and the American allies and damaging British commercial interests in South Korea. The Foreign Office ministers decided to delay the inevitable recognition for as long as they could, but then the illegal activities of North Korean diplomats in Europe came to light in 1976 and subsequently put an end to potential public queries about Britain's legal duty to recognise the North Korean regime.

Art. XI, — On the Introduction of Trial by Jury in the Hon. East India Company's Courts of Law

1836 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 244-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rám Ráz
Keyword(s):  
British Government ◽  
British India ◽  
The People ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Different Parts

[It will be of use to the future historian of British India, to know the precise periods at which the British government granted to the natives of the Island of Ceylon, and of the different parts of India, those rights which are alike calculated to elevate both their moral and their political character; and, also, to be enabled to refer to the opinions which were entertained at the time upon the subject, by the people of the country. One of the most important of these rights was that of sitting upon juries, and of being tried by juries of their own countrymen. It is, therefore, thought advisable to record the period, and to give some account of the circumstances under which the British government granted this right to the natives of the Island of Ceylon, and to the natives of the different parts of India; and, also, to give a copy of a paper written to Mr. GræMe, the late Governor of Madras, by Rám Ráz, who was native Chief Judge of the Mysore country, and one of the most enlightened of the Hindú inhabitants of the peninsula of India.

Early British Administration in the Southern Sudan

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Collins ◽  
Richard Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Free State ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
British Government ◽  
Southern Sudan ◽  
The Third ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Congo Free State ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
The One

During the first decade of the Anglo-Egyptian occupation of the Sudan, the newly formed Condominium Government had slowly established its rule in the Southern Sudan. A way to the south was first cleared through the sudd-choked channels of the Bahr al-Jabal and the Bahr al-Ghazāl Rivers, and administrators and troops soon followed to secure the control of the Upper Nile Valley for Britain and Egypt against the pretensions of other European powers. In 1898 Britain successfully rejected the claims of France to the Upper Nile, but it was not until 1906 that the British Government was able to eliminate the third competitor for control of the Southern Sudan—the Congo Free State. From 1902 to 1906 desultory negotiations were carried on between the British Foreign Office and the representatives of Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Congo Free State, enlivened only by provocative incidents precipitated by Leopold's agents in the Southern Sudan. Both parties had valid legal and moral claims to the Upper Nile which were supported by the arms of the Force Publique on the one hand and Egyptian and Sudanese troops on the other.

Wireless Nationalism, 1938–1939

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-142
Author(s):  
Simon J. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Latin American ◽  
British Government ◽  
International Broadcasting ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Intelligence Service

During the late 1930s international broadcasting was mobilized as a weapon for deployment in the coming conflict, an essential tool of propaganda. In 1938 the BBC began broadcasting to the Middle East in Arabic and to Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese. In running the Arabic Service in particular, the BBC was obliged to accept the input of civil servants from the Foreign Office and other branches of the state, particularly when it came to the editing of news bulletins. Material was carefully included and omitted to further British foreign policy goals. BBC officers sought to build up an Arabic Service that would appeal to listeners across the Middle East but made limited headway due to a lack of resources and the scarcity of listener feedback. Similarly, there seemed little evidence to suggest that the BBC Latin American Service developed a significant audience. Attempts to strengthen links between British and American broadcasters meanwhile continued. Only vestiges of wireless internationalism remained: these were years of wireless nationalism, driven by the expansion of fascist broadcast propaganda. The September Crisis of 1938 prompted the inauguration of BBC broadcasts in German, Italian, and French. In all these activities the BBC adhered closely to official policies of appeasement, and accepted government directions to avoid broadcasts that would provoke Germany and Italy. The British government also covertly broadcast to Europe from commercial stations on the Continent, particularly Radio Luxembourg, with the involvement of the Secret Intelligence Service.

scholarly journals Historian in the Service of the Foreign Office

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-184
Author(s):  
Róbert Barta
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Publication Activity ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Subject ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
Good Number

This study is focusing on the life of C.A. Macartney as a diplomat and a historian especially on his writings on Hungary and the Hungarian history. The importance of this point goes back to the fact that he published a good number of books and articles on Hungary between the period of 1926 and 1978. It has been proved that this very rich publication activity of him basically influenced the attitudes of the English-speaking intellectual world towards Hungary and the Hungarians. In the life of Macartney the career as a diplomat and his so-called graphomaniac historian activity were closely connected. Although he was an expert of modern Hungarian history and worked for the British Foreign Office as a member of the Foreign Office Research Department (FORD) during WWII years, he also had a very well-grounded knowledge on the history of Austria and the Habsburg Empire. With his diplomatic activity and historical skill Macartney inspired generations of English-speaking historians, intellectuals and decision-makers in the subject of Hungary and the Hungarians. This fact well indicates the long-term importance and influence of C. A. Macartney as a pro-Hungarian historian and diplomat.

PUBLISHING PATTERNS IN SPECIALIST ACCOUNTING HISTORY JOURNALS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 1996–1999

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garry D. Carnegie ◽  
Brad N. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
English Language ◽  
Time Span ◽  
International Accounting ◽  
Accounting History ◽  
Classification Framework ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
The Subject

While accounting researchers have explored international publishing patterns in the accounting literature generally, little is known about recent contributions to the specialist international accounting history journals. Specifically, this study surveys publishing patterns in the three specialist, internationally refereed, accounting history journals in the English language during the period 1996 to 1999. The survey covers 149 contributions in total and provides empirical evidence on the location of their authors, the subject country or region in each investigation, and the time span of each study. It also classifies the literature examined based on the literature classification framework provided by Carnegie and Napier [1996].

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