Foreword ...... ii Editorial ...... iv Acknowledgements ...... v The ‘old Irish’ and American immigration legislation and reform Angela Balfe ...... 1 The Deasy business: an assessment of the IRA during the last phase of the Irish Civil War Judy Bolger ...... 16 Chapter and verse: biblical indexing and control in early modern England Jennifer Egloff ...... 29 From the plough to the stars: an analysis of the origins of the IRSP/INLA in Derry City, 1965-74 Dan Haverty ...... 41 The beginning of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan William O’Neill ...... 55 Sixteenth century travel literature in the Mediterranean world and its context Mateusz Orszulak ...... 67 Not so glorious: Irish desertion to the British during the War of the Spanish Succession William Runacre...... 81 The dragomans of the Habsburg embassy in Constantinople in the second half of the sixteenth century: the story of Matthias del Faro Aneliya Stoyanova ...... 95 Contributors ...... 109

Foreword

About ten years ago Sir Keith Thomas published an article discussing how the study of History had evolved over recent decades. His conclusion was that ‘writing history is a much more difficult undertaking than it was in the 1960s’, because ‘the crippling accumulation of specialised knowledge means that one has to work very much harder to say anything new.’1 And yet, the rewards are potentially huge: by finding new evidence and applying different approaches, and by presenting one’s research in such a way as to engage the interest of academics and ordinary people alike, the writing of history may continue to enlighten and delight readers as it has done for thousands of years. Such is the achievement of this excellent collection of essays by young historians brought together under the auspices of the University of Limerick History Society.

This latest volume of the History Studies journal offers many fresh insights that help us to understand the past better. The essays cover a refreshingly broad spectrum. As well as twentieth-century Irish history, there is an emphasis on US responses to its domestic and international problems, and on European experiences of the Ottoman Empire. Attention is also given to approaches to scriptural translation in the Reformation period, and to the mixed loyalties of soldiers in the Bourbon armies of the early eighteenth century.

William O’Neill, and Daniel Haverty have presented novel interpretations of well-studied subjects. O’Neill shows how received understanding of the Carter administration’s supposed lack of direction in foreign policy is belied by its success in luring the USSR into a debilitating military commitment in Afghanistan. Haverty has provided a reassessment of the rise of the IRSP/INLA following Bloody Sunday, one in which the nationalist desire for independence is overshadowed by the appeal of this organisation for the deprived working classes in Derry.

Aneliya Stoyanova, meanwhile, has examined the practice of training and employing dragomans by the diplomatic representatives of the Austrian Habsburgs in Istanbul during the later sixteenth century. Dragomans were officials who acted as interpreters, and played an important part in high-level negotiations between the Porte

1 The Times Literary Supplement, 13 Oct. 2006. ii

and the government in Vienna. As such, they were responsible for the more universal business of conveying and directing meaning, which is also present in Jennifer Lynn Egloff’s analysis of numerical indexing techniques in early translations of the Bible. She shows how the practice allowed the authorities to maintain control over scriptural interpretations, whilst inadvertently creating a means for the faithful to take command of their own religious education.

Negotiated connivance with the authorities is a common thread running through the other essays. Judy Bolger has analysed the motives behind, and responses towards, Liam Deasy’s appeal in 1923 for the IRA leaders to make terms with the government in Dublin. William Runacre has discovered numerous cases in which Catholic Jacobite officers defected to the British during the War of the Spanish Succession, whilst Mateusz Orszulak shows how Venetian prisoners and diplomats sought to understand the Ottoman political system. Finally, Angela Balfe has discussed how the Irish of early nineteenth-century America managed to shake off discrimination, and establish themselves as an ascendant political class with the power to obstruct immigration from rival national groups.

It is particularly gratifying to see how younger historians are successfully coping with the challenges of writing history today, and it has been an honour to be asked to provide the foreword for such a stimulating collection of essays. They fulfil the central requirement of the Spanish Golden Age: that of educating and delighting the reader at the same time. My congratulations go to the authors, as well as to the editors in having brought together such a fine assemblage of scholarship.

Dr Alistair Malcolm MA (St Andrews), D. Phil. (Oxon),

Acting Head of Department

iii

Editorial

It is with great pride and honour that the editors present the eighteenth volume of History Studies. Now nearing its twentieth year, our journal continues to be the only one in Ireland that is both edited and managed by postgraduate students. Continuing in this fine tradition, we are pleased to deliver eight essays, which we believe will be worthy additions to what is an already well-established record of excellence in historical scholarship. These essays take the reader on a journey across ages and continents. The variety of subjects dealt with in these pages reveals that historical research is alive and well, from undergraduates and postgraduates to postdoctoral and independent researchers. While we are pleased that History Studies (this present edition included) continues and will always continue to be an outlet for our own students in the University of Limerick, we must further express our satisfaction at publishing a set of essays compiled not only from amongst Irish universities but also from various corners of the world. Therefore, we take pride in the fact that in presenting the reader with this volume, we are also presenting them with what is both a reflection and a compilation of the exceptional standards with which research is being undertaken not only in Ireland but also in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Stephen Griffin John Harrington Holly O’Farrell

20 November 2018

Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank Dr Alistair Malcolm, Acting Head of Department, Department of History, University of Limerick, for his generous sponsorship of and support for this volume of the journal and for the continued support of History Studies by the History Department. We are also grateful for the generous support of the President, Professor Desmond Fitzgerald, as well Dr Niamh NicGhabhann, Assistant Dean of Research and Dean Lillis, President of the Postgraduate Students’ Union. The editors also extend their gratitude to the Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes, for her support of this journal. To Dr David Fleming, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and co-founder of History Studies, we offer our thanks for his guidance and representations on our behalf. We also extend our gratitude to both Robert Collins and Gerald Maher, who as former editors, were able to offer much needed and valuable guidance. Finally, we offer our sincere thanks to our eight contributors, without whose hard work none of this would have been made possible.

History Studies Vol. 18

The ‘old Irish’ and American immigration legislation and reform

Angela Balfe

Immigration to the United States is a demographic phenomenon that has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. For the most part, the latter half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century saw immigration at its highest, and in turn, the implementation of much debated legislation. Although immigration to the United States had ebbed and flowed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it would be events in the latter half of the nineteenth century which were responsible for the dramatic rise. Following the depression of the 1890s, the scale of immigration to the United States increased from a low of 3.5 million to a high of almost 9 million by the beginning of the twentieth century.1 Immigrants from northern and western Europe accounted for the demographics of the ‘old’ immigrants. However, after 1880, increasing numbers of immigrants coming from eastern and southern European countries as well as Canada and Latin America, increased and by 1910, eastern and southern Europeans made up 70 percent of the immigrants entering the country.2

The reasons these immigrants departed their home country for a better life in the United States differed little from their predecessors in the decades and centuries before. For many it was a chance to escape religious, racial and political persecution or seek relief from failing economies and a lack of employment opportunities. When assessing immigration and the mass movement of people, the push and pull factors must be recognised. The conditions in the emigrant’s home country can be largely compared to the push factor, while the pull factor was comprised mainly of the prospect of employment or greater opportunities such as contract labour agreements offered by recruiting agents. These agents were known as padrones to Italian and Greek labourers. Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, Bohemians, and Italians flocked to the coal mines or steel mills, Greeks preferred the textile mills, Russian and Polish Jews worked in the needle trades or pushcart markets of New York. US railroad companies advertised the availability of free or cheap farmland overseas in pamphlets distributed

1 Kristofer Allerfeldt, Beyond the huddled masses: American immigration and the treaty of Versailles (New York, 2006), p.11. 2 Allerfeldt, Beyond the huddled masses, p. 13. 1

History Studies Vol. 18 in many languages, bringing a handful of agricultural workers to western farmlands. But the vast majority of immigrants crowded into the growing cities, searching for their chance to make a better life for themselves.3 The aim of this paper is to trace Irish influence on immigration to the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, examining the obstacles they faced in the form of restrictive legislation and discrimination, how immigrants reacted to the anti-immigrant sentiment through solidarity and the formation of their own political parties and ultimately the role they themselves played in enacting such measures.

Although, initially among the most disadvantaged, Irish immigrants will be used as a case study to portray the rise of immigrants in United States politics and their role as policy makers will also be briefly discussed. From as early as the 1790s, the Irish had flocked in large numbers to the United States and for the most part comprised the largest immigrant population of that era. While not all of them were impoverished and unskilled, many of them were and as a consequence they provide the story of America’s first white-urban, poor minorities.4 In 1795 when an outbreak of yellow fever was rampant in the then divided cities of New York and Boston, the Irish were among the worst affected. Living in squalid and impoverished conditions, they sought aid from the Friendly Sons of St Patrick, who at the time could scarcely find funds to aid them.5 In the mid-nineteenth century, during his time as Bishop of New York, John Hughes wrote that among his flock ‘the Irish are the poorest and most wretched population that can be found in the world, they are the scattered debris of the Irish nation’.6 However as previously mentioned, not all Irish immigrants were impoverished and wretched and for the most part, all Irish, like other immigrants shared a common strength. Strength in numbers and in solidarity. Arguably no other European ethnic group exhibited a stronger degree of solidarity than the Irish. Those who arrived in Britain during the same era constantly, faced the one dimensional ‘No Irish need apply’ slogan. This attitude was, by and large, born out of the tumultuous

3 Reports of the immigration commission: immigrants in cities: a study of the population of selected districts in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo and Milwaukee (41 vols, Washington, 1907-1910), xxvi, p. 38. 4 Frederick Binder and David Reimers, All the nations under heaven: an ethnic and racial history of New York City (New York, 2013), p. 59-60. 5 Binder and Reimers, All the nations under heaven, pp 59-60. 6 John Hassard, The life of the most reverend John Hughes, first archbishop of New York (New York, 1886). 2

History Studies Vol. 18 political relationship Ireland had with Britain. Whereas, Irish emigrants to the United States were subject to persecution, not on the grounds of their ethnic origin or appearance, but instead, religious prejudice. From the early nineteenth century onward, Irish Catholics faced recurrent waves of anti-Catholic sentiment and en- masse Irish immigration of the 1840s led to the rise of the Know-Nothing Party, which drew support mainly from native-born white working men, though it should be noted that anti-Catholicism was not confined to a particular social class.

The migration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the United States in the years 1830 to 1860 made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants, a political issue.7 Violence occasionally erupted with the overriding Protestant sentiment being that Pope Pius IX was opposed to liberty, democracy and Republicanism. Conspiracy theories swept the country, the main theory being that the influx of Catholics into the United States was a direct result of a papal attempt to popularise or push Catholicism into the country via these immigrants.8 Nativists, who were largely American-born Protestants, were active in New York politics as early as 1843, under the banner of the American Republican Party, when the movement began to spread to other states; it was also recognisable by the name The Native American Party.9 These Nativists were largely concerned with anti-Catholicism and by 1850 were the breeding ground for several secret organisations such as the ‘Order of United Americans’ and the ‘Order of the Star Spangled Banner’. These two orders merged in New York in the early 1850s and soon spread across the North. Members became known as ‘Know-Nothings’, as they often refused to divulge any information on their organisation. By the Spring of 1854, the Know-Nothings had gained momentum and used their anti-Catholic sentiment to highlight other issues which they felt could only be attributed to Catholic immigrants. James McPherson captures the growing unrest of the time with the following statistics from his account of 1850s America:

Immigration during the first five years of the 1850s reached a level five times greater than a decade earlier. Most of the new arrivals were poor Catholic peasants or

7 Thomas J Curran, ‘The Know-Nothings of New York’ (PhD. thesis, Columbia University, New York, 1963), pp 88-9. 8 Curran, ‘The Know-Nothings’, p. 92. 9 Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and slavery: the northern Know Nothings and the politics of the 1850s (Oxford, 1992), p. 20. 3

History Studies Vol. 18 laborers from Ireland and Germany who crowded into the tenements of large cities. Crime and welfare costs soared. Cincinnati's crime rate, for example, tripled between 1846 and 1853 and its murder rate increased sevenfold. Boston's expenditures for poor relief rose threefold during the same period.10

The very idea that Catholic immigrants were responsible for such turmoil in cities caused the sporadic growth in popularity of the Know-Nothings. This growing popularity was evident in the north east and in particular the New England states. The Know-Nothings won their biggest victory in the autumn elections of 1854 when they won the state of Massachusetts.11 In Philadelphia, the Whig candidate running for office of mayor revealed himself as a Know-Nothing and during his campaign promised to crack down on crime, close saloons on Sundays and only appoint native- born Americans to office, he won by a landslide. In Washington D.C, John Towers, a Know-Nothing candidate defeated the incumbent mayor John Walker Maury, causing such opposition that the Democrats and Whigs in D.C united to form an anti-Know Nothing party.12 However, in New York, in a four-way race, the Know-Nothing candidate only came third with 26 percent of the vote. The reason for this it can be argued, was a confusion or overlapping among parties of issues such as anti-slavery and prohibition. The slavery issue was by and large the overriding cause of the decline of the Know-Nothings in 1855. The presidential election of 1856 caused the party to divide on the issue of slavery. Although the party disbanded, the idea of nativism was very much still alive and reappeared in later movements and organisations. Perhaps the biggest legacy of the Know-Nothings and nativism is the response it provoked from immigrants.

According to Lawrence McCaffrey, a leading authority on the Irish Catholic diaspora in the United States:

Irish Catholics blended the methodology and principles of Anglo-American Protestant politics with their overwhelming sense of community and gregarious personalities into a distinct brand of politics.13

10 James McPherson, Battle cry of freedom: the Civil War era (Oxford, 1988), p. 131. 11 Anbinder, Nativism and slavery, p. 26. 12 Ibid., p. 34. 13Lawrence J, McCaffrey, The Irish Catholic diaspora in America (Washington D.C., 1997), p. 124. 4

History Studies Vol. 18

Perhaps no other era could provide better evidence of this assertion than in American municipal politics within the period leading from the 1880s right up to the 1920s. In Boston, Chicago and San Francisco during the 1880s, the Irish began to rise quickly through the ranks and became heavily involved in politics. Movements such as the aforementioned Know-Nothings and other anti-immigrant groups saw immigrant groups, the Irish in particular, beginning to heavily influence US politics. The Irish immigrant presence in politics was particularly evident in New York City where the first Irish Catholic mayor, William R. Grace was elected in 1880.14 Tammany Hall or the Society of St. Tammany was a New York City political organization formed in 1786.15 It was the Democratic Party’s political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics. The Society expanded its control further by earning the loyalty of the city and its ever- expanding immigrant community. By the mid-1840s the Society surged in power largely due to the influx of Irish immigrants. Tammany Hall also served as a social integrator for immigrants by familiarizing them with American society and its political institutions and by helping them become naturalized citizens.

One example of this was the naturalization process organized by William ‘Boss’ Tweed. Under Tweed's regime, naturalization committees were established. These committees were made up primarily of Tammany politicians and employees and their duties consisted of filling out paperwork, providing witnesses, and lending immigrants money for the fees required to become citizens. Judges and other city officials were bribed and otherwise compelled to go along with the workings of these committees. In exchange for all these benefits, immigrants assured Tammany Hall they would vote for their candidates. By 1854, the support which Tammany Hall received from immigrants would firmly establish the organization as the leader of New York City's political scene.16 From the outset, the divide between nativists and the Irish was apparent in terms of both religion and culture and this divide was only accentuated by political allegiance. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants were ardent

14Steven P Erie, Rainbow’s end: Irish-Americans and the dilemmas of urban machine politics, 1840– 1985 (Chicago, 1988), p. 43. 15 Binder and Reimers, All the nations under heaven, p. 113. 16 Reginald H. Pitts, ‘‘Suckers, soap-locks, Irishmen and plug-uglies’: Block 160, Municipal Politics and Local Control’ in Historical Archaeology, xxxv (2001), pp 89-102; Tyler Anbinder, Becoming New York: the Five Points neighbourhood (New York, 2001), p.94. 5

History Studies Vol. 18 supporters of the Republican Party. Reverend Samuel Burchard, a Republican, sought to characterize the difference between Democrats and Republicans when he said: ‘We are Republicans and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with a party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism and rebellion.’17 Irish support for the Democrats grew out of a disdain for Republican ideas such as that of Burchard. In fact, the Irish quickly gained control of a local branch of the Democrats, the vehicle for control was Tammany Hall and its ever-growing popularity. Between 1858 and 1871, Tammany Hall was led by the notorious ‘Boss’ Tweed. According to Tweed’s biographer:

It's hard not to admire the skill behind Tweed's system ... The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization.18 After Tweed was ejected and jailed for corruption in 1871, the demographics of the Society changed. Tammany Hall was no longer controlled by Protestants and rebounded quickly from Tweed’s downfall. ‘Honest’ John Kelly, the son of Irish immigrants, was selected as the new leader. Kelly had not been implicated in any of the Tweed scandal, and in sharp contrast to Tweed, Kelly was a religious Catholic and dedicated his early days as leader of Tammany to ridding the organization of Tweed’s associates.19 Kelly turned Tammany into an organisation that became a cohesive force in New York politics. Its structure began to mirror the organisation of which the majority of its members and supporters also subscribed to: the Catholic Church. Local district leaders performed their duties much as bishops did, while precinct leaders similarly were its parish priests, floating around the Irish neighbourhoods, ever cultivating the people’s faith in the organisation’s candidate for municipal office. The district bosses were the so-called bhoys, who everybody in the neighbourhood would have been familiar with. They usually owned bars that often doubled up as Tammany clubhouses.

17 David G. Farrelly, ‘‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion’ Resurrected’ in The Western Political Quarterly, viii (1955), p. 262. 18 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Boss Tweed: the corrupt pol who conceived the soul of modern New York (New York, 2005), p.138. 19 Pitts, ‘Suckers, soap-locks, Irishmen and plug-uglies’, pp 94-5; Tyler Anbinder, Becoming New York, p. 98. 6

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The 1880s marked the beginning of the golden age of Tammany Hall. During this era, politics in Tammany became more prolific and a new ‘boss’ emerged. Richard Croker, a Presbyterian born in County Cork, immigrated to the United States with his parents as a child. Croker, unlike John Kelly showed more of Tweed’s characteristics, he literally fought his way to the position of ‘Grand Sachem’ which made him the de facto leader of Tammany Hall. Croker saw to it that Tammany had its hands in virtually every business in New York, whether it was railroad construction or the ‘rag and bone’ business in the slums.20 Under Croker, Tammany casually abandoned any business ethics it may have had whenever it saw fit. Everyone on the payroll, whether in the police department or elsewhere, had a duty to pay a percentage of their income to Tammany Hall. This was then used to pay off voters in the districts, to convince them that a Tammany candidate up for election for a municipal post was the man for the job. However, not all of the money was used for this purpose. ‘Boss’ Croker also attained for himself a mansion off Fifth Avenue, was able to regularly summer in Europe and kept a racehorse. All this even though the only public office Croker ever held was that of the relatively minor position of city chamberlain.21 Croker’s position as ‘Boss’ began to falter when the United States entered an economic depression in 1893. As previously mentioned, politics for Croker was merely a business; he had no desire to deal with issues such as improving slum housing and workers’ rights, all of which became paramount in 1893. Croker’s inability to deal with the issues at hand coupled with his involvement in corruption and police bribery over a ten-year period was exposed by a Protestant clergyman, Dr Charles Pankhurst who was determined to end corruption in Tammany Hall.22 Croker surrendered control and returned to Ireland in 1903.

Tammany Hall, despite such negative publicity, was not destroyed. With Croker exiled to Ireland, Charles Francis Murphy now took over the reins. His entry into politics was typical of any Irish-American politician. He was the owner of several public houses in the East-Side where he soon became a district leader, a so called ‘solid-man’ who commanded respect.23 His tenure, which lasted twenty years, was

20 Padraic O’Farrell, Boss Croker (Dublin, 2003), p. 12. 21 O’Farrell, Boss Croker, p. 19. 22 Ibid., p. 108. 23 Nancy Joan Weiss, ‘Charles Francis Murphy, 1858-1924: respectability and responsibility in Tammany politics’ in The Journal of American History, lv (1969), p. 882. 7

History Studies Vol. 18 marked by the emergence of another figure, which would not only come to be associated with New York but also national politics. This was Al Smith, a lower East- Sider born to Irish Catholic immigrants in Brooklyn. In his early days and as a Tammany man, Smith believed that corruption in New York politics was not the main problem that faced the organization. Rather, he believed the bigger problem came from those Republicans with reformer ideals who attempted to break the monopoly of political power that the Irish had gained for themselves in the city. By 1904, Smith was a speaker in the New York State Assembly, placing Murphy and Tammany Hall in an even more dominating position in the state legislature in Albany.24 In contrast, Chinese immigrants were targeted by perhaps the most racially driven immigration legislation in United States history and subject to a very different experience than other Asians or immigrants of European descent. In an 1881 appeal to the rest of the United States, members of the Workingmen’s Party in San Francisco wrote the following:

… we have met here in San Francisco tonight to raise our voice to you in warning of a great danger that seems to us imminent and threatens our almost utter destructions as a prosperous community; we must work together despite our political differences and unite to prevent a takeover by China or the Mongolians.25 Since 1790, the Naturalisation Act had limited naturalization to immigrants who were ‘free white persons’ of ‘good character’, excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks, and Asians. It also provided for citizenship for the children of US citizens born abroad but specified that the right of citizenship did ‘not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.’26 In particular, immigrants from the north west of Europe benefited largely when applying for citizenship because of these pre-requisites, whereas the Chinese and other Asians were automatically disqualified.

24 Robert A. Slayton, Empire statesman: the rise and redemption of Al Smith (New York, 2001), pp 62-4. 25 An address from the workingmen of San Francisco to their brothers throughout the Pacific Coast (San Francisco, 1881). 26 An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, first congress. sess. ii, ch. iii, 26 Mar. 1790 in Statutes at large, first congress, 1789-1799, volume one (Boston, 1845), p. 103; Martin Gold, Forbidden citizens: Chinese exclusion and the US Congress: a legislative history (Virginia, 2012), p. 25. 8

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The Chinese came to the United States in large numbers during the Californian gold rush between 1848 and 1855, the largest influx in the years between 1851 and 1860 with 40,400 immigrants arriving.27 Their numbers increased dramatically again between 1862 and 1871 to over 60,000.28 This additional rise can largely be attributed to the recruitment of labour gangs, many on five year contracts, to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. The large influx of Chinese immigrants to the West Coast of the United States initiated anti-Chinese movements which by and large was the driving force behind exclusion legislation. In 1850, California’s Foreign Miners’ Tax, levied a monthly three dollar tax on each foreign miner compelling many Chinese to stop prospecting for gold and opening a campaign by native-born white Americans to restrict the entry of Chinese labourers into California to compete with them for jobs and wages.29 Laws beginning at state level grew out of a strong anti-Asian sentiment in California where the Chinese were seen to be becoming a ‘problem’.30 Within two years the Foreign Miners’ Tax was raised from three to four dollars. In 1854, the Californian Supreme Court made the Chinese ineligible to testify against white people in court rendering Chinese immigrants powerless in cases of racial violence carried out against them. Other acts prevented Chinese children from attending public schools without the consent of the parents of white children.

In 1870, San Francisco prohibited the hiring of Chinese for municipal works or projects and throughout the 1870s, legislation there gradually and specifically targeted Chinese immigrants. Acts regulating the size of their fishing nets, taxing their laundries and prohibiting them from owning land in the state of California eventually led to legislation openly aimed at the Chinese. The Page Act of 1875, the first federal restrictive legislation, was initially a general restrictive measure on immigrants, prohibiting communists, prostitutes, criminals and anyone judged to be insane from entering the country; however, it soon became apparent that it was mainly Chinese and other Asian immigrants who were being accused of these crimes.31 While all these state and federal legislations were being passed, a simultaneous wave of anti-Chinese

27 Andrew Gyory, Closing the gate (North Carolina, 1998), p. 31. 28 Gyory, Closing the gate, p. 34. 29 John Seonnichsen, The Chinese exclusion act of 1882 (Greenwood, 2011), p. 44. 30 Seonnichsen, The Chinese exclusion act, p. 59. 31 An act supplementary to the acts in relation to immigration, forty-third congress. sess. ii, ch. cxli, 3 Mar. 1875 in Statutes at large, forty-third congress, 1873-1875, volume xviii, part iii (Washington, 1875), pp 477-8. 9

History Studies Vol. 18 violence spread across the country. Much of this violence was instigated by labour unions and their members; the riots that were commonplace in the goldmines in the early 1840s grew into a state-wide movement.

One of the key figures behind Chinese exclusion was Irish-American immigrant Denis Kearney, the leader of the San Francisco Workingmen’s Party. Kearney arrived in San Francisco in 1868; became active in the labour movement and was renowned for his impassioned vitriolic speeches. He attracted large crowds and his orations were regularly reprinted in daily newspapers. Kearney and others in the Workingmen’s Party blamed the owners of large businesses and factories and Chinese immigrants for keeping jobs scarce and wages low. Kearney called for lynching the rich bosses and burning their property and he began and ended every speech with the slogan ‘The Chinese Must Go’.32 In the summer of 1877, a Workingman’s Association was established in San Francisco with Kearney elected secretary. It formed in response to high unemployment and in sympathy with the nation-wide railroad strike of that year. The meetings took place next to City Hall in a spacious vacant area called the Sand Lot.33 At the first meeting, the crowd became agitated against the Chinese and went on a rampage that lasted three nights, killing several Chinese, destroying Chinese laundries, and raiding the wharves of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company which transported Chinese immigrants to America.34 Workingmen’s unions formed across the state, followed by the creation of the Workingmen’s Party of California which replaced the Democratic Party as the prime challenger to the Republican Party. Kearney was elected president of the Workingmen’s Union.

After two brief periods in jail for incendiary language and inciting riots, Kearney began agitating for a new state constitution which was approved by voters in 1879.35 Workingmen delegates comprised the largest voting bloc: one third of the constitutional convention. A Committee on the Chinese was established to draft anti- Chinese provisions for the proposed constitution. The committee recommended that

32 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 31 Dec. 1875. 33 Mary Frances McKinney, Denis Kearney, organizer of the workingmen's party of California (California, 1939). 34 Elmer C. Sandmeyer, The anti-Chinese movement in California (Chicago, 1991), p. 42. 35 Sandmeyer, The anti-Chinese movement, p. 42. 10

History Studies Vol. 18 all Chinese immigration to the state be banned and that Chinese residents in California be left essentially unprotected by the laws of the state, denied access to the courts, to suffrage, to public employment, to state licenses, to property purchases and other restrictions. The full body of delegates defeated some of the more extreme measures, but the final provisions were still very anti-Chinese. The Chinese were deemed a presence inimical to the welfare of the state, and the legislature was directed to use its authority to deter their immigration and settlement. The final document barred the Chinese from employment by corporations or the government and denied them the right to vote. It was Kearney’s ardent campaign in California for little over a decade that planted the seed of racial prejudice into the much-debated legislation of 1882.

On 6 May 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was officially signed into law.36 It was not only noted for its significance as the first restrictive form of legislation, but for the fact that it was the first federal law to curtail the entry of a specific ethnic working group on the premise that they endangered the good of the country. For the few non-labourers, they were required to prove through their own government that they held adequate qualifications for immigration. This became increasingly difficult to prove when the 1882 Act was amended to include both skilled and unskilled workers, which in turn meant that little or no Chinese immigrants were eligible for entry to the United States under the terms of the act. Those who had already settled in the US faced the difficult decision of returning to China to reunite with family and apply for re-entry (an even more arduous process) or remain as illegal aliens and be permanently excluded from obtaining citizenship. Further amendments made to the Act in 1884 and 1888 abolished the prospect of leaving and re-entering and also required anyone of Chinese ethnicity, regardless of country of origin to register and obtain a certificate of residence. Without this certificate they faced immediate deportation.37

The early years of the Exclusion Act were especially difficult for Chinese immigrants who found refuge in Chinatowns, insular worlds that provided a sense of security and the companionship of fellow countrymen. Recognising that the Constitution offered protection to all people in America, not merely its citizens, the

36 It was not repealed until 1943. 37 Martin Gold, Forbidden citizens: Chinese exclusion and the US congress: a legislative history, (Virginia, 2012), p. 59. 11

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Chinese filed over ten thousand lawsuits challenging laws and practices designed to harass and oppress them. In 1898, Wong Kim Ark, a 22-year-old cook born in San Francisco, took a legal action in order for him to be considered a citizen. It was a decisive victory against discriminatory legislation.38 The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent conflagration burned most of the immigration records and generated a crack in the wall of exclusion that the Chinese could use to bring others from China into America.39 They bought papers identifying them as children of American citizens and coaching books with detailed information on their ‘paper’ families, which they studied in order to pass grueling interrogations on Angel Island, the US Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay that frequently detained Chinese immigrants for long stretches of time. They were subjected to aggressive questioning about the details of their villages in China, the daily habits of their family life, important occasions in their family history and other personal information to determine if they were, in fact, the relative they claimed to be. Thousands were detained for months and for some the wait ended with a return journey to China.

However, the increased involvement of immigrants in United States politics was not confined solely to the Irish. Other minorities such as southern Europeans were represented. Fiorello H. La Guardia was the son of Italian-Jewish immigrants and was born in Greenwich Village, New York in 1882.40 LaGuardia became Deputy Attorney General of New York in January 1915. In 1916, he was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he had a reputation as a fiery and devoted reformer. As a congressman, LaGuardia represented an ethnically diverse slum district in East Harlem and although barred from important committee posts because of his political independence, he was a tireless and vocal champion of progressive causes. LaGuardia contrasted Irish immigrants in more ways than one; he was a Republican and an opponent of Tammany Hall and loathed the type of organised crime and corruption which was rife amongst New York’s immigrant communities. Perhaps the biggest

38 United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898 (Legal Information Institute (LII), Supreme Court Collection, 169/US/649). 39 The Chinese already in the United States could claim to have been born here, making themselves citizens. As such, they were entitled to bring their children from China. Many engaged in an elaborate deceit through a widespread practice of claiming ‘paper sons’, claiming to be the father of a young person still in China and provide the paperwork for their ‘child’ to immigrate. Those without true fathers in the US became ‘paper sons’ or ‘paper daughters’; See Estelle T. Lao, Paper families: identity, immigration administration, and Chinese exclusion (London, 2007), p. 26. 40 H. Paul Jeffers, The Napoleon of New York: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (New York, 2002), p. 22. 12

History Studies Vol. 18 difference between LaGuardia and his Irish counterparts became evident through the former’s reaction to the implementation of a much-debated piece of legislation known as the Johnson-Reed Act or Immigration Act of 1924. Among its provisions, the Immigration Act of 1924 imposed a quota system based on the 1890 census. The law capped immigration from any particular country to 2 percent of the US population tracing its descent to that country in 1890.41

Why the 1890 census as opposed to the 1920 census? In 1890, most white Americans traced their ancestry to Ireland, Great Britain, Germany and other countries in north-western Europe. However, by 1920, the demographics of Immigrants had changed dramatically. Twenty-three million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1920. This was an astounding figure considering that the country’s total population numbered only 76 million in 1900.42 In contrast to mid-19th-century immigrants from Germany and Ireland, many of these newcomers hailed from southern and eastern Europe. But as with 19th-century Catholic Germans and Irish, a contingent of native-born whites felt threatened by the arrival of Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Italy, Russia, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and Hungary. Reverting to the 1890 census meant that multitudes of Immigrants from north-western Europe, who were seen as more desirable stock, who assimilated easier and were less of a threat to American society, would be welcomed. Immigrants from southern, central and eastern Europe would be met with limited quotas and more stringent immigration requirements. To get a more precise sense of how many immigrants this quota system permitted, consider that Great Britain and Germany were allotted 65,721 and 25,957 places respectively. Italy and Russia were assigned only 5,802, and 2,784 places.43

The Act of 1924 sought to implement a racial hierarchy through the manifestation of nativism and a broad acceptance of anti-foreign sentiment among America’s intellectual elite. The birthplace of the movement was in New England,

41 An act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States, and for other purposes, sixty-eighth congress. sess. i, ch. cxc, 26 May 1924 in Statutes at large, sixty-eighth congress, 1923-1925, volume xliii, part one (Washington, 1925), pp 477-8. 42 An act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States, and for other purposes, sixty-eighth congress. sess. i, ch. cxc, 26 May 1924 in Statutes at large, pp 477-8. 43 Gary Gerstle, ‘Liberty, coercion, and the making of Americans’ in The Journal of American History lxxxiv (1997), p. 525. 13

History Studies Vol. 18 and its founders were Boston Brahmins who formed the Immigration Restriction League in 1894. Leading early 20th-century intellectuals like Madison Grant, a Yale and Columbia-educated lawyer and autodidactic naturalist and Lothrop Stoddard, a Harvard-trained historian, were among the country’s most ardent nativists. Selling more than 16,000 copies, the first edition of Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916) ominously described how the superior ‘old stock’ of Anglo-Saxon-descended Americans committed ‘race suicide’ by having fewer children than the so-called degraded classes of southern and eastern European immigrants.44 Objections to the Act, were vociferous particularly in New York. Two months before it was scheduled for congressional debate, twenty of New York State’s twenty-two Democratic house members released a public statement declaring that they were ‘unalterably opposed to the rigidly restrictive’ Johnson-Reed Act.45 Many, who objected to the Act, did so on the grounds that they were themselves immigrants or their parents had been. Fiorello La Guardia and his colleagues argued that the ‘mathematics of the bill were worked out in order to discriminate against certain races,’ further adding that one ‘cannot justify a bill in which out of 161,184, which will be allowed under the Johnson bill, we give the Nordic race, the northern races, 134,824, and you leave 29,360 for the rest of Europe.’46

Irish immigrants seemed to be at a constant advantage on the issue of Immigration. It appears the Irish constantly evade the ethnic and racial bias which was used to construct immigration legislation while in turn having an influence upon it. It can also be argued that the Irish, by and large, laid the foundations for their own survival in the latter half of the nineteenth century by entering the political arena through Tammany Hall. Although southern and eastern Europeans were largely discriminated against by the 1924 immigration measures, China was arguably the worst affected. It is evident that the restrictive immigration legislation of 1924 was a product of a new wave of racial hygienists and nativists. The north-western Europeans, especially the Irish, benefitted from the quota system. However, it should also be noted that the Irish had taken their place among the policy makers and Irish

44 Chin Jou, Contesting nativism: the New York congressional delegation’s case against the immigration act of 1924, p. 6. 45 Chicago Daily Tribune, 25 Feb. 1924. 46 Howard Zinn, LaGuardia in congress (New York, 1959), p. 155. 14

History Studies Vol. 18 influence in Congress coupled with presidential sympathy for the then highly topical cause of Irish independence ensured they were constantly at an advantage.

History Studies Vol. 18

The Deasy business:

an assessment of the IRA during the last phase of the Irish Civil War

Judy Bolger

The Irish Civil War occurred precisely when the Irish struggle for freedom was achieved. Ironically, it was this dreamt about moment that caused the ‘green against green’ and ‘brother against brother’ conflict. As David Fitzpatrick explained, ‘like a feuding family in pursuit of a contested inheritance, the survivors of the fight for freedom tore each other and their legacy asunder.’1 One cannot help but ponder if the anniversary of the Civil War will be as nobly celebrated as the Centenary of 1916 was. This is doubtful as a closer study of the period encapsulates its senselessness and validates Eunan O’Halpin’s description of the war as ‘a miserable and confused business.’2 Particularly significant in an assessment of the conflict is the first quarter of 1923 as it offered a period of reflection for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). When Liam Deasy, an Executive member and Southern leader of the IRA was arrested in late January 1923, the Free State promised amnesty in return for his help in ending the war.3 Deasy subsequently drafted an appeal and sent the offer to the top sixteen IRA leaders.4 How this appeal was received is a relevant factor in understanding the ideological concerns of the war. Indeed, the response was a curt refusal from the IRA, and the war continued. Nevertheless, it did hit a nerve amongst many of those who were finding it difficult to justify their role in the pursuance of the war. Retrospectively, the Deasy appeal can be seen as an important moment of the war for its psychological, rather than militant influence – thus making it worthy of further exploration.

Captured near Cahir, Tipperary on 19 January 1923, Deasy gave his name as Hurley from Mallow, County Cork.5 However, General John T. Prout and the Cahir column Commandant William McGrath believed their captured prisoner was of

1 David Fitzpatrick, The two Irelands (Dublin, 1998), p. 134. 2 Eunan O’Halpin, Defending Ireland: The Irish state and its enemies since 1922 (Oxford, 1999), p. 25. 3 Freeman’s Journal, 30 Jan. 1923. 4 Liam Deasy, Brother against brother (Cork, 1974), pp 114-20. 5 Prout to Mulcahy, 19 Jan. 1923 (Trinity College Dublin (TCD), MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/21). 16

History Studies Vol. 18 importance due to the correspondence found on him and the subsequent threats of reprisals against the relatives of those involved in the arrest.6 Discussing his arrest many years later, Deasy admitted that he did not know why he gave a false name.7 Nevertheless, concealing his identity did buy him some time, as Dublin Headquarters had to send Lieutenant Dan Byrant down to identify Deasy.8 Armed with a photograph of Deasy, Byrant’s assistance was found unnecessary as Deasy subsequently admitted his identity and was sent to trial for possession of a parabellum automatic handgun.9 Deasy requested legal representation, but due to the military sanctioned courts, this request had to be granted from Headquarters.10 Despite obtaining a lawyer, Deasy’s fate was ultimately decided without or with the trial.11 One week after his arrest, Deasy was found guilty and sentenced to death.12 However, ‘for the future of Ireland,’ Deasy requested a stay of execution in return for his assistance in bringing an end to the war.13

By the time of Deasy’s arrest, the Irregulars had rather dim chances of a military win over the Free State Army. This was due to a number of reasons. The anti- Treatyites were ill prepared for military conflict. Without any coherent strategy, defensive rather than offensive tactics were employed. Bill Kissane suggested this was largely a result of both sides’ belief that the Treaty spilt would not result in actual warfare.14 Coupled with this defensive policy, the IRA could not arm themselves sufficiently in contrast to the Free State’s British-funded weapons supply. Subsequently, Gemma Clark argued that the Irregulars ‘were never seriously able to compete with the superior firepower of the Free State.’15 Following the military failures at the Four Courts and Limerick, the Irregulars resorted to the tactics that proved successful against the British: guerrilla warfare.16 This resulted in widespread chaos with the destruction of infrastructures, raids on banks and post offices and

6 Director of Intelligence to Mulcahy, 22 Jan. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/25-6). 7 Deasy, Brother against brother, p. 108. 8 Director of Intelligence to Mulcahy, 22 Jan. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/27/1). 9 Prout to Mulcahy, 23 Jan. 1923 (TCD MS, MJ Costello papers, 11504/P/28). 10 Prout to Portobello Barracks, 24 Jan. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/31). 11 Deasy, Brother against brother, p. 110; Fitzpatrick, The two Irelands, p. 133. 12 Prout to Mulcahy, 11.45am, 26 Jan. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/32). 13 Prout to Mulcahy, 11:15pm, 26 Jan. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/34). 14 Bill Kissane, The politics of the Irish Civil War (Oxford, 2005), p. 79. 15 Gemma Clark, Everyday violence in the Irish Civil War (Cambridge, 2004), p. 3. 16 Oonagh Walsh, Ireland’s independence 1880-1923 (London, 2004), pp 94-7; Deasy, Brother against brother, pp 52-4. 17

History Studies Vol. 18 general disruption to every-day life in post-War of Independence Ireland.17 This further weakened the Irregulars’ support from the public; most of whom had already been subjected to years of such behaviour. It also proved to have little military success. Unlike the triumph of similar tactics in the previous war, the enemy this time was more than familiar with the practice and therefore capable of supressing it. Furthermore, with the continuous capturing of leaders and Irregular soldiers, in the face of an army that was multiplying on a daily basis, the IRA was in a very weak position.18

Michael Hopkinson has described Deasy as ‘the most important example of the Cork IRA’s reluctant participation in the conflict’.19 Hopkinson’s claim finds virtue in Deasy’s appeal for peace. Deasy openly acknowledged the precarious position he was in when drafting the plea. A moderate anti-Treatyite from the onset, Deasy was more rational than his fellow IRA leaders about the dwindling position of his army.20 When captured he felt ‘any influence’ he had in ‘terminating the fight’ would be ‘greater alive than dead.’21 Therefore, Deasy accepted and vowed to aid in the Free State’s offer of unconditional surrender.22 Deasy asserted that any further IRA action would result in unnecessary bloodshed as there was now no possibility of a Republican victory. Prior to his arrest, Deasy visited Kilkenny and Waterford. Having thought these areas were particularly strong holdings for the IRA, he was left ‘surprised’ when he only met ‘one armed officer in the county’ of Kilkenny and a ‘similar’ situation in Waterford.23

Moreover, Deasy was acutely aware of the daily increase in the Free State Army’s recruitment. Which he believed was an impossible obstacle for the IRA to surpass.24 In his mind and apparently despite his captive status, Deasy claimed it was stubbornness rather than military intellect that was preventing the Irregulars from

17 Donal P. Corcoran, Freedom to achieve freedom: the Irish Free State 1922-1932 (Dublin, 2013), p. 92. 18 John M. Regan, The Irish counter-revolution, 1921-1936: treatyite politics and settlement in independent Ireland (Dublin, 1999), p. 102; Lynch to O’Donoghue, 3 Feb. 1923 (University College Dublin Archives (UCDA), Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 19 Michael Hopkinson, Green against green: The Irish Civil War (Dublin, 1988), p. 230. 20 Deasy, Brother against brother, p. 116. 21Deasy to Lynch, 29 Jan. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 22 Copy of statement of surrender signed by Liam Deasy, 29 Jan. 1923 (National Library Ireland (NLI), Joseph McGarrity papers, MS 17526/43). 23 Deasy to Lynch, 29 Jan. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 24 Ibid. 18

History Studies Vol. 18 negotiating. Deasy openly addressed the ideological roadblocks that were preventing the IRA leaders from surrendering in his letter to their Chief of Staff; Deasy told Liam Lynch ‘bedrock principles prevented our making peace on any term but our own.’25 As Deasy anticipated, none of the sixteen recipients accepted his appeal.26 That being said, Hopkinson noted that although the leaders refused Deasy’s peace negotiations ‘some agreed with his pessimism’ about their position.27

Fitzpatrick has coherently defined the mentality of the Irregulars when he acknowledged their inability to accept ‘their change in status from hero to pariah.’28 To validate their position Fitzpatrick believed they ‘retreated into self-justifying reveries of the ideal republic’ and ‘waited in vain for the people to awaken from their slumber.’29 Fitzpatrick’s claim is showcased most poignantly through Lynch and his refusal to accept the surrender.30 Justifying his decision, Lynch incorrectly stated that before Deasy’s arrest the IRA’s situation was ‘most satisfactory’ and that the Free State’s was ‘quite the opposite.’31 Despite describing Deasy’s appeal as a ‘big big blow’ to Máire Nic Subihne, Lynch was ‘sure’ the IRA would swiftly get over the matter.32 Similarly, Lynch wrote to General Sean Moylan and advised ‘not to take the matter too seriously’ and that once recovered, the IRA’s position would be stronger.33

In the same rhetoric, Lynch described the appeal to Eamon de Valera as ‘disastrous’ but he was adamant Deasy’s claims did not ‘give justice’ to the Irregulars’ position.34 De Valera was also aware of the incident’s significance when he described it as ‘the most serious blow’ that had ‘been aimed at the Republic’ since the Provisional Government was formed.35 Writing directly to Lynch, de Valera further discussed his worries. He stated that he was ‘very anxious of the effects of Deasy’s

25 Deasy to Lynch, 29 Jan. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 26 Ibid. In addition, Deasy in his memoir recalled ‘not being entirely surprised’ when all recipients’ sent ‘no’ responses, see Deasy, Brother against brother, pp. 122-3. 27 Hopkinson, Green against green, p. 231. 28 Fitzpatrick, The two Irelands, p. 132. 29 Ibid. 30 Communique from Lynch regarding document signed by Deasy, Feb. 1923 (NLI, Irish Republican Army official military and civil war papers, MS 43125/8). 31 Lynch’s response to Deasy, 3-5 Feb. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/39). 32 Máire Nic Subihne to Lynch, 4 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697); Carlton Younger, Ireland’s Civil War (London, 1968), pp. 211-12; Irish Examiner, 12 Feb. 1923. 33 Lynch to Moylan, 6 Feb. 1923 (NLI, Joseph McGarrity papers, MS 17466/2/1) 34 Lynch to de Valera, 31 Jan. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1749); Sean McSwiney to Deasy, 5 Feb. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/41). 35 De Valera Lynch and ministers, 31 Jan. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1749). 19

History Studies Vol. 18 actions’ once publicised; when he closed the letter to Lynch he predicted ‘if this fails to break us, we shall be stronger than ever.’36 De Valera’s anxieties were valid. Three days later, he again wrote to Lynch claiming that the ‘rumours about the Deasy affair’ had circulated and that he was ‘getting more or less hysterical letters from all directions’ as a result.37 Thus demonstrating the fretfulness the appeal brought to the surface. He instructed Lynch to take action and to response to the appeal with an official communique. In the letter, de Valera outlined the exact information to which he wanted Lynch to publish. In the draft communique, Deasy was officially ‘deprived of all rank’ and his name was to be ‘erased forever from the roll of the Republican Army’ in repercussion of his ‘unwise action’.38

However, de Valera seemed conflicted about whether or not to publish the communique. He stated in the same letter, ‘it ought not to be published’ until the Free State had made an official publication. He passed the responsibility of publishing directly to Lynch.39 Additionally, De Valera wrote directly to the Director of Propaganda (DP) the next day instructing against publicising the communique unless Free State propaganda published the affair.40 This back-and-forth indecisiveness shows the significant weight that was placed upon the press as it was an antagonistic tool during the conflict. The Free State held loose censorship over the newspapers and utilised the source. A letter from the Cuman na mBan Publicity Department during January 1923 discussed such behaviour. As result of the ‘lying Free State Press’ which never reported ‘the truth’, the need for IRA propaganda was as essential ‘as the guns’.41

The seven surviving letters between de Valera, Lynch and the DP from the first week of February project concessive insight into the leadership’s concerns over the issue of Free State propaganda. De Valera explained to both the DP and Lynch that should the Free State go ahead with the execution of Deasy, the IRA should not publicise the information. He stated that he ‘would feel that we wronged a good man

36 Lynch’s Manifesto, 9 February 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 De Valera to Lynch, 5 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1749). 40 ‘De Valera to Director of Propaganda, 6 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1749). 41 Statement from Cuman na mBan Publicity Department, Jan. 1923 (Military Archives of Ireland, Bureau of Military History (MAI, BMH), Eibhlin M. Coleman papers, A 1092). 20

History Studies Vol. 18 who had done good service.’42 Whether de Valera’s concern for Deasy’s reputation was sincere or whether he was more concerned that the incident would further weaken the public representation of the IRA is unclear. Nevertheless, the Free State authorities did eventually publish the Deasy document together with Lynch’s official response which did not include any remembrance of de Valera’s earlier draft.43 Florence O’Donoghue noted that when it was published, the affair ‘was given the widest possible publicity’ as can be seen from the surviving newspapers.44

Lynch acknowledged the potential effect that Deasy’s now published appeal would have on the morale of his army. Consequently, he wrote to the DP to instruct the publication of his manifesto ‘The War Will Go On’ which was published in An Phoblacht.45 Addressing his ‘Comrades’, Lynch described Deasy’s appeal as a ‘supreme crisis’ waged against them by the ‘vile and false propaganda’ of the Free State.46 He offered reassurance by claiming that the Republican Army was ‘in a much stronger military position than any other period in history.’47 He noted that the Free State had failed to ‘break the morale and spirit of the army’ and that if they stood ‘united and firmly’ victory was certain.48 Lynch was deluded. So much so that the unnecessary prolonging of the conflict was due to his refusal to accept the situation.49

Unable to consider a surrender, the leaders of the IRA reverted to their ideals as justification for pursuance. The response letters allude to the ideological forces behind the Republican refusal to surrender. As Hopkinson stated ‘if military victory had become a Republican pipe-dream, it was nevertheless inconceivable that the war would result in a surrender of Republican ideal.’50 Frank Carty’s reply to Deasy stated that he refused to take part in such ‘cowardly surrender’ especially since victory was ‘assured’.51 Carty was assured that his view was shared with every officer under his command. Too many of the IRA’s ‘dear comrades’ had lost their lives in the struggle

42 De Valera to Lynch, 6 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1749). 43Irish Times, 9 Feb. 1923; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Feb. 1923; Evening Herald, 9 Feb. 1923. 44 Florence O’Donoghue, No other law (Dublin, 1981), p. 291; Irish Times, 7 Apr. 1923. 45 Lynch’s Manifesto, 9 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697); Mrs Sheehy Skeffington’s Papers captured in her residence, 30 Dec. 1922 (MAI, BMH, captured document collection, lot 227 A/1217). 46 Lynch’s Manifesto, 9 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Hopkinson, Green against green, p. 229. 50 Ibid. 51 Carty to Deasy, 6 Feb. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/38). 21

History Studies Vol. 18 and surrendering would tarnish their memories.52 It was also thought, as Carty put it, that the ‘murder of Republican prisoners’ only made their ‘cause more sacred’ and encouraged the men to carry on the fight.53 In Sean McSwiney’s reply, similar tropes can be found. McSwiney wrote slightly more empathically when he told Deasy: ‘I hope your life will be spared but if not you can be assured that we who are still left will carry on the fight.’54 Like Carty, McSwiney saw Republican martyrdom as the fuel to their fire. He stated that ‘were there any other reason we could not endure the loss of comrades who are gone and other comrades who may follow.’55

Frank Barrett’s lengthy response to Deasy exhibited similar Republican tones as Carty and McSwiney with an added degree of sarcasm. Barrett mockingly told Deasy ‘I know that no consideration for your own safety’ implemented his decision to draft the appeal.56 He told Deasy ‘may it please God to spare your life for Ireland’s sake.’57 Writing directly to Lynch on the same day, Barrett appears vulnerable about the IRA’s position. Barrett believed the effects of Deasy’s document would be ‘disastrous’.58 He admitted that the incident had a ‘most bewildering effect’ on him.59 But akin to Lynch’s determination, Barrett asserted that his forces would continue with ‘the utmost coolness’.60 Barrett did feel oblige to tell Lynch that some of Deasy’s points were ‘unfortunately too truly representative of the real position’.61 To which Lynch responded ‘the document of the enemy is having the effect which they wish to create.’62 Lynch was correct. The appeal was working albeit on a smaller and less affective level than the Free State would have hoped.

Much of Deasy’s support came from his fellow captive Irregular comrades. Indeed, the captured status of Deasy and his supporters did poke holes at the sincerity of their actions. Nevertheless, they were advocating what many felt but could not put into play. Irregular prisoners from Waterford and Tralee accepted Deasy’s appeal and

52 Carty to Deasy, 6 Feb. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/38). 53 Ibid. 54 McSwiney to Deasy, 5 Feb. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/41). 55 Ibid. 56 Barrett to Deasy, 5 Feb. 1923 (TCD, MJ Costello papers, MS 11504/P/40). 57 Barrett to Lynch, 5 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, MS P150/1697). 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Lynch to Barrett, 9 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, MS P150/1697). 22

History Studies Vol. 18 requested parole of prisoners to ‘intervene with IRA’.63After the heinous events that occurred at Drumboe Castle, more Irregular prisoners also decided to align their position with Deasy.64 These prisoners justified that surrender by claiming that Deasy ‘was as good a solider as Ireland ever produced’, whose word they trusted and therefore were not ‘ashamed’ of their choice.65 They believed that those who refused the appeal were ‘irresponsible’ and ‘self-interested’.66

Those who were released in order to intervene with the IRA were not received with open arms by their ‘irresponsible’ and ‘self-interested’ comrades. Maurice Sweeney was paroled for ‘peace negotiations’ in the Connemara region shortly after the appeal.67 Once informed of his ambitions, IRA leadership instructed the Connemara brigade that upon meeting Sweeney to advise him that his actions were in direction violation of General Headquarters orders. Moreover, it was ordered that Sweeney was to be informed that if he persisted, and despite how much he was regarded ‘personally’, whatever action needed to curtail him would be availed.68 Akin to the IRA leadership in the West, captive leader Ernie O’Malley strongly disagreed with the surrendering tactics influenced by Deasy.69 Writing to Sheila Humphreys from Mountjoy Prison, O’Malley described the news of Deasy’s appeal as ‘not exactly healthy’.70 In another letter to Humphreys, further discussing the appeal and in the same martyrdom rhetoric as that of Carty and McSwiney, O’Malley insisted that he thought ‘it glorious the manner in which the young lads’ had hitherto faced ‘the firing squads’.71 Thus, he could not agree with surrendering upon the threat of execution in

63 Message from Waterford Prison, 11 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284); Statement of Dan Breen (MA, BMH, WS1763); Tralee prisoners support of Deasy’s appeal, 17 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 64 Liam Broody, ‘The Drumboe Martyrs’ (www.creeslough.com/DrumboeMartyrs.html.) (20 Sep. 2018). 65 Letter of appeal from prisoners Donaghy, Lane, Ward and Coyle, 17 Mar. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 66 Ibid. 67 Message from Field Headquarters, 2nd Western Div. to O.C. Connemara, 18 February 1923, (MAI, BMH, Tom Derris captured papers, lot 2, CW/CAPT/002/1/02). 68 Ibid. 69 Cormac O’Malley and Anne Dolan (eds), ‘No surrender here!’: the Civil War papers of Ernie O’Malley 1922-1924, (Dublin, 2007), pp. 359-63. 70 O’Malley and Dolan, No surrender here, p. 359. 71 Ibid., p. 362. 23

History Studies Vol. 18 the way that Deasy did.72 When Deasy was later transferred to Mountjoy, O’Malley wasted no time in expressing his views directly to him.73

But unlike this negative response from the IRA, many saw Deasy’s appeal as a glimmer of hope for the cessation of war. As neutral IRA member O’Donoghue put it in a letter to Lynch: ‘I am very sorry for Deasy and sorry that such a good man should have been put in this position of doing what he did. The main point is it had to be done.’74 O’Donoghue would later comment in his biographical work of Lynch, that Deasy ‘fairly’ and ‘courageously’ set out valid points in his appeal.75 Also discussing the Deasy affair retrospectively, Justice Cahir Davitt explained that while the appeal had a ‘curt refusal’ from Lynch, its psychological effect was, nevertheless, ‘considerable’.76 Davitt believed it was this appeal that made many of those who were opposed to Government contemplate putting ‘an end to the struggle’.77 Ernest Blythe also held Deasy’s appeal as a turning point in the conflict. Blythe claimed that prior to Deasy’s arrest, ‘the Irregular forces were steadily breaking up and losing morale’; Deasy’s appeal subsequently made the ‘move which lead to the Cease Fire Order.’78

Though the ‘Deasy business’ was vehemently attested by many Republicans leaders, they were aware of the ‘air of unreality’ it created as the foot soldiers did not know which important officers might go next.79 But this uncertainly had already been felt by many of the men and Deasy’s action nurtured, rather than created it. As C. S. Andrews noted prior to the appeal, all over the country IRA men were ‘being capture, executed or otherwise killed’.80 Making the Deasy affair in Andrews’ recollection the ‘disaster’ that ‘followed disaster’ like Lynch and de Valera had expected.81 Many leaders began to act independently, as it was becoming more and more difficult to

72 O’Malley and Dolan, No surrender here, p. 362. 73 Ernie O’Malley, The singing flame (Dublin, 1981), p. 229. 74 Lynch to O’Donoghue, 3 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 75 O’Donoghue, No other law, p. 290. 76 Statement of Justice Cahir Davitt (MAI, BMH WS1751); Diarmaid Ferriter, A nation and not a rabble: the Irish Revolution 1913-1923 (London, 2015), p. 227. 77 Diarmaid Ferriter, A nation and not a rabble, p. 227. 78 Statement of Ernest Blythe (MAI, BMH WS0939); Daithi Ó Corráin, ‘‘Ireland in his Heart North and South’: The Contribution of Ernest Blythe to the Partition Question’ in Irish Historical Studies, xxxv (2006), p. 61. 79 Cormac O’ Malley and Tim Hogan (eds), The men will talk to me: Kerry interviews by Ernie O’Malley, (Cork, 2012), pp. 290-92. 80 C.S. Andrews, Dublin made me (Dublin, 2001), p. 225. 81 Andrews, Dublin made me, p. 225. 24

History Studies Vol. 18 arrange and Executive Meeting of the IRA. In particular, the men of Munster were eager to enter negotiations with the Free State.

Cork leader Tom Barry believed it was Deasy’s manifesto that ‘crippled’ the Republicans.82 However, like Deasy, he no longer wanted to fight a war ‘when there was no hope of winning’ and knew his opinion was felt by many of his men.83 In contrast to Deasy, the uncaptured status he availed of meant he was determined to negotiated rather than surrender. By 19 February, Barry submitted his ‘personal peace offer’ and ‘hoped no more executions’ would occur until his offer was received.84 The next day in Cork, ‘several Irregulars,’ surrendered their arms.85 By the end of February, Dan Breen, though hostile towards Deasy’s earlier appeal, was making similar attempts for amnesty.86 Breen reached out to Free State officials and claimed he and Jeremiah Kiely were ‘prepared to do anything reasonable’ in return of Government funding to leave Ireland.87

It appears that Deasy’s appeal paved the way for fellow Munster IRA to negotiate independently. In a meeting between Free State President W.T. Cosgrave and Neutral IRA members Donal Hannigan and M.J. Burke on 27 February, this issue was discussed. Hannigan told Cosgrave that the ‘Southern fighting people’ were ‘anxious for peace.’88 However, he went on to explain that the men could not agree on a collective manner of doing so. Cosgrave appeared to have little time for any negotiations and reiterated the positive position the Free State held. Noting that the ‘country’ was against the IRA and that the Free State Government’s intelligence department was ‘getting more information than ever.’89 Additionally, despite the initial ‘lull after the first executions’, Cosgrave insisted that the people now supported the policy as it meant the Free State was ‘earnest’.90 As Tom Garvin put it ‘popular support for the Free State was generated by a wish for orderly government and disgust

82 Meda Ryan, Tom Barry: IRA freedom fighter (Cork, 2003), p. 189. 83 Ryan, Tom Barry, p. 189. 84 Tom Barry’s peace offer, 19 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 85 Cork Irregulars surrender arms, 20 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 86 Statement of Dan Breen (MAI, BMH WS1763). 87 Dan Breen’s request to leave country, 28 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 88 Interview between W.T. Cosgrave and Neutral IRA, 27 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 25

History Studies Vol. 18 at the fanaticism and criminality of many of the IRA.’91 Thus, in the Free State’s eyes, there was little need for it to negotiate with the dwindling IRA forces. Cosgrave had regarded the offer of amnesty through the Deasy appeal ‘as an act of grace, not an act of weakness.’92 It was important to Cosgrave and the Free State Government to assert that they were willing and capable, of crushing the Irregular forces without, or without Deasy’s help. As he coldly stated:

they cannot burn the whole country and we will get them eventually. I am not going to hesitate if the country is to live and if we have to exterminate ten thousand Republicans, three million of our people is bigger than ten thousand.93 Dan Breen stated that by late Spring 1923 it had become ‘obvious that the Republican Army had disintegrated to such an extent that a further continuous of the struggle seemed useless.’94 The IRA had exhausted any resources they had. Moreover, as Dorothy McArdle claimed, the number of IRA members in prisoner or internment camps was greater than the number of those in action.95 However, as Lynch proclaimed in his earlier manifesto, his forces were to fight to the last man to ‘maintain’ their ‘ideals’.96 And so they did. Or at least until the last man with his sense of idealism had fallen. Lynch was mortally wounded in combat on 10 April 1923; his death was emblematic. Diarmaid Ferriter insists that Lynch’s death ‘quenched whatever fire was left in the republican fight’.97 Upon his death, de Valera seized the initiative by calling on his comrades to cease hostilities.98 On 30 April, new Chief-of- Staff Frank Aikens suspended military operations.99 This marked the official end of the civil war, despite any arms being surrendered or any official negotiations. After eleven months of fighting, the civil war boasted more casualties than the number of Volunteers at the hand of the British during the previous war.100

91 Tom Garvin, 1922: the birth of Irish democracy (Dublin, 1996), p. 102. 92 Freeman’s Journal, 12 Feb. 1923. 93 Interview between W.T. Cosgrave and Neutral IRA, 27 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284). 94 Dan Breen, My fight for Irish freedom (Dublin, 1981), p. 196. 95 Dorothy McArdle, The Irish Republic (New York, 1965), p. 837. 96 Lynch to O’Donoghue, 3 Feb. 1923 (UCDA, Eamon de Valera papers, P150/1697). 97 Ferriter, A nation and not a rabble, p. 296. 98 Francis Costello, The Irish Revolution and its aftermath: 1916-1923, years of revolt (Dublin, 2003), p. 317. 99 Maurice Walsh, Bitter freedom: Ireland in a revolutionary world 1918-1923 (London, 2005), p. 405. 100 Walsh, Bitter freedom, p. 405. 26

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Francis Costello acknowledged the impact of Deasy’s appeal when he claimed that it undoubtedly ‘served to weaken the Republican effort’, yet it ‘had little impact’ on the IRA leaders especially with regards to Lynch.101 Even under the glaring light of reality in the early weeks of 1923, when the realistic state of affairs was brought to the fore by Deasy, Lynch continued the war in denial. As O’Donoghue stated despite ‘the bleak prospect… barren of hope as it was, not even the terrible cost in blood and sorrow which sealed his soul, could alter Liam’s determination to continue the struggle in arms.’102 Ultimately, Lynch’s decision making was founded on idealism rather than rationalism which proved to be disastrous. Interestingly, found by Lynch’s body was a small diary with a surrender note, which was a word for word copy of the one found on Austin Stacks four days later.103 His death, especially with such writings on his person, symbolises the unnecessary relentlessness of the war. As Hopkinson acutely argued ‘for all his integrity and courage, it is difficult to defend Lynch’s failure to face up to the realities.’104

In his comparative study of the Irish civil war and contemporary European civil wars with aetiological similarities, Jonas Jørdas remarked on the uniqueness of the Irish conflict. Jørdas questioned the relevance of the Republican rhetoric and their traditional devotion to ‘glorious memories of past rebellions’ which were held so poignantly by Lynch and his comrades in their understanding of the struggle for Irish freedom.105 Was this sacrificial martyrdom, which Jørdas hinted as being strictly unique to Irish Republicanism, a major factor in the prolonging of the conflict? Through the above analysis of Chief-of-Staff Liam Lynch’s idyllically-driven persistence, and the fact that the war fizzled out upon his death, aligning with Jørdas’ theory can be done with ease.106 Lynch’s denouncement of Deasy’s appeal was a result of his tinted vision. Though the appeal did not implement an immediate surrender, it was a success as it brought enough psychological rationale to cultivate the already weak unity of the IRA. In his posthumous memoir, Deasy claimed that he ‘never

101 Costello, The Irish Revolution and its aftermath, p. 316. 102 O’Donoghue, No other law, pp. 290-1. 103 Memo of Austin Stack, 14 Apr. 1923 (UCDA, Richard Mulcahy papers, P7/B/284); Papers found near Lynch’s body, 10 Apr. 1923 (MAI, BMH, captured document collection lot 78, A/1067). 104 Hopkinson, Green against green, p. 229. 105 Jonas Jørdas, ‘Nations once again’ in David Fitzpatrick (ed.) Revolution? Ireland 1917-1923 (Dublin, 1990), p. 160. 106 Diarmaid Ferriter, The transformation of Ireland, 1900-2000 (London, 2005), p. 265. 27

History Studies Vol. 18 regretted’ the decision to make his peace appeal. He claimed to have made the decision ‘without fear or favour and in the best interests of the country.’107 Through the retrospective lens, it is clear to see why Deasy had such a clear conscience. Juxtaposed to the irrational idealism of Lynch, Deasy’s appeal for a unanimous surrender from inside jail, and on the eve of his execution, almost seems noble.

107 Deasy, Brother against brother, p. 140. 28

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Chapter and verse:

biblical indexing and control in early modern England

Jennifer Egloff

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Protestant Reformation began, England was fundamentally an oral culture.1 Bibles were not widely available and were in Latin and although certain upper-echelon theologians would have read, written about and debated the Scriptures, most laypeople would not have thought to consult the Bible for their religious edification, but rather would have sought guidance by talking to their parish priests. When William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament first became available in England in the later 1520s, only a limited number of people had the resources to be able to afford it and the requisite literacy skills to read it. Consequently, people adopted new forms of orality, which included reading the Scriptures aloud. Since this was the first time that many individuals had access to the unmediated word of God, some individuals also began discussing and debating the Scriptures, and their interpretations of theology, in public places, such as churches and taverns. Since the length of the Scriptures and the breadth of topics covered has the potential for heterodox interpretations, those in power were anxious about the laity reading and discussing the Scriptures without guidance. So, despite the fact that some early Protestants took it upon themselves to learn literacy skills so that they could read the Bible and other religious writings, for themselves and to others, beginning in 1529, Henry VIII put forth a series of proclamations, limiting who could read and discuss the Scriptures.2

By trying to limit exposure to, and discussion of, the Scriptures and theology to official church services, the English government was appealing to traditional oral methods of controlling religious instruction, which had been utilized by the Catholic Church for centuries. They were attempting to create a hierarchy of interpretation in which parishioners would receive the ‘correct’ interpretations orally via their local

1 For a discussion of oral verses literate cultures, see M. T. Clanchy, From memory to written record, England 1066-1307 (Malden, 1993) and Walter J. Ong, Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word (London, 2002). 2 T. Wilson Hayes, ‘The peaceful apocalypse: familism and literacy in sixteenth-century England’ in The Sixteenth Century Journal, xvii (1986), pp. 132-3. 29

History Studies Vol. 18 ministers, who themselves would have learned the appropriate interpretations from the leaders of the church. Nevertheless, the legislation that sought to limit who could read the Bible was ultimately unsuccessful. Since individuals could not be kept from reading the Scriptures, religious leaders sought alternative methods of influencing readers’ interpretations.

First printed in 1549, the Book of Common Prayer utilized a variety of indexing techniques, including tables and calendars, to prescribe required readings for each day of the year. Through this official publication, the administrators of the Church of England sought to control the interpretations that lay individuals formed by requiring everyone to read the same passages on the same days, and then to have those readings reinforced orally by ministers at services that all English individuals were required to attend every Sunday and on Church holidays. By prescribing what passages individuals were required to read, they were also implicitly discouraging them from reading portions of the Scriptures that were not included in the assigned readings. Some of the material they omitted had the potential for heterodox interpretations. For example, most of ‘the Apocalips’, referring to Revelation, arguably the most controversial book of the Bible, was omitted, except for ‘certain Lessons appointed vpon diuerse proper feastes.’3 The fact that the sections that they did read occurred on holidays suggests that ministers may have addressed the proper way to interpret these readings orally at church services that individuals would have been required to attend.

In order to properly perform their devotions using the Book of Common Prayer, Anglican individuals would have had to have developed a strong facility with a variety of numerical indexing technologies, including reading tables, locating passages in their Bibles, and utilizing almanacs in order to situate themselves in time. However, utilizing the Book of Common Prayer to determine prescribed readings was just one of many ways that individuals encountered numbers for religious purposes. Throughout the sixteenth century, as more individuals began reading the Bible in the vernacular, editors made effective use of both traditional and novel indexing techniques, including applying numerical and lexicographical ordering systems to the

3 The booke of the common prayer and administracion of the sacramentes, and other rites and ceremonies of the Churche: after the vse of the Churche of England (London, 1549), A.iiii.v. 30

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Scriptural text. Perhaps most significant was the 1560 Geneva Bible, which was the first full-length English-language Bible to contain verse numbers. Unlike previous internal indexing methods, which had directed readers to full chapters, or paragraph- length sections of the Scriptures, verse numbers directed readers to a single sentence, or part of a sentence. Verse numbers were the culmination of a series of numerical and lexicographical ordering systems, which were used in conjunction with other indexing technologies to help individuals to quickly and easily locate specific portions of the Scriptures.

Ordinal indexing systems, in general and verse numbers in particular, enabled the Protestant Maxim Sola Scriptura, ‘by the word alone’, to function effectively. They allowed individuals to more efficiently discuss specific points of Scripture, while simultaneously referencing supporting passages concisely. Theologians were able to use these technologies both professionally, when discussing the finer points of theology with each other, and didactically, to instruct lay individuals on the proper way to interpret the Scriptures. Significantly, verse numbers were conveyed both in texts, and orally by ministers giving sermons to congregations. Some lay individuals made use of these numerical didactic features, bringing their Bibles to church services in order to follow the points that the minister was making, taking notes in order to record his references and examine them in more detail later, following the cross references contained in the margins of their Bibles and other religious texts and in their personal writing. By utilizing these ordinal indexing techniques, individuals were able to personally engage with the Scriptures. In so doing, they were taking a proactive approach to their religious edification and thus attempting to take more control of their salvation, in a way that would not have been possible for their preliterate predecessors or illiterate counterparts.

The fact that theologians and Church of England officials chose to use numerical indexing techniques in attempts to control Scriptural interpretations, combined with the fact that lay individuals utilized these technologies to take control of their religious educations and by extension, their salvation, is significant. As Anglophone individuals encountered numbers in their Bibles on a daily basis, certain chapters and verses became strongly associated with particular holidays, events and messages. This, combined with the fact that many individuals were interested in

History Studies Vol. 18 interpretations of the symbolic numbers contained in Revelation and Daniel, which were widely believed could be interpreted to predict when the apocalypse would occur, made numbers an integral part of early modern Anglophone individuals’ religious life. This illustrates that the use and manipulation of numbers figured prominently in various aspects of the early modern experience and was an integral part of Anglophone culture.

The expression ‘to quote chapter and verse’ when refencing the Bible is so common that there is some tendency to think that the Bible has always contained these chapter and verse divisions. However, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, only chapter divisions had been applied to the text of the Scriptures, so editors of early printed Bibles adopted external indexing methods that had been utilized in medieval manuscript books, including headers, easily distinguishable titles, and folio numbers, in order to make it easier to find particular parts of the text.4 Recognizing the utility of indexing devices that were consistent between editions, editors of English-language Bibles began applying letters, whose ordinal nature allowed them to function similarly to numbers, to paragraph-length segments of biblical text in the 1530s.5 The inclusion of these marginal letters allowed individuals to reference more specific portions of the Scriptures than they had been able to when using only chapter numbers. For instance, unlike Tyndale’s 1525 edition, which included only text, the 1534 edition also included a cross reference to ‘Mar.iv.f.’ near the end of the tenth chapter of Matthew.6 An interested reader could follow this reference and consult the section of the text that contained the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, find the section marked ‘F’ and locate a passage that was related to the one that he or she had just read. By including these references, the editors were reflecting the contemporary notion that various parts of the Scriptures were mutually reinforcing and conveying theological information to

4 Peter Stallybrass, ‘Books and scrolls: navigating the Bible’ in Jennifer Andersen and Elizabeth Sauer (eds), Books and readers in early modern England: material studies, (Philadelphia, 2002), pp 42-79; see pp 43; 44; 46. See for instance, William Tyndale’s 1525 English translation of the New Testament: William Tyndale, The New Testament (Cologne, 1525) and Tyndale’s 1530 translation of The Pentateuch (Antwerp, 1530). 5 For instance, unlike Tyndale’s 1525 New Testament and 1530 Pentateuch, which divided the text only into chapters, his 1534 New Testament, contained capital ordinal letters were periodically printed in the margins. See The Newe Testament dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke by Willyam Tindale, and fynesshed in the yere of our Lorde God A.M.D. & xxxiiij. in the moneth of Nouember (Anwerp, 1534), A.i (hereafter, Tyndale, Newe Testament (1534)). 6 Tyndale, Newe Testament (1534), xv. 32

History Studies Vol. 18 readers by alerting them to passages that they would like them to associate with each other. An individual who followed these references was more likely to receive the message that the authors and editors intended, rather than forming his or her own unmediated interpretation.

Many individuals considered these marginal letters to be a useful indexing device and they were included in many subsequently printed Bibles.7 In addition to being able to follow the Scriptural cross references printed in the margins of their Bibles, these indexing letters allowed users to concisely make notes about where they had read certain passages. If someone referenced the book, chapter and letter when speaking, or in correspondence, any individual who had access to a Bible that used the same ordinal-letter indexing system could more easily find the portion of the Scriptures to which he or she was referring. For instance, in Heinrich Bullinger et al’s 1563 A briefe and compendyouse table, in a maner of a concordaunce openyng the waye to the pryncypall historyes of the whole Byble, the alphabetical entries include references to marginal letters. For instance, the entry for ‘Synne’ (sin) is as follows:

Synne is annexed to all men by naturall bearth. Genesys.vi.b. Job. xiiii a.xv.b. Psalm.xiii.a.l.a.Cxv.a.Proue xxii.b., Esay.xliii.d,liii.d. lxiiii.a.Eont lii.*.b.a. Ȼ Seke rightesusnes.8 Anyone who had a Bible that contained marginal letters, would have been able to follow the references in this concordance, and locate passages related the theme of sin. Since marginal letters directed readers to paragraph-length segments, rather than entire chapters, it was considerably easier for readers to locate the desired portion of the Scriptures. However, there was still a certain amount of ambiguity regarding which specific aspects of the text one was supposed to consider. So, some people considered a method of referencing even more specific segments of the text using numbers to be preferable.

7 For instance, the Bible that Henry VIII sanctioned in 1538, and which later came to be known as the Great Bible was first published in 1539. It contained marginal letters in its first, and subsequent, editions. See The Byble in Englyshe that is to saye the content of all the holy scrypture, both of ye olde and newe testament, truly translated after the veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes, by ye dylygent studye of dyuerse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde tonges (Paris, 1539). 8 Heinrich Bullinger, Leo Jude and Conrade Pellicane, A briefe and compendyouse table, in a maner of a concordaunce openyng the waye to the pryncypall historyes of the whole Byble, and the most comon articles grounded and comprehended in the newe Testament and old, in maner as amply as doth the great concordau[n]ce of the Bible. Gathered and set fourth by Henry Bullynger, Leo Iude, Conrade Pellicane, and by the other ministers of the church of Tigurie (London, 1563), P.v.v. 33

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The Geneva translation of the Bible, which was prepared by English Protestants who had joined John Calvin’s circle after having been exiled during the reign of Queen Mary, was the first English-language Bible to be printed with verse numbers. The completion of the full Bible followed that of the New Testament by three years, first being published in 1560.9 This edition was relatively affordable and contained a variety of didactic features, including chapter summaries, maps, and diagrams, which contributed to its popularity for home study.10 Perhaps the most noteworthy didactic feature was the ‘moste profitable annotations vpon all the hard places,’ which provided detailed explanations of the Scriptural passages, and utilized the newly introduced verse numbers to make cross references to other parts of the Bible.11 When users read the marginal notes and followed the successive cross references, they were essentially following a theological roadmap, and understanding the Scriptures the way that the editors intended. Since verse numbers pointed to more concise portions of Scripture than ordinal letters did, there was less opportunity for ambiguity.

While these marginal notes and cross references did help the editors to control the interpretations that individual parishioners were forming, they also served a valuable didactic function for the faithful. Some individuals read the marginal notes contained in their Geneva Bibles and followed the cross references.12 Reading the marginal notes, following the cross references, and utilizing the other didactic features contained in their Bibles, combined with attending religious services, praying daily, and reflecting thoughtfully, allowed individuals to feel more in control of their salvation. Verse numbers made it easier and less cumbersome to discuss theology, because by using just a few letters, to indicate the book and numbers and to indicate

9 The Nevve Testament of our Lord Iesus Christ conferred diligently with the Greke, and best approued translations (Geneva, 1557), 2v-3; The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated according to the Ebrue and Greke, and conferred with the best translations in diuers languges. With moste profitable annotations vpon all the hard places, and other things of great importance as may appeare in the epistle to the reader (Geneva, 1560) (hereafter, Geneva Bible (1560). 10 See for instance, Femke Molekamp, Women and the Bible in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2013), pp 5-6; and Stallybrass, ‘Books and scrolls’, p. 71. 11 Geneva Bible (1560). 12 For instance, Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke and her brother created their own translation of the Psalms during the 1590s, in which they incorporated both aspects of the Scriptures as they were translated in the Geneva Bible, and information from the adjacent marginal notes. See Molekamp, Women and the bible, pp 178-9. 34

History Studies Vol. 18 the chapter and verse, one could concisely reference very particular points rather than entire chapters or sections of chapters that were written in paragraph form. Although there was a period of transition, during which marginal letters continued to be utilized in some publications, by the end of the sixteenth century, the use of verse numbers was virtually axiomatic.

Despite acknowledging the utility of verse numbers, the length, polemical nature and association with radical Protestants made some members of the Anglican hierarchy anxious about the marginal notes contained in the Geneva Bible. Recognizing the influence that marginal notes could have on lay readers, Archbishop John Whitgift entreated Elizabeth to prohibit the printing of Bibles with any annotations that were not approved by the hierarchy of bishops, in 1583.13 Moreover, one of the primary objectives of the King James Bible, which was first printed in 1611, was to remove the marginal notes that the Geneva Bible contained, so that individuals would not absorb potentially inflammatory notions from the printed marginalia, but rather receive the ‘proper’ interpretation of the Scriptures orally from their ministers during their Sunday services.14

However, despite the fact that the King James Bible eschewed marginal explanations, it still included cross references to other parts of the Scriptures, which reflected the contemporary notion that the Bible was one coherent text, and that the material in the Old Testament predicted and helped to explain the material in the New Testament.15 So, even though one of the objectives was to remove the marginal explanations that would potentially influence readers, these numerical references still made associations between verses, and conveyed information to readers regarding the governmentally sanctioned, and thus ‘proper,’ way to read and interpret the Scriptures.

Many theologians made effective use of the lexicographical and numerical ordering systems that were applied to the Scriptures, especially when attempting to interpret particularly challenging or controversial portions of the Bible, such as Revelation. Interpretation of Revelation was considered to be particularly important

13 Molekamp, Women and the bible, p. 24. 14 Adam Nicolson, God’s secretaries: the making of the King James bible (New York, 2003), p. 77. 15 Nicolson, God’s secretaries, pp 76-8. 35

History Studies Vol. 18 during the early modern period, because many Christians believed that the apocalypse was imminent. Amongst the Anglophone individuals who sought to interpret the prophetical elements, place humanity on an apocalyptical timeline, and predict when Judgment Day would occur was the Scottish humanist, theologian, and mathematician John Napier. To support his exegesis of Revelation, Napier included copious cross references in the margins of A plaine discouery of the whole Reuelation of Saint Iohn, which was first published in 1593.16

The fact that his treatise was highly polemical against Catholicism, potentially controversial, and predicted that the apocalypse would begin relatively soon, contributed to Napier taking a very rigorous approach to his analysis. Providing ‘euident proofe and coherence of scriptures’ by making reference to particular Bible verses, Napier organized his exegetical arguments in a very mathematical way, analyzed the symbolic numbers in Daniel and Revelation, performed numerology to correlate the Catholic Church with the beast who bore the mark 666, analyzed historical information from a wide range of cultures in order to create a universal timeline, and performed a series of calculations to predict that ‘The day of Gods iudgement appears to fall betwixt the yeares of Christ, 1688. and 1700.’17 Due to the strength and rigor of his scholarship, combined with the relative nearness of his prediction, Napier’s work was well received, widely disseminated, and quite popular. It was translated into Dutch, French, and German and became the topic of ongoing international conversations.18

However, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, interest in Revelation and the apocalypse was not limited to highly educated scholars and theologians. Contemporary authors and publishers recognized that individuals with a wide range of motivations, educational backgrounds, and budgetary restrictions were interested in Revelation and biblical chronology and created different texts for different audiences. The way they deployed evidence varied by audience, so that

16 John Napier, A plaine discouery of the whole reuelation of Saint Iohn set downe in two treatises: the one searching and prouing the true interpretation thereof: the other applying the same paraphrastically and historically to the text. Set foorth by Iohn Napeir L. of Marchistoun younger. Whereunto are annexed certaine oracles of Sibylla, agreeing with the Reuelation and other places of Scripture (Edinburgh, 1593). 17 Napier, Plaine discovery (1593), p. 16. 18 Julian Havil, John Napier: life, logarithms, and legacy (Princeton, 2014), p. 60. 36

History Studies Vol. 18 almost everyone was invited to contemplate when the Apocalypse would occur. Interest in the apocalypse was particularly keen during times of political upheaval, including the English Civil War, which took place between 1642-1649. During this time, there was renewed interest in Napier’s predictions specifically. Plaine Discovery was reprinted in 1642 and 1645 and Napier’s ideas also circulated in shorter, simplified formats, which would have been more affordable and would have appealed to much broader audiences.

In 1642, an anonymous author compiled a 21-page text entitled Napiers narration: or, an epitome of his booke on the Revelation.19 This short tract, which was written as a dialogue between the interlocutor ‘Rollock’ and ‘Napier,’ answered a variety of apocalyptical questions that were likely to have been on many people’s minds, including, that all-important question: ‘How long doe you thinke the World shall continue?’20 Since Napiers Narration was published 25 years after Napier died, this was not intended to be considered a transcription of an actual conversation, but as the title claimed, it was an ‘epitome’, the essence, of Napier’s work. The dialogue form was employed didactically, much as it was in contemporary mathematical texts.21 The author included some Scriptural references in order to help to orient the reader and to provide justification for some of the assertions, especially those that were more controversial. For instance, after Rollock asks Napier ‘can you conjecture when the day of Judgement shall be?’ he adds: ‘Sir let me heare your grounds for this your conjecture.’22 Napier explains his reasoning, and provides references to specific biblical verses that support his assertions.23 This shows that both scholarly and popular audiences considered Scriptural references to be an important component of making a successful religious argument.

19 Napiers narration: or, an epitome of his booke on the Revelation. Wherein are divers miste[r]ies disclosed, touching the foure beasts, seven vials, seven trumpets, seven thunders, and seven angels, as also a discovery of Antichrist: together with very probable conjectures touching the the [sic] time of his destruction, and the end of the world. A subject very seasonable for these last times (London, 1641/2), A1. 20 Napiers narration, A2, A2v and B1v. 21 See for instance, Robert Recorde, The grou[n]d of artes teachyng the worke and practise of arithmetike, moch necessary for all states of men. After a more easyer [et] exacter sorte, then any lyke hath hytherto ben set forth: with dyuers newe additions, as by the table doth partly appeare. Robert Recorde (London, 1543) which continued to be published in various editions throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 22 Napiers narration, B1. 23 Ibid. 37

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In addition to polemical publications, theologians also utilized verse numbers in their sermons. Since Anglican leaders believed that it was imperative that all congregants properly understood the Scriptures, it was not uncommon for ministers to explicitly give sermons on particular chapters or verses from the Bible, especially ones that were deemed particularly important or difficult to interpret, and those that were relevant to contemporary political, social, or cultural circumstances.24 Making specific numerical references to verse numbers as they spoke enabled preachers to assert the veracity of their statements, while simultaneously offering their congregations the opportunity for further contemplation and study.

Individuals were encouraged to bring their Bibles to Sunday services in order to follow the minister’s references, or to take notes so they could reflect on the relationship between the sermon and the Scriptures later. For example, the title page of the 1573 edition of the officially sanctioned Bishops’ Bible includes an image of Elizabeth, a minister at a pulpit and a congregation. The members of the congregation are holding their Bibles, and one woman has hers open, presumably following the minister’s references. Included in this image is the quotation, ‘Searche the Scriptures, for in them ye thynke ye have eternal lyfe, and they which testifie of me,’ and in true Protestant fashion, the editors offered biblical support for this statement by referencing ‘Iohn. v.’25 Moreover, many contemporaneously published editions of the Geneva Bible contained a diagram entitled ‘Howe to take profite in reading of the holy Scriptures,’ which directed the faithful to ‘Heare preaching and prove by the Scriptures that which is taught. Acts 17.11.’26

Some individuals took notes during sermons, so that they could further reflect on what the minister said and consult their Bibles to put his Scriptural references in context. This practice of notetaking and reflection persisted, on both sides of the Atlantic, throughout the early modern period.27 In addition to taking notes on sermons,

24 For instance, Jane Truesdale made notes in her commonplace book about ‘A sermon of Dr TiQotson’s preacht before ye King at Whitehall Apr. 1672’ which was on ‘1 Cor. 3.15.’ See Jane Truesdale, ‘Commonplace book of prose extracts and sermons, 1672-1694’ (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale, Osborn MS b/188; accessed via the Perdita Manuscripts: women writers, 1500-1700 online database). 25 Stallybrass, ‘Books and scrolls’, p. 63. 26 Ibid. 27 Both men and women took notes on sermons. The Englishwoman Anne Harcourt kept notes on sermons she attended during the 1640s. Robert Keayne kept notes both on sermons delivered in London and those delivered in Boston between 1627-1646, see Robert Keayne sermon notes, 1627- 38

History Studies Vol. 18 both men and women actively engaged with the Scriptures and utilized verse numbers in their personal writing. For instance, in ‘Certaine Collections of the right honble Elizabeth Late Countess of Huntingdon for her own private use,’ which Elizabeth Hastings kept after 1633, she recorded a variety of notes on religious matters, including psalms and prayers to say for particular occasions and notes on religious texts that she had read. In various places throughout her commonplace book, she made references to biblical verses. She sometimes included these numerical references in the main text, but more often she included them in the margins.28 This suggests that she was emulating the method of marginal cross references to Scriptural verses that she would have seen in contemporary Bibles and other religious publications. Including these cross references in her private writing would have served the same function as it served in published texts, allowed her to quickly and easily locate the Scriptural passages that supported her various points, such as the fundamental Protestant assertion that ‘Justification and Salvation is by Christ onoly.’29 These references would also have allowed her to re-consult the original texts easily for further study and contemplation.

Similarly, Lady Anne Harcourt compiled a book of notes from sermons that she had attended during the 1640s. She generally included the name of the preacher, the date, the chapter and verses upon which he was preaching, and she also occasionally noted when it was a special occasion.30 Throughout her notes, she emulated the style of contemporaneously published sermons by writing verse number

1628 (Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (MHS, Boston), MS N-1516: microfilm p85); Robert Keayne sermon notes, 1639-1642 (MHS, Boston, MS N-1517: microfilm p85); Robert Keayne sermon notes, 1643-1646 (MHS, Boston, MS N-1518: microfilm p85). Many other Boston individuals kept notes on sermons in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Cotton Mather encouraged his daughters to learn shorthand so they could better take notes on sermons during the early eighteenth century. See E. Jennifer Monaghan, ‘Family literacy in early 18th-century Boston: Cotton Mather and his children’ in Reading Research Quarterly, xxvi (1991), p. 356. During the 1790s an English family of dissenters made notes on sermons that they attended within a copy of a Geneva Bible from 1580. See Stallybrass, ‘Books and scrolls’, p. 61. 28 Elizabeth Hastings, ‘Certaine collections of the right Hon. Elizabeth late Countess of Huntingdon for her own private use,’ not before 1633, (Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Huntington Library, MSS HM15369); See for instance, 7v, 11 and 28 for verse references within the text and 1, 3v, 8, 8v, 11v, 12, 15v, 16, 16v, 17v, 18, 18v, 19, 19v and 21v for marginal references. 29 Hastings, ‘Certaine collections,’ 19v. 30 For instance, she noted ‘preached by mr park the 3 of february new stile 1641 the 2 psalm the 10 verse,’ and in an undisclosed year she noted, ‘A sermon preached by mr park, the Sabouth folowing after mrs holises death being the 20 day of January the text in the 57 of esaiah the 1-2 verses.’ (Anne Harcourt, ‘Abstracts of sermons’, 1600-61, British Library, MS Harleian 6028; accessed via Perdita Manuscripts: women writers, 1500-1700 online database). 39

History Studies Vol. 18 references in the margins. For instance, adjacent to her notes regarding the sermon that Park preached on Psalm 2.10 on 3 February 1641, Harcourt included a reference to ‘proverbs 10-23.’31 Arranging her notes similar to published sources would have facilitated her reflection on the sermons and her subsequent engagement with the Scriptures. References to verse numbers were used on both sides of the Atlantic. For instance, John Hull, a Boston-based merchant included a variety of numerical references to biblical verses in a letter that he wrote to a delinquent debtor Robert Marshall in 1674 apparently hoping that appealing to the Scriptures might help to encourage him to pay more expediently.32 The concise nature of verse numbers and their ability to stand in for specific passages of the Bible helped individuals to make their points more concisely.

During the sixteenth century, the new indexing technologies, ordinal letters and later verse numbers, that were applied to the text of English-language Bibles allowed individuals to reference and locate specific passages of the Scriptures very efficiently. Theologians made use of these technologies when discussing the Scriptures with each other and when providing instruction for lay individuals and the Church of England utilized these and other indexing technologies in attempts to control what their congregants were reading and by extension the interpretations that they were forming. The numerical indexing features contained in Bibles were a means by which the editors of Bibles asserted control over the interpretations that the laity formed, while simultaneously being embraced on a very personal level by many individuals as they sought to better understand the Scriptures and how they related to the destination of their souls. The fact that individuals encountered numbers so frequently for religious purposes, contributed to them being imbued with additional significance, especially when discussing the prophetical numbers contained in Daniel and Revelation, and how they related to, what many considered to be, the impending apocalypse. Ultimately, numbers served both pragmatic and symbolic functions, and were a fundamental element of early modern English culture.

31 Harcourt, ‘Abstracts of sermons’. 32 Hull Letterbook, 1670-1685, (Manuscript Collection, American Antiquarian Society, MSS. Folio Vols. H, 271685, pp 239-40). 40

History Studies Vol. 18

From the plough to the stars:

an analysis of the origins of the IRSP/INLA in Derry City, 1965-74

Dan Haverty

The Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and its military wing, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), emerged out of the social and political turmoil that engulfed Northern Ireland between 1965 and 1974. The IRSP/INLA advocated a unique combination of national objectives (independence from Britain/ reunification with the rest of Ireland) and social objectives (the alleviation of working class grievances) that distinguished it from other republican organisations active at that time.1 It established a sizeable presence in Northern Ireland, but it was especially popular in the City of Derry where its support was unusually widespread among the nationalist population. This essay seeks to explain the unique confluence of underlying causes that accounted for the IRSP/INLA’s presence in Derry. It ultimately concludes that a combination of economic deprivation, political alienation and the nationalist community’s reaction to state violence during the period under review drove members of the community to disproportionately support the IRSP/INLA when it was formed in 1974.

Much of the research on republican terrorism focuses on the activities of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and while it sometimes offers an acknowledgement of the existence of the IRSP/INLA and its unique presence in Derry, it fails to provide any insight into the underlying causes that facilitated the IRSP/INLA’s presence there. This essay is a departure from the existing literature. It places the Derry IRSP/INLA within the context of the city’s unique early-conflict experience in order to illuminate the underlying causes which motivated the Derry nationalist population to support the organisation. It also attempts to construct a new understanding of the IRSP/INLA’s place within the political history of Derry by establishing an organic link between the left-wing activism that characterised Derry politics in the 1960s and the republican socialism that the IRSP/INLA championed in the 1970s. Within this context, it becomes clear that the Derry IRSP/INLA was not

1 Due to the extensive overlaps between the IRSP and INLA’s membership, activity, and organisation throughout their history (but especially during the period under review), this essay makes no distinction between the political party and its military wing, and instead treats them as a single organisation.

History Studies Vol. 18 simply an isolated phenomenon generated by the outbreak of violence, but the predictable outcome of a broader political shift towards socialism which had been occurring since the middle of the 1960s, and which itself was radicalised by the tumultuous events of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

This paper begins with a review of the historical developments that led to the outbreak of open sectarian warfare in 1969 and the subsequent split of the IRA into ideologically-defined factions. It then traces the origins of the IRSP/INLA and discusses the ideological differences between it and both the Provisional and Official factions of the IRA. Furthermore, this section looks closely at the internal variations in the organisation’s ideological preferences in order to elucidate the particular motivations, goals, and purposes that distinguished the Derry branch from the leadership. Lastly, it places the case of the Derry IRSP/INLA into the wider context of studies on the origins of terrorism. It argues that the economic conditions and political discrimination in Derry, known to have been exceptionally severe, generated an attitude favourable to left-wing activism which helped to make republican socialism popular, and which itself was radicalised and driven to terrorism by the deployment of state violence in January 1972. All of this combined to produce a unique disposition towards the IRSP/INLA’s version of militant republican socialism that lasted for the duration of the conflict.

The failure of the IRA’s Border Campaign (1956-62) demonstrated to many within the republican movement that traditional physical force republicanism, on its own, was insufficient to end partition and alleviate Northern Ireland’s worsening social conditions.2 Republican leadership, headed by IRA Chief-of-Staff Cathal Goulding and Sinn Féin President Tomás Mac Giolla, believed that a new phase in republican politics was necessary. After 1962, they began shifting the republican movement towards a more Marxist, politically-oriented approach. They adopted socialist language and flirted with the idea of abandoning abstentionism and participating in the island’s legislatures, a move which seemed to portend an end to armed struggle. There was, however, considerable resistance within the movement

2 Ed Moloney, A secret history of the IRA (London, 2002), p. 56. 42

History Studies Vol. 18 against the changes under consideration, and already by the mid-1960s, the fault lines for future division were being defined.3

As republicans looked inward to determine the future direction of their movement, a crop of educated, middle-class residents began to challenge the status quo in Derry, where charges of poor housing conditions and political discrimination were exceptionally acute.4 In the mid-1960s, several left-wing groups were formed to pressure the government into improving housing conditions.5 As the housing campaign germinated, left-leaning republicans and members of Labour also started to independently join the campaign.6 Public demonstrations and mass protests became frequent occurrences, and the attention that they attracted caused the participating organisations to swell in size. The Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC), created in March 1968 to encompass the various strands of left-wing activism in Derry into a single organisation, actively campaigned throughout 1968 and it was chiefly responsible for organising and directing the civil rights march on 5 October 1968, at which loyalist protestors clashed with marchers in a scuffle that quickly devolved into a three-day bout of severe rioting.7

The civil rights movement led directly to the outbreak of open sectarian warfare across Northern Ireland in August 1969. The activities of loyalists during the immediate opening stages of the conflict created a massive demand in nationalist communities for armed action, but the Goulding/Mac Giolla cohort maintained its course towards political Marxism. It tabled a motion at the IRA Army Convention in December 1969 calling for the end of abstention.8 The motion passed with a sizeable majority and was affirmed at the subsequent Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in January. But Goulding’s opponents considered the vote an abandonment of republican principles and an indication that the leadership was preparing to end the armed campaign.9 After

3 Henry McDonald and Jack Holland, INLA: deadly divisions (Dublin, 2010), p. 5. 4 For a full examination of the political and economic conditions afflicting Derry in the 1960s, see Lord Cameron, Disturbances in Northern Ireland: Report of the Commission appointed by Command of His Excellency the Governor of Northern Ireland, September 1969 (Belfast, 1969), available at Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland, (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/hmso/cameron.htm) (12 April 2018). 5 Niall O Dochartaigh, ‘Housing and conflict: social change and collective action in Derry in the 1960s’ in Gerard O’Brien (ed.), Derry and Londonderry: history and society (Dublin, 1999), p. 630. 6 O Dochartaigh, ‘Housing and conflict’, p. 635. 7 Ibid., p. 641. 8 Kevin Kelley, The longest war: Northern Ireland and the IRA (Dingle, 1982), p. 126. 9 Moloney, A secret history of the IRA, p. 71. 43

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Sinn Féin approved the policy change, a faction led by John Joe McGirl, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, and Seán Mac Stíofáin walked out and formed the breakaway Provisional IRA.10 The Provisional IRA recommitted itself to traditional republican principles: abstentionism and, crucially, physical force. Although the Provisional IRA took the bulk of the IRA’s support with it, the Official IRA, the remaining rump faction, maintained a significant presence in Northern Ireland, particularly in Derry.11

Nationalist politics in Derry reached its breaking point on 30 January 1972, when, during a protest against internment, members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army fired on and killed thirteen unarmed civilians. ‘Bloody Sunday’, as the event came to be known locally and internationally, pushed Northern Ireland over the precipice. Civil rights organisations maintained a presence after 1972, but peaceful protest had now graduated to armed insurrection. Catholic youths flocked to join both the Official and Provisional IRAs and unsurprisingly, republican attacks increased substantially after January 1972.12 However, the state did little to alleviate the damage it had caused. Although the British government held tentative discussions with leaders of the Provisional IRA in July, the Army proceeded with plans to seize back control of the nationalist ghettoes from the republican paramilitaries. On 31 July, it marched 1,300 soldiers and 300 armoured vehicles into the Bogside and Creggan areas in Derry in an attempt to restore state control.13 The operation was a resounding military success. By the end of 1972, Derry residents had endured three major rounds of violence, the nationalist ghettoes were effectively occupied by the British Army and IRA factions were engaged in both an ideological and material struggle for control of the city’s nationalist community.

Shortly after Bloody Sunday, the Official Army Council issued a statement ordering its members to shoot all British soldiers in the area, both on- and off-duty.14 On 21 May, a small group of Official volunteers kidnapped and killed nineteen-year- old William Best, a Creggan local and member of the Royal Irish Rangers who was home on leave.15 The Best killing incited outrage in the Creggan and Bogside areas,

10 Kelley, The longest war, p. 128. 11 McDonald and Holland, INLA, p. 11. 12 Adrian Kerr, Free Derry: protest and resistance (Derry, 2013), p. 165. 13 Derry Journal, 1 Aug. 1972. 14 McDonald and Holland, INLA, pp. 19-20. 15 Richard English, Armed struggle: the history of the IRA (London, 2003), p. 175. 44

History Studies Vol. 18 prompting the Official Army Council to suspend all military operations indefinitely on 29 May. The ceasefire was opposed by a substantial number of Officials unwilling to renounce violence completely, especially in Derry, where the recent events had produced a particular sensitivity towards defence and armed action.

Almost immediately, a group opposed to the ceasefire coalesced around Seamus Costello, a leading Official who had been active in left-wing community organisation during the 1960s.16 As the Goulding leadership accelerated the Official movement’s shift towards its non-violent, Marxist future, Costello and his supporters formed themselves into a more cohesive faction.17 The Costello faction started acting independently, conducting a number of armed robberies in the Republic in early 1974. Disgruntled by the independence of the Costello faction and also fearful of his growing influence within the movement, the Official leadership unilaterally suspended Costello’s membership in the summer of 1974.18 At Official Sinn Féin’s Ard Fheis in December, Costello’s supporters tabled a motion which asked members to overturn his suspension and readmit him into the party. The bulk of his supporters, however, were either intimidated at the Ard Fheis or barred completely from attending, virtually ensuring the motion’s defeat.19 Its eventual rejection convinced Costello that the Official movement was beyond reform. He led a group of eighty of his supporters to the Spa Hotel in Lucan, Co. Dublin on 8 December to formally establish the breakaway Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and its military wing, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

The formation of the IRSP/INLA had immediate consequences for the Official movement. Several Official clubs and individuals throughout Northern Ireland, disaffected by the ceasefire as well as the shift towards Marxism, defected and joined the new party. It was clear from the beginning, however, that the IRSP/INLA was decidedly more popular in Derry than it was elsewhere.20 According to Hanley and Millar’s research, ‘Costello’s supporters were clearly the majority in Derry city and

16 McDonald and Holland, INLA, p. 6. 17 English, Armed struggle, p. 175. 18 McDonald and Holland, INLA, p. 28. 19 McDonald and Holland, INLA, p. 33. 20 Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The lost revolution: the story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party (Dublin, 2009), p. 284. 45

History Studies Vol. 18 most of the local [Official] IRA followed him into the new organisation.’21 Indeed, all three of the INLA prisoners who participated in the 1981 Maze Prison hunger strike were from Derry, and several of the INLA’s most notorious attacks, including the 1983 Ballykelly bombing, occurred in Derry. Importantly, nine days after the party’s establishment, the Gerry Doherty Republican Club, Official Sinn Féin’s main branch in the Bogside, had voted ‘by a large majority’ to ‘disaffiliate from the Official Republican Movement’ and join the IRSP/INLA.22 It was a crucial defection because the Bogside had long been considered the nerve centre of the nationalist community in Derry and this placed the IRSP/INLA in a predominant position in the city. It never won defections of this calibre in other parts of the country, and although the leadership would focus its activities on Belfast, the organisation’s main support network would remain in Derry.

The IRSP/INLA distanced itself ideologically from both the Provisional and Official IRA. Bernadette McAliskey, a prominent civil rights figure and then a leading member of the IRSP, summarised the differences, telling reporters that:

the Provos are concentrating on getting rid of the British in a military campaign without any policy on the class war. And the Officials now have no policy on the national question. We will agitate on both the national and class issues.23 Members of the IRSP/INLA felt that the Official IRA had adopted characteristics that too closely resembled the Eastern European version of Marxism, and that a proper Irish national movement ought to centralise Ireland’s own socialist figures. According to Costello, ‘We’re not Trotskyite… Connolly, Lalor, Davitt and Pearse are good enough for us.’24 Moreover, he openly challenged the Officials’ emphasis on the class issue. ‘The position of the leadership of the Officials’, Costello said:

Is that there is no hope of achieving National Liberation until such time as the Protestant and Catholic working class in the North are united and therefore there is nothing which can be done in political terms or in any other terms about this particular issue. Our attitude, on the other hand, is that the British presence in Ireland is the basic cause of the divisions between the Protestant and Catholic working class in the North. It follows from that, in our view,

21 Hanley and Millar, The lost revolution, p. 284. 22 Derry Journal, 17 Dec. 1974. 23 Irish Times, 14 Dec. 1974. 24 Hanley and Millar, The lost revolution, p. 286. 46

History Studies Vol. 18

that the primary emphasis should be on the mobilisation of the mass of the Irish people in the struggle for National Liberation.25

Although the details of socialist doctrine and the appropriate degree of focus given to the national question were central to the IRSP/INLA’s guiding principles, and indeed, Costello himself stressed the ideological differences between his organisation and the Official IRA, it appears that different attitudes regarding physical force are primarily what the Derry IRSP/INLA used to distinguish itself from the Official IRA. In its inaugural statement explaining the reasons for its defection, the Derry IRSP/INLA stated that:

fully recognising the failure of the established parties to provide an answer to the spiralling descent towards widespread poverty and civil war, and in full view of massive attacks on the working class from the British occupation forces, it is now immediately apparent that there is a need for a real socialist alternative.26 The statement did not mention partition, the republic, or any other high nationalist ideals and it barely alluded to socialist principles. Rather, it focused primarily on the upsurge of violence in the city and the residents’ urgent need for defence. This indicates that the Official leadership’s shift towards Marxism was not the main factor motivating the split in Derry, but instead, its decision to end the armed campaign. Socialist doctrine still clearly motivated the Derry republican socialists’ decision to join the IRSP/INLA, but it was primarily Costello’s unrelenting commitment to the armed campaign that was the decisive factor.

This reveals that republican socialists in Derry still believed in the necessity of using armed action to achieve their objectives. Although the Official leadership had been clearly moving in the direction of non-violent Marxism since the early 1960s, there was no evidence that a split might occur within republican socialism until after the Official IRA’s May 1972 ceasefire. This demonstrates that republican socialists were content to remain within the Official IRA as long as it remained committed to republican socialism and armed resistance. When it demonstrated itself unwilling to pursue the latter, it directly led to the creation of the Costello faction which eventually

25 The Starry Plough, Apr. 1975. 26 Derry Journal, 13 Dec. 1974. 47

History Studies Vol. 18 split into the IRSP/INLA. A statement made by IRSP/INLA member Sean Flynn in an interview with McDonald and Holland aptly illustrates this point: ‘The INLA/IRSP didn’t start on 8 December 1974. It existed within the Officials around Costello from after the ceasefire in 1972.’27 That the most prominent and widespread defections occurred in Derry indicates that Derry republican socialists were especially apprehensive about abandoning armed action, a feeling explained by the exceptional level of sectarian and state violence directly faced by Derry’s nationalist community between 1968 and 1972.

Comparing the IRSP/INLA to the Provisional IRA, one Official observed that it was only different ‘on the basis that they were left wing but [they] were going to shoot Prods [Protestants], whereas the Provos were right wing and were going to shoot Prods.’28 Though blunt in his characterisation, the Official was reasonably accurate; both the IRSP/INLA and the Provisional IRA centralised the national question and were dedicated to armed resistance. The primary difference from the leadership’s view was that the IRSP/INLA inherited many of the fundamental socialist principles of the Official movement, whereas the Provisionals were more traditionalist. When asked to differentiate his organisation from the Provisional IRA, Costello stated that:

The principal difference we would have with them, as I see it, is that the Provisionals are not, as an organisation, dedicated to the establishment of a Socialist Republic. We feel that, from an organisational point of view, many of them would accept a theoretically independent state, with no significant change being made in the social and political structures of the state.29 In other words, the Provisional IRA was content with nominal independence and was not overly concerned with the internal composition of the new republic. The IRSP/INLA, in contrast, sought both national independence and the empowerment of the working-classes, equally.

Interestingly, the Derry IRSP/INLA continued to place greater emphasis on the social question than did the leadership. In an early statement outlining its objectives, it:

[called] on all rank and file members of anti-imperialist organisations, trade unionists, tenants and small farmers to join in the struggle against imperialism

27 McDonald and Holland, INLA, p. 26. 28 Hanley and Millar, The lost revolution, p. 284. 29 The Starry Plough, Apr. 1975. 48

History Studies Vol. 18

and build a party of the working class which will finally succeed in creating a society in Ireland based on socialism and democracy.30 It tied the entire campaign into a broad ‘struggle against imperialism’, a term that encompasses all political, social, economic, and national concerns, and one that was commonly employed by anti-colonial socialist movements throughout the world during this period.31 Notably, the statement omits the establishment of a republic as the ultimate objective, instead calling for the ‘[creation of] a society in Ireland based on socialism and democracy’, implicitly placing the establishment of a socialist democracy above that of an independent republic. The statement is decidedly more socialist than republican in its tone and it indicates that the Derry IRSP/INLA still considered the alleviation of working class grievances its principal task.

This outlook differs fundamentally from that articulated by Costello, but it was remarkably consistent with the objectives of other left-wing groups active in the city since the mid-1960s. The various tenants’ associations, housing campaigns and unemployment organisations had little concern, if any at all, for the national question. They were primarily concerned with establishing a more equitable society founded on socialist principles. Whether that new society existed within the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland did not overly concern them. Therefore, by prioritising the social question over the national, the Derry IRSP/INLA belonged to the local tradition of left-wing activism that had pervaded the city’s politics since the beginning of the civil rights movement. This should not surprise, considering the history of left-wing politics in the city in the 1960s, but it does help to build a more holistic understanding of the ideological origins of the Derry IRSP/INLA.

This section places the Derry IRSP/INLA within the context of the broader theories on the origins of terrorism in order to explain the unique degree of support it found in the city. Several researchers have judged that economic deprivation significantly increases the likelihood of a community engaging in, or at least supporting, terrorist activity.32 A full account of the economic situation in Derry is

30 Derry Journal, 13 Dec. 1974. 31 For a recent work on the historical and contemporary meanings of the term ‘imperialism’, see Emanuele Saccarelli & Latha Varadarajan, Imperialism past and present (New York, 2015), pp. 15- 79. 32 See James A. Piazza, ‘Poverty, minority economic discrimination, and domestic terrorism’, in Journal of Peace Research, xlviii (2011), pp. 145-57. 49

History Studies Vol. 18 beyond the scope of this essay, so it will instead focus on the essential economic issue, housing. The housing issue initially motivated the early civil rights organisations and helped to sustain support for terrorist groups after the outbreak of violence, including the IRSP/INLA. Severe overpopulation in the Catholic communities in the 1940s forced the British government to initiate an ambitious house-building programme after World War II. Unfortunately for the new tenants, newly-constructed communities were often left without adequate amenities and by the middle of the 1960s, many of them still lacked paved roads and street lighting.33 Despite some meaningful gains made by activists in the 1960s, housing conditions had still barely improved even years after the outbreak of violence in 1969. In December 1974, the recently established Northern Ireland Housing Executive published its first Housing Condition Survey. The Survey concluded that one-fifth of the housing in Derry was unfit for human habitation and that an additional one-third was sub-standard and in need of immediate repairs.34

In response to the Survey, the Gerry Doherty Republican Club, the former Official Sinn Féin branch in the Bogside that had defected to the IRSP/INLA, accused the Housing Executive of ‘charging high-price rents for second-rate houses’ and ignoring the immediate housing concerns of the city’s tenants.35 It proceeded to ‘assure the people that… we will continue to act upon the housing issue throughout 1975.’36 The Housing Survey revealed that the fundamental economic concerns that plagued Derry’s nationalist communities in the 1960s were still present a decade later, and the Gerry Doherty Republican Club’s comments demonstrate that the IRSP/INLA directed its political activity towards the same economic and social issues which had mobilised several civil rights organisations. This explains the appeal of republican socialism in the early 1970s, but also reveals an uninterrupted thread linking the motivations, targets and objectives of left-wing activists of the 1960s to those of the IRSP/INLA in the 1970s. The IRSP/INLA captured the spirit of left-wing activism still present in the city by involving itself in the local housing issue and combined it

33 O Dochartaigh, ‘Housing and conflict’, p. 632. 34 Derry Journal, 17 Dec. 1974. 35 Derry Journal, 3 Jan. 1975. 36 Ibid. 50

History Studies Vol. 18 with a dedication to armed resistance in order to meet the specific social and security challenges faced by the community in the post-Bloody Sunday climate.

It should be noted, that a causal link between economic deprivation and terrorism is highly contested in the academic literature. Krieger and Meierricks qualify the argument, adding that ‘a combination of poor economic and institutional conditions [emphasis added]’ offer a better understanding of the fundamental conditions necessary for the ‘genesis of terror.’37 Before the 1970s, Derry’s political institutions were grossly inadequate and failed to meet the basic needs of a large segment of its population. The Londonderry Corporation was principally responsible for constructing and allocating social housing. Catholic families, however, were significantly more dependent on the state for housing throughout the first half of the twentieth-century and that gave the Corporation considerable discretion into determining in which parts of the city the Catholic population was permitted to reside. They were mostly packed into the South Ward, a single electoral district that comprised the already overpopulated Creggan and Bogside areas.38 Despite the population explosion in the South Ward after World War II, the Corporation failed to adjust the city’s electoral boundaries, meaning that, despite 14,429 Catholic voters compared to 8,781 non-Catholics, unionist politicians controlled twelve seats in the Corporation while non-unionists only controlled eight.39 The gerrymandered electoral districts in Derry ensured unionist control of the Corporation throughout the first half of the twentieth-century, virtually excluding the nationalist population from municipal politics.

The lack of truly democratic institutions in Derry practically ensured that when activists mobilised in the 1960s, they did so through mass demonstration and public protest. Tilly writes that ‘without government means to defend rights, enforce obligations, and contain conflicts…a wide variety of actors involve themselves in collective efforts to pursue interests by their own means’ and that ‘we should expect

37 Tim Krieger and Daniel Meierricks, ‘What causes terrorism?’ in Public Choice, cxlvii (2011), p. 10. 38 O Dochartaigh, ‘Housing and conflict’, p. 627. 39 Lord Cameron, Disturbances in Northern Ireland: Report of the Commission appointed by Command of His Excellency the Governor of Northern Ireland, September 1969 (Belfast, 1969), available at CAIN, Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland, (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/hmso/cameron.htm) (12 April 2018). 51

History Studies Vol. 18 to find a high proportion of collective violence beginning with forbidden performances.’40 Most of the civil rights groups foresaw an end to ‘street politics’ and an eventual entrance into normal political participation. Their demands for ‘One Man, One Vote’ attest to that. The civil rights movement, however, galvanised and mobilised a wide segment of the nationalist population, including those groups that did not seek, indeed, refused participate in normal electoral politics, i.e. hard-line republicans. Those groups found an avenue into the political arena in conjunction with the civil rights groups, but they established a more commanding presence in the nationalist communities when they proved to be the only groups willing to engage in armed resistance after the violence reached its peak and the more moderate groups either entered the institutions of state i.e. the SDLP, or simply drifted into irrelevance i.e. NICRA. Republican socialists in Derry who later formed the IRSP/INLA belonged to that group of hard-line republicans who were mobilised by the civil rights movement in the late-1960s, but who then committed themselves to armed violence in the early 1970s.

Several studies discuss the importance of ‘trigger events’ to the emergence of terrorist groups. According to McCauley and Moskalenko, when ‘the power of the state is exerted to quash the [protest] group,’ it results ‘in an increase in sympathy for the victims of state repression and some mobilisation of the group’s sympathisers toward action.’41 One is tempted to surmise that the Official IRA ceasefire triggered the IRSP/INLA’s creation because of the causal relationship between the two events. Upon closer analysis, however, it is clear that Bloody Sunday, though it occurred nearly three years prior, was indeed the organisation’s ‘trigger event’. The use of state violence against the population radicalised public attitudes and allowed the IRA factions to expand their presence in their respective strongholds and push the civil rights organisations to the margins. Bloody Sunday generated a perceived need for armed action, especially in Derry, where the events occurred, so those groups had to continue to demonstrate that they were willing to engage the state in order to maintain support. The Official IRA then, made a tactical error by declaring its ceasefire only months after Bloody Sunday because radicalised republican socialists continued to

40 Charles Tilly, The politics of collective violence (Cambridge, 2003), p. 50. 41 Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, ‘Mechanisms of political radicalisation: pathways toward terrorism’ in Terrorism and Political Violence, xx (2008), p. 425. 52

History Studies Vol. 18 support an armed component to the socialist struggle, driving them to seek or create a new organisation.

Derry republican socialists never compromised on their commitment to armed action after Bloody Sunday. Their decision to join the IRSP/INLA, rather, was a response to a changed situation within the republican socialist movement more broadly. While it is obviously inaccurate to state that the Official IRA’s ceasefire had no effect on the formation of the Derry IRSP/INLA, a closer analysis of the situation in Derry suggests that Bloody Sunday was still more important to the organisation’s eventual formation than the ceasefire. It generated a widespread call to arms, something the Official IRA was unwilling to answer as indicated by the ceasefire. A solid base of republican socialists dedicated to armed resistance existed in Derry from January 1972 onwards. They only shifted their allegiances from the Official IRA to the IRSP/INLA after wider changes indicated that it was the latter, exclusively, which offered an optimal blend of their ideological tendencies and their propensity for armed action.

The violence that characterised the late 1960s and early 1970s subsided by the end of the 1970s, allowing republican terrorist groups to consolidate control over their respective territories. Despite the assassination of Seamus Costello in 1977, the IRSP/INLA survived a series of vicious feuds with the Official IRA and retained its position of relative predominance in Derry for the remainder of the conflict. The purpose of this essay was to explore the historical developments in Derry in order to explain the unique appeal of the IRSP/INLA among the city’s nationalist population. In sum, this essay concludes that five main points explain this phenomenon: 1) severe economic deprivation; 2) nationalists’ alienation from the city’s political institutions; 3) left-wing activism which mobilised a wide array of groups and individuals; 4) the state’s vicious response to the civil rights movement; and 5) the Official IRA’s demonstrated unwillingness to continue to engage the forces of state on the ground.

Economic deprivation and political alienation were particularly severe in Derry compared to other parts of Northern Ireland. The housing issue provided the target and the motivation for activists, while political alienation directed their energies outside the established political institutions and towards mass demonstration and public protest. In these conditions, a tradition of left-wing activism emerged which 53

History Studies Vol. 18 was transformed into republican socialism by the tumultuous events of 1968-72 and was itself sustained by the still unresolved economic and political conditions in the early 1970s. The state’s violent crackdown in January 1972 radicalised nationalist politics and drove masses into the paramilitary organisations. Given the choice between the traditionalist Provisional IRA and the socialist Official IRA, it is unsurprising that Derry nationalists disproportionately opted for the latter. The Official IRA’s rather untimely ceasefire four months later forced a reckoning for its members in Derry. They were particularly affected by the use of state violence in January 1972 and were therefore especially apprehensive about ending the armed campaign, causing them to defect en masse to the IRSP/INLA upon its formation in December 1974.

The case of the Derry IRSP/INLA provides useful insight into the early phases of the conflict in Northern Ireland. While the existing literature overwhelming focuses on the Provisional movement and its activities in Belfast, especially after 1972, it is necessary to broaden this approach in order to build a more holistic understanding of the various, intertwined motivations, experiences and objectives that mobilised subsections of Northern Ireland’s nationalist community. This essay was an attempt to fill the gap in the historiography by focusing on a relatively overlooked organisation (the IRSP/INLA) in a relatively overlooked part of Northern Ireland (Derry, post- 1972). By departing from the established literature and reverting the focus back to Derry in the post-Bloody Sunday period and focusing especially on the IRSP/INLA, this essay demonstrates the incredible variation and complexity that existed within the broader nationalist movement. Within the context of Derry history itself, it demonstrates that it is crucial to place the IRSP/INLA into the wider context of left- wing activism in Derry in order to understand that the emergence of the IRSP/INLA in Derry was not a unique phenomenon in itself, but part of a wider political evolution that had begun more than a decade earlier and which reflected the particular history, grievances, motivations and objectives of the city’s nationalist population.

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The beginning of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’:

the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

William O’Neill

By 1979, almost two years into his time in office, United States President Jimmy Carter had reduced national military spending to $295.8 billion, a reduction of almost a third from 1969’s total of $449.3 billion.1 However, by the time Carter left office in 1981, the spending had risen to $317.4 billion.2 This increase of more than twenty billion dollars was because the US was secretly supporting a proxy war in the Middle East, funding the Mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan to fight against a Soviet invasion force. The government in Afghanistan was propped up by the Soviet Union, but it had failed to slow the ‘Islamic revolution’ that was sweeping through many countries in the region such as Iran. In the closing weeks of 1979, the Soviet Union airlifted thousands of Paratroopers over the Soviet-Afghanistan border and tanks and infantry soon followed.3 In fact, in just two days, the Soviets had doubled their military presence in the country.4 This article will examine how the actions of the Carter administration from March 1979 affected the war; as well as how the Central Intelligence Agency’s covert operations at the behest of the National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, influenced the war.

The pro-American government of Afghanistan was overthrown in a Marxist coup in April 1978. The Soviet Union then began to send aid to the new regime in Kabul and initiated an ambitious program of land reform, women’s rights, and secular education.5 A telegram from the American embassy in Kabul, on 13 June 1978, to Secretary Cyrus Vance emphasised how reliant that the new regime was on the Soviet Union for economic and military survival. The intelligence concluded that the regime ‘relies one hundred per cent on the Soviet Union for supplies and equipment, and

1 Statement by Secretary of Defence Robert S. Macnamara on the fiscal year 1969-73 defence program and the 1969 defence budget (Historical office at the office of the Secretary of Defence (OSD), FY 1969-73 defence program & 1969 defence budget); Department of Defence annual report, fiscal year 1979 (OSD, FY 1979 Department of Defence annual report) (https://history.defense.gov/Historical-Sources/Secretary-of-Defense-Annual-Reports/). 2 Donald E. Nuechterlein, Defiant Superpower: the new American hegemony (Virginia, 2010), p. 152. 3 HW Brands, American dreams: the United States since 1945 (New York, 2010), p. 210. 4 New York Times, 28 Dec. 1979. 5 Gaddis Smith, Morality, reason and power: American diplomacy in the Carter years (London, 1987), p. 208. 55

History Studies Vol. 18 increasingly on the Soviet Union for economic assistance, both technical, financial, and commercial.’6 Afghanistan relied on Soviet support and the Soviets felt that they had a key territory in the Middle East that would allow them to have some influence in the region. However, within a year, there were signs of discontent in the country, and the country would soon find itself in a near-eight-year war that would go on to cost almost two million lives.7 Throughout 1978, the Soviets had been persistently ignoring ‘our direct and indirect expressions of concern… as Soviet activities continued to be stepped up’, according to Brzezinski.8 The US, for the remainder of 1978 and the initial months of 1979, received reports of widespread opposition and increasing armed resistance by tribal groups. Moscow, according to Vance, ‘stepped up its military aid and dispatched more military advisers to shore up the crumbling Afghan army.’9

In March 1979, the Afghan government accused the Iranian government of sending thousands of troops to Afghanistan disguised as refugees returning home. Once the refugees arrived in the province of Herat, it became clear that they were Muslim dissidents that were taking arms against the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan, unhappy at the new reforms that disregarded the traits of Islam.10 What soon became clear was that there was no overt Iranian action, but instead an Afghan army captain called Ismail Khan had mustered support for a violent revolt in the province. His followers had captured and executed more than a dozen Russian communist political advisers as well as their families.11 Within a few days, the fighting had spread to more than half of Afghanistan’s 28 provinces.12 Herat, suffered huge civilian casualties as a result of a concentrated series of Soviet air strikes.13 The exact number of casualties in the province are difficult to gauge, but newspaper reports state

6 American Embassy in Kabul to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, 13 Jun. 1978, (National Security Archive online (DNSA online), the invasion of Afghanistan file). 7 The Times, 26 Jan. 2006. 8 Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and principle: memoirs of the National Security adviser, 1977-1981, (Washington, 1985), p. 353. 9 Cyrus Vance, Hard choices: critical years in America’s foreign policy, (New York, 1983), p. 385 10 New York Times, 20 Mar. 1979. 11 Steve Coll, Ghost wars: the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10 2001 (London, 2005), p. 40. 12 New York Times, 22 Mar. 1979. 13 Coll, Ghost wars p. 40. 56

History Studies Vol. 18 that the Soviet casualties were quite high, with more than one hundred of the advisers’ dead by the middle of April and civilian deaths in the thousands.14

The president of the pro-Soviet regime, Nur Mohammed Taraki, contacted the Kremlin after the bombing of Herat, saying that the ‘situation is bad and getting worse. We need practical help in both men and weapons.’15 An emergency politburo meeting held in March showed just how concerns had grown and how the Soviets had become increasingly worried about the situation in Afghanistan. Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet minister for Foreign Affairs, told the other ministers at this meeting that Herat was the main flashpoint and the 17th Division of the Afghanistan army stationed there had collapsed. According to Gromyko, there had been a number of troops that had defected to the insurgents, as:

bands of saboteurs and terrorists, having infiltrated from the territory of Pakistan, trained and armed not only with the participation of Pakistani forces, but also of China, the United States of America and Iran are committing atrocities in Herat.16 While the accusation that the US were involved was not true, the situation was to change during the summer months of 1979. The United States was not oblivious to unfolding events in the country. In February 1979, Carter had suffered the loss of his ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, after ‘a shoot-out with three terrorists who had kidnapped the ambassador.’17 The manner in which Dub’s died was to prove controversial, as the reports from the scene seemed to blame the Soviet negotiators. According to one eyewitness:

Afghan police commandos poured heavy gunfire into the Kabul hotel room where U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was being held hostage. U.S. officials watched helplessly during the 40-second barrage, then entered the room to find Dubs dead.18 A few weeks after the death of Dubs, Carter allowed Brzezinski to try a new strategy and sensing a moment of weakness by the Soviets, planned to provoke the Russians into invading Afghanistan, where their armies would ‘get bogged down in a

14 New York Times 13 Apr. 1979. 15 Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing, Cold War (London, 1998), p. 368. 16 Minutes of emergency Politburo, Mar. 1979 (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 17 Jimmy Carter, White House diary (New York, 2010), p. 291. 18 Washington Post, 22 Feb. 1979. 57

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Vietnam style Quagmire.’19 On 4 April 1979, Carter had one of his first intensive briefings by the CIA on the situation in Afghanistan, ‘with detailed maps showing the spread of dissident strength and the interrelationship between the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and the ethnic groups in the Soviet Union.’20 In July and August, the attacks intensified, and Afghan army garrisons began to mutiny. This led to the Soviets to fly a battalion of airborne combat units to Kabul. In response to this and driven by Brzezinski, Carter signed a covert action order for the CIA to provide the Afghan rebels with medical aid, money and propaganda.21 This was a point of concern for Vance, who disagreed with how Brzezinski was reacting to the insurgency. While the National Security Adviser felt that the US had to support the fundamentalist rebels, Vance believed that they should not do anything that could drive the Kabul regime into ‘a closer embrace with the Soviet Union.’22 The other side to that argument was that if the Soviets did become close enough with the regime to try and sanction a full-scale invasion force, there was a chance, as the New York Times reported, that this situation could turn into the Soviets’ version of Vietnam.23

Brzezinski’s plan was beginning to come to fruition. As well as the covert operations set in motion that summer, Brzezinski also made the CIA encourage the Pakistani leader Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq to supply and help train the Islamic rebels, despite the fact that Carter had severed ties with Zia’s military regime due its poor record on human rights.24 Earlier in the year, Carter had written a letter to Zia asking him on humanitarian grounds to spare the life of former Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had been ousted in a military coup in 1977. Zia ignored Carter’s plea and executED Bhutto.25 However, Zia ultimately played a key role in supporting the Afghan insurgents throughout 1979. By September, the Soviets were becoming far more involved in Afghanistan, as it was reported that there were signs that they were considering moving toward more direct ‘broad military intervention to quell the dozens of fierce local uprisings.’26 On 14 September, CIA director Stansfield Turner

19 Nigel Hamilton, American Caesars: lives of the US Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush (London, 2010), p. 328. 20 Carter, White House diary, p. 311. 21 Tim Weiner, Legacy of ashes: the history of the CIA, (London, 2007), p. 423. 22 Isaacs and Downing, Cold War, p. 369. 23 New York Times, 14 Aug. 1979. 24 Isaacs and Downing, Cold War, p. 369. 25 Carter, White House diary, p. 309. 26 New York Times, 6 Sep. 1979. 58

History Studies Vol. 18 informed Carter that the Soviet Union were on the verge of making a decision to commit their own forces to prevent the collapse of the government in Kabul.27 This movement towards intervention became more likely by 16 September, as Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin fired both his Interior Minister and his Frontier Minister for encouraging and leading insurgents, the presidential palace in Kabul was bombed and, just a few hours later, the President, Nur Mohammed Taraki, stood down.28

On 17 September, National Security Council staffer Thomas Thornton sent a memo to Brzezinski, in which he outlined the confusion surrounding the situation in Afghanistan. Thornton reasoned that there were three possibilities. All of the events that occurred over that weekend were stage-managed by the Soviets so that they could install a more acceptable, and tougher, government in Kabul. It was also possible that Amin, the Prime Minister, had orchestrated everything in order to position himself in the presidential seat. Amin was noted to be an ambitious politician, so it would not be improbable that he arranged for the retirement of Taraki amid the spate of attacks. The final possibility was that Amin was initially trying to place himself in the seat of power, but now the Soviets were calling his bluff and making him take part in a collective leadership. Thornton concluded that Taraki was the Lenin, a respected leader who earned a reputation with foreign power, but Amin was the Stalin, a man that wanted to have power, but the Soviets would ‘have him hung prominently around their necks.’29 The overall view of Amin was that he was a strong-armed leader that was prominently Marxist. Amin was ‘seen as a revolutionary hatchet-man determined to rush his country into a Marxist State as quickly as possible.’30 On 19 September, Carter discussed the situation with Brzezinski, and ‘told him to move on deploring the Soviets’ potential increased presence there.’31 It looked more and more likely that the Soviets were beginning to prepare for an invasion, and Amin was installed to make sure that the Soviets would have no opposition from the Afghan government. The reality, however, was that Amin had avoided an assassination attempt organized by Taraki and subsequently had him arrested. Taraki was the favoured leader from the

27 Weiner, Legacy of ashes, p. 423. 28 Chicago Tribune, 17 Sep. 1979. 29 Thomas Thornton to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 17 Sep. 1979 (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 30 Chicago Tribune, 18 Sep. 1979. 31 Carter, White House diary, p. 356. 59

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Soviet point of view, so the rise of Amin alarmed the KGB. Amin had studied in the United States and they were concerned about infiltration.32

A week after the dramatic governmental shake-up, an inter-agency meeting was to discuss the contingency plans in the event of a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The focus was on the diplomatic, political and propaganda reactions that could be made in response to an invasion to make sure that surrounding allies and countries would not be destabilized.33 After more reconnaissance, it became clear to the CIA that the Soviet Union did not install Amin and that the Soviet leadership were uncomfortable at the thought of Amin as the head of state. Amin was open to interviews with American journalists and was reported by the KGB to be hostile.34 On 27 September, a memo was circulated by the CIA that analysed what the potential actions of the Soviets would be. It stated that Moscow viewed Afghanistan as more unstable since the ousting of Taraki, so therefore a more interventionist approach was likely. The CIA believed that the Soviets were fearful that the latest coup could fragment the Afghan army and lead to a breakdown at the centre of government. It also stated that intelligence reports indicated that an additional three thousand Soviet troops had been deployed to Afghanistan. The memo warned that a gradual increase would be difficult to detect, but it would eventually be noticed by the CIA. An invasion seemed to be the most likely way for the Soviets to take full control of the country. 35 In October 1979, another potential uprising was quashed as Amin successfully put down a military coup just a month after coming to power.

The civilian rebels, however, were not so easily defeated. To try and placate the rebels who saw Amin and his government as anti-Islamic, he ordered that all of the country’s mosques be painted at the government’s expense and that there would be a general amnesty for the 15,000 people who were arrested following the original 1978 coup.36 By the end of October, there was wide acceptance that the war in Afghanistan had reached a stalemate. Not only were neither side making any progress

32 Gaddis Smith, Morality, reason and power, pp 210-1. 33 Robert M. Gates, From the shadows: the ultimate insider’s story of Five Presidents and how they won the Cold War. (New York, 2006), p. 133. 34 Isaacs and Downing, Cold War, p. 370. 35 Interagency intelligence memorandum, 27 Sep. 1979 (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 36 New York Times, 20 Oct. 1979. 60

History Studies Vol. 18 in the war, but it was also being reported that Taraki had been killed while in custody. His death was reported as being from ill-health.37 This added to the Soviet unease at Amin’s reign. However, it played into Brzezinski’s plan, as the further destabilization would ‘lure the Soviets into an invasion.’38 In November, the KGB reported to the Soviet government that Amin was likely to shift Afghan foreign policy to the right, meaning an alignment with the US. They also reported that he had met with a number of US representatives, CIA agents, but had not disclosed these meetings with his Soviet superiors. Yuri Andropov, head of Soviet intelligence, concluded that the best way to shore-up their southern defences from American influence and subversion would be to assassinate Amin and invade Afghanistan, and install an Afghan government more favourable to Moscow. 39

By the beginning of December, the Politburo had agreed to invade Afghanistan. On 12 December, with the agreement of and other high-ranking officials, Andropov was placed in control of the operation.40 Their decision came in the wake of the announcement by NATO that it would introduce Cruise missiles and Pershing missiles into Western Europe.41 On 17 December, Turner went to another Special Coordination Committee meeting at the White House. Present were Vice President Walter Mondale, Brzezinski, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, and the deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Turner informed them that the latest CIA recon reports showed that there were now over five thousand Soviet troops stationed at Bagram air base, and two new Soviet command posts to the north of the Afghanistan border.42 On December 19, Turner circulated a memo that warned that the Soviets had increased their numbers even further, and that an invasion force was a possibility.43 A few days later, on 21 December, Carter was told about the continued Soviet build up in Afghanistan. He told Brzezinski that he wanted to keep Congress out of the

37 New York Times, 29 Oct. 1979. 38 Hamilton, American Caesars, p. 328. 39 Coll, Ghost Wars pp. 47-8. 40 Signed agreement of politburo leaders, 12 Dec. 1979, (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 41 Isaacs and Downing, Cold War, p. 370. 42Weiner, Legacy of ashes, p. 424. 43 Coll, Ghost wars, p. 50. 61

History Studies Vol. 18 decision-making process on findings that he issued for covert operations around the world, as it was ‘none of their business; they are to be informed, not consulted.’44

This covert operation involved the setting up of a secret outpost in China that allowed the US to spy on the Soviet Union. The next day, Vice Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the director of the National Security Agency, received a message from sources near Afghanistan border. An invasion was about to take place as the Soviets prepared to position more than one hundred thousand troops in the country.45 Both Brzezinski and Brown were briefed by Inman that the invasion would happen within 72 hours.46 On Christmas day 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Amin was killed in the initial incursion. Babrak Karmal, former Afghan premier, took his place as president. Two hundred and fifty planeloads of Soviet Special Forces were deployed in the hours prior to the main invasion.47

On 26 December, the State department arranged a meeting with Vance, Brzezinski, Turner and a number of other high-ranking officials from the CIA, the State Department and the NSC. The greatest risk, according to CIA analysts, was that the Soviet Union would quickly overwhelm Afghan forces, and a stable communist country would be able to influence other nations in the region. Therefore, the objective for the United States, was to make it as difficult and as costly as possible for the Soviets to achieve their aim. This was made difficult by the fact that covert actions that had been sanctioned by Carter had problems ‘getting off the ground.’48 The next day, Carter decided to return from Camp David to deal with the Afghanistan situation from Washington. Carter felt that this was a new departure for the Soviet Union, and he was determined to make it as politically costly as possible. He sent out many messages of unhappiness over the invasion, but noted that Afghanistan, since the 1840s, ‘has proven difficult or impossible to prevail and then withdraw with any semblance of victory or lasting impact.’49 Carter denounced the invasion publicly and called for trade sanctions against the Soviet Union. Sales of grain were suspended as

44 Carter, White House diary, p. 380. 45 Weiner, Legacy of ashes, pp. 424-5. 46 Coll, Ghost wars, p. 50. 47 Chicago Tribune, 28 Dec. 1979. 48 Minutes of Special Coordinating Committee meeting, 26 Dec. 1979 (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 49 Carter, White House diary, p. 382. 62

History Studies Vol. 18 a result. Inside the White House, Brzezinski and Vance were once more in dispute over how to respond.

Brzezinski wanted to make the Soviets ‘bleed’ over its military invasion, but Vance preferred to link withdrawal to a wider policy of restraint over Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan’s president Zia agreed to act as a courier to send even more supplies to the Afghan rebels.50 Brzezinski felt that the Soviets should be punished for invading Afghanistan, but at the same time, he feared that the Soviets could crush the uprising with this invasion force, as what occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. This is why Zia was integral to a new covert action. The rebels had to be armed and supplied properly in order to make the invasion as costly as possible for the Soviets.51 Brzezinski wrote a top secret memo to Carter that recommended a number of changes in policy towards Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Brzezinski called the situation a regional crisis and went on to say that the invasion presented a number of issues for the US. It would unsettle bordering allies, make the US look indecisive in the short-term, and allow the Soviets to create a sense of imperial expansion. However, Brzezinski also offered suggestions to turn the conflict in US favour. He suggested increasing arms shipments to the rebels, increasing funding and providing training and expertise to the rebels as well as the weapons. He also asserted his belief that the US should use Pakistan and China as possible gateways to get these key assets to the Afghan rebels. One of the final suggestions was to work in collaboration with neighbouring Islamic countries in order to help the rebels but also to help spread propaganda and start a new covert operation in these areas to help with arms and funding.52

In a New Year’s Eve television interview, Carter stated that ‘this action on the part of the Soviet Union has made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the Soviets’ ultimate goals are than anything they have done in the previous time that I have been in office.’53 In a CIA report for Carter and his cabinet, it was stated that the longer the Soviets remained in Afghanistan, ‘the greater the temptation will be for Moscow to take more active steps to influence the behaviour of Iran and Pakistan,’

50 Isaacs and Downing, Cold War, pp 370-2. 51 Coll, Ghost wars, p. 50. 52 Brzezinski to Carter, 26 Dec. 1979 (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 53 Chicago Tribune, 1 Jan. 1980. 63

History Studies Vol. 18 thus jeopardizing their own standing within the region.54 And so, Brzezinski drafted a CIA-led campaign plan in Afghanistan, with broad outlines that would stand for a decade to come. Anti-Soviet sentiment became widespread, arousing support for a new phase of close alliance with Pakistan. Together they would challenge the Soviets across the Khyber Pass.55

Carter felt that this was the most serious international development that occurred during his tenure. He felt as though he needed to assert himself or else face additional invasions or subversions elsewhere in the future.56 In his State of the Union address, Carter said that the Soviet invasion was an effort to dominate Afghanistan in order to hoard the nation’s oil supplies and to consolidate a strategic position in the Middle East. This invasion, according to Carter, ‘will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.’57 This statement became known as the Carter Doctrine, and received the most coverage over the following days, as it displayed Carter’s intent to use full military force.58 Vance wanted to have this statement removed from the address, but Brzezinski convinced Carter to put it into the speech, or else it would be ‘devoid of content.’59 This doctrine would later be enforced by both Reagan and Bush, and would define Carter’s foreign policy, as he became more hostile and threatening, according to CIA official Robert Gates.60 Only a month later, in February 1980, the hostile rhetoric was epitomized by Assistant Secretary of State William Dyess, who, while being interviewed on NBC News, stated that ‘the Soviets know that this terrible weapon has been dropped on human beings twice in history and it was an American president who dropped it both times.’61

What followed after the Soviet invasion was a brutal ten year war, fought in Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain, which required more than 620,000 Soviet troops, of which 15,000 were killed, 54,000 wounded and more than 415,000 fell ill before

54 CIA intelligence assessment, 11 Jan. 1980, (DNSA online, the invasion of Afghanistan file). 55 Coll, Ghost wars p. 51. 56 Carter, White House diary, pp. 387-8. 57 New York Times, 24 Jan. 1980. 58 Carter, White House diary, p. 395. 59 Peter Kuznick and Oliver Stone, The untold history of the United States (New York, 2012), pp 414- 5. 60 Gates, From the shadows p. 113. 61 Kuznick and Stone, The untold history, p. 415. 64

History Studies Vol. 18 the eventual withdrawal.62 The war was to prove a major financial burden for Moscow, as thirty five billion dollars was spent by the Soviets during the decade-long conflict.63 Brzezinski, in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, stated that he had started covert operations in July 1979 in order to make the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan. He was also asked whether or not that was a good idea:

Indeed, it was 3 July 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention…. That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.64 The US foreign policy under Carter had initially been about morality and human rights. However, events around the world forced Carter and his team to act in ways that did not align with the initial mission statement. Events like the fall of the Shah in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the toppling of allied governments and other events seemed to push Carter further from his initial objective. This was, as H.W. Brands states, the reason for the ‘sudden conversion from human rights liberal to born-again Cold Warrior.’65 The lack of direction in terms of a human rights strategy, and a desire within his staff to meet the Soviets head on in certain aspects meant that there was a disconnect between policy goals, policy actions and eventual policy strategy. According to Hodge and Nolan, The Carter administration ‘is an object lesson in how decision-making problems and weak leadership can have a disastrous effect on the conduct of foreign policy’ and that ‘the failures of decision- making in the Carter White House itself were largely responsible for the foreign policy setbacks he suffered.’66

62 Hamilton, American Caesars, p. 330. 63 Robert Fisk, The great war for civilisation: the conquest of the Middle East, (London, 2006), p. 109. 64 Le Nouvel Observateur, 15 Jan. 1998. 65 Brands, American dreams, p. 212. 66 Carl C. Hodge and Cathal Nolan (eds), US presidents and foreign policy: 1789 to the present (London, 2006), pp 336-7. 65

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The example of what happened in Afghanistan is important to note, as the actions taken by the president, the NSC and the CIA would later be replicated by Reagan with his own NSC and CIA during his time as president when conducting covert operations across the world. The subversive elements of the operations in Afghanistan; the propaganda, the arming of the rebels, the funding that was sent to the Mujahedeen, were all tactics of the Reagan administration in Central America in particular, and these key points of covert operations were used as templates for similar conflicts in the future. The notion of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’ was an intriguing possibility for Brzezinski and later Reagan. This allowed for support of anti- communist movements and the supply of arms and munitions to those fighting Marxist ideals.67

The consensus among many historians, including Robert Service, is that Reagan had started this specific policy of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’ in Afghanistan, as the Carter administration had allowed the Soviet Union to not only invade a strategically important country in the Middle East, but also did nothing to stem the tide of Soviet expansion.68 Indeed, the Carter administration were deemed to have been taking part in a ‘spectator sport… (as the US) could not have much impact on the playing field.’69 However, the intense fighting between the Soviet Union and the local Afghan rebels was only encouraged by the Carter administration, in what was to be the first utilization of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’ in the region, before being passed on to the Reagan administration.

67 Gabriel, S. and V.M. Satish, ‘US Intervention in Nicaragua: Success or Failure?’ in Indian Journal of Political Science, li (1990), p. 27. 68 Robert Service, The end of the Cold War: 1985-1991 (London, 2016), p. 45. 69 Weiner, Legacy of ashes, p. 425. 66

History Studies Vol. 18

Sixteenth century travel literature in the Mediterranean world and its context

Mateusz Orszulak

The Mediterranean was a contact zone where different civilizations met and overlapped on cultural, commercial and political levels. The expansion of the Ottomans changed drastically the balance of power in the Mediterranean and Venice became one of the closest commercial partners of the fast-growing empire. The Republic was at the same time the main provider of information about the Ottoman world through its ambassadors at Italian and European Courts. Early modern southeast Europe was, on the other hand, shaped by the conflict of Ottoman and Habsburg aspirations. Historical events usually provided the most basic reasons for travel. Travellers, who were diplomats, traders, or pilgrims, described foreign culture, current events or those motivating their stay in the Ottoman lands. However, travel texts are not solely a product of international relations but also reflect evolutions in literary culture. The development of printing in the fifteenth century enabled the transformation of various domains of intellectual life, particularly dissemination of new knowledge, and consequently revolutionized cultural exchange and contacts between scholars. Travel literature served to articulate the culture of curiosity in the context of encounters with non-European societies. It provided an intellectual and empirical ground for advancing debates about methods of description while creating a larger popular readership interested in representations of other and ‘exotic’ worlds.1

The aim of this paper is to present the background of sixteenth century travel literature created mainly in the context of European-Ottoman and Mediterranean exchanges. Economic and military activities facilitated different forms of travel and became an important impulse for the creation of travel literature. The main focus is placed on the Eastern Mediterranean as it was not only an area where multiple interests converged and conflicted but also because it was where most travellers, diplomats, pilgrims, or captives found inspiration for different sorts of accounts. Authors whose works are quoted here come predominantly from Venetian ambassadors, but it seemed

1 Babak Rahimi, ‘From assorted to assimilated ethnography: institution, narrative and the transformation of ethnographic authority in the travel reports of Michele Membre and Jean Chardin, 1542-1677’ in Hagen Schulz-Forberg (ed.), Unraveling civilization: European travel and travel writing (Brussels, 2005), p. 109. 67

History Studies Vol. 18 pertinent not to overlook the Habsburg-Ottomans encounters. Unilateral diplomatic relations between the empires produced a series of accounts focused on Constantinople or on Eastern Mediterranean not only in German but also in the Czech language.

Pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre became more popular from the fourteenth century when relations between Christians and Muslims became calmer.2 Chiefly, the Venetians carried out the transport of pilgrims over the Mediterranean. They were able to hold practically the monopoly not only because of the size of their naval and mercantile fleet, but also because of the guarantees they were able to offer for a safe journey. In fact, the Republic’s chain of ports on the mainland and in the islands and its strict legislation regarding pilgrim transport were the key to success in this area.3 The itinerary was practically fixed on both land and sea and modified only in case of natural disasters such as epidemics, storms or high water. The Franciscan Friars along with the tertiary sisters of the convent of Mount Zion organized and led the “sacred circuit”, made of a certain number of stopovers, both in town and out-of-town. They also helped to accommodate the pilgrims and mediated their contact with the Muslims.

Pilgrims faced multiple dangers such as deception, robbery or even the loss of one’s life, but the motivation apart from the religious sometimes included the simple longing for adventure or even espionage. Not all pilgrims wrote about their journey and probably a considerable number of written accounts have been lost. Many of the texts that have come down to us show some striking similarities: the same places in the Holy Land are mentioned in much the same words and often in the same order. The reason why a number of texts look much alike may have been caused by the use of a common source, a prototype guide for the late medieval Jerusalem.4 Many western pilgrims visited Jerusalem and its environment on a guided tour and that is also why they enumerated the sites they had seen in a fairly standard fashion.5 There are numerous records of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Christian pilgrims who

2 Alda Rossebastiano, ‘La vicenda umana nei pellegrinaggi in Terra Santa del secolo XV’ in Mario Pozzi (ed.), La letteratura di viaggio dal medioevo al rinascimento: generi e problemi (Alessandria, 1989), p. 19. 3 Josephie Brefeld, A guidebook for the Jerusalem pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages: a case for computer aided textual criticism (Hilversum, 1994), p. 19. 4 Brefeld, A guidebook for the Jerusalem pilgrimage, p. 9. 5 Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the world around it (London, 2006), p. 165. 68

History Studies Vol. 18 visited the places traditionally associated with the life of Christ, but pilgrimages to the Holy Land became less important than in earlier centuries, at least within western Christendom.6 From the end of the fifteenth century, the Levant became demagnetized as Europeans were drawn to new destinations and the focus of interest also evolved under the influence of global circumnavigations. However, great the alterations were, a lot of them were both effected and revealed through print.7

Mediterranean piracy was another widespread phenomenon favouring the creation of travel literature but remained relatively unchecked in contrast to the fairly organized pilgrimage movement. The complacence and complicity of the major powers with interests in the region sustained this state of anarchy. The spread of piracy was facilitated by general poverty and unemployment and was fostered by chronic underemployment within the maritime community. The Barbary Coast attracted adventurers from across the Mediterranean shores of Europe, as well as many Englishmen, (they have all been remembered as Muslim pirates).8 The sultan was entitled, in fact, to a certain percentage of their booty and in return, the Ottomans would not interfere with Barbary attacks on Christian ships. The Ottomans saw the pirates as a second column in their struggle for naval supremacy and turned a blind eye to the anarchy on the high seas. In fact, many of the beys ruling the infamous coast of North Africa were the sultan’s appointees, pashas sent from Constantinople.9

Christian nations also employed pirates to disrupt the trade of rivals. The Levant was the most rewarding hunting ground for Christian privateers: a steady stream of ships carrying luxury goods and precious raw materials guaranteed rich booty.10 For most of the sixteenth century, the consolidation of the Empire’s power ensured relative safety and maritime activity flourished on the main sea-lane connecting Egypt and Constantinople and along the Aegean coasts.11 The great age of piracy began immediately following the Ottoman defeat at Lepanto. European pirates

6 Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire, p. 165. 7 F. T. Noonan, The road to Jerusalem: pilgrimage and travel in the age of discovery (Philadelphia, 2007), p. 9. 8 Molly Greene, Catholic pirates and Greek merchants: a maritime history of the Mediterranean (Princeton, 2010), p. 2. 9 Angus Konstam, Piracy: the complete history (Oxford, 2008), p. 78. 10 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II (Berkeley, 1995), p. 875. 11 Greene, Catholic pirates and Greek merchants, p. 4. 69

History Studies Vol. 18 took advantage of Ottoman naval weakness and switched their main area of activity from the western to eastern basin of Mediterranean. Many European nations had problems with corsairs who made a lucrative business of selling white captives to North Africans either to be retained as slaves or to be ransomed through the intermediaries found in Algiers, Tripoli, and other cities on the coast.12 Captivity experience gave rise to a corpus of travel literature ranging from personal accounts to works of ethnographic character. In such circumstances, Europeans learned about the social and private lives of Muslims in a manner few normal travellers could. They were also able to visit places inaccessible to outsiders.

In medieval Europe there was no regular system of news and men relied on travellers’ tales and rumour. Nevertheless, two powers in Italy had agents throughout Europe reporting about the course of current events. The Papacy had clerical envoys and nuncios in Christian courts and realms who maintained contact with the local clergy, assuring a constant stream of information for the Papacy. Reports also came in from all over Europe and the Levant to Venice, which was one of the best-informed states in Europe.13

Diplomatic relations between Venice and Byzantium were interrupted for some time after the fall of Constantinople. In 1454, Venice sent an extraordinary ambassador Bartolomeo Marcello to negotiate a treaty that allowed the Republic to keep its own bailo at the Ottoman court as previously during the times of Byzantine emperors. Marcello remained an ambassador during the reign of Mehmed II, inaugurating long-lasting diplomatic relations between the states. The first interruption of contacts took place during the war of 1463. After the peace of 1479, the Major Council decided that a bailo in Constantinople would stay in office for two years as all other ambassadors. Relations were often broken off in the first half of the sixteenth century, so the position of resident ambassador was often vacant. Instead, the Serenissima was sending extraordinary ambassadors, contenting itself with keeping a vice-bailo recruited from Venetian patricians residing in Constantinople or

12 Percy G. Adams, Travel literature and the evolution of the novel (Lexington, 2015), p. 125. 13 Adam Watson, The evolution of international society: a comparative historical analysis (London, 2009), p. 121. 70

History Studies Vol. 18 ambassadors previously sent to the sultan who remained in the Ottoman capital.14 The unstoppable expansion of the Ottomans and often unstable political relations of Venice in Europe necessitated a policy of conciliation during most of the sixteenth century except for a few major conflicts such as the war of 1537 and the war for Cyprus in 1571. By appointing permanent representatives in the Ottoman East, the Italians sought to protect their merchants, especially from enslavement and apostasy.15 Apart from commercial reasons, they wanted to gather information about current happenings, the general political situation and the character of the foreign land in order to predict the rival’s probable political moves. Venice was able to preserve some measures of independence on the arena of dynastic duels during the sixteenth century, in part because of the efficiency of its resident ambassadors but also because the Republic renounced its ambitions and simply looked to its safety.16

On the other hand, the Habsburg dynasty used marriage as a means of forging alliances and creating ‘sacred ties’ often among rivalling parties. This diplomacy was partly pursued by a pattern of repeated marriages designed to maintain links between the Spanish and Austrian branches of the family.17 Its external diplomatic exchange should be understood within the system of interactions between the major powers. Contacts between the Turks and the Habsburgs developed in parallel with confrontation and wars. Since Ottoman-Habsburg relations were unilateral, diplomatic representatives in Constantinople played an important role in shaping the overall character of cooperation. They negotiated agreements in terms of trade and peace, gathered information and sometimes arranged the ransom of Christian slaves. Ambassadorial missions further reflected ideological changes at the Habsburg court. Maximilian II, considered sympathetic to Protestantism, employed two Protestant noblemen as ambassadors: David Ungnad von Sonnegk and Joachim von Sintzendorff. The preachers of the legations were Stephan Gerlach and Salomon Schweigger, both related to the University of Tübingen.

14 Salvatore Carbone, Note introduttive ai dispacci al senato dei rappresentanti diplomatici veneti (Rome, 1974), p. 15. 15 Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe (Cambridge, 2002), p. 186. 16 Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance diplomacy (Oxford, 1955), p. 181. 17 Jeremy Black, A history of diplomacy (London, 2010), p. 55. 71

History Studies Vol. 18

Ambassadors were not always safe and could face serious difficulties during their diplomatic missions in Constantinople. Ottoman sultans usually respected diplomatic privileges in times of peace but when conflicts broke out they considered ambassadors and their staff to be hostages. For example, Giovanni Maria Malvezzi was imprisoned in the Seven Towers when war began in 1551. He died shortly after he had been released in 1553.18 Malvezzi’s successor, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was placed partly under house arrest by the sultan during his second diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 1556. Although Maximilian II wanted to guarantee safety of his diplomatic representatives in the truces of 1562 and 1568, the Imperial ambassador, Friedrich von Kreckwitz, was arrested when the Long Turkish War broke out in 1593; he had to accompany the sultan on a military campaign, during which he died at Beograd in 1594.19 In spite of extreme situations, members of diplomatic missions enjoyed certain freedom of movement in Constantinople but the extent to which they were allowed to move around in the city is unknown. It seems however, that they were not completely limited in that respect. Marc Antonio Pigafetta, for example, was able to walk around Constantinople during the interruption of negotiations.20 Michael von Saurau reported that permission for a boat trip on the Bosphorus had to be given by a vizier.21 He did not mention, on the other hand, any special permission necessary for his visit to the Patriarch.

At least 50 travel reports were created in the German-Habsburg context, half of which were authored by travellers who were either members or companions of the emperor’s diplomatic missions to Constantinople. Apart from the authors already mentioned, other important names include: Melchior Besolt, Benedict Curipeschitz, Hans Dernschwam, Reinhold Lubenau, Anton Verantius or Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz. The official diplomatic correspondence constitutes another relevant text

18 Marie-Luisa Frick, Islam and international law: engaging self-centrism from a plurality of perspectives (Leiden, 2013), p. 173. 19 Frick, Islam and international law, p. 173. 20 Daria Perocco, ‘Introduction’ in Marc’Antonio Pigafetta, Itinerario da Vienna a Costantinopoli (Padova, 2008), p. 49. 21 Michael von Saurau, Orttenliche beschreybung der rayß gehen Constantinopel, mit der Pottschafft von kaysser Maximillian dem anderen in die Dürgkey abgefertigt, anno im 15:67 (Erlangen, 1987), p. 78. 72

History Studies Vol. 18 corpus, consisting both of letters and final reports written after ambassadors returned to Vienna.22

Political and commercial interactions between communities in the Mediterranean led to an exchange of art objects especially textiles, metal and glassware, ceramics etc., as diplomatic gifts, as booty was acquired during military conflicts or simply brought home by merchants. Objects from the Islamic world achieved an elite status in Italian states and in other parts of Europe because of their quality and the prestige associated with the powerful Islamic Empire of the time.23 Similarly, for the Ottoman sultan and elite, luxury goods from Europe had the allure of foreign culture. Calligraphic and geometric patterns, plant and animal motifs were appealing to European consumers, and the existence of pseudo-Kufic bands on Western European Christian textiles attests the value associated with Islamic textiles.24

Although it is difficult to speak about regular exchange between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the tribute could be considered as a relatively regular form of contact. From 1548 till 1606, the Holy Roman Emperor was obliged to pay annual tribute (the so-called Türkenverehrung), to the Sublime Porte in the form of money, gold, and luxury goods, including clocks and automata, which were particularly appreciated by the Ottoman elite. Gifts were not only meant to secure mutual relationships and guarantee political agreements but were also supposed to exhibit prestige and reflect the sophistication of the giver’s culture. In the fifteenth century, the Republic of Venice paid a yearly tribute to the Ottomans for certain territories in the Balkans, the Ionian Sea and in the Aegean. Although there was neither official tribute nor the annual presentation of gifts during a large part of the sixteenth century, Venetians were still expected to offer gifts to members of the Ottoman court. The exchange of diplomatic gifts often created a wider demand for art objects and led to increased commercial interaction. For instance, the Venetian senate’s generous gifts of luxurious robes to Ottoman ambassadorial delegations led to the purchase of huge

22 David Thomas and John A. Chesworth (eds), Christian-Muslim relations: a bibliographical history, Vol. 7 (Leiden, 2015), p. 522. 23 Claire Norton, ‘Blurring the boundaries: intellectual and cultural interactions between the eastern and western; Christian and Muslim worlds’ in Anna Contadini and Claire Norton (eds), The Renaissance and the Ottoman world (Farnham, 2013), p. 9. 24 Norton, ‘Blurring the boundaries’, p. 9. 73

History Studies Vol. 18 quantities of Venetian textiles by the Ottoman court.25 Moreover, the development of a repertoire of shared decorative motifs encouraged native industries to produce imitations of art objects, so that Italian manufacturers supplied textiles, ceramics based on original Ottoman models for the home or foreign markets. The Ottomans similarly produced gauche costume books for sale to European merchants and travellers.26 Already by the early fourteenth century, Islamic metalwork from Mamluk Egypt and Syria had found its way to Europe and there can be no doubt that Mamluk artisans gradually started producing works specifically for European consumption.27

The exchange was not always limited to diplomatic gifts: Mehmed II also requested that master-builders, craftsmen, sculptors, and artists be sent to the empire. Gentile Bellini, the most famous of these artists and craftsmen was sent to Istanbul in 1479. Because of the diplomatic importance of this assignment, it can be assumed that the painter was not only chosen for his artistic qualities but also as a cultural ambassador for Venice.28 Such exchange of objects and men facilitated a diffusion of early modern techniques: the Ottomans learnt and developed sculptural, architectural, painting and medal casting practices from the Venetians and others, while artists from Italian city-states adopted Ottoman bookbinding and lacquer work.29

If travel literature was always closely linked to the current political situation, then diplomatic texts served as updates about the latest developments in international relations. The Ottoman advance in Europe and the need for information that followed inspired propaganda and ethnographic texts. Certain authors also resorted to historical context to disguise, legitimize or contextualize their individual story or message. Theodore Spandounes, the author of the treatise: On the origin of the Ottoman Emperors, seems to have visited Constantinople in 1503, after peace had been made between Venice and the Ottoman following three years of warfare.30 The purpose of this journey was partly to disentangle the business affairs of his brother Alexander

25 Norton, ‘Blurring the boundaries’, p. 10. 26 Ibid., p. 10 27 Stefano Carboni, (ed.), Venice and the Islamic world, 828-1797 (New Haven, 2007), p. 327. 28 Talitha Schepers, ‘Images of Istanbul, Vienna and Venice as seen through the eyes of diplomats and artists belonging to early European embassies (1400-1600)’ in Veronika Bernard (ed.), Images (IV) - images of the other: Istanbul, Vienna and Venice (Zürich, 2015), p. 148. 29 Norton, ‘Blurring the boundaries’, p. 11. 30 Theodore Spandounes, I commentari di Theodoro Spandugino Cantacuscino, gentilhuomo Costantinopolitano, dell’origine de’ principi Turchi, et de’ costumi di quella natione (Florence, 1551). 74

History Studies Vol. 18 who had been ruined by the terms of the peace treaty. He found that his brother had died and nothing of his fortune was ever restored. Spandounes admits that he undertook the task of composing his account on the rise of the Ottoman Empire to recover from the shock of this affair.31 The situation shows a very direct link between historical developments, trade and a personal story. As a second-generation Greek- speaking refugee from Constantinople, he felt bound to warn his Christian friends in the west about the danger that threatened them from the east. In fact, after the fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, Mehmed II absorbed all the territories he considered no more than reminders of Byzantine weakness: the Muslim emirates of western Anatolia, Slavic and Albanian powers in the Balkans, the Genoese and Venetian lands, the Latin legacies of the Fourth crusade, as well as the Wallachian and Moldavian principalities. Calling himself ‘Caesar’, he imagined his empire to be a Byzantium restored.32 In 1460, his armies conquered the despotate of Morea, and the following year the Byzantino-Georgian state of Trebizond came under the control of the Ottomans. In 1475, the sultan subjugated the Genoese colonies in the Crimea and the Khanate of Crimea became a suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.

Under Mehmed’s son and successor, Bayezid II, who acceded to the throne in 1481, the conquests did not continue at the same pace. The sultan was from the very beginning hindered in his actions by the struggle for succession with his younger brother Cem sultan. Nevertheless, he undertook one important military campaign against Moldavia in 1484. He also managed to conquer the important ports of Kilia and Akkerman, making the Black Sea an Ottoman lake. Through his attention to the navy, the sultan laid the foundation of Ottoman success in the war of 1499-1503 against Venice.33 Spandounes work was marked by the apparently unstoppable westward expansion of Islam. He was well aware of the danger and repeatedly deplores the inability of Western powers to unite against a common threat.

Giovan Antonio Menavino, the son of a Genoese merchant, stayed at the court of Sultan Bayezid II from 1504 until 1512 where he served as an içoğlan. After the

31 Donald M. Nicol, ‘Introduction’ in Theodore Spandounes, On the origin of the Ottoman emperors (Cambridge, 1997), pp x-xi. 32 Cemal Kafadar, ‘The Ottomans and Europe’ in Thomas A. Brady Jr., Heiko O. Oberman and James D. Tracy (eds), Handbook of European history, 1400-1600: late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 1, structures and assertions (Leiden, 1994), p. 595. 33 Kafadar, ‘The Ottomans and Europe’, p. 608. 75

History Studies Vol. 18 death of Bayezid, Menavino served his son Selim I until he managed to escape in 1514. His meticulous treatise, Trattato de costumi et vita de Turchi, based on multiple years of experience in Constantinople, was a work of reference about Ottoman culture at the time.34 The work also includes a book of a more historical character, where Menavino describes Ottoman military forces and provincial administrators in the Empire. He describes different episodes from the reign of Bayezid II including the struggle for power that marked the period. With the support of the Janissaries, Selim obliged his father Bayezid to abdicate on 24 April 1512. When the new sultan came to power, the Empire was in crisis.

Menavino gives an account of fights between Selim and his brothers Korkud and Ahmed, both executed in 1513. Already in 1514, Selim I embarked on a military campaign against Shah Ismail of the Safavids, whose rapid territorial expansion posed a threat to Ottoman domains. The ascendancy of Ismail coincided temporally with the Portuguese navigations to East Africa and India, which constituted a military and economic challenge to the Mamluks based in Cairo, who claimed sovereignty over Arabia, Egypt and Syria.35 They held a monopoly on the spice trade and controlled important caravan routes, but by the end of the fifteenth century, Mameluk power was waning. Shah Ismail was finally defeated by Selim at Chaldiran in 1514, so a new campaign against the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria could start soon afterwards; Aleppo and Damascus were captured in 1516 and Cairo in 1517. When the last Abbasid Caliph at Cairo, al-Mutawakkil III surrendered the Caliphate to Selim, the sharifs of Mecca and Medina recognized Selim’s sovereignty. The Ottoman sultan thus assumed the role of protector of the Holy Cities and of two main routes of pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites. The conquest of Egypt also opened a new era of Ottoman sea power and the Mediterranean became important to the Empire’s new political ideology during the reign of Selim I.36

Süleyman the Magnificent, who ascended the throne in 1520, launched a general assault on the West and in 1521 occupied Belgrade, key fortress for Hungary’s

34 Giovan Antonio Menavino, I cinque libri della legge, religione, et vita de’ Turchi (Florence, 1548). 35 Palmira Brummett, Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy in the age of discovery (Albany, 1994), p. 9. 36 M. Pinar Emiralioğlu, ‘Cartography and the Ottoman imperial project in the sixteenth century’, in Sahar Bazzaz, Dimiter Angelov and Yota Batsaki (eds), Imperial geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman space (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013), p. 72. 76

History Studies Vol. 18 defence. The increased influence of the Habsburg Empire in Central Europe led to an inevitable confrontation with the Ottomans. Bartholomew Georgevich claimed to be taken prisoner by the Turks at the battle of Mohács in 1526 and deported as a slave to Turkey. His work, Miseries and Tribulations of the Christians Held in Tribute and Slavery by the Turk (1544), based on this experience, was one of the best-selling works of the period.37 He lived as a slave until he managed to escape, travelling through Armenia, Damascus and finally to Jerusalem in 1537. During this period, Süleyman’s campaigns continued but those of 1529 and 1532 were less successful. The sultan was not able to take Vienna on the first occasion and during the second expedition his troops faced a much smaller army under Charles V, which was so skilfully deployed that he was forced to change his plans. During the war of Persia in 1534, Süleyman took Iraq from the Safavids.

Usually, diplomatic reports were strictly related to concrete historical events. Daniello de’ Ludivisi, an ambassador from Venice, was sent to Constantinople following a military incident in the Mediterranean in 1533 when a Venetian fleet attacked the sultan’s ships taking them for Barbary pirates. The ambassador in his report from 1534 wrote about the positive outcome of his mission and continues on about the current state of Ottoman affairs and European sovereigns playing an important role in the international relations of Sultan Süleyman. He describes the administrative division of the empire, its neighbouring countries, military affairs internal problems, the sultan’s high officials, finances, profits from taxes, etc. He reports as well on his personal meeting with Hayr ed-Din, also called Barbarossa and alludes to his plans to conquer Tunis (1534).38

Ottoman Mediterranean expansion was a result of earlier developments, when a fleet became necessary to protect the commercial routes and facilitate further conquests. Central figures for expansion along the North African littoral were the brothers Barbarossa, Hayr ed-Din and Oruç, Aegean Muslim privateers who had established a presence in the eastern Maghreb already in 1504. In 1516, they answered the pleas of the population of Algiers to protect them against the looming Spanish

37 Bartholomeus Georgievits, Türken büchlein (Nürnberg, 1664). 38 Daniello De’ Ludovisi, ‘Relazione dell’impero Ottomano, riferita in Senato dal Segretario Daniello De’ Ludovisi a dì 3 giugno del 1534’ in E. Albèri (ed.), Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato durante il secolo decimosesto, serie III, vol. I (Florence, 1855), pp 1-32. 77

History Studies Vol. 18 threat. In 1519, Hayr ed-Din offered his services to the Ottoman sultan, who appointed him beylerbey (governor-general) of North Africa and dispatched contingents of Janissaries to the country.39 With the integration of Algiers in 1525, the Ottoman Empire gained a military base in the Western Mediterranean, which allowed destabilizing actions against Spain from within the sphere of influence of the enemy. Interestingly, through the extension of Ottoman influence France gained an ally against its Habsburg enemies. Full-scale conflicts began a decade later. In 1532, Charles V ordered an attack on the Ottoman castle of Koroni (Corone) in the southern Peloponnese and the operation, commanded by Andrea Doria was a success. In 1533 Hayr ed-Din Barbarossa was appointed Admiral in Chief of the Empire and the Ottoman forces were able to reconquer the fortress the same year. The admiral also conquered Tunis in 1533, which became a convenient base for piracy against the Italian coast. With the battle of Preveza in 1538, the Christian West lost its domination in the Mediterranean Sea and this war with Venice concluded the period of Süleyman’s major conquests.

Marino Cavalli, a Venetian ambassador, who reported not only on the latest territorial expansion, but also on the maritime forces of the Empire as well as reasons for the possible decadence of Ottoman power, describes the politics of the Ottoman Empire in the late years of Süleyman’s rule around 1560.40 He provides useful information from a strategic point of view ranging from countries controlled by the Turks and military affairs to internal problems, the sultan high officials, finances, profits from taxes etc. Cavalli also discusses the state of Venetian affairs in Constantinople, which did not thrive mainly because of the decreasing expenditures of the aging sultan. The preceding two decades brought about new conquests. In 1541, Buda became the capital of Ottoman Hungary and in 1543, a Turkish expedition departed from Belgrade and captured Esztergom and Székesfehérvár, the most important fortresses on the way to Buda. Although Ferdinand I, lacking outside help, sued for a truce in 1545, the hostilities continued until a peace signed at Adrianople in 1547. In 1548, 1549 and 1553 Süleyman was campaigning against Persia with

39 Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Berber identity movement and the challenge to North African states (Austin, 2011), p. 33. 40 Marino Cavalli, ‘Relazione dell’Impero Ottomano di Marino Cavalli, stato bailo a Costantinopoli nel 1560’ in Albèri (ed.), Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti, serie III, vol. I (Florence, 1855), pp 271- 98. 78

History Studies Vol. 18 relative success, but these cannot be described as wars of expansion even if they all helped to strengthen the grip of Ottoman power in Asia. Having reached borders that could be comfortably maintained by the 1550s, Ottoman expansion slowed down and henceforth would be costlier and expeditions not as frequent.41

When Süleyman returned to Istanbul from the campaign against the Safavids in 1555, he had to face growing internal problems. In the summer of 1558, the Ottomans destroyed Spanish troops stationed on Algerian coast and raided Minorca. The fleet sent to the central Mediterranean by Philip II suffered another defeat at the island of Djerba in 1560. In consequence, having gained control over the central Mediterranean, Süleyman launched an assault on Malta in 1565 mainly because of its location at the juncture between the eastern and western parts of the sea. The Knights were able to hold off the attackers until a relief force from Spain showed up in early September and the Ottomans had to abandon the siege. The Ottoman Empire ceased to be the absolute power in the Mediterranean after more than two decades since the successful battle of Preveza. In 1566, the sultan decided to lead his troops personally for the last time in a campaign against the Habsburgs, yet he fell ill during the campaign and died at the siege of Szigetvár.

Giacomo Soranzo’s report from 1576 focuses on the beginning of rule of Murad III and firstly on the sultan himself. 42 It was usual to include in most reports descriptions of important officials as well as basic facts about the nature of the Ottoman Empire. Soranzo intentionally omits detailed information about the situation of the Ottoman state regularly included by other diplomats. He describes instead the sultan’s appearance, his character and customs and then he continues with his financial affairs and military forces. The longest part, however, concerns the international affairs of the empire and the political rivals of the sultan in Europe, such as the Shah of Persia, the Pope, the King of Spain, the Doge of Venice, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the king of Poland, the Grand Khan of the Tatars, and the Grand Duke of Moscow. The diplomat discusses mainly military and financial affairs

41 Peter B. Golden, ‘The Turks: a historical overview’ in David J. Roxburgh (ed.) Turks: a journey of a thousand years, 600-1600 (London, 2005), p. 31. 42 Giacomo Soranzo, ‘Relazione dell’Impero Ottomano del clarissimo Giacomo Soranzo ritornato ambasciatore dal Sultano Amurat, li 8 novembre 1576’ in E. Albèri (ed.), Le relazioni degli ambasciatori, serie III, vol. I (Florence, 1855), pp 93-207. 79

History Studies Vol. 18 as well as relations between those states and the Ottoman Porte. However, he does not mention a word about newly established relations with the English. The war over Cyprus in 1570 was a stimulus not only to the French but also to English traders to renew their attempts at trade in the Levant that their predecessors had made earlier in the century. An unstable political situation in France impeded the growth of trade in general. The English, on the other hand, after the sack of Antwerp by Spanish troops in 1576 (which closed the overland route from the Adriatic), came in increasing numbers to fetch their own raisins, wine and spices. Every piece of business completed by these Western traders, soon joined by the Dutch, diminished Venice’s profit in the Ottoman lands.

In conclusion, historical events constitute a frame of travel in general, but social sphere gave people access to literary culture that motivated the enterprise of writing a travelogue. Most travellers visited the Ottoman Empire as a consequence of commercial activities between the early modern states. The sixteenth century was a period of worldwide expansion for European economies; the Mediterranean trade, dominated by Venice and diversified in the post-Lepanto era, was still significant enough to allow large-scale exchange and travel. Constant wars over hegemony of the trade routes provided additional channels of exchange through diplomacy and related phenomena such as tribute or diplomatic gifts. Trade connections also facilitated the development of pilgrimage and nurtured piracy in the context of rivalries between different political entities active in the region. Consequently, it is usually impossible to separate personal, public and political motivations for travel literature from the geopolitical context, and the Mediterranean shows it in all its variety. Travel texts not only reflect current events, but also wider historical and cultural shifts and particularly the specific agenda that motivated their creation.

History Studies Vol. 18

Not so glorious:

Irish desertion to the British during the War of the Spanish Succession

William Runacre

The actions of the Irish regiments of France & Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession, the long and final war of the reign of Louis XIV, are legendary. From the bloody battles of Almansa, Blenheim and Malplaquet, to the famed achievement of preventing the fall of Cremona to the Austrians in 1702, the exiled Irish certainly covered themselves in glory. The war was fought to prevent the possibility of France and Spain being united under one Bourbon ruler, Philip, duc d’Anjou. Philip inherited the Spanish throne from his great uncle Charles II on the latter’s death in November 1700 and this would not have been a problem except that Philip was also a grandson of Louis XIV. This gave Philip a claim to the French throne and therefore there was the possibility that Philip or his heirs could in time become rulers of both France and Spain. The Austrians, British and Dutch could not accept the prospect of both countries being united under one ruler, but Louis stubbornly resisted their requests to disinherit Philip. This impasse made war between these great European powers virtually inevitable. With tensions rising, another catalyst for war was the death of the exiled King of England, James II, who died in France in September 1701. Louis promptly recognised his son James as the rightful heir to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, and this resulted in the British and Dutch declaring war on France in May 1702, with Austria following suit in the autumn.

The outbreak of hostilities would undoubtedly have been welcomed by exiled Jacobites living in France. It raised the prospect of a restoration of the Stuarts and the possibility of the exiles returning home to reclaim their lands and rights in Ireland. In fighting throughout the battlefields of Europe, they assisted the French in not only withstanding the military prowess of Austria’s Prince Eugene and England’s duke of Marlborough, but also in installing Philip V on the throne of Spain. Yet not all the Irish who fought for Louis were as loyal or motivated as the heroes so described and commemorated in John O’Callaghan’s famous though clearly nationalistic History of the Irish Brigades in the Service of France (1870). Indeed, as Lenihan states, the ‘Wild Geese construct’ has continued to be used ‘to celebrate the supposed indomitable

History Studies Vol. 18 fighting spirit of the Irish’ both in and outside of France.1 However, this ‘construct’ clearly omits other often not so glorious incidents which concern the histories of Irish soldiering abroad. As this paper will outline not only did the War of the Spanish Succession see the defection of numerous officers and men (some of whom were to rise to high rank in the British army), but there was also at least one incident of an attempt to bring an entire Irish regiment over to the British.

Desertion by common soldiers to the enemy was common in the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Poor material conditions like food and pay prompted many to desert, as did the desire to avoid punishment for offences such as drunkenness or indiscipline. Even though desertion was a capital offence, it has been conservatively estimated that 3-5% of the eighteenth century British army deserted every year with the desertion rate being higher when serving abroad. Only a proportion of desertion was to the enemy, but desertion from the British to French was facilitated by the existence of the French army’s Irish regiments. Like their British counterparts, these regiments wore red-coats, were commanded by officers who generally spoke English, and contained not only many Irish but also significant numbers of English and Scots. For these reasons the Irish regiments serving the Bourbons were able to recruit large numbers of deserters from the British army for much of the eighteenth century.2

When the war began there were nine Irish regiments serving in the French army, eight of foot and one of horse.3 Many of the men in these regiments were veterans of the war in Ireland (1689-1691) and the subsequent years of exile in France. A flood of desertions from Marlborough’s forces in Flanders soon enabled them to increase in size and in September 1702, Louis XIV approved the raising of a second battalion for the duke of Berwick’s regiment.4 This battalion was to be twelve

1 Pádraig Lenihan, ‘The ‘Irish Brigade’: 1690-1715’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, xxxi (2013), pp 47-74. For recent accounts of the ‘indomitable fighting spirit’ of Irish soldiers in Europe, see Maurice N. Hennessy, The wild geese: the Irish soldier in exile (Dublin, 1973); and Stephen McGarry, Irish brigades abroad: from the wild geese to the Napoleonic wars (Dublin, 2012). 2 Andrew Cormack & Alan Jones (eds), The journal of Corporal Todd 1745-1762 (Stroud, 2001), p. 230; Arthur N. Gilbert, ‘Why men deserted from the eighteenth-century British army’ in Armed Forces & Society, vi (1980), pp 553-67. 3 ‘Information as to the Irish troops in the French service’ in HMC (Historical Manuscripts Commission), Report on the manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland MSS (10 vols, London, 1907), viii, p. 181. 4 Collection de l'abbé Dangeau sur l'état de la France au temps de Louis XIV: clxx, régiments étrangers (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 22762, f. 57r.). 82

History Studies Vol. 18 companies strong, with its soldiers coming ‘from the English, Irish and Scottish who have deserted from the enemy’s army during this campaign’5 and it was formed at Arras over the course of the next year.6 Further desertions from the British to the French over the next few years led to the Stuart Court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye proposing the formation of more regiments of deserters in the French army, even submitting a list of Jacobites to be commissioned as officers in one. There is evidence that some headway was made in forming a new battalion from deserters at Douai in the winter of 1704, but it does not appear to have received official approval. A proposal in 1706 to raise a regiment for the Scottish nobleman, Lord Clermont from English, Scottish, and Irish soldiers serving in France’s Walloon regiments and to then fill the regiment with further deserters from the enemy also came to naught.7

As the war spread to Spain and Portugal, Irish troops were sent there from France and these were augmented by new regiments raised directly for Philip V’s Spanish army. Although many of these new regiments’ officers were exiled Jacobites, most of the rank and file were Irish deserters from the British army, many of whom had deserted from the duke of Ormonde’s expedition to Cadiz in 1702. The following year, a further 500 Irish serving in Spain with the British and Allied forces were reported to have gone over to Philip V.8 In Spain, seven Irish regiments, five of foot and two of dragoons, were ultimately commissioned for service in Philip V’s forces.9 There was also a small unit of Hussars ‘formed of Irish, English and deserters of all countries’ about a hundred strong, ‘well mounted and armed’ and commanded by an officer called Plunkett (possibly Robert Plunkett, the future 6th earl of Fingall).10

As well as benefiting from desertion from the British forces, the Irish regiments gained recruits by enlisting prisoners of war. These are said to have

5 Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de Dangeau, Journal du marquis de Dangeau, publié en entier pour la première fois par MM. Soulié, Dussieux, de Chennevières, Mantz, de Montaiglon, avec les additions inédites du duc de Saint-Simon (19 vols, Paris, 1856), viii, p. 507. 6 Matthew O’Conor, Military history of the Irish nation comprising a memoir of the Irish Brigade in the service of France, with an appendix of official papers relative to the brigade from the archives at Paris (Dublin 1845), p. 379. 7 Middleton to de Chamillard, 31 Mar. 1704 (Bodleian Library (Bodl.), Carte MS 238, ff 80-1); Middleton to de Chamillard, Dec. 1704 (Bodl., Carte MS 238, f. 130). 8 De Courcillon, Journal du marquis de Dangeau, ix, pp 11 ; 358; 498. 9 Marquis MacSwiney of Mashanaglass, ‘Notes on the formation of the first two Irish regiments in the service of Spain in the eighteenth century’ in R.S.A.I. Jn., i (1927), pp 7-20. 10 Gerard Hayes-McCoy, ‘The Hon. Captain Plunkett’s Hussars in Spain, 1706’ in Ir. Sword, ii (1956), pp 358-60. 83

History Studies Vol. 18 provided many of the men for three regiments raised by the Spanish in the period after the battle of Almansa in 1707.11 An account from an English soldier of the Royal Regiment of Horse who was taken prisoner at the Battle of Villaviciosa in 1710 provides us with some detail on how prisoners were recruited, as service in the army could be preferable to rotting in a prison cell with inadequate food. He was one of many who were sent to Burgos after their capture where: ‘we being there awhile there was offecers & serjant sent downe to us, Irish gentry, to inlist any of us as would goe and indeed thare was a pritty many that did inlist with them, to their shame, though we sufferd much.’12 Sailors captured at sea could also find themselves coerced into enlisting in the Irish regiments. For example, in 1711, the English government was informed of the plight of forty-three British sailors who were serving in Mahony’s regiment of Irish dragoons in the Spanish army. These sailors had all been taken in several ships at Malta from where they were issued with passes by the French consul permitting them to leave. Setting sail in an unarmed Maltese vessel, this was stopped by the French navy and all the sailors were sent to Messina in Sicily. Here they were put ‘to hard work’ before being ‘forced for sustinance’ to enlist in Mahony’s regiment in Spain.13

Fully aware of the recruitment of British deserters into the enemies’ Irish regiments, from early in the war the English government sought to undermine these units by issuing proclamations calling on all their subjects serving the enemy to desert. These proclamations promised a pardon to everyone who came over, while offering equivalent positions in either the British army, or, for the vast majority who were Catholic and who therefore could not legally serve in that army, an allied Catholic army.14 Perhaps surprisingly, these proclamations were aimed not only at the rank and file of the Irish regiments of France and Spain, but also at their officer corps. One of the first to switch sides was the Irish nobleman and former Jacobite commander, Lord Slane.15 A veteran of the war in Ireland and of service in the French army,16 after

11 MacSwiney, ‘Two Irish regiments in the service of Spain’, p.13. 12 C.T. Atkinson (ed.), A royal dragoon in the Spanish Succession War: a contemporary narrative (London, 1938), p. 55. 13 John Horsey to Joseph Jackson, 21 Dec. 1711 (State Papers (SP), 34/30, f. 25). 14 Slane to Harley, 30 Jan. 1707/08 in HMC, Portland MSS, viii, p. 307-8. 15 Slane to Harley, 30 Jan. 1707/08 in HMC, Portland MSS, viii, p. 307-8. 16 Diarmuid Murtagh, ‘Louth regiments in the Irish Jacobite army’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xiii (1953) pp 8-15. 84

History Studies Vol. 18 having come over to the British Slane served in the British or allied forces in Portugal. He also changed his faith, proclaiming to Secretary of State Robert Harley in August 1706 his newfound ‘zeal for the Queen and the Protestant religion.’ At the same time, Slane asked Harley to intercede on his behalf as he was owed £150 in pay for his service in Portugal, as a result of which he said he was so indebted that he was at risk of being imprisoned.17 Slane claimed to have been serving as a Lieutenant General of Horse in Portugal until the start of 1706, and most interestingly, to have brought over from the enemy more than 250 of Queen Anne’s subjects. Slane wanted to raise a unit in Ireland for service in Spain and to use it as a vehicle to encourage wholesale desertions ‘to break all the Irish troops that are now in the enemy’s service.’18

Slane sent Harley a memorial that December describing how the duke of Marlborough was interested in using him to encourage desertions from the enemy’s army. Marlborough had offered to recommend him in this role to the earl of Galway, the French Protestant who commanded the British forces in Spain. Slane was keen but he also thought that wholesale defections would be unlikely unless he could first raise a regiment of dragoons in England or Ireland for the deserters to then join.19 This may have been true, but it was quite possible that Slane was also saying this to further his own ambition of obtaining his own regiment in the British army. A year later, Slane still had not obtained a regiment in the British army, though he claimed to now have the possibility of commanding a regiment in the duke of Savoy’s service. Yet although he still hoped for a command, he said that he would now prefer to serve at home rather than abroad.20 Finally, on the 26 August 1708 OS, Slane was commissioned colonel of a regiment of foot in the British army. Lord Slane’s regiment was sent to Spain in 1711, but it was disbanded the following year as the war in Spain wound down. The lists of commissioned officers do not contain any recognisably Jacobite names, suggesting that, unlike their colonel, they were not deserters from the enemy’s forces.21

17 Slane to Harley, 20 Aug. 1706 in HMC, Portland MSS, viii, p. 242. 18 Slane to Harley, 7 Sep. 1706 in ibid., viii, p. 245. 19 Memorial of Christopher, Lord Slane to Harley, 20 Dec. 1706 in ibid., viii, p. 379. 20 Slane to Harley 30 Jan. 1707/08 in ibid., viii, p. 307-8. 21 Charles Dalton (ed.), English army lists and commission registers, 1661-1714 (6 vols, London, 1904), vi, pp 13; 19; 250-51. 85

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Just as easily as the Irish regiments gained recruits from deserters from the British army, so they lost many to desertion too. In Italy, Irish desertion to the enemy encouraged the Austrians to start forming a regiment of deserters there in 1702, though it was never completed and the project was abandoned circa 1705.22 That same year saw the start of a project to recruit Irish deserters in Flanders and by 1706, efforts were being made to form them into a regiment for service in the field with the British and Allied armies. This project may have been inspired by the information of Matthew Coudell, an officer who had deserted the Bourbons. The son of a French Protestant who had lived in Ireland, Coudell claimed to have been captain of a company of foot when he changed sides.23 In May 1705, he wrote to the English government giving them information on the Irish regiments of France, describing their locations and estimated strengths. Coudell said that he had served for a long time with these regiments, that he was ‘acquainted with all or most of the officers’ and that they wanted him to let the government know that they were keen to leave the French service, only needing some ‘encouragement’ from the English to do so.24 Marlborough shared Coudell’s opinion on the willingness of the Irish officers to desert, as Irish officers who had served the French for a long time had already come over and he believed that many more, fed up with French service, could be encouraged to do the same. Rank and file deserters were also coming over every day from the French army’s Irish regiments in Flanders, so it was hoped that Irish officer deserters could be used to command them. However, being Catholic, these men could not serve in the British army, and the lack of any specific unit for such deserters led to Marlborough proposing that they be used to fill vacancies in the Austrian forces.25 Although initially optimistic about Coudell’s prospects in encouraging desertion and keen to ‘give all the encouragement I can to the Irish to come off to us’, by July 1706 Marlborough had grown sceptical that he would be able to do much in Flanders. This was due to a lack of Irish serving the enemy there, ‘there being only the late Lord Clare’s regiment in

22 Alphonse Freiherr von Wrede, Mittheilungen des k.u.k. Kriegs-Archivs - supplement. Geschichte K. und K. Wehrmacht (2 vols, Vienna, 1898), ii, p. 406. I am grateful to Stephen Griffin for this information. 23 Petitions of Matthew Coudell to Queen Anne, 8 May 1705-6 in HMC, Portland MSS, viii, pp 329; 336. 24 ‘Information as to the Irish troops in the French service’ in ibid., viii, pp 181-2. 25 Marlborough to d’Aubach, 8 Jun. 1705 in Sir George Murray (ed.), Letters and dispatches of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, from 1702 to 1712 (5 vols, London, 1845), ii, p. 83. 86

History Studies Vol. 18 these parts, which does not consist of above two hundred men, and Colonel Nugent’s regiment of horse.’26

Coudell was not the only one trying to entice the Irish over from the enemy, for in September 1706 Marlborough wrote in favour of a Colonel Devenish who was hoping to raise a regiment in Flanders of Irish deserters from France.27 By November, officers and soldiers were being assembled for this purpose.28 Although Marlborough was involved in discussions relating to the raising of this force and was funding the upkeep of its men, it was being raised for the service of Archduke Charles. However, there were problems in raising it, probably due to a lack of money for recruiting. As a result, when Marlborough saw Devenish in June 1707, he noted that Devenish was in a sad state, having only managed to recruit twelve or thirteen officers and sixty or seventy soldiers.29 Marlborough remained a proponent of the regiment’s formation and was still pushing for more funding for it a few months later to enable it to fill its first few companies.30 His pressure seems to have borne fruit, for in September 1707 moves were afoot to form the first two companies, with an officer called Kennedy being named as Lieutenant-colonel31 Devenish’s regiment still existed in February 1708 when one of its officers, a Captain Dillon, was court-martialled.32 What became of it is hard to tell, for although Devenish later commanded a regiment in the Austrian Netherlands, that regiment appears to have only been formed in 1714. Therefore, it is probable that, like in Italy, the plan did not come to fruition.33

One of the Irish units raised in Spain during the war was a regiment of dragoons commanded by Henry Crofton, an Irishman who had served James II in Ireland and France. Crofton’s regiment appears to have been commissioned early in 1704 and formed in or by the summer of the following year.34 It distinguished itself at

26 Marlborough to Harley, 15 Jul. 1705 in Letters and Dispatches of Marlborough, ii, p. 700. 27 Marlborough to M. de Renswoude, 5 Sep. 1706 in ibid., iii, p. 117. 28 Marlborough to the Council of State, 6 Nov. 1706 in ibid., iii, p. 210. 29 Marlborough to the Council of State, 10 Dec. 1706 in ibid., iii, pp 247; 408. 30 Marlborough to the Council of State, 25 Aug. 1707 in ibid., iii, p. 535. 31 Marlborough to M. van den Bergh, 23 Sep. 1707 in Letters and Dispatches of Marlborough, iii, p. 583. 32 Marlborough to M. Pascal, 13 Feb. 1708 in ibid., iii, p. 676. 33Alphonse Freiherr von Wrede, Mittheilungen des k.u.k. Kriegs-Archivs - Supplement. Geschichte K. und K. Wehrmacht (2 vols, Vienna, 1898), ii, p. 197. I am grateful to Stephen Griffin for this information. 34 MacSwiney, ‘Two Irish regiments in the service of Spain’, p. 14, n. 32.; Middleton to de Chamillard, 12 Feb. 1704, (Bodl., Carte MS 238, ff 66-7). 87

History Studies Vol. 18 the taking of Daroca in Aragon in November 1706, where for his bravery, one of its officers, Captain Daniel O’Carroll, was singled out for praise.35 In 1709, the regiment charged and broke the enemy ranks at the Battle of La Gudina, where the Bourbons defeated a combined British and Portuguese army. The following year the regiment took the name of its new colonel, David Sarsfield, 5th Viscount Kilmallock, and it was under his command that they fought on the left of the Bourbon line at the Battle of Villaviciosa in December 1710. The battle was won but they suffered heavily from artillery fire and Kilmallock was mortally wounded.36 This victory over an Austrian army serving in Spain came hot on the heels of another, as only the day before a British army had been forced to surrender to the French at Brihuega. These two victories were decisive and although the war in Spain continued for several more years, the result was no longer in doubt. Despite defeats elsewhere, the French had secured the Spanish throne for Philip duc d’Anjou.

It was during this decisive year of conflict that the officers of Lord Kilmallock’s regiment plotted to desert the Bourbon cause and take the entire regiment with them over to the British. Negotiations appear to have begun sometime in or before the winter of 1709-10, a time when the outcome of the war in Spain was still undecided. Were the rank and file aware of their officer’s plotting? It is unlikely, but somehow the plot leaked out for on 11 July 1710 NS, the earl of Galway wrote to the earl of Sunderland from Lisbon saying that:

We may despair for the present of having Killmallock’s Dragoons come over to us, yt design is discover’d, Colonel Keating has been seiz’d and has confess’t the whole, he and two other Captains are in prison, which shows yt ye proposal Sr. Daniell Carroll brought was reall, we have Officers and Dragoons to form three Troops.37 What appears to have happened is that contact was made between the officers of Kilmallock’s regiment and the British in Spain, with the former drawing up a proposal for their entering service with the British army upon switching sides. The articles for transferring allegiance were proposed by Colonel Luke Keating and his

35 John Cornelius O’Callaghan, History of the Irish brigades in the service of France, from the revolution in Great Britain and Ireland under James II, to the revolution in France under Louis XVI (Shannon, 1969), pp 242-3. 36 O’Callaghan, History of the Irish brigades, pp 273; 277-9. 37 Galway to Sunderland, 11 July 1710 NS, (SP 89/20, ff 91-2). Note that O’Carroll’s name was often written as Carroll. 88

History Studies Vol. 18 captains, who in return promised to bring over as many of their men as possible. On coming over they were to be formed into a regiment of horse and maintained on the English establishment, with Keating as colonel and O’Carroll as lieutenant-colonel. The officers requested £20 for each horse and man they brought over, plus an allowance to help them recruit however many men and horses were needed to bring the regiment up to strength. It was not to be disbanded at the end of the war and they were to be granted freedom of religion with permission to recruit men for the regiment in Ireland.38

One of their requests was that John Stanton, an officer in the British army who had held a commission as lieutenant in the earl of Barrymore’s regiment of foot since 6 April 1706 OS,39 be given a troop in the regiment, this ‘being desire’d by all the said officers.’ This request is rather striking in that it means that Stanton must have been known to the officers of Kilmallock’s regiment before they came over. Could he have been the British army’s liaison with these officers in negotiating their desertion from the Bourbons? The officers also requested that immediate attempts be made for their release if they were taken prisoner by the enemy, and provision was made in the last article that should an officer not be able to reach Portugal because he had been intercepted en-route, then his position would be given to the next eligible officer.40

As mentioned above, these terms were then taken over to the British by Captain Daniel O’Carroll, the officer who had distinguished himself at the Battle of Daroca in 1706. A son of either James or John O’Carroll of Beagh in County Galway, he could have been the officer of that name who started his military career as an ensign in Lord Galway’s regiment of foot in the Irish Jacobite army in 1689.41 Having attained the rank of captain in Crofton’s regiment of dragoons in the Spanish army, he was rewarded by Philip, duc d’Anjou, for his services by being made a Knight of the Order of St. Jago, though this honour did not suffice to retain O’Carroll’s loyalty. Prior to their desertion, commissions were issued at Lisbon in Portugal on 1 March 1710

38 Articles proposed by Colonel Keating and the rest of the captains of My Lord Kilmallock's Regiment to his Excellency the Earl of Galway, April/May 1710 (SP 89/20, f. 71). 39 Dalton, English army lists, v, p. 69. 40 Articles proposed by Colonel Keating and the rest of the captains of My Lord Kilmallock's Regiment to his Excellency the Earl of Galway, April/May 1710 (SP 89/20, f. 71). 41 ‘List of the forces in Ireland’, (Bodl., Carte MS 181, f. 27r.); John D’Alton, Illustrations historical and genealogical of King James’ Irish army list, 1689 (Dublin, 1855), p. 617. 89

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NS for Luke Keating to be a Colonel of Horse and Daniel O’Carroll a Lieutenant- Colonel in the British army.42 This may have been done to provide evidence to these men that the British were serious in their intentions towards them.

Colonel Keating’s failure to come over due to the plot’s discovery and his imprisonment meant that in British service the regiment was first commanded by Major-General John Hogan. Hogan may well have been the former Lieutenant- Colonel of the Bavarian Guards who, having deserted the Bourbon cause, was recommended by Marlborough to Prince Eugene in September 1706 as willing to serve in the Austrian army. Nevertheless, Hogan did not last long in this post as O’Carroll replaced him as Colonel on the 22 September 1710 NS, from which time it became known as Carroll’s regiment of dragoons.43 As only a portion of the regiment had managed to desert, further officers were commissioned in the regiment to make up its numbers. Not all of these were Irish or Catholic. Captain Clement Kent was an English Protestant who had been MP for Wallingford until 1708 and was to be the MP for Reading between 1722 and 1727. There were three officers called Stanton who served in the regiment, one of them being John Stanton who became the regiment’s lieutenant-colonel in September 1710, and like Kent his service in the British army shows that he was a Protestant.44

O’Carroll’s regiment was disbanded in 1712 and the officers placed on half- pay, which Scouller, says was ‘a breach of faith’ by the government. In a dispute about command, it was also claimed that the articles had been invalidated by Colonel Keating’s failure to come over due to his capture, conveniently ignoring the last article which provided for such an eventuality. The regiment also appears to have struggled to recruit sufficient numbers of men, partly because those recruited tended to desert. Scouller believes that as a result, this regiment ‘was probably worth more to the French when on the English side than on their own.’45

42 Dalton, English army lists, vi, p. 196. 43 Ibid., p. 261; D’Alton, King James’ Irish army list, 1689, p. 486; Marlborough to Savoy, 21 Sep. 1706 in Letters and Dispatches of Marlborough, iii, p. 142. 44 History of Parliament Online, ‘KENT, Clement (1683-1746), of Goring, Oxon. and Thatcham, Berks’ (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/kent-clement-1683- 1746) (1st June 2017). 45 R.E. Scouller, The armies of Queen Anne (Oxford, 1966), pp 307-8. 90

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One Irish deserter to the British, Sir Timothy Daly, complained in 1711 that the promises made to him when he deserted the French army in 1704 had not been kept. Daly claimed to have since served well ‘with the applause of all the generall officers’ but was now so indebted that he lacked the money to take the field.46 The following year, the English Secretary at War, Lord Lansdowne, wrote to the earl of Dartmouth regarding him and other officers who had deserted the Bourbons. The others named were Colonels Thomas Macarty and Walter Butler, Major Hubert Jennings and Captains Matthew Cowdall (i.e. Coudell), Patrick O’Hara, Gerard Dillon, Robert Talbot, Michael Fitzgerald, Patrick Maly and Charles Molloy.47 These officers had come to England from Spain to seek relief, being ‘reduced to very great difficultys and want’ but felt that they had not received the welcome they had expected. Lansdowne requested that something be done for them, particularly that they be given a recommendation for service with the Emperor of Austria, as well as money to enable them to travel to enter his service.48

Once the war had ended, investigations were made in France into these officers’ claims in 1714. The response from the French authorities was that they had either not been officers in France, or they had not held the rank they claimed to have had. In an annotated list of the officers, next to Coudell’s name it was written that he had never been a captain. Charles Callahan, Charles Molloy and Guy Mahony all claimed to have been captains of cavalry, but their claims had not been substantiated. Robert Talbot and Patrick Maly both claimed that they had been captains in the Dillon regiment, assertions that were denied by Dillon, who said that they had not even served in his regiment. Daly claimed to have been Lieutenant-Colonel of Sheldon’s cavalry regiment, Macarty a captain of cavalry, and Gautier (i.e. Walter) Butler a lieutenant-colonel, but the French rejected their claims.49

What are we to make of the French rejection of most of these officers’ claims? Perhaps the case of Hubert Jennings can shed some light on this question. Jennings

46 Sir Timothy Daly to Lord Dartmouth? 23 Jun. 1711 (SP 34/15/107, ff 170-1). 47 ‘Mr Gwyn's report of the cases of several Roman Catholick officers who upon her Majesty's proclamation quitted the enemy in the late war’, 15 Jul. 1714 in Calendar of Treasury Papers, Volume 4, 1708-1714 (London, 1974) available at British History Online (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal- treasury-papers/vol4/pp602-610) (26 Aug. 2018). 48 Lord Lansdowne to Earl of Dartmouth, 16 Apr. 1712 (SP 34/18/N36). 49 ‘List of Irish officers in the French army’, 1714 (SP 78/158, f. 177). 91

History Studies Vol. 18 was listed as claiming to have had the rank of Captain Commandant, but the only record of him reportedly found in France in 1714 was that he had been a lieutenant in Dillon’s regiment until the start of the War of Spanish Succession. He was then believed to have left the French service for that of Portugal.50 According to a report drawn up for the English government on Jennings’s case in 1711, Jennings had been captain commandant of Mahony’s Irish regiment of dragoons in Spain in 1704 when he deserted the Bourbons. Captured in the attempt, Jennings was imprisoned for fifteen months, all his possessions were taken away, and his pay was stopped. The report showed that Jennings had persuaded others to desert to the British, some of whom had provided evidence on his behalf. These even claimed that Jennings would have had his own regiment by now in the French or Spanish armies if he had not come over.51 On reaching the Allied side in Spain, Jennings must have convinced the authorities that he was an experienced officer because on 10 December 1705 NS he received a commission as colonel of foot in the service of Archduke Charles.52 Having joined the earl of Galway at Madrid, he then served as major to four different English regiments as well as taking part in the siege of Tortosa ‘where he did very good service’. Jennings had now been serving as an officer for twenty-three years, but he had ‘lost his fortune and promotion on account of his zealous compliance with’ Queen Anne’s proclamation. Jennings asked to be given command of either a regiment of Irish deserters then being raised in Portugal (possibly a reference to Lord Kilmallock’s regiment), or of a regiment of dragoons in the service of Anne currently serving in Portugal but under Portuguese command.53

Jennings was owed a large amount of money and although he had received £200 that the British had awarded him, there had been significant delays in paying him this money. Lacking a letter of recommendation to Archduke Charles or General Stanhope, Galway’s replacement as the British commander in Spain, Jennings had been unable to travel to that country. Being a Catholic he could not serve in the British army - although this seems to be contradicted by the claim that he had already served in four English regiments. Lansdowne therefore recommended to Anne that Jennings

50 ‘List of Irish officers in the French army’, 1714 (SP 78/158, f. 177). 51 George Granville to Queen Anne, 18 Jun. 1711 (SP 34/31/27A, ff 50-1). 52 Dalton, English army lists, v, p. 166. 53 George Granville to Queen Anne, 18 Jun. 1711 (SP 34/31/27A, ff 50-1). 92

History Studies Vol. 18 be paid as a captain of horse for the time since he left the French service, deducting all payments already made, and that this sum be offset against the subsidy payable to the king of Portugal. Lansdowne also asked that he be recommended for the command of a regiment of horse or dragoons in the Portuguese service. 54

As Mahony’s regiment was part of the Spanish army rather than the French, it would explain why the French authorities found no trace of him in their records after his service in the Dillon regiment. This could have been the case for some of the others too, especially as most appear to have deserted while serving in Spain rather than Flanders. Jennings’s military service after he switched sides does suggest that he had some military ability and it is possible that he brought over a copy of his commission as captain commandant of Mahony’s regiment with him, evidence of which would have been required to substantiate his hopes of receiving a similar commission in the British or Allied forces. Otherwise, if he had only been a lieutenant before his desertion then he must have either been very convincing or very well connected to receive a colonel’s commission from Archduke Charles only a few years later.

Both Lord Slane and Daniel O’Carroll did well out of their desertions to the British. Slane did not regain the valuable estates that he had lost in Ireland in 1691, but he was promoted to brigadier-general in 1712 and Queen Anne restored his title, also creating him Viscount Longford with a pension worth £500 a year.55 O’Carroll may have been made a baronet and like Slane he must have converted to the Protestant faith as he was promoted to brigadier-general in the British army in 1735, major- general in 1739 and finally to lieutenant-general in 1742.56 Meanwhile Colonel Devenish rose to the rank of lieutenant-general in the Emperor’s service and was made a marquis by the Emperor Charles in 1735.57 At the other end of the spectrum, neither Hubert Jennings nor Matthew Coudell felt sufficiently enriched from their own

54 Ibid. 55 Dalton, English army lists, vi, p. 251; Éamonn Ó Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite cause, 1685- 1766 (Dublin, 2002), pp 288-9; S. M’S, ‘Biography of the Lords Fleming, of Slane’ in The Gentleman’s Magazine, cii (1832), pp 206-8. 56 Dalton, English army lists, v, p. 262; G. E. Cockayne (ed.), The complete Baronetage (6 vols, Exeter, 1906), v, pp 13-4. 57 W.M. Cavenagh, ‘Irish families in Flanders’ in R.S.A.I. Jn., i, (1931), pp 156-63. 93

History Studies Vol. 18 services to the British, for in 1721 they were to jointly but unsuccessfully petition the House of Commons for financial assistance.58

In the context of the Irish and Jacobite diaspora, it is true that after the war in Ireland ended in 1691, and again following the end of the War of the Grand Alliance in 1697, many officers left King James’s forces and returned home. Yet the attempted desertion en masse of Lord Kilmallock’s dragoons, an experienced and previously loyal Irish regiment, stands as a unique event in the annals of Irish service in France and Spain. While it may have been triggered by bad relations with the Spanish authorities, delays in pay, war weariness, home sickness, or a combination thereof, this desertion is at odds with more traditional accounts of heroic and honourable service by the Irish in exile during the century following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Coupled with the trickle of officer desertions from other Irish regiments, these events show that loyalties were being sorely tested in the strain and privations of a long war.

58 Journals of the House of Commons, volume 19 (London, 1803), p. 622. 94

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The dragomans of the Habsburg embassy in Constantinople in the

second half of the sixteenth century: the story of Matthias del Faro

Aneliya Stoyanova

After the conclusion of the first written Ottoman-Habsburg peace agreement in 1547, a permanent embassy of the Austrian Habsburgs was introduced in the Ottoman capital.1 The bilateral diplomatic relations developed on a new level, since the permanent representation offered new and considerably broader prospects for the Habsburgs to protect their interests through dialogue and negotiation. Through everyday contact both parties got a better chance to get to know one another and also gather useful information.2 The experience that the envoys acquired during their stay in the Ottoman Empire was highly valued in the Imperial Court, since in the period of discussion, the diplomatic channels were the main source of knowledge about the Ottomans both in the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy. Diplomats who were lucky to return from their mission in good health occupied high positions in governmental structures and were frequently consulted on issues concerning the Ottoman policy of Vienna.

In Istanbul the imperial diplomats were confronted with an unfamiliar social order and ceremonial as well as deep cultural differences – psychological, religious, political and of course, linguistic. The normal functioning and desired efficiency of the diplomatic missions in Constantinople involved active communication with representatives of different strata of Ottoman society and in many respects greatly depended on the services of the dragomans or interpreters.3 The term dragoman refers to the interpreters at the Sultan’s court as well as to the interpreters used by the European embassies in the Ottoman capital. Dragomans were not simply interpreters, they had to be legally and culturally experienced and played the role of intermediaries in the diplomatic relations between the Sublime Porte and the European powers.4

1 Ernst D. Petritsch, Der Habsburgisch-Osmanische friedensvertrag des jahres 1547 (Vienna, 1979). 2 Gabor Agoston, ‘Information, ideology and limits of imperial power’ in Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman (eds), The early modern Ottomans: remapping the empire (Cambridge, 2007), pp 83–4. 3 Agoston, ‘Information, ideology and limits of imperial power’, p. 85 4 Alexander H. de Groot, ‘Die levantinischen Dragomanen. einheimische und Fremde im eigenen land. Kultur- und sprachgrenzen zwischen Ost und West (1453–1914)’ in Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (ed.), Verstehen und versta¨ndigung: ethnologie, xenologie, interkulturelle philosophie (Würzburg, 2001), p. 111. 95

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Apart from overcoming the ethno-linguistic and political boundaries, they were used as messengers of important communications, mediators in peace negotiations, even as advisers.5 Their interpretive work brought to the foreign diplomats useful knowledge about the Ottoman society and politics.6

Many of the dragomans belonged to the group of the so-called Levantines, the non-Muslim population of the Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean. Under Süleyman I (1520–1566) most of the Porte’s interpreters were European renegades. A good part of them were still connected to their families, who lived outside the borders of the Ottoman Empire.7 For multiple political, economic, cultural and religious reasons the European powers started to train their own personal translators.8 The mistrust in the Ottoman dragomans appointed by the sultan was also a great factor. The Venetians were the first to send young local men to their embassy in the Ottoman capital in the second half of the sixteenth century and to undertake systematic efforts to train them.9 They were later followed by France and the Polish-Lithuanian state.10 The great linguistic diversity in the Ottoman capital also made the need of translation services inevitable for the imperial diplomats. However, the systematic training of the so- called Sprachknaben became a fact only in the seventeenth century11 and the Orientalische Akademie in Vienna was established a century later following the French and Venetian examples.12 As Franz Babinger remarks, it is truly surprising, that the numerous negotiations on different matters led by the representatives in Constantinople, did not cause engagement with Ottoman Turkish languages much sooner.13

5 G. R. Berridge, ‘Dragomans and oriental secretaries in the British embassy in Istanbul’ in Nuri Yurdusev (ed.), Ottoman Diplomacy. conventional or unconventional? (London, 2004), pp 151–66. 6 E. Natalie Rothman, ‘Interpreting dragomans: boundaries and crossings in the early modern Mediterranean’ in Comparative Studies in Society and History, li (2009), p. 772. 7 Gabor Agoston, ‘Information, ideology and limits of imperial power’, p. 85. 8 Cecile Balbous, Das sprachknaben-institut der Habsburgermonarchie in Konstantinopel (Berlin, 2015), pp 34–40. 9 E. Natalie Rothman, ‘Interpreting dragomans’, p. 773. 10 Bart Severi, Diplomats from the Low Countries in Istanbul: astuteness, pragmatismand professionalization in Habsburg-Ottoman diplomacy of the Sixteenth Century, р. 9. 11 Cecile Balbous, Das sprachknaben-institut, pp 48–70. 12 Today a postgraduate professional school, the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna was established by Empress Maria Theresa in 1754 as ‘The Oriental Academy’ for the purpose of training young diplomats to represent the Habsburg Empire abroad. See Alexander H. de Groot, ‘Die levantinischen dragomanen’. 13 Franz Babinger, ‘Die türkischen studien in Europa bis zum auftreten Josef von Hammer-Purgstalls’ in Die welt des Islams, vii (1919), p. 107. 96

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Soon after the introduction of permanent Habsburg representation in Istanbul in 1547, Vienna's diplomats began to look for alternatives to the sultan’s dragomans. As a matter of fact, since the 1540s the court in Vienna employed interpreters for different languages including one for Ottoman Turkish. The first Turkish Tulmatsch or interpreter Johann Gaudier already held the office by 1541.14 The services of the so-called Hausdragomane were essential for the Viennese diplomats. Nevertheless, their pivotal role for the functioning of the diplomatic missions has been shown little scholarly interest. The present article addresses the first efforts by the Habsburg residents at the Porte to initiate the practice of training interpreters loyal to the embassy in order to break away from the dependence on the sultan’s ones. By presenting the story of one of the first dragomans, educated by the Habsburg embassy, it gives a face to this special group of multi-functional servants and offers a glimpse into their activities for the embassy and their personal concerns.

The resident in the Ottoman capital Albert de Wijs (1563–1569) introduced to Emperor Maximilian II (1564–1576) the idea of sending at least two or three boys from the imperial lands to the Ottoman capital, where they should study Ottoman Turkish with a local teacher (Turkish: hoca) and become trustworthy interpreters in Habsburg service.15 During his stay on the Bosporus, De Wijs began to train local boys from Galata,16 among whom was the main subject of this present study: Matthias del Faro. Nevertheless, it took several years for his idea to become a successful practice. Shortly after arriving in Istanbul the next imperial resident Karl Rijm (1570– 1574) gave account of the urgent need for new reliable dragomans and his intention to enlarge his network of informants and interpreters.17 In the mid-1570s the discussion of the idea was brought up again by the imperial diplomat at the Sublime Porte and future Hofkriegspräsident David von Ungnad (1573–1578). In his letters to Emperor Maximilian II and his successor Rudolf II (1576–1611), he insisted several times that young men from the German lands should be sent to Istanbul, trained and

14 Cecile Balbous, Das sprachknaben-institut, p. 37. 15 Bart Severi, Diplomats from the Low Countries in Istanbul, p. 9. 16 Located at the northern shore of the Golden Horn, today Galata is a quarter within the borough of Beyoğlu (Pera) in Istanbul. 17 Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Wien (HHStA Wien), Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 26, Konv. 3, f. 234; HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 27, Konv. 5, f. 17. 97

History Studies Vol. 18 eventually be used as trustworthy interpreters.18 In early December 1576, Rudolf II who had just recently succeeded his deceased father as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire discussed the repeated requests of the diplomats with his brother Archduke Ernst and expressed his willingness to satisfy the demand. Boys of the age of 15 or 16 years should travel to Constantinople with the next honorable gift (munus honorarium),19 or with the next ambassador at the latest.20 Informed of his intentions the Imperial war council (Hofkriegsrat) rose some doubts pointing at the presumable costs for their maintenance and the chances that the young men, lacking experience and full of curiosity, could easily be tempted and become, or ‘turn’ Turks (German: zu Türken werden). Three men from Ungnad’s entourage had already turned Turks.21 In early modern Christian Europe this was the most frequently used phrase which described the conversion of a Christian or a Jew to Islam.22 This potential transformation was a constant concern also for the other foreign diplomats in Istanbul.23 Under the influence of the war council’s advice to consider looking out for a Turkish teacher from the Dalmatian, Croatian, Hungarian or Greek lands rather than send those boys to Constantinople, Rudolf II wrote to Ungnad to think of a suitable person, who could travel to the Holy Roman Empire and do the job.24 Ungnad disagreed and replied with the argument, that the young among his people had proven to be steadier than the old. He gave the young Peter von Wolzogen as an example, an orphan, who had arrived in Istanbul in 1578 during the mission of his predecessor Joachim von Sinzendorf.25 He had already made an admirable start and just needed a

18 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 34, Konv. 1, f. 213; HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 34, Konv. 2, f. 62. 19 According to the treaty of 1547 the Habsburgs were obliged to send 30,000 ducats to the sultan by March each year in exchange for Ottoman recognition of their possession over the relatively narrow strip of Hungarian land that remained in the Habsburg realm after the division of the Hungarian territory in 1540. Ferdinand I did not see it as a tribute he was paying to the Porte, but rather as compensation for the loss of territory. The Habsburgs preferred to refer to it as a munus honorarium, an honourable gift or present. The annual payments were not limited in time by any clause of the treaty, which was concluded for five years. See Petrisch, Die Ungarnpolitik Ferdinands I. bis zu seiner tributpflichtigkeit an die Hohe Pforte (Vienna, 1979), p. 206. 20 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 34, Konv. 2, ff 95–6. 21 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 34, Konv. 2, ff 123–4. 22 Tobias P. Graf, The sultan’s renegades: Christian-European converts to Islam and the making of the Ottoman elite, 1575–1610 (Oxford, 2017), pp 59–88. 23 E. Natalie Rothman, ‘Interpreting dragomans‘, p. 794. 24 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 34, Konv. 3, f. 144. 25 Robyn Dora Radway, ‘Vernacular diplomacy in Central Europe: statesmen and soldiers between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, 1543–1593’ (PhD thesis, Princeton University, Princeton, 2017), p. 122. 98

History Studies Vol. 18 suitable teacher. Ungnad further insisted that good knowledge of the Ottoman language could be acquired locally through conversation and continuo usu only. Speaking practice had to come first with reading and writing to be added thereafter.26 In June 1577 the Hofkriegsrat continued to determine the idea as too difficult to implement.27

However, in the early 1580s, the first steps were made so that in April 1585 the resident Paul von Eytzing (1584–1587), could ask for a stipend for a young man, named Nicolo Peria, who was sent to Istanbul, brought up and educated by his predecessor Friedrich Preyner (1580–1584), and could now be of great use to the embassy. He also reported on employing a Turkish teacher for teaching Ottoman Turkish to two young men. One of them was Augerio Zeffi, the son of the first Habsburg dragoman from Pera, Dominico Zeffi.28 The other was named Pellegrin and was the son of an old and devoted servant of the imperial embassy in Constantinople named Juan Barbier.29 Following in the footsteps of fathers, uncles or other close relatives as employees of the residents’ household was a wide spread practice.30

During the second half of the sixteenth century, the imperial residents usually hired two main dragomans (Hausdragomane) of different age. The older of the first two was called Antonio Zin and the younger was Dominico Zeffi, who later worked side by side with Matthias del Faro.31 However, the Habsburg residents, as any other diplomats would do, put great efforts to maintain a broad network of contacts and of course would not lose the connection to the Sultan’s dragomans, who due to their intense correspondence with the European residents as ad hoc ambassadors played a crucial role in Ottoman information-gathering and disinformation, as well as in assessing incoming intelligence.32 The diplomats relied on their services and assistance on different occasions and respectively tried to please them with regular

26 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 35, Konv. 2, f. 34. 27 Ibid., f. 164. 28 Dominico Zeffi (???? –1583) was a Christian from Galata, who served the imperial embassy as a dragoman from the late 1550’s until his passing away. Both of his sons Augerio and Nicoroso were educated to follow in his footsteps. Tobias P. Graf, The sultan’s renegades, p. 102; HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 45, Konv. 3, f. 78. 29 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 54, Konv. 3, ff 101–2. 30 E. Natalie Rothman, ‘Interpreting dragomans‘, p. 794. 31 Cecile Balbous, Das sprachknaben-institut, p. 38. 32 Gabor Agoston, ‘Information, ideology and limits of imperial power’, pp 86–7. 99

History Studies Vol. 18 stipends.33 This can be observed in the financial registers from the period, where the payroll constantly includes their names.34 The sultan’s dragomans could also still be used as Hausdragomane. According to the financial report of Joachim von Sinzendorf and Friedrich Preyner, for the year 1581, Ali Bey35 was listed as a Hausdragoman and was paid the sum of 400 thaler.36

For the period under discussion here the experienced dragomans in the service of the Habsburg embassy were the men from Galata. David von Ungnad's detailed reports strongly point out that in the mid-1570s, the Hausdragomane were already an integral part of the ambassador's network of contacts. The financial reports also demonstrate this. Dragomans had a key role in both formal and informal diplomatic practices. Their translating work itself required a range of competences like language proficiency, awareness of cultural characteristics and diplomatic protocols and good background knowledge of current matters.37 In addition to translating and contributing to the functioning of the secret intelligence network by providing valuable information, they appeared on behalf of the diplomats in the public sultan's Divan38 and met with influential representatives of the Ottoman elite or other diplomatic missions on their behalf.39 Theoretically, dragomans enjoyed the diplomatic protection of their employer.40 Nevertheless, they often became targets and were even imprisoned when diplomats for one reason or another fell into disgrace with the Sublime Porte. In Vienna’s case, this most often would happen due to a military

33 Finanz-, und Hofkammerarchiv, Wien (FHKA Wien), Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 857; HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 30, Konv. 4, f. 140. 34 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 A, f. 534, FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 653, See also, Tobias P. Graf, Der preis der diplomatie: die abrechnungen der kaiserlichen gesandten an der Hohen Pforte, 1580-1583. eine quellenedition (Heidelberg, 2016), pp 27–9. 35 Born in Frankfurt on Main Melchior von Tierberg arrived in the Ottoman empire at an early age, was educated in the imperial palace and started working as a dragoman in 1571. In 1579 he was firstly mentioned as a Hausdragoman of the Habsburg embassy. Along with Murad Bey (Balasz Szomlyai) and Markus Penckner (Ahmed Bey) he was part of the group of German- and Hungarian speaking renegades on Ottoman service. See also, Graf, Der preis der diplomatie, p. 89. 36 Graf, Der preis der diplomatie, p. 27. 37 Zsuzsanna Cziráki, Language students and interpreters at the mid-seventeenth-century Habsburg embassy in Constantinople, pp 30–1. 38 Diwan-ı Hümâyûn was the name given to the Ottoman imperial council. See Diwan-ı Hümâyûn in B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (eds) Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire (13 vols, Leiden, 1991), ii, pp 337–9. 39 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 30, Konv. 5, ff 158–9. 40 Alexander H. de Groot, ‘Die levantinischen dragomanen’, p. 111. 100

History Studies Vol. 18 conflict.41 Another reason for the hostile attitude of the Ottoman officials towards the dragomans of the imperial residents was the delay of the annual tribute or munus honorarium, as the Habsburgs preferred to term it.42

Matthias del Faro (1559–1608) served the imperial residents in Constantinople for nearly half a century with a couple of brief interruptions. He was on active service during the missions of all eight Habsburg diplomats between 1559 and 159443 and is reported to have welcomed the new Habsburg resident in Istanbul Adam von Herbertstein in 1608 after the end of the Long War (1593–1606).44 An orthodox Greek from Pera and fluent in Italian,45 he was taken under the custody of Albert de Wijs at the age of 16. In the 1560s the diplomat took care of his training and education and prepared him to grow into a highly valued servant of the imperial embassy. Del Faro embodies the transition from using the sultan’s dragomans to cultivating a group of more reliable translators. Since it took the imperial court several years to establish the practice of sending young men from the Holy Roman Empire to be trained in Ottoman Turkish in Constantinople, the diplomats remedied the lack of qualified and trustworthy personnel with young men from Galata. The case of Matthias del Faro is indicative of the key role of dragomans for conducting everyday politics at the Ottoman court and allows for the tracing of interesting trends in the development of the Habsburg-Ottoman diplomatic relations in the second half of the sixteenth century.

According to David von Ungnad, Matthias del Faro was used as a dragoman in peace negotiations as early as 1568.46 In March 1570, he was already listed as one of the two Hausdragomane.47 Karl Rijm described him as a very talented young man of 27 years with a very good command of both spoken and written Ottoman Turkish, a very rare ability among the Christian community in the Ottoman capital.48 Del Faro

41 In 1566, when Sultan Suleyman I launched his final campaign in Hungary, Albertus de Wijs received 280 Ducats from Vienna for the liberation of his translator. FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 857. 42 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 51, Konv. 1, f. 133. 43 Albertus de Wijs (1563–1569), Karl Rijm (1570–1573), David von Ungnad (1573–1578), Joachim von Sinzendorf (1578–1581), Johann Friedrich Breuner (1580–1584), Paul Michael von Eytzing (1584–1587), Bartholomäus Pezzen (1587/90–1590/92) and Friedrich von Kreckwitz (1591–1593/5). 44 Graf, Der preis der diplomatie, p. 92. 45 Noel Malcolm, Agents of Empire. knights, corsairs, jesuits and spies in the 16th century Mediterranean world (Oxford, 2015), p. 233. 46 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 34, Konv. 2, f. 81. 47 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 624. 48 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 26, Konv. 3, f. 203. 101

History Studies Vol. 18 distinguished himself among the servants of the Habsburg diplomats. Ungnad's extensive reports provide fascinating information about his role in the day-to-day activities of the ambassador. Besides translating letters from Ottoman Turkish into Italian and vice versa, Del Faro regularly attended the public Divan, sometimes on several consecutive days. He represented and defended the Emperor's interests according to the instructions of the resident, participated actively in peace negotiations and numerous discussions about the annual tribute. On the diplomat’s behalf the dragoman communicated with other diplomatic missions in Istanbul, as well as with various representatives of the Ottoman court. One of many examples of this dates from September 1575. Despite the current peace, various complaints about Ottoman raids and disputes over several military fortresses in the Hungarian lands caused a number of well-documented meetings between him and the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.49 Del Faro reported to Ungnad the words of the vizier both verbally and in writing.50 The adequate argumentation and the reference to specific clauses of the peace agreement demonstrate a very good knowledge of the situation.51 His brilliant skills and diligence are accentuated on several occasions in the reports of the Habsburg diplomats.

Even in years of diligent service, while being a crucial part of the imperial residents’ network, Matthias del Faro had to face serious financial problems.52 In April 1573, he wrote to Rudolf II with the request for a financial help emphasizing the thirteen years of fully devoted service to the Habsburg diplomats.53 Ungnad for his part also sent a letter to the emperor pointing out Del Faro’s skills and

49 The ethnic Serb born in Ottoman Bosnia into a family of Orthodox Christians Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (1506–1579) was one of the most famous Ottoman Grand Viziers and the only to have held this office uninterruptedly under three successive sultans, from 27 June 1565 to 12 October 1579. See G. Veinstein, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in C. E. Bosworth, E. Van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs and G. Lecomte (eds) Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire (13 vols, Leiden, 1997), ix, pp 706–11. 50 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 32, Konv. 1, f. 4. 51 The Ottomans insisted that the treaties remain bound to the persons of the signatories and had to be renewed after their demise. That changed just after the Long War with the peace treaty of 1606. See Harald Heppner, ‘Der Lange Türkenkrieg (1593–1606): ein wendepunkt im Habsburgisch- Osmanischen gegensatz’ in The Journal of Ottoman Studies, ii (1981), pp 133–46. Therefore, after the death of Sultan Selim II (1566–1574) on 13 December 1574 in the beginning of the next year the peace agreement had to be renewed. 52 The amounts of money cited in the current essay are shown as they appear in the original archival documents. Three different currencies are used for the payments – the silver coin thaler and the golden coins ducats and gulden. 53 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 276, f. 70. 102

History Studies Vol. 18 importance.54 Three months later, a decree of the court chamber (Hofkammer) in Vienna assigned the dragoman 500 thaler.55 In the 1580s, the shortage of money became an almost everyday issue. In 1580, during the mission of the resident Joachim von Sinzendorf (1578–1581) Emperor Rudolf II granted the dragoman the amount of 2,000 thaler as a reward for three years in advance to repay his debts.56 During the first of these three years, the dragoman received a further 10 thaler per month. In 1583, his name again appears on the payroll with the sum of 300 thaler.57 In the spring of 1583, imperial resident Friedrich Preyner reported to Vienna, that Matthias had managed to pay off most of his debts after receiving another extraordinary stipend from the emperor. But since he was now living in poverty, the diplomat felt himself obliged to provide him with food, clothes and even money from his own budget. Emphasizing the importance of the dragoman’s longtime service and the great diligence and effort he put into negotiating the prolongation of the peace between Vienna and Constantinople, Preyner asked Rudolf II to grant Matthias del Faro another 100, 200 or 300 thaler, which would help him to get on his feet.58 The diplomat himself faced serious financial difficulties and several times requested an additional aiuto di costa.59 However, in November 1583 Matthias and his colleague dragoman Dominico Zeffi received an extraordinary gratuity of 300 thaler from the emperor,60 just a month later Preyner was again forwarding the dragoman’s appeal for a stipend for the next year. This time he intended to cover the loans he had acquired as a guarantee for his brother in law.61

In 1584, the situation got even worse and Del Faro had to sink into obscurity for several months. While he was away and hence unable to perform his duties, he was replaced by Augerio Zeffi, a representative of the next generation of young dragomans, educated at the cost of the Habsburg diplomats. A report by Paul von Eytzing presented Matthias as the oldest servant of the emperor and his ambassadors in Istanbul (Er. Kay.en M. und des hauß alhie eltißter diener), an experienced

54 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 276, ff 67–8. 55 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 276, f. 69. 56 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 191 A, f. 160. 57 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 191 B, f. 468 58 Ibid., f. 448. 59 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 45, Konv. 3, f. 78; f. 83. 60 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 276, f. 191. 61 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 45, Konv. 3, f. 83. 103

History Studies Vol. 18 professional, who was transferring his knowledge to the younger ones, who should follow in his footsteps. The dragoman again seemed to struggle with a serious shortage of money and considerable debts. In despair, he even thought of becoming a Turk. The sincere desire of the diplomat to help Del Faro in order to retain him in Habsburg service once again testifies how highly valued his work was. The resident suggested to Emperor Rudolf II to give Del Faro as a gesture of gratitude for his previous work the sum of 500 thaler that would repay half of his debts. Paul von Eytzing also intended to give the dragoman the annual reward for his services in advance, so that he could take care of his wife and child.62

The imperial resident in the Ottoman capital Friedrich von Kreckwitz (1591– 1593), related another similar case from the summer of 1592. In a letter to his colleague David von Ungnad, he extensively described the unrest and dissatisfaction of Matthias del Faro, who, again in serious debt, expected more support after his thirty-nine year devotional service and again required financial assistance. The dragoman obviously felt his work was undervalued, claimed he had not received the reward he deserved and sought for the permission of the diplomat to personally visit the emperor with his wife and child. Von Kreckwitz shared information about the amounts paid to the dragoman by his predecessor Dr. Bartholomäus Pezzen (1587– 1592), despite which he was constantly falling into debt. Nevertheless, the diplomat’s assessment of del Faro's work was definite, it was described simply as perfect. Von Kreckwitz had repeatedly considered replacing him with another interpreter, but the lack of good cadres did not allow him to do so. He was afraid that if Del Faro did not receive the requested financial support, he would withdraw from his service from the embassy. In order to avoid that, the diplomat requested assistance from Ungnad who, after returning from the Ottoman capital, was a member of the Hofkriegsrat. Although defining Del Faro as despicable (widerwerttig) and restive (contumax), Friedrich von Krewitz believed, that he should be kept under control so that his services could be used.63 Eventually emperor Rudolph II consented to pay the dragoman 500 thaler or even more, so that he would remain loyal.64

62 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 53, Konv. 1, f. 84–5; HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 54, Konv. 3, ff 100–1. 63 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 78, Konv. 3, ff 155–6. 64 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 79, Konv. 1, f. 54. 104

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The frequent financial difficulties logically lead to the question of the annual payment the dragomans received from Vienna. The preserved financial registers and records of the Hofkammer in Vienna, as well as the diplomats’ reports provide various information on the matter. An extremely modest payout awaited young dragomans in their first years of service. In Matthias’ case the annual salary was just around 100 gulden.65 That annual amount gradually changed over time. In 1581, a young man named Nicoroso received an annual stipend of 120 thaler even during his studies.66 In January 1588, two young men, who were studying Ottoman Turkish at the resident’s house, received an extraordinary 64 thaler each to buy clothes and cover other expenses.67

In the discussed period, the annual payment of the two primary Hausdragomane varied considerably. In 1563, the younger dragoman Dominico Zeffi is reported to receive 180 ducats, whereas the elder one, Antonio Zin got slightly more: 200 ducats.68 In 1567, the Hausdragomane were awarded 600 thaler each, while in 1572 the recorded amount equals just 400 thaler.69 Depending on the efficiency of the dragomans’ service and their special needs the annual reward was supplemented by occasional stipends, as the case of Matthias del Faro clearly demonstrates. In addition to the cash money the dragomans, as well as the other servants of the residents, were provided several pieces of clothing – woolen for the winter and silken for the summer.70

When the annual munus honorarium was dispatched to the Ottoman capital a considerable amount of silver jewellery, cutlery and other diplomatic gifts rode along to be given as presents to the sultan, the viziers and other Ottoman officials and influential figures, to dragomans as well.71 In 1572, for instance the cash money for the tribute and the stipends of the Ottoman officials equaled 62.100 thaler (Summa des parengelts).72 The silver jewellery in addition was worth 8,903 thaler (Summa des

65 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 51, Konv. 1, ff 218–9. 66 Nicoroso was Dominico Zeffi’s second son. HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 45, Konv. 3, f. 78. 67 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 279, f. 355. 68 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 A, f. 113. 69 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 743. 70 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 279, ff 74–5, f. 88. 71 For the years 1567, 1569 and 1571 for instance see, FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 780. 72 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 743. 105

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Silbergeschmeidts in gelt), which was more than the imperial resident received for the year, namely 8,500 thaler.73 In 1573, both amounts were higher – respectively 65,500 thaler and 9,989 thaler.74 That year Matthias del Faro was also reported to have received 540 thaler in silver.75

Another thing to consider while discussing the payment of the dragomans are the constant financial struggles of the Habsburg residents from the second half of the sixteenth century. The reports of each of the diplomats reveal a lot of information about their difficulties and the necessity to mobilize personal resources or take out loans. It is therefore not surprising that Albertus de Wijs’s death in October 1569 left serious debts for his successor Karl Rijm to deal with. Apparently, Matthias del Faro and the other dragomans were among the many, to whom the deceased diplomat owed money. According to a report from August 1570 and an account written by Del Faro himself he was payed the sum of 539 thaler by the resident Karl Rijm and the tribute carrying ambassadors David Ungnad and Edoardo de Provisionali. He further ought to get another 92 thaler to clear the total debt of 631 thaler.76

During the period under discussion dragomans, were often part of various spy networks exchanging information and serving the representatives of different rulers. That makes the task of defining to whom their loyalty belonged quite difficult. Matthias del Faro was no exception. Besides a key employee of the imperial diplomats, he was also a member of the network of the Spanish Habsburgs in the Ottoman capital. According to Noel Malcolm, Del Faro began to receive a payment for his services from Madrid after the Battle of Lepanto, between 1571 and 1575.77 The letters Del Faro wrote and translated in that capacity he often signed as Jorge Riesei in order to escape responsibility in case they were caught. It is also known that Del Faro's second wife was the daughter of Aurelio de Santa Croce, the leader of the Spanish spy network in the 1570s.78 Taking into account the dynastic bond between Vienna and Madrid and the efforts for cooperation between the two branches of the

73 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 190 B, f. 745. 74 Ibid., f. 853. 75 Ibid., f. 857. 76 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Kart. 279, fol. 82, f. 101. 77 Noel Malcolm, Agents of empire, p. 233. 78 Emrah Safa Gürkan, ‘Espionage in the 16th century Mediterranean: secret diplomacy, Mediterranean go-betweens and the Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry’ (PhD. thesis, Georgetown University, Washington, 2012), pp 182-3. 106

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Habsburg dynasty in their diplomatic relations with the Porte, that does not seem problematic. In 1581, Friedrich Preyner even urged Emperor Rudolf II to forward a letter of recommendation in his favour to the Spanish King Philip II (1556–1598) and the imperial ambassador in Spain, Hans Khevenhüller (1574–1606).79 A report by Ungnad gives an interesting insight. In the end of February 1577, Don Martin de Acuña, a Spanish knight from Valladolid and former captive after the Battle of La Goleta,80 arrived in Constantinople on behalf of the Spanish king. He had proposed a sabotage plan that targeted the Ottoman Navy and the Arsenal.81 Aurelio de Santa Croce placed him in Matthias del Faro’s house. Don Martin went as far as wearing Del Faro’s clothes, so that he could go unnoticed.82 The imperial residents were much more worried by the possibility that the constant financial struggles would lead the dragoman to despair and make him turn Turk.83

Habsburg diplomats in Istanbul saw the training and education of young dragomans as a vital precondition for the future establishment of loyal, skillful and experienced cadres, who could help them preserve the Habsburg interests at the Ottoman court. The necessity to use the services of the interpreters and the scarce number of qualified ones who could be trusted forced the residents to constantly urge the imperial center to consider cultivating a group of loyal Hausdragomane. The various difficulties that impeded the realization of that objective left them no choice but to please and satisfy the needs of the few diligent servants they could count on. The case of Matthias del Faro, who was among the first ones trained at the house of the Habsburg resident on his expenses, clearly confirms that. The all-in-all humble annual reward that the dragomans received from Vienna and the constant financial problems they had to deal with raise the question whether the importance of their essential mediatory functions was truly appreciated at the imperial court. After numerous appeals from the diplomats, a good part of the constant claims for additional stipends were indeed satisfied. A more farsighted policy in that respect could have

79 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 45, Konv. 3, f. 83. 80 In August 1574 the Ottoman fleet combined with troops sent by the governors of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis attacked Tunis and La Goleta. The Spanish crown could not relieve the siege, which led to the final conquest of Tunis by the Ottoman Empire over the Spanish Empire. 81 See, Emrah Safa Gürkan, ‘Espionage in the 16th century Mediterranean’, pp 293–5. 82 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 35, Konv. 1, f. 22. 83 HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 53, Konv. 1, ff 84–5; HHStA Wien, Staatenabteilungen, Turcica I, Kart. 54, Konv. 3, ff 100–1. 107

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The skills and experience of Matthias del Faro made his service extremely useful for the imperial residents at the Sublime Porte, whose task involved an everyday communication with representatives of Ottoman society. As the aforementioned examples explicitly demonstrate, diplomats advocated for him whenever he was in need, in order to retain him in their service. In 1587, the most capable dragoman of the Habsburg embassy in Constantinople in the sixteenth century, as Ernst Dieter Petritsch has dubbed Del Faro, was shown appreciation by the emperor, who decided to ennoble him and rewarded him with an augmentation of honour.85 It is doubtful, that Matthias del Faro drew any substantial financial benefit out of it, especially when taking into account the struggles Friedrich von Kreckwitz reported in the beginning of the 1590s.

84 FHKA Wien, Reichsakten, Fasz. 191 A, f. 161. 85 Ernst Dieter Petritsch, ‘Die Wiener Turkologie vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert‘ in K. Kreiser (ed.) Germano-Turcica: zur geschichte des Türkisch-Lernens in den deutschsprachigen ländern: ausstellung des lehrstuhls für Türkische sprache, geschichte und kultur der Universität Bamberg in zusammenarbeit mit der Universitätsbibliothek Bamberg (Bamberg, 1987), p. 26. 108

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Contributors

Angela Balfe graduated with a BA in English and History from the University of Limerick in 2013. She completed an MA in History at UL in 2014. Specific research interests include restrictive immigration legislation in the US in the mid to late twentieth century. In 2017 Angela completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Secondary Education at Canterbury Christchurch University in Kent. She now teaches History in Kent and works closely with the Holocaust Educational Trust to develop and promote Holocaust education in secondary schools.

Judy Bolger is currently a PhD student in the department of Modern Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin. Her PhD seeks to examine women’s experiences of maternity and motherhood in late nineteenth century Irish workhouses and this project is being fully-funded by the Trinity College 1252 Postgraduate Research Scholarship. Her areas of interest are primarily in the social and cultural histories of Ireland from the nineteenth to twentieth century.

Jennifer Egloff was awarded her PhD in History from New York University in 2015. Her dissertation and current book project, ‘The Cultural Life of Numbers in the Early Modern English Atlantic,’ explores the multivalent ways that Anglophone individuals utilized numerical methods and mathematical techniques to attempt the face the challenges brought on by the opening of the Atlantic to increased exploration and commerce, competing religious philosophies, and the increased availability of information. She was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates from 2015-18 and is currently a World History Lecturer at St Joseph’s College, Brooklyn. Jennifer will be on fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. during the Spring 2019 semester, as part of the ‘Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures’ collaborative project.

Dan Haverty holds a BA in Political Science from the College of the Holy Cross and he is currently completing his MA in International Relations from University College Cork. His MA dissertation analyses the impact of British and Irish constitutional change on republican and loyalist thinking during the 1990s Northern Ireland peace process, and his most recent article examined the consequences of the Libyan

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History Studies Vol. 18 government's support of the IRA during the 1980s and its impact on the direction of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

William O’Neill is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Limerick, and his research focuses on US foreign policy during the 1970s and 80s. He completed his BA and MA in UL in 2013 and 2015, respectively. He is also the inaugural winner of the UL Department of History & Limerick Archives Scholarship Award (2016-present).

Mateusz Orszulak obtained an MA in Romance Studies at Lodz University with specialization in seventeenth century French literature. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Munich University in the DFG Research Training Group: ‘Globalization and Literature: Representations, Transformations, Interventions’. His research project concerns the expression of cultural identity in travel accounts of the sixteenth century.

William Runacre is an independent researcher with a strong interest in the Jacobite diaspora, especially the services of English Jacobites in foreign armies, with a particular focus on the French army. He is researching the services of Protestants in the Irish regiments of France and Spain following the revolution of 1688. He is the Lead Designer at Fury Software; makers of WWI and WWII turn based strategy games.

Aneliya Stoyanova is a PhD student at Sofia University. Her dissertation deals with Habsburg-Ottoman relations in the second half of the sixteenth century and focuses on the interactions and solidarity of the two branches of the Habsburg dynasty in Vienna and Madrid regarding the Ottomans. She is currently a fellow of the Gerda Henkel Foundation and a guest researcher at the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Historical Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna.

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