Francisco Franco Is Back: The Contested Reemergence of a Fascist Moral Exemplar

Based on long-term ethnographic research on contemporary exhumations of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), as well as analysis of the exhumation of Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen, this paper looks at the ways in which the dictator’s moral exemplarity has evolved over time since his military victory in 1939. During the early years of his dictatorship, Franco’s propaganda machine built the legend of a historical character touched by divine providence who sacrificed himself to save Spain from communism. His moral charisma was enriched by associating his historical mission with a constellation of moral exemplars drawn from medieval and imperial Spain. After his death, his moral exemplarity dwindled as democratic Spain embraced a political discourse of national reconciliation. Yet, since 2000, a new negative exemplarity of Franco as a war criminal has come into sharp focus, in connection with the exhumation of the mass graves of tens of thousands of Republican civilians executed by his army and paramilitary. In recent years, Franco has reemerged as a fascist exemplar alongside a rise of the extreme right. To understand the revival of his fascist exemplarity, I focus on two processes: the rise of the political party Vox, which claims undisguised admiration for Franco’s legacy (a process I call “neo-exemplarity”), and the dismantling in October 2019 of Franco’s honorable burial and the debate over the treatment that his mortal remains deserve (a process I call “necro-exemplarity”).

Trade, Violence and Diplomacy on the Coast of Ikorodu: The Resistance of Balogun Mabadeje Jaiyesimi

From the 1850s, British influence in Lagos and coastal Nigeria expanded, leading to the annexation of Lagos in December 1861 and the establishment of Lagos Colony in 1862. This period also witnessed the British quest for the control of coastal and inland trade routes. Ikorodu’s location north of Lagos and on the lagoon, and its control of trade from the coast to Sagamu, the main city of Remo, involved the town in larger struggles between the Ijebu kingdom and the Egba settlers at Abeokuta, and in the expansionist plans for Lagos under Governor Henry Stanhope Freeman (1862–4) and his successor, Captain John Hawley Glover (1864–6). This article explores how Ikorodu successfully manoeuvred between these differen interests under the leadership of Balogun Mabadeje Jaiyesimi to defeat its external aggressors and to increase its independence. It not only addresses the dearth of published work on Ikorodu but also provides a response to Earl Phillips’ discussion of the unsuccessful 1864–5 Egba attack on Ikorodu. Unlike Philips, who suggests that the Egba defeat was primarily engineered by John Glover, this article emphasises the importance of Balogun Jaiyesimi’s strategic and negotiating skills, which led to the formation of a local coalition between Ikorodu and its neighbouring towns, especially Igbogbo, to ensure Ikorodu’s military victory.

The crisis of moral consciousness in Russia and the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

The monograph is devoted to the events of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The main idea postulates that military victory depends not only on the economic or military forces of the state, but also on the level of development of the moral consciousness of the nation as a whole. For a wide range of readers interested in the history of military affairs and wars.

A Victory Tower Built by a Slave: The Chand Minar at Daulatabad in Deccan India

The Chand Minar (1446) at Daulatabad Fort is one of the tallest pre-modern stone minarets in the world and has long been recognized as a major work of Indo-Islamic architecture. Yet surprisingly little is known about the building: its iconography and the reason for its construction have not been established; even its height is frequently misreported by half. The present article analyzes the building’s architecture and urban context and critically reads its inscriptions against the Tārīkh-i Firishta (ca. 1610), the main primary text for the history of the medieval Deccan. In so doing, the article demonstrates that issues of race shaped the courtly politics in the Deccan at the time of the minaret’s construction. The Chand Minar was commissioned by Parvez bin Qaranful, an African military slave, who dedicated the building to the Bahmani sultan ʿAla⁠ʾ al-Din Ahmad II (r. 1436–58). The article shows that the building commemorated the role of African and Indian officers in a 1443 military victory of the Bahmani sultanate (1347–1527) against the Vijayanagara empire (1336–1664). The construction of the Chand Minar impressed upon Ahmad II the importance of retaining in his court dark-skinned officers from India and Africa (dakkaniyān) at a time when their standing was threatened by the lighter-skinned gharībān, who had immigrated from the western Islamic regions. The article thus presents a detailed study of an important but neglected monument while shedding new light on racial factionalism in the fifteenth-century Deccan.

The Temple of Zeus at Lebadea. The architecture and the semantics of a colossus

The Temple of Zeus Basileus at Lebadea rests almost unknown. Its physical remains and date (not systematically explored so far) pose a riddle, as regards not only the circumstances which entailed its presumed incompletion but also the historic context in which the commencement of construction can be embedded. The dimensions of the krepis alone render this edifice highly interesting in the history of temple-building. The in situ preserved architectural elements suggest that here was begun the erection of what was at the time the largest peristasis in Mainland Greece. The temple stylobate measures 200 feet/podes in length, with a lower column diameter equal to just over two metres, and the longest interaxial spacings and corresponding architraves of its time. By increasing the length and height of the structure, the architects achieved its qualification as colossal. This qualification is revealed from the uniquefor-the-Classical-period length of 14 columns along the peristasis, with visible euthynteria and hypeuthynteria courses. As shown in this paper, this colossal structure abided by the rules of Doric design. Ascribing the unfinished state of the temple probably to financial shortcoming and/or military adventures, Pausanias did comment on its ambitious, gigantic size. The level of construction eventually reached is another focal point of our investigation. The study of the Temple of Zeus Basileus brings out the multifaceted notion of the term “monumentality”, tightly related to visual impact. One of the aims of its commissioners would have been to establish a landmark on the summit where Zeus was probably co-worshipped with Trophonios, the Boeotian hero-prophet. Since the temple in question, as we propose, most probably commemorated both a grandiose military victory in the 3rd century BC and the contemporary political situation, its imposing volume, along with the aesthetic effect of bichromy, were meant to perpetuate the overtone of these events within the ambience of the sacred Lebadea. Another facet of monumentality involves the respective building programme, and it derives from epigraphical sources, namely a contract specifying construction details, with particular instructions already at the orthostate level, denoting that accuracy in execution safeguarded the high quality of ancient Greek architecture.

An Informational Theory of Genocide and Politicide During Civil War

Why do some governments engage in genocide or politicide against their civilian population during civil war? Scholarship on this important question views such brutality as a strategic tool the government can use to maintain power through military victory. Returning to the logic of conflict bargaining, I re-conceptualize genocide and politicide as a means to extract information about one’s opponent. I argue that a government is more likely to employ these atrocities during conflict when it is more uncertain about its probability of victory to reveal better information more quickly from the battlefield. I test this argument on all civil wars since 1945 and find support for this claim. These dynamics are more pronounced when the rebels rely on the civilian population to mobilize fighters. My argument helps bridge significant works in the genocide and conflict-bargaining literatures.

The Greek Cult of Heracles

Although he is clearly a mortal in the Iliad, both the myth of Heracles’ apotheosis and his earliest divine cults emerged in the seventh century. Geographically, functionally, and in terms of ritual variation, the scope of Heracles’ worship was vast, exceeded only by major Greek deities like Apollo and Artemis. A popular ritual was xenismos, in which hospitality was provided for the god through the spreading of a couch and the offering of food. The cults of Heracles on Thasos and at Sicyon were unusual in that the ritual procedures resembled those for a hero more than a god. War and athletics were key functional domains for Heracles, who was often hailed as Callinicus, “Splendidly Victorious.” His sanctuaries served as convenient mustering or camping places for armies. Like his efficacy in securing military victory, Heracles’ ability to avert all dangers and misfortunes was a staple of popular belief. Heracles was a favorite in both Thebes and Athens, but in one polis he was a native and in the other he was a guest-friend.

High Cost Success

This chapter evaluates how the counterinsurgency campaign during the Salvadoran civil war provides support for the compellence theory. In El Salvador from 1979 to 1992, the U.S.-backed government fought the Communist and nationalist insurgency to a draw, preserving the government from an insurgent takeover. Elite accommodation took place largely among civilian and military officers in the government as hard-liners and slightly more liberal political and military entrepreneurs jockeyed for influence. The Salvadoran government resisted U.S.-pressed reforms but accepted U.S. efforts to strengthen its security forces. It used its increased fighting ability to clear civilian areas, creating vast refugee flows that reduced provision of material support to the insurgency. It also used U.S.-provided air power to break down the insurgency's conventional formations but was never able to successfully pursue and destroy the smaller bands of insurgents or gain more popular support than it began the war with. Continued insurgent political and military strength, along with the end of the Cold War, forced the United States and the hard-liners within the military to accept peace talks and a political settlement to the war rather than the military victory they had pressed for.

Bullets Not Ballots

This book challenges the claim that winning “hearts and minds” is critical to successful counterinsurgency campaigns. Good governance, this conventional wisdom holds, gains the besieged government popular support, denies support to the insurgency, and makes military victory possible. The book argues that major counterinsurgent successes since World War II have resulted not through democratic reforms but rather through the use of military force against civilians and the co-optation of rival elites. The book offers new analyses of five historical cases frequently held up as examples of the effectiveness of good governance in ending rebellions — the Malayan Emergency, the Greek Civil War, the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines, the Dhofar rebellion in Oman, and the Salvadoran Civil War — to show that, although unpalatable, it was really brutal repression and bribery that brought each conflict to an end. By showing how compellence works in intrastate conflicts, the book makes clear that whether or not the international community decides these human, moral, and material costs are acceptable, responsible policymaking requires recognizing the actual components of counterinsurgent success — and the limited influence that external powers have over the tactics of counterinsurgent elites.

The Fruits of Victory

This chapter discusses two issues: the threat to Washington’s position after Saratoga and the American diplomatic triumph in Paris. After Saratoga, Gates’s reputation soared, and this coincided with Washington’s failures against Howe during the Philadelphia campaign. Washington skilfully thwarted the so-called Conway Cabal—a faction that advocated replacing Washington with Gates as commander-in-chief. In France, Louis XVI’s foreign minister Vergennes, reopened discussions about a formal alliance with Franklin and the other American diplomats. The Saratoga victory provided evidence of American resolve and competence. The Franco-American alliance, due in large part to Franklin’s brilliant diplomatic efforts, on the heels of the Saratoga military victory, changed the very character of the war. Washington would now have access to French sea power and its army, which ultimately resulted in the war-winning 1781 Yorktown campaign. The American success at Saratoga was not sufficient for ultimate victory, but it was necessary.