Geopolitics, Education, and Empire: the Political Life of Sir Halford Mackinder, 1895-1925

Geopolitics, Education, and Empire: The Political Life of Sir Halford Mackinder, 1895-1925 Simone Pelizza Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds, School of History Submitted March 2013 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. ©2013 The University of Leeds and Simone Pelizza i Acknowledgements During the last three years I have received the kind assistance of many people, who made the writing of this thesis much more enjoyable than previously believed. First of all, I would like to thank my former supervisors at the University of Leeds, Professor Andrew Thompson and Dr Chris Prior, for their invaluable help in understanding the complex field of British imperial history and for their insightful advice on the early structure of the document. Then my deepest gratitude goes to my current supervisor, Professor Richard Whiting, who inherited me from Chris and Andrew two years ago, driving often my work toward profitable and unexplored directions. Of course, the final product is all my own, including possible flaws and shortcomings, but several of its parts really owe something to Richard’s brilliant suggestions and observations. Last but not least, I am very grateful to Pascal Venier, Vincent Hiribarren, and Chris Phillips, with whom I had frequent interesting exchanges on Mackinder’s geopolitical thought and its subtle influences over twentieth century international affairs. Pascal and Chris also helped me in finding fresh evidence for this dissertation, especially on Anglo-Canadian relations and the First World War. Again, many thanks for their generous friendship. My PhD colleagues in the School of History have really been wonderful mates in this adventure, providing some genuine fun and warmth in the cold and rainy weather of Northern England. A big thank you goes then to Juliette Reboul, Henry Irving, Rachael Johnson, Tom Davies, Louise Seaward, and all the other members of the happy gang permanently residing on the fourth floor of the Parkinson Building. Many thanks also to Nick Grant, Ayumi Miura, Jack Noe, Catherine Coombs, and Priscilla Truss. Finally, my deepest acknowledgements go to my family in Italy, who constantly supported me during all these long years abroad. My sister Sara and her husband Corrado always offered me a warm refuge in their Sicilian home for Christmas, while my mother Tiziana gave me strong and powerful encouragements throughout this time, overcoming temporary moments of doubt and depression. But my greatest debt of gratitude is with my father Enrico, who paid all the costs of this long experience, never wavering in his support of my work even during difficult economic circumstances. I dedicate this dissertation to him as a small but clear sign of love and devotion. ii Abstract This thesis examines the long political career of Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947), the father of modern British geopolitics, underlining its crucial importance for the origins and evolution of the famous Heartland theory of 1904. Far from having a meta-historical significance, in fact, this elaborate geopolitical vision of Central Asia was the direct product of the cultural and strategic circumstances of the early twentieth century, reflecting Mackinder’s patriotic commitment to the cause of the British Empire, threatened by new powerful foreign rivals like Germany and the United States. Seriously concerned about the future of Britain’s international position, the Oxford geographer tried then to translate his brilliant educational talent in the political domain, supporting the tariff reform campaign of Joseph Chamberlain and fighting relentlessly for the political union of London with the overseas Dominions. Meanwhile he also focused his geographical imagination on the problem of India’s defence, developing a bold containment strategy against the territorial expansion of Russia in Asia. However, both these initiatives failed to influence the official policies of the British government, while the parliamentary career of Mackinder at Westminster knew more frustrations than successes, due to the internal divisions of the Unionist Party and to the bitter constitutional disputes of the last antebellum years. From this point of view, the outbreak of European hostilities in 1914 represented an important turning point for Mackinder’s political and intellectual life, compelling him to partially modify his previous imperialist ethos and to recognise the need of a more balanced and democratic international society at the end of the conflict. Expressed originally in Democratic Ideals and Reality , published in 1919, this new attitude toward international affairs found later its practical application in the activities of the Imperial Committees, successfully directed by Mackinder on cooperative lines for all the interwar years. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Abbreviations iv Introduction: The Geopolitical Legacy of Sir Halford Mackinder 1 Chapter One: ‘The Nation’s Need’: Geography and the Reform of British Education 18 Chapter Two: ‘Money-Power and Man-Power’: The Political Philosophy of a Tariff Reformer 48 Chapter Three: Defending the Empire at Home: The Parliamentary Battle against Liberal England 81 Chapter Four: Geography and War: The Origins and Influence of the Pivot Paper 108 Chapter Five: ‘Pour la Victoire Intégrale’: The World War and the New Europe 137 Chapter Six: Democratic Ideals and Strategic Realities: The Diplomatic Mission to South Russia, 1919-20 166 Chapter Seven: The Empire in a New World: The Experience of the Imperial Committees 198 Conclusion: The Many Faces of an Edwardian Intellectual 226 Bibliography 240 iv Abbreviations BLPES British Library of Political and Economic Science ERDC Empire Resources Development Committee Hansard Hansard Parliamentary Debates LSE London School of Economics RGS Royal Geographical Society TNA The National Archives 1 Introduction The Geopolitical Legacy of Sir Halford Mackinder Developed by a small group of European intellectuals in the early years of the twentieth century, geopolitics is probably one of the most controversial subject areas of modern International Relations Theory, provoking fierce debates both in political and academic circles. Indeed, many of its key theoretical assumptions are often condemned by progressive scholars as ‘racist’ and ‘imperialist’ discourses used to justify Western political and military interventions around the world, covering up the brutal self-interest of these actions under the guise of ‘natural’ geographical necessities.1 According to John Agnew, for example, geopolitics is ‘a constructed view of the world’, generated mainly by European desires of control over spatial realities, while Simon Dalby has instead highlighted the aggressive military dimension of classical geopolitical accounts, remarking on the necessity to contest the conventional ‘geographical tropes’ behind defence and foreign policy rationales.2 However, not all geopolitical analysts accept these critical interpretations of their discipline: in this sense, Colin Gray still believes that geopolitics offers a good way to understand the ‘permanent’ territorial nature of international affairs, while Daniel Deudney has also tried to sketch a more sophisticated theoretical model for the field, recognizing the dynamic interaction of geography and technology in the shaping of modern security policies.3 Needless to say, all these divergent perspectives do not even allow the existence of a shared definition of the term ‘geopolitics’, leaving it open to different methodological approaches and epistemological interpretations.4 One basic definition of the field might be the study of the dynamic interaction between geographical space and political power, with special emphasis on communication technologies and material resources, but such a broad generalisation remains clearly unsatisfactory, due to the persistent controversies 1 This polemical approach is mainly expressed by the school of ‘critical geopolitics’ founded by Gearoid O Tuathail in the early 1990s. For a short overview of its main arguments, see Gearoid O Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space (London: Routledge, 1996). 2 John Agnew, Geopolitics: Re-Visioning World Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 2-7; Simon Dalby, ‘Imperialism, Domination, Culture: The Continued Relevance of Critical Geopolitics’, Geopolitics, 13 (2008), pp. 413-36. 3 Colin S. Gray, ‘Inescapable Geography’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 22 (1999), pp. 161-77; Daniel Deudney, ‘Geopolitics as Theory: Historical Security Materialism’, European Journal of International Relations, 6 (2000), pp. 77-107. 4 V.D. Mamadouh, ‘Geopolitics in the Nineties: One Flag, Many Meanings’, GeoJournal, 46 (1998), pp. 237-53. 2 surrounding the real scope and nature of the fascinating discipline created by Rudolf Kjellen in 1899. Moreover, these controversies are not only focused on abstract theoretical concepts, but also on the historical lives of their authors, generating further polemical discussions in the geopolitical domain. In this sense, the case of Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) is a good example of these never ending academic quarrels,

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