German espionage and British counter-intelligence in South Africa and Mozambique, 1939-1944

For most of the Second World War, German and Italian agents were actively engaged in a variety of intelligence gathering exercises in southern Africa. The hub of this activity was Lourenço Marques, the colonial capital of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique). One of the key tasks of Axis agents was to make links with Nazi sympathizers and the radical right in South Africa, promote dissent, and destabilize the imperial war effort in the dominion. Using British, American, and South African archival sources, this article outlines German espionage activities and British counter-intelligence operations orchestrated by MI5, MI6, and the Special Operations Executive between 1939 and 1944. The article, which is part of a larger study, examines three broad themes. First, it explores Pretoria's creation of a humble military intelligence apparatus in wartime South Africa. Secondly, it examines the establishment of several British liaison and intelligence-gathering agencies that operated in southern Africa for most of the war. Finally, it assesses the working relationship between the South African and British agencies, the tensions that arose, and the competing interests that emerged between the two allies as they sought to contain the Axis-inspired threat from within. © 2005 Cambridge University Press

Restocking the British world: Empire migration and anglo-Canadian relations, 1919–30

Throughout the 1920s Canadian politicians, immigration officials, eugenicists and political commentators talked about the need to ‘Canadianize’ all migrants who arrived in the dominion, including those from the mother country. This did not mean that Ottawa was out to ‘de-Britannicize’ those arriving from the United Kingdom. British migrants were given preferred status because their common heritage and shared cultural values mirrored those of most Anglo-Canadians. In other words, ‘Britishness’ made up the bedrock of Anglo-Canadian ‘national’ identity prior to the Second World War. Nonetheless, tensions existed between the competing notions of what it was to be ‘British’, ‘Canadian’ or what John Darwin has posited, the formation of a ‘Britannic’ identity. Using the formulation and implementation of assisted migration and empire settlement between 1919 and 1930 as a backcloth, this paper chronicles the long forgotten controversy surrounding the competing national and imperial interests that exacerbated relations between London and Ottawa after the Great War

The Migration of British Ex-Servicemen to Canada and the Role of the Naval and Military Emigration League. 1899-1914

Efforts to settle British ex-servicemen in Canada prior to 1914 formed a significant precedent for the large-scale, state-supported empire soldier settlement schemes after World War I. Initially designed to bolster colonial defence and sustain the British connection, these schemes possessed an important social dimension; land was a useful method of rewarding ex-servicemen for years of devoted and faithful service. Public concern for the welfare of Britain's soldiery continued to grow throughout the nineteenth century, fuelled in part by the military shortcomings exposed during the Crimean War of 1854-1856 and the second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. As the government grappled with the problems of military efficiency and administration, subsequent investigations revealed the immense problems many servicemen faced when they returned to civilian life. As military reform and imperial defence became increasingly important political issues, the plight of the British ex-servicemen and army pensioners attracted the attention of a growing number of philanthropists and social reformers. Indeed, many of the debates which emerged on post-World War I soldier settlement, migration and post-service employment had been clearly rehearsed. Nowhere is this more undoubtedly demonstrated than in the attempts by the Naval and Military Emigration League (NMEL) to involve the British and Canadian governments in the migration to Canada of British ex-servicemen prior to 1914.Les efforts consacrés avant 1914 à l'établissement au Canada de soldats britanniques démobilisés préfiguraient éloquemment les vastes programmes en ce sens que les autorités gouvernementales ont pilotés après la Première Guerre mondiale. Destinés, à l'origine, au renforcement de la défense des colonies et des liens avec la Grande-Bretagne, ces programmes avaient en outre une importante dimension sociale, car l'attribution d'un fonds de terre constituait une heureuse façon de récompenser les militaires à la retraite pour leur dévouement au service de la patrie. Tout au long du dix-neuvième siècle, l'opinion publique s'est progressivement sensibilisée au bien-être des soldats britanniques, notamment à la suite des révélations qui ont été faites au sujet des carences des forces armées durant la guerre de Crimée (1854-1858) et celle des Boers (1899-1902). Alors même que le gouvernement s'employait à rendre l'armée plus efficace et à résoudre ses difficultés administratives, d'autres enquêtes mettaient au jour les énormes problèmes auxquels faisaient face les militaires lorsqu'ils réintégraient la vie civile. Au moment donc où la réorganisation de l'armée et la défense de l'empire nourrissaient le débat politique, des philanthropes et des réformateurs sociaux de plus en plus nombreux s'intéressèrent au sort des soldats démobilisés ainsi qu'à celui des militaires à la retraite. Manifestement, bon nombre des débats qui, après la guerre de 14, ont porté sur l'établissement, l'émigration et l'emploi des anciens combattants avaient de solides antécédents. A preuve, les démarches de la Naval Military Emigration League (NMEL) auprès des autorités britanniques et canadiennes en faveur de l'émigration au Canada des soldats britanniques démobilisés ou retraités, et cela, avant 1914

Sir gerald campbell and the british high commission in Wartime Ottawa, 1938-1940

In 1938 Sir Gerald campbell arrived in Ottawa to take up the position as the United Kingdom's high commissioner. Not much has been written about the man or his period in office (1938-41). Indeed, the sketchy and simplistic assessments of campbell, which historians on both sides of the Atlantic have relied on for more than four decades, are seriously flawed and out of date. Using the fraught negotiations of the British commonwealth Air Training Plan as a backcloth, and in the light of the rich archival material now available, the article seeks to redress and revise the hitherto poor assessment of campbell's performance as Britain's third high commissioner in canada. Far from being a weak or second-rate official who was constantly being manipulated by the wily and politically savvy dominion premier W.L. Mackenzie King, campbell proved more than equal to the challenge. However, this analysis is not simply an examination of the personal and professional relationships between campbell and Mackenzie King. An examination of campbell's career in canada provides an important insight into the ever-changing relationship between Britain and its increasingly restless dominion partners, which overlapped with a critical period of the Second World War when Britain and its empire stood virtually alone against the Axis powers. © The Author(s) 2011

“Caught in the cross fire”: Sir Gerald Campbell, Lord Beaverbrook and the near demise of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, May-October 1940

This essay examines a highly significant but little know incident –the ‘Campbell affair’ - that occurred during the first six months of Winston Churchill’s premiership between May and October 1940. As the RAF and Luftwaffe fought for aerial supremacy in the skies over the British Isles, an equally important campaign was being waged in the corridors of Whitehall between the Air Ministry and the newly-created Ministry of Aircraft Production, headed by the bumptious Canadian-born peer, Lord Beaverbrook. The wrangling centred on the control over aircraft supply, procurement and the level and location of RAF pilot training. Entwined within this jurisdictional bickering was the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, a scheme which Beaverbrook allegedly had little enthusiasm. Corrosive remarks made by the minister during the height of the Battle of Britain, which were reported to Canada’s mercurial premier W. L. Mackenzie King and then relayed back to London by Sir Gerald Campbell, Britain’s high commissioner in Ottawa, not only threatened to unhinge Anglo-Canadian wartime relations at a pivotal juncture of the war; but they also led to the possible jettisoning of the entire air training scheme. Moreover, the incident occurred at a time when Churchill’s leadership as prime minister was far from secure. Caught in the diplomatic and political crossfire was Sir Gerald Campbell, who Beaverbrook insisted be recalled along with the RAF’s chief liaison officer, Air Vice-Marshal L. L. D. McKean. In the end, after the swift intervention of the newly-appointed dominions secretary, the 5th Viscount Cranborne, neither of these officials was recalled; nor was the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan abandoned. However, it was a messy and untimely affair that possessed dire consequences for Churchill’s premiership as well as for the future conduct of Anglo-dominion, especially Anglo-Canadian, wartime relations

Directing the War from Trafalgar Square? Vincent Massey and the Canadian High Commission, 1939-42

This article explores a number of key facets of Vincent Massey's tenure as Canada's wartime high commissioner in London between 1939 and 1942. Using the personal tensions and mutual suspicions which existed between Massey and the mercurial Canadian prime minister, W. L. Mackenzie King, this essay analyses how Massey and his dedicated staff coped with the increasing and punishing workload during the first three years of the Second World War. Wheat, wartime finance and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan dominated Anglo-Canadian relations during the early stages of the war when the British Empire/Commonwealth stood almost alone against the European dictators. What emerges is that, despite King's attempts to restrict Massey's authority in wartime London, the pressure of prime ministerial work in Ottawa allowed Massey, for the first time since his appointment in 1935, to exert the authority and responsibility he so desperately craved prior to the war. However, this essay is not just about high policy and the tensions between Trafalgar Square and Ottawa or within the Commonwealth alliance. Massey and his wife Alice also responded magnificently to the needs of off-duty Canadian service personnel while on leave in London. At the centre of this analysis is the changing and at times frustrating part played by the Canadian high commissioner in London and Massey's role in modernising the office of high commissioner. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

The “Sawdust Fusiliers": The Canadian Forestry Corps in Devon, 1916-19

In April 1916, the first battalion of Canadian lumberjacks arrived in England to initiate large-scale forestry operations. The remarkable achievements of the men of the Canadian Forestry Corps—who would number almost 32,000 by November 1918—are little known. Astonishingly, over 70% of all the timber used by the Allied armies on the western front was furnished by these men. The county of Devon serves as a useful case study to survey the felling operations undertaken to feed the country’s insatiable appetite for timber. It also provides a lens into the at times ambivalent relationship between the men of the Canadian Forestry Corps and British civilians, on the one hand, and “attached labour”—foreign labourers from Portugal and the growing number of German prisoners of war—on the other