Journal articles and book chapters by George Roberts
The Uganda–Tanzania War of 1978–1979 has received little attention from historians. This article ... more The Uganda–Tanzania War of 1978–1979 has received little attention from historians. This article uses British diplomatic sources to explore the causes and course of the conflict. In particular, it examines how Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere sought to hide from and later justify to the rest of the world an invasion of Uganda and the overthrowing of Idi Amin, actions that contravened the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Distinct among contemporaneous African conflicts for its noticeable lack of a Cold War context, the war demonstrated the shortcomings of the OAU in resolving African conflicts. Despite some dissenting voices, Nyerere's own disregard for state sovereignty was largely overlooked, as the fall of Amin's regime was quietly welcomed by the majority of Africa's leaders.
Conference and seminar papers by George Roberts
While Britain and France eventually relinquished the vast majority of their African colonies in t... more While Britain and France eventually relinquished the vast majority of their African colonies in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Estado Novo dictatorship of António Salazar in Lisbon proved intransigent in the face of demands for Angolan, Guinean, and Mozambican independence. This presented Britain, like the United States, with a dilemma. Britain’s generally sympathetic view of the anti-Portuguese liberation movements had to be balanced against Cold War pressures to support Lisbon, as a key NATO ally. The matter was further complicated by the left-wing tendencies of many of the guerrilla organisations. Should Britain distance itself from movements which accepted arms from the Soviet Bloc and China? Or should it maintain contact, to encourage a more moderate ideological position, especially as the ‘terrorist’ generals might be leading independent nation-states in the not too distant future? Using British and Portuguese archive sources, this paper takes as a case-study the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) and its charismatic leader, Eduardo Mondlane, to trace the debate provoked by these questions among bureaucrats in London and British diplomats overseas. It aims to show how the ‘diplomatic revolution’ which Matthew Connelly has identified in the Algerian FLN’s success in gaining international recognition was an uneven process, contingent on the individual circumstance of calls for self-determination.
As historians have demonstrated, changes in government in both Washington and London brought about clear changes in approach to policies towards Portugal. This paper shows how beneath the switches between Conservative and Labour governments in Britain, the bureaucracy was also divided on how to resolve the dilemmas posed by the liberation movements. In London, the debate split along institutional lines. Members of the short-lived Commonwealth Relations Office favoured a more relaxed approach, having previously worked with African nationalists while at the Colonial Office. Foreign Office officials, on the other hand, prioritised Cold War concerns and strongly objected to any contact the liberation movements.
Similar arguments were also made depending on the location of British diplomats abroad. Those based in Portugal and its colonial capitals cautioned against maintaining relations with the likes of Mondlane and FRELIMO, which they – correctly – feared could draw Lisbon’s ire. But colleagues who had direct experience of the liberation movements took the opposite stance. Like a plethora of other movements fighting continued white minority rule in Africa, FRELIMO were based in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, which became in the 1960s a Mecca for the cause of African liberation. Contact with FRELIMO was essentially unavoidable there: Mondlane was a regular feature on the local sundowner circuit. Away from the prying eyes of Portugal, he struck up good relations with several British diplomats and became a valuable source of local information. In contrast, when Mondlane travelled to Britain to canvas for support, Lisbon complained loudly. Official government meetings with him were all but impossible in Britain, highlighting the value of liaisons in Dar es Salaam.
These debates within the various organs involved in the making and execution of British foreign policy present an insight into Britain’s struggle to balance out the interwoven threads of Cold War rivalries and European decolonisation in Africa. This paper suggests that beyond the level of intergovernmental diplomacy, questions of time and place, as well as personal inclination, shaped how Britain engaged with the liberation movements. The fragmentation of relations with the likes of Mondlane – treated coolly in London by Whitehall bureaucrats, but welcomed into the homes of diplomats in Dar es Salaam – help explain how through differing approaches at different levels of diplomacy, Britain sought to navigate the dilemmas inherent in Cold War politics in the Third World.
The revolution that overthrew the Sultan of Zanzibar in January 1964 had far reaching repercussio... more The revolution that overthrew the Sultan of Zanzibar in January 1964 had far reaching repercussions. The German Democratic Republic seized on the opportunity provided by the course of events off the East African coast to establish diplomatic relations with the revolutionary government, which had adopted a Marxist agenda. As the island’s ties with the communist world deepened, the President of mainland Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere, brokered an Act of Union with his Zanzibari counterpart. The agreement was undertaken by Nyerere to stave off feared communist encroachment into Africa, which would threaten Tanganyika’s non-aligned credentials.
The creation of the United Republic of Tanzania in April 1964 propelled the new country to the forefront of the inter-German rivalry in the Third World. The Federal Republic’s Hallstein Doctrine held that Bonn would not maintain diplomatic relations with any state that recognised the GDR. Having already established an Embassy in Zanzibar, the GDR sought to retain its presence within unified Tanzania, as a political foothold in Africa. Nyerere sought to keep his balance on the tightrope of non-alignment. After protracted diplomatic negotiations, in June 1965 the GDR opened a Consulate-General in Dar es Salaam and downgraded its representation in Zanzibar. The Tanzanian government stressed this did not equal full diplomatic recognition. In response, Bonn cut military and economic aid to Tanzania worth $32.5 million, although it did not sever formal relations.
These developments have now been extensively documented by historians. The inter-German struggle in Tanzania did not end there, however. As one of the few capitals in the world with representations from both states, Dar es Salaam became a battleground in the inter-German Cold War. Separated in Europe by the Iron Curtain, the rival states were thrown into contact with each other on the Swahili coast. The GDR sought to elevate its diplomatic status and establish concrete trade connections with the Tanzanian government; the FRG sought to prevent this from happening. The two German states competed for influence among Tanzania’s ministers and politicians. They fought a propaganda dirty war in the local press and circulated slanderous pamphlets around the city.
Drawing mainly on declassified East and West German documents, this paper will trace the fortunes of the FRG and GDR in Tanzania as a prime example of the local dynamics of the global Cold War in Africa. Bonn’s image was tainted by the FRG’s cordial relationship with Portugal, then waging colonial war against liberation movements based in Tanzania. The GDR’s reputation took a major blow when Tanzania reacted indignantly to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The implication of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, including the opening of relations with Romania and Yugoslavia, were drawn upon by GDR diplomats in their efforts to claim full recognition in Tanzania.
However, these global developments were sieved through the capricious mesh of Tanzanian politics. Little-understood shifts in internal power arrangements meant that both German states’ allies and enemies among the political class, bureaucracy, and state-guided media were prone to frequent change. The inter-German rivalry – a major feature of the global Cold War – therefore hinged in Tanzania on pivotal local elites, who were driven by ideology, political ambition, and personal agenda. This microhistorical study will therefore demonstrates the confluence of the local and the global in Tanzania, and the multiple layers of agency present within this entanglement.
Paper presented at the 'Connections and Disconnections in the Global History and Cultures of East... more Paper presented at the 'Connections and Disconnections in the Global History and Cultures of Eastern Africa' conference, British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, March 2015
Abstract attached below; please get in touch if you would like to see more.
Paper presented at the LSE-GWU-UCSB Cold War graduate conference, London, May 2015
Awarded the... more Paper presented at the LSE-GWU-UCSB Cold War graduate conference, London, May 2015
Awarded the Saki Ruth Dockrill Memorial Prize for best paper
Abstract available here; please get in touch if you would like to see more
In February 1969, Dr Eduardo Mondlane was assassinated in Dar es Salaam. He was the President of ... more In February 1969, Dr Eduardo Mondlane was assassinated in Dar es Salaam. He was the President of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), an organisation of freedom fighters committed to the overthrow of Portuguese colonial rule and operating from the Tanzanian capital in exile. No culprit has ever been conclusively identified. However, the numerous threads of enquiry into Mondlane’s death reveal the set of converging dynamics that made Dar es Salaam an epicentre of both the global superpower rivalry and fight against white minority regimes in southern Africa. They show how such varied ideological currents and vested interests as anticolonial discourse, black African ethnonationalism, Marxism of different shades, superpower rivalry, Vietcong guerrilla tactics, Maoist thought, Tanzanian domestic politics, European far-right terrorist cells, and even the Japanese electronics industry all intersected on the Swahili coast. This paper shows how the prism of a city – as a point of enquiry both fixed, but also porous to the modern flows of information, materials, and human traffic – can provide a snapshot of the interaction of the global with the local, and permit the synthesis of transnational forces with traditional international relations.
Dissertations by George Roberts
The Suez crisis of 1956 has attracted significant attention from British political historians, es... more The Suez crisis of 1956 has attracted significant attention from British political historians, especially since the opening-up of government archives in 1986. Most debate, however, has focus on the level of high politics and has neglected the less tangible effects of the crisis on British political consciousness and collective memory. Using a range of sources primarily drawn from the national press and debates in Parliament – grouped together under the loose term ‘public politics’ – this thesis explores the discourses surrounding the events of 1956 and the continued relevance of ‘Suez’ in national collective memory to the present day, together with the role played by the crisis in conditioning the British public for future integration with the rest of Europe.
An analysis of the public dialogue in 1956 reveals that the decision to intervene or not in Egypt was not only debated in terms of contemporary affairs, but also took place under the shadow of the past, especially the memory of appeasement and a nostalgic longing for empire. Such emotive debates clouded the political judgement of politicians and commentators and framed Suez as an epoch-defining event from the outset.
As has been previously recognised, Suez revealed to the British political elite and public that the nation could no longer play the global role it had once exercised in a changing postwar order characterised by the Cold War and the breakup of the European empires. The crisis opened up debate on the future of Britain’s role in the world, including discussion of the question of European integration. At the level of national consciousness, the political and moral humiliation of Suez produced a debate on national decline; more fundamentally, it brought into question the legitimacy of the social and political Establishment.
Finally, this thesis concludes with an analysis of the role occupied by the events of 1956 in British collective memory. Drawing on French theories of memory, it is shown that despite the reluctance of successive British governments to make official enquiries or commission histories in the post-Suez decades, the experience of 1956 was so intense that it left an indelible mark on national memory. The ‘Suez’ memory was deployed by politicians for partisan capital over flashpoints in African decolonisation. Moreover, it was commonplace in the debate about the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, demonstrating the longevity of the memory. Though discursive rather than conclusive, these various strands of inquiry attempt to situate the political narrative of 1956 in an emotive context, in the process explaining the resonance of Suez in collective memory and political consciousness to the present day.
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Journal articles and book chapters by George Roberts
Conference and seminar papers by George Roberts
As historians have demonstrated, changes in government in both Washington and London brought about clear changes in approach to policies towards Portugal. This paper shows how beneath the switches between Conservative and Labour governments in Britain, the bureaucracy was also divided on how to resolve the dilemmas posed by the liberation movements. In London, the debate split along institutional lines. Members of the short-lived Commonwealth Relations Office favoured a more relaxed approach, having previously worked with African nationalists while at the Colonial Office. Foreign Office officials, on the other hand, prioritised Cold War concerns and strongly objected to any contact the liberation movements.
Similar arguments were also made depending on the location of British diplomats abroad. Those based in Portugal and its colonial capitals cautioned against maintaining relations with the likes of Mondlane and FRELIMO, which they – correctly – feared could draw Lisbon’s ire. But colleagues who had direct experience of the liberation movements took the opposite stance. Like a plethora of other movements fighting continued white minority rule in Africa, FRELIMO were based in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, which became in the 1960s a Mecca for the cause of African liberation. Contact with FRELIMO was essentially unavoidable there: Mondlane was a regular feature on the local sundowner circuit. Away from the prying eyes of Portugal, he struck up good relations with several British diplomats and became a valuable source of local information. In contrast, when Mondlane travelled to Britain to canvas for support, Lisbon complained loudly. Official government meetings with him were all but impossible in Britain, highlighting the value of liaisons in Dar es Salaam.
These debates within the various organs involved in the making and execution of British foreign policy present an insight into Britain’s struggle to balance out the interwoven threads of Cold War rivalries and European decolonisation in Africa. This paper suggests that beyond the level of intergovernmental diplomacy, questions of time and place, as well as personal inclination, shaped how Britain engaged with the liberation movements. The fragmentation of relations with the likes of Mondlane – treated coolly in London by Whitehall bureaucrats, but welcomed into the homes of diplomats in Dar es Salaam – help explain how through differing approaches at different levels of diplomacy, Britain sought to navigate the dilemmas inherent in Cold War politics in the Third World.
The creation of the United Republic of Tanzania in April 1964 propelled the new country to the forefront of the inter-German rivalry in the Third World. The Federal Republic’s Hallstein Doctrine held that Bonn would not maintain diplomatic relations with any state that recognised the GDR. Having already established an Embassy in Zanzibar, the GDR sought to retain its presence within unified Tanzania, as a political foothold in Africa. Nyerere sought to keep his balance on the tightrope of non-alignment. After protracted diplomatic negotiations, in June 1965 the GDR opened a Consulate-General in Dar es Salaam and downgraded its representation in Zanzibar. The Tanzanian government stressed this did not equal full diplomatic recognition. In response, Bonn cut military and economic aid to Tanzania worth $32.5 million, although it did not sever formal relations.
These developments have now been extensively documented by historians. The inter-German struggle in Tanzania did not end there, however. As one of the few capitals in the world with representations from both states, Dar es Salaam became a battleground in the inter-German Cold War. Separated in Europe by the Iron Curtain, the rival states were thrown into contact with each other on the Swahili coast. The GDR sought to elevate its diplomatic status and establish concrete trade connections with the Tanzanian government; the FRG sought to prevent this from happening. The two German states competed for influence among Tanzania’s ministers and politicians. They fought a propaganda dirty war in the local press and circulated slanderous pamphlets around the city.
Drawing mainly on declassified East and West German documents, this paper will trace the fortunes of the FRG and GDR in Tanzania as a prime example of the local dynamics of the global Cold War in Africa. Bonn’s image was tainted by the FRG’s cordial relationship with Portugal, then waging colonial war against liberation movements based in Tanzania. The GDR’s reputation took a major blow when Tanzania reacted indignantly to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The implication of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, including the opening of relations with Romania and Yugoslavia, were drawn upon by GDR diplomats in their efforts to claim full recognition in Tanzania.
However, these global developments were sieved through the capricious mesh of Tanzanian politics. Little-understood shifts in internal power arrangements meant that both German states’ allies and enemies among the political class, bureaucracy, and state-guided media were prone to frequent change. The inter-German rivalry – a major feature of the global Cold War – therefore hinged in Tanzania on pivotal local elites, who were driven by ideology, political ambition, and personal agenda. This microhistorical study will therefore demonstrates the confluence of the local and the global in Tanzania, and the multiple layers of agency present within this entanglement.
Abstract attached below; please get in touch if you would like to see more.
Awarded the Saki Ruth Dockrill Memorial Prize for best paper
Abstract available here; please get in touch if you would like to see more
Dissertations by George Roberts
An analysis of the public dialogue in 1956 reveals that the decision to intervene or not in Egypt was not only debated in terms of contemporary affairs, but also took place under the shadow of the past, especially the memory of appeasement and a nostalgic longing for empire. Such emotive debates clouded the political judgement of politicians and commentators and framed Suez as an epoch-defining event from the outset.
As has been previously recognised, Suez revealed to the British political elite and public that the nation could no longer play the global role it had once exercised in a changing postwar order characterised by the Cold War and the breakup of the European empires. The crisis opened up debate on the future of Britain’s role in the world, including discussion of the question of European integration. At the level of national consciousness, the political and moral humiliation of Suez produced a debate on national decline; more fundamentally, it brought into question the legitimacy of the social and political Establishment.
Finally, this thesis concludes with an analysis of the role occupied by the events of 1956 in British collective memory. Drawing on French theories of memory, it is shown that despite the reluctance of successive British governments to make official enquiries or commission histories in the post-Suez decades, the experience of 1956 was so intense that it left an indelible mark on national memory. The ‘Suez’ memory was deployed by politicians for partisan capital over flashpoints in African decolonisation. Moreover, it was commonplace in the debate about the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, demonstrating the longevity of the memory. Though discursive rather than conclusive, these various strands of inquiry attempt to situate the political narrative of 1956 in an emotive context, in the process explaining the resonance of Suez in collective memory and political consciousness to the present day.
As historians have demonstrated, changes in government in both Washington and London brought about clear changes in approach to policies towards Portugal. This paper shows how beneath the switches between Conservative and Labour governments in Britain, the bureaucracy was also divided on how to resolve the dilemmas posed by the liberation movements. In London, the debate split along institutional lines. Members of the short-lived Commonwealth Relations Office favoured a more relaxed approach, having previously worked with African nationalists while at the Colonial Office. Foreign Office officials, on the other hand, prioritised Cold War concerns and strongly objected to any contact the liberation movements.
Similar arguments were also made depending on the location of British diplomats abroad. Those based in Portugal and its colonial capitals cautioned against maintaining relations with the likes of Mondlane and FRELIMO, which they – correctly – feared could draw Lisbon’s ire. But colleagues who had direct experience of the liberation movements took the opposite stance. Like a plethora of other movements fighting continued white minority rule in Africa, FRELIMO were based in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, which became in the 1960s a Mecca for the cause of African liberation. Contact with FRELIMO was essentially unavoidable there: Mondlane was a regular feature on the local sundowner circuit. Away from the prying eyes of Portugal, he struck up good relations with several British diplomats and became a valuable source of local information. In contrast, when Mondlane travelled to Britain to canvas for support, Lisbon complained loudly. Official government meetings with him were all but impossible in Britain, highlighting the value of liaisons in Dar es Salaam.
These debates within the various organs involved in the making and execution of British foreign policy present an insight into Britain’s struggle to balance out the interwoven threads of Cold War rivalries and European decolonisation in Africa. This paper suggests that beyond the level of intergovernmental diplomacy, questions of time and place, as well as personal inclination, shaped how Britain engaged with the liberation movements. The fragmentation of relations with the likes of Mondlane – treated coolly in London by Whitehall bureaucrats, but welcomed into the homes of diplomats in Dar es Salaam – help explain how through differing approaches at different levels of diplomacy, Britain sought to navigate the dilemmas inherent in Cold War politics in the Third World.
The creation of the United Republic of Tanzania in April 1964 propelled the new country to the forefront of the inter-German rivalry in the Third World. The Federal Republic’s Hallstein Doctrine held that Bonn would not maintain diplomatic relations with any state that recognised the GDR. Having already established an Embassy in Zanzibar, the GDR sought to retain its presence within unified Tanzania, as a political foothold in Africa. Nyerere sought to keep his balance on the tightrope of non-alignment. After protracted diplomatic negotiations, in June 1965 the GDR opened a Consulate-General in Dar es Salaam and downgraded its representation in Zanzibar. The Tanzanian government stressed this did not equal full diplomatic recognition. In response, Bonn cut military and economic aid to Tanzania worth $32.5 million, although it did not sever formal relations.
These developments have now been extensively documented by historians. The inter-German struggle in Tanzania did not end there, however. As one of the few capitals in the world with representations from both states, Dar es Salaam became a battleground in the inter-German Cold War. Separated in Europe by the Iron Curtain, the rival states were thrown into contact with each other on the Swahili coast. The GDR sought to elevate its diplomatic status and establish concrete trade connections with the Tanzanian government; the FRG sought to prevent this from happening. The two German states competed for influence among Tanzania’s ministers and politicians. They fought a propaganda dirty war in the local press and circulated slanderous pamphlets around the city.
Drawing mainly on declassified East and West German documents, this paper will trace the fortunes of the FRG and GDR in Tanzania as a prime example of the local dynamics of the global Cold War in Africa. Bonn’s image was tainted by the FRG’s cordial relationship with Portugal, then waging colonial war against liberation movements based in Tanzania. The GDR’s reputation took a major blow when Tanzania reacted indignantly to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The implication of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, including the opening of relations with Romania and Yugoslavia, were drawn upon by GDR diplomats in their efforts to claim full recognition in Tanzania.
However, these global developments were sieved through the capricious mesh of Tanzanian politics. Little-understood shifts in internal power arrangements meant that both German states’ allies and enemies among the political class, bureaucracy, and state-guided media were prone to frequent change. The inter-German rivalry – a major feature of the global Cold War – therefore hinged in Tanzania on pivotal local elites, who were driven by ideology, political ambition, and personal agenda. This microhistorical study will therefore demonstrates the confluence of the local and the global in Tanzania, and the multiple layers of agency present within this entanglement.
Abstract attached below; please get in touch if you would like to see more.
Awarded the Saki Ruth Dockrill Memorial Prize for best paper
Abstract available here; please get in touch if you would like to see more
An analysis of the public dialogue in 1956 reveals that the decision to intervene or not in Egypt was not only debated in terms of contemporary affairs, but also took place under the shadow of the past, especially the memory of appeasement and a nostalgic longing for empire. Such emotive debates clouded the political judgement of politicians and commentators and framed Suez as an epoch-defining event from the outset.
As has been previously recognised, Suez revealed to the British political elite and public that the nation could no longer play the global role it had once exercised in a changing postwar order characterised by the Cold War and the breakup of the European empires. The crisis opened up debate on the future of Britain’s role in the world, including discussion of the question of European integration. At the level of national consciousness, the political and moral humiliation of Suez produced a debate on national decline; more fundamentally, it brought into question the legitimacy of the social and political Establishment.
Finally, this thesis concludes with an analysis of the role occupied by the events of 1956 in British collective memory. Drawing on French theories of memory, it is shown that despite the reluctance of successive British governments to make official enquiries or commission histories in the post-Suez decades, the experience of 1956 was so intense that it left an indelible mark on national memory. The ‘Suez’ memory was deployed by politicians for partisan capital over flashpoints in African decolonisation. Moreover, it was commonplace in the debate about the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, demonstrating the longevity of the memory. Though discursive rather than conclusive, these various strands of inquiry attempt to situate the political narrative of 1956 in an emotive context, in the process explaining the resonance of Suez in collective memory and political consciousness to the present day.