Statistical Analysis as an Adjunct to Historical Research: Identification of the Likely Manufacturers of British Pattern 1907 Bayonets Supplied by the Birmingham Small Arms Company to the Siamese Government in 1920

In 1920, the Birmingham Small Arms Company supplied 10,000 Pattern 1907 bayonets to the government of Siam to accompany an order for rifles. The original maker of these bayonets was unknown, but historical research indicates that the Wilkinson Sword Co. Ltd. was a primary maker. The weights of some surviving Pattern 1907 bayonets, including twelve bayonets from the 10,000 described above, produced by the six makers in the UK before and during the Great War (1914–1918) period were available. A statistical analysis of the data was performed to compare with the historical research. The results strongly supported that the Wilkinson Sword Co. Ltd. was a primary maker. They were also sufficient to exclude from this batch of twelve bayonets the Royal Small Arms Factory (Enfield) and Vickers Ltd. as manufacturers. The statistical evidence for the presence of bayonets made by J.A. Chapman Ltd., R. Mole & Sons and Sanderson Bros. was weaker than that for the Wilkinson Sword Co. Ltd., but was nevertheless supportive of that hypothesis. Overall, the analysis was consistent with the supply to Siam of commingled bayonets from British government stores. It was noted that the bayonets for the Siam contract fell into a relatively narrow weight range, but the reason for this could not be determined.     

Bayonets for the Peabody-Martini Rifle

From its introduction in 1874 until the turn of the nineteenth century the principal infantry firearm of the Ottoman army was the American-made .45 (11.43?×?55R) calibre Peabody-Martini Rifle. Remaining in use with secondary units until 1916/1917, three bayonet types were provided for the rifle during its official service life: a quadrilateral cross-sectioned socket form, followed by a yataghan-style sword bayonet, and finally a shortened and straightened version of this same yataghan bayonet. As such these three bayonets provide a classic illustration of bayonet typology for the period. However, their history and characteristics have never been assessed in detail, an omission this article seeks to remedy.     

The 1907 Naval War Plans and the second Hague peace conference: A case of propaganda 1

The phenomenon of mutual sea denial had rendered offensive naval actions such as commercial blockade impossible in the narrow seas around Europe. Consequently, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher, abandoned commercial blockade for the safer option of interdicting enemy commerce on the high seas where the Royal Navy could control communications. The proposal to extend immunity to all private property at sea at the 1907 Hague Conference threatened this strategy. As part of a wider campaign to convince the British establishment to oppose immunity, Fisher created the 1907 Naval War Plans to directly influence Cabinet decision-making. Fisher's close involvement in the creation of the ‘Plans’ indicates that they are an expression of Fisher's strategic vision. Moreover, Fisher's attempt to influence the Cabinet asks questions of the bureaucratic decision-making process within the British establishment before 1914.     

TRENDS AND MARKERS

Cambodia is a typical example of a post-conflict country where the lack of easily available data to guide policy design is one of the fundamental challenges to be addressed. While Cambodia has benefited from sustained Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) collection and destruction programmes since 1998, these have not been accompanied by any data analysis on the impact of gun proliferation and use or on these destruction programmes. In 2005, the Small Arms Survey (SAS) collected data on firearm morbidity and mortality spanning the last ten years. The objective was to develop methods that can be used for data generation in countries without systematic data collection. Using hospital admissions records and a review of the main English newspaper, the data shows that collection and destruction programmes have made a significant difference to human security in Cambodia. The study also reveals that even where no official data is available in a country, researchers can often derive useful indicators.     

MICRO-DISARMAMENT IN WEST AFRICA

This article explores the proliferation of illicit small arms and light weapons in the West African sub-region and efforts by the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to deal with the problem through the ECOWAS Declaration of a Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Small Arms and Light Weapons in West Africa. The paper analyses the degree of compliance with the Moratorium by four ECOWAS member states, namely, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Mali.     

A Proxemic Account of Bayonet Fighting

The bayonet has long been regarded as an obsolete piece of military technology. This article advances a proxemic account of close combat, which points to its continuing utility under modern battlefield conditions. It is argued that bayonet training remains an effective way of preparing soldiers to psychologically dominate contested spaces on the battlefield. Thus, although other weapons and techniques can fulfil the same role, it can nevertheless be argued that the bayonet’s enduring presence is not simply the result of some atavistic military mind-set.     

Mind over matter? Multinational naval interoperability during Operation Iraqi Freedom

ABSTRACT

The increasing frequency of multinational operations has heightened the importance of interoperability. While human and cultural factors are only two pieces of the interoperability jigsaw they are of enduring significance. The cohesiveness of the relationship amongst the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy during the 2003 Iraq War was underpinned by high levels of perceptive interoperability, which manifested itself in effective working relationships. That conflict demonstrated that while historical ties provided a foundation for cooperation, a number of multinational initiatives were undertaken to further enhance interoperability. This article addresses how such a high level of perceptive interoperability was achieved by examining the conduct of multinational exercises, the importance of personnel exchanges and the role of liaison officers, before considering the effect it had on the conduct of operations. The Iraq War demonstrated that cultural factors are at least as important as other facets of interoperability.     

MALAWI GENERAL ELECTION 2004

In the post-Cold World era, West Africa, like most other regions of the world, experienced significant shifts in its approach to, and understanding of security. The outbreak of brutal domestic conflicts in the sub-region and ECOWAS's subsequent deployment of its peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, marked a turning point in the sub-region's attempt to develop a security architecture that began in the 1970s. This paper argues that in the post-Cold War era, West Africa is in the process of evolving from a security complex to a security community. The inter-linked nature of the conflicts in the Mano River basin reinforced the security interdependence of member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). These factors, coupled with the close cultural and historical ties, geographical proximity qualifies West Africa as a security complex. The adoption of the ECOWAS Protocol on Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution and Peacekeeping, the supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance and the ECOWAS Moratorium on Small Arms and Light Weapons are clearly aimed at the institutionalisation of conflict resolution mechanisms—a move away from the ad hoc approach of the 1990s. If the democratic peace theory holds true (that democracies do not fight each other), one could make the argument that democracies do not harbour dissidents from neighbouring states. Hence, the development and consolidation of a democratic ethos in the sub-region would lead to the eventual development of a security community.     

Thomas Firth and Sons – Steelmakers to the Arms Industries. Part 2: Heavy Armaments

Firth’s were the first of the Sheffield steel makers to enter the field armaments. Their involvement with Colt has been outlined in an article in the journal of the Colt Collectors Association in America and their activities as steelmakers to the small-arms industries has been covered in a previous issue of this Journal. This article gives a brief overview of their involvement as manufacturers in the field of heavy armaments, being the first to make all-steel guns and their evolving role in the use of steel for ordnance, culminating in the displacement of wrought iron by the adoption of steel for ordnance manufacture by the Royal Gun Factory in the 1880s. It also highlights their development of stainless steel in this context.     

ARMS CONTROL CONTINUUMS

In July 2001, member states will gather in New York for the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Arms in All its Aspects. It represents part of the effort to establish controls on small arms and light weapons. This article argues that it is possible that nuclear and conventional arms control represent two ends of a continuum, with common goals and a common set of mechanisms and processes at work. A decade after the end of the Cold War, it is not surprising that the international community is working on mechanisms to deal with conventional arms. The existence of a continuum and connections between conventional and nuclear arms control is less evident. The two arms control communities appear to function in isolation of each other. The return to the debate on small arms and light weapons echoes post-World War I and II periods. The fact that small arms control is back on the agenda within the context of the UN may signify recognition that any kind of arms control serves the same purpose—preventing and mitigating the effects and duration of, and bringing an end to conflict.     

Offensive defence in the Warsaw pact: Reinterpreting military doctrine

This essay examines the key role played by intelligence and deception in the interactive process of British and German preparations in the 1930s for U‐boat warfare. It argues that the Royal Navy (RN) employed the general perception of ASDIC (sonar) as an ‘antidote’ to the submarine to mislead potential foes about the state of its anti‐submarine defences. This British campaign of deception had a discernible impact. Before the outbreak of World War II, the German Navy failed to discover the realities behind ASDIC's image, and this intelligence failure helped to shape U‐boat policy.     

Human security in Burundi: The view from below (by youth)

Firearms have played a significant role in exacerbating invidious forms of violence in Papua New Guinea. Victimisation rates in the National Capital District (NCD) are amongst the highest in the world. Port Moresby, the country's largest and fastest growing urban centre, accounts for some 34 per cent of all nationally reported crimes, despite accounting for only 5 per cent of the country's population. The Southern Highlands Province (SHP) is also rife with violent armed conflict. This feature reports on the findings from an armed violence assessment administered in NCD and SHP by the Small Arms Survey with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This assessment yields a number of critical and counter-intuitive findings that take issue with the conventional wisdom concerning armed violence in Papua New Guinea and should influence prospective interventions to mitigate insecurity and reduce arms availability and demand.     

The Tower at War 1914–18: Foreman Buckingham Goes To War

Abstract

A small part of the White Tower displays at the Royal Armouries at the Tower is marking the centenary of the First World War and the role the Tower of London played in the War, the links between the site, its staff and the great event are described. The importance of Charles ffoulkes as curator in developing the collection is emphasized. The choice of display content and the way the exhibition will change to reflect each year of the war is described, starting with material from 1914 displayed during 2014 in ‘Foreman Buckingham goes to war’.     

ANGOLAN DEADLOCK

Children on the African continent have suffered immensely from the proliferation and misuse of small arms, including death, injury, displacement, separation from families, loss of access to health, humanitarian and educational services, and lack of economic opportunities. Further, over 300,000 children serve as child soldiers, relying on small arms as their tools of war. The international community has worked to establish protections for children for over 50 years, yet children continue to suffer. The recent UN Special Session on Children adopted ‘A world fit for children’, which, in combination with the Programme of Action agreed upon at the July 2001 UN Conference on Small Arms, begins to address a comprehensive approach to eliminating the negative impacts of small arms proliferation on children in conflict.     

Fighting on Their Own Terms: The Tactics of the Irish Republican Army 1919-1921

Abstract

The 1919-1921 Anglo-Irish War represents one of the earliest instances of a successful insurgent movement in the twentieth century. By combining a fluid organizational structure with effective hit-and-run tactics and accurate intelligence, the Irish Republican Army was able to defeat militarily the security forces of Great Britain. Combined with a successful propaganda campaign, these tactics allowed the IRA to drive the British to the negotiating table, where its representatives secured greater autonomy than Ireland had known in centuries. The outcome of the Anglo-Irish War demonstrates the success which a well-organized guerrilla campaign can achieve, and the tactics used by the IRA must therefore be understood by any serious student of small warfare.     

The rationalisation of warship building in the United Kingdom, 1945–2000

After the Second World War the Admiralty and shipbuilding industry agreed that the largest possible capacity for warship building should be maintained. This proved impossible as the Royal Navy struggled to evoke a strategy in the nuclear era and the price of increasingly complex vessels rose remorselessly. As the shipbuilding industry wilted in the 1960s in the face of international competition a process of natural selection was followed by increasing political intervention in the industry. Nationalisation in the 1970s aimed to preserve capacity and employment, policy aims which were reversed by privatisation in the 1980s and which, ultimately resulted in an oligopoly in the warship building sector.     

Strategic and Budgetary Necessity,or Decision-making ‘Along the Grain’? The Royal Navy and the 1981 Defence Review

The 1981 Defence Review undertaken by John Nott as Secretary of State for Defence controversially and dramatically cut the capabilities of the Royal Navy’s surface fleet. Many of those involved in these decisions have emphasised the budgetary and politico-strategic drivers for these reductions in capability, and the first generation of academic analysis has broadly followed this position. However, recently released government and private archival sources demonstrate that Nott’s review was initially much more severe than thought, and that this was due as much to the presumptions and assumptions of the key decision makers as to any strategic or budgetary factors.     

The market and the military profession: competition and change in the case of Sweden

The rise of private military and security companies (PMSCs) challenges our notion of military professionals. PMSCs bring new claims to professional status and legitimacy outside military institutions and represent an increasing diffusion of - and competition over - military and security expertise. In light of this development, understanding the formation of professional identities in military and private security organisations is as an important undertaking. This paper contributes to this endeavour by analysing professional self-images in the Swedish Armed Forces and how these relate to PMSCs. The study is based on data collected from official documents, semi-structured interviews and a small-scale survey among senior military officers. Focusing on military understandings of PMSCs and contractors, the analysis provides much-needed insight into relational aspects of professional identity formation outside the US context. Furthermore, it points to discrepancies in organisational and group levels in understandings of commercial security actors, and paves the way for future research.     

论公文写作的概括力

概括对公文写作具有重要意义,它是公文材料写作的基本属性,而缺少概括是当前公文写作中的通病。公文概括与一般议论文概括的主要区别在于广度、深度和准度上,在其文本表述上可分为认识性和实践性两类。要提高公文写作的概括力,写作者可遵循理论路径、实践路径和方法路径加以实现。．     

Information and the Air Defence Revolution, 1917–40

The Royal Air Force was successful in the Battle of Britain because of the elaborate and sophisticated air defence system of Fighter Command. This system had its foundations in the early warnings which radar provided. The process of collecting a huge amount of often inaccurate and contradictory data from radar stations, and then turning it into useful information which could direct fighters to their targets was a remarkable accomplishment. Information was the key to this revolution in military organisation, command and control procedures, and tactics. The origins of this information revolution predate radar, and can be traced back to World War I.