Decolonising Imperial Heroes: Britain and France

Abstract

The heroes of the British and French empires stood at the vanguard of the vibrant cultures of imperialism that emerged in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet imperial heroes did not disappear after 1945 as British and French flags were lowered around the world. On the contrary, their reputations underwent a variety of metamorphoses in both the former metropoles and the former colonies. The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History presents an overview of the changing history and historiography of imperial heroes half a century after the end of empire.

Acknowledgements

This special issue emerged from a series of seminars involving the five co-authors of this introduction in Birmingham, Lancaster and Manchester. Thanks to Robert Bickers for his article on China which extends the range of the issue, to Stephen Heathorn, to Kevin Grant for his insightful comments, to John MacKenzie for his support and suggestions, and for writing the ‘Afterword’ to this issue. The Universities of Birmingham, Lancaster and Manchester have kindly provided research support.

Notes

1 The Times, 12 Dec. 1958, 10.

2 Translation of an article by Mr Emrys Hughes, ‘The Return of the Statues', Izvestia, 18 Jan. 1959, FO 371/138710, The National Archives, Kew.

3 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 605, 4 May 1959, 21. For a longer narrative, see Heathorn, Haig and Kitchener, 199–215.

4 Cubitt, ‘Introduction’, 3.

5 Jones, ‘What Should Historians do with Heroes?’.

6 See, among many, on soldiers, Dawson, Soldier Heroes; and Berenson, Heroes of Empire; on sailors, Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack; on administrators, Maylam, The Cult of Rhodes; on doctors, Bado, Eugène Jamot; on engineers, Andersen, British Engineers and Africa; on explorers, Kennedy, The Highly Civilised Man.

7 Bickers, Britain in China; Jones, The Last Great Quest; Sèbe, Heroic Imperialists in Africa; Strachan, ‘Murder in the Desert’; Taithe, The Killer Trail; and Yeandle, Citizenship, Nation, Empire.

8 Berenson, Heroes of Empire, 263–86. Over half of this epilogue is devoted to Brazza and the Congo.

9 See, among many, for Vernon, Wilson, The Sense of the People, esp. ch. 3; for Wolfe, McNairn, Behold the Hero; and for Cook, Williams, Death of Captain Cook.

10 Hoock, Empires of the Imagination.

11 For Napoleon and Nelson see, among many, Hazareesingh, Legend of Napoleon; Cannadine, Admiral Lord Nelson; and Jenks, Naval Engagements.

12 Porter, Absent-Minded Imperialists, 192, 171. For a recent discussion of this debate, see Porter, ‘Further Thoughts on Imperial Absent-Mindedness’; and MacKenzie, ‘Comfort and Conviction’.

13 Kaul, Media and the British Empire.

14 August, The Selling of the Empire; Bancel and Mathy, ‘La Propagande économique’; Chafer and Sackur, Promoting the Colonial Idea; and Schneider, An Empire for the Masses.

15 Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition.

16 Anderson, Imagined Communities; Cannadine, Ornamentalism.

17 For further views on the place of popular imperialism in metropolitan cultures, see Hall and Rose, At Home with the Empire; Thompson, Britain's Experience of Empire; for an opposing statement, Porter, Absent-Minded Imperialists.

18 MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths’, 114.

19 Girardet, ‘L'Apothéose de “la plus grande France”’. See also Girardet, L'Idée coloniale en France.

20 Bebbington, ‘Atonement, Sin and Empire, 1880–1914’.

21 MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths', 111.

22 MacDonald, The Language of Empire, 3.

23 Berenson, Heroes of Empire, 2.

24 Roper, Manful Assertions.

25 In contrast, the valuable collection of essays edited by Mangan and Walvin approached the history of masculinity with a more conventional methodology drawn from intellectual and social history. Mangan and Walvin, Manliness and Morality.

26 Dawson, Soldier Heroes.

27 Harvey and Shepard, ‘What have Historians done with Masculinity?’.

28 For example, Houlbrook, ‘Soldier Heroes and Rent Boys’. For a French perspective on these debates, see Forth and Taithe, French Masculinities; Arnold and Brady, What is Masculinity?.

29 Werner and Zimmermann, ‘Penser l'histoire croisée’.

30 See, for instance, Berger, ‘On the Role of Myths and History’.

31 Many scholars of the French empire have been influenced by Charles-Robert Ageron's pioneering study, which alluded to the lack of popular support for the empire in France. Ageron, France coloniale ou parti colonial?

32 Grandidier, Atlas des colonies Françaises, 4; and Dalziel, Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire.

33 Collier and Inkpen, ‘The RGS, Exploration and Empire’.

34 Colley, Britons; and Tombs and Tombs, That Sweet Enemy.

35 Guiffan, Histoire de l'anglophobie; and Serodes, Anglophobie et politique de Fachoda à Mers el Kébir.

36 Brownlie, African Boundaries.

37 See, for instance, the Anglo-French blockade of Rio de la Plata. Morgan, ‘French Policy in Spanish America’.

38 See Rodogno, Against Massacre, ch. 4. On Franco-British cooperation, see Fichter, Passage to India.

39 For instance Cameroun, Cyprus, Dominica, Ghana, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles.

40 Howe, New Imperial Histories Reader.

41 Droz, La Fin des colonies françaises; Rothermund, Routledge Companion to Decolonisation; Shipway, Decolonisation and its Impact; and Chafer and Cumming, From Rivalry to Partnership?.

42 See Kroslak, The French Betrayal of Rwanda; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis.

43 MacKenzie, Imperialism and Popular Culture; and MacKenzie, European Empires and the People.

44 Ellul, Propaganda; Jowett and O'Donnell, Propaganda & Persuasion; and Taithe and Thornton, Propaganda.

45 MacKenzie, ‘Comfort and Conviction’, 661–62.

46 Pettit, Dr Livingstone, I Presume?.

47 For example, Andrew, ‘The French Colonialist Movement’; Lagana, Le Parti colonial français; Bonin, Hodeir and Klein, L'Esprit économique impérial; Sanyal, Rethinking Capitalist Development; and Fieldhouse, Economics and Empire.

48 Sèbe examines the commodification of heroic narratives in a range of media between 1870 and 1939. Sèbe, Heroic Imperialists in Africa. See also Hale, Races on Display.

49 Dunn, ‘The Historical Novel in the Classroom’; Kennedy and Farmer, Bibliography of G. A. Henty; and Richards, Imperialism and Juvenile Literature.

50 There is still a traditional historiography that has been incrementally detailing the life stories of these characters for a wider readership; for example, Maestri, Commandant Lamy; and Pollock, Gordon of Khartoum.

51 For instance, the ‘musée permanent’ of French colonies bears on its walls a carefully edited list of ‘great imperial men’: Jarrassé, ‘Le musée permanent des Colonies’; and Viatte and François, Le Palais des Colonies.

52 Green, Education and State Formation; and Berghahn and Schissler, Perceptions of History.

53 Cannadine, ‘British History as a “New Subject”’.

54 See Bouche, ‘Autrefois, notre pays s'appelait la Gaule’.

55 Heathorn, For Home, Country and Race; and Yeandle, ‘Englishness in Retrospect?’.

56 See essays in Mangan, Benefits Bestowed; Mangan, The Imperial Curriculum; Bhattacharya, ‘Teaching History in Schools’; and MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, ch. 7.

57 Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen.

58 Bruno, Le Tour de la France par deux enfants; and Strachan, ‘Romance, Religion and the Republic’. On Lavisse, see Nora, ‘Ernest Lavisse’.

59 Strachan, ‘Between History, Memory and Mythology’; and Strachan, ‘The Pasteurization of Algeria?’.

60 For a detailed analysis of the commercial networks behind visual representations of imperial heroes, see Sèbe, Heroic Imperialists in Africa, ch. 3.

61 Montagna, ‘Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe’.

62 Fulton, ‘The Sudan Sensation’.

63 Brown, ‘Modelling for War’; and Jackson and Tomkins, Illustrating Empire.

64 See Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England, ch. 3.

65 See Opie, Rule Britannia; McClintock, Imperial Leather, ch. 5; and Ramamurthy, Imperial Persuaders.

66 MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 39–66.

67 Gould, Nineteenth-Century Theatre.

68 Qureshi, Peoples on Parade; and Qureshi, ‘Meeting the Zulus’.

69 Davis, ‘Imperial Transgressions’; and Witchard, Thomas Burke's Dark Chinoiserie.

70 Richards, ‘Drury Lane Imperialism’; and Schacker, ‘Slaying Blunderboer’.

71 Richards, ‘Drury Lane Imperialism’; and Booth, ‘Soldiers of the Queen’.

72 Smythe, The Life of William Terriss, 135–37. Thanks to Jeffrey Richards for this reference.

73 Two notable exceptions are Leprun, Le Théâtre des colonies; Pao, The Orient of the Boulevards, 21.

74 On the exhibition of colonial subjects in Europe, but with an emphasis on France, see Bancel et al., Zoos humains. For comparative essays, see Blanchard et al., Human Zoos.

75 Batson, Dance, Desire, and Anxiety, 119; Saxon, Enter Foot and Horse; and Kruger, The National Stage.

76 Duerden, ‘“Discovery” of the African Mask’ .

77 Readman, ‘The Place of the Past in English Culture’; Corbin, ‘La Fête de la souveraineté’; Agulhon, Cultures et folklores républicains; Gerson, ‘Town, Nation, or Humanity?’; Hazareesingh, The Saint-Napoleon; and Gerson, The Pride of Place.

78 Rapp and Weber, ‘British Film, Empire and Society’; and Ungar, ‘Léon Poirier's “L'Appel du silence”’. For the growing literature on film and empire, see Chapman and Cull, Projecting Empire.

79 Taithe and Davis, ‘“Heroes of Charity”’; and Bloom, French Colonial Documentary, 112–23.

80 See, for instance, Taylor, ‘Watchdogs or Apologists?’.

81 See, among many, Louis, ‘Roger Casement and the Congo’; Louis, ‘E. D. Morel and the Triumph of the Congo Reform Association’; and Grant, A Civilised Savagery. Debates surrounding the history of the Congo Free State were renewed with the publication of Adam Hochschild's best-selling King Leopold's Ghost

82 On Kafka, see Zilcosky, Kafka's Travels, ch. 4; Londres, Au Bagne; and Gide, Voyage au Congo.

83 Strachey, Eminent Victorians, 243. Boorstin, The Image, 52, notes how Van Wyck Brooks and W. E. Woodward mocked such figures as Mark Twain and General Grant in the USA in the 1920s.

84 Jones, Last Great Quest, 170–172.

85 Tensions between admiration and emulation had long characterised heroic discourses. Cubitt, ‘Martyrs of Charity, Heroes of Solidarity’.

86 Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 436.

87 Conrad, ‘Geography and Some Explorers’, 254. For a discussion of Conrad on exploration, see Driver, Geography Militant.

88 For the Société de géographie de Paris, see Meynier, Histoire de la pensée géographique; Lorcin, Imperial Identities, 146–66; Lejeune, Les Sociétés de géographie en France. For the RGS, see, among many, Driver, Geography Militant; Jones, ‘Measuring the World’; and, for provincial societies, MacKenzie, ‘The Provincial Geographical Societies in Britain’.

89 See Livingstone, Livingstone's Lives.

90 Riffenburgh, The Myth of the Explorer; David, The Arctic in the British Imagination; and Pettitt, Dr Livingstone I Presume?

91 See, for instance, Jeal, Livingstone.

92 For two recent investigations, see Kennedy, The Last Blank Spaces; and Kennedy, Reinterpreting Exploration.

93 Hopkins, ‘Explorers' Tales’.

94 On the making of heroes of exploration, see Sèbe, ‘The Making of British and French Legends’.

95 See, for instance, the case of Jean-Baptiste Marchand's return to France: Sèbe, ‘From Thoissey to the Capital via Fashoda’.

96 Dawson, Soldier Heroes; Adams, Dandies and Desert Saints. On the role of charisma, see Berenson, ‘Charisma and the Making of Imperial Heroes’.

97 Hill, ‘The Gordon Literature’; and Wolffe, Great Deaths, ch. 5.

98 See Spiers, Sudan; Surridge, ‘More than a Great Poster’.

99 On the hero of the American West, see Steckmesser, The Western Hero in History and Legend; and Seal, The Outlaw Legend.

100 Welch and Fox, Justifying War.

101 Sèbe, ‘Colonial Celebrities in Popular Culture’.

102 Ageron, ‘L'Exposition coloniale de 1931’; Hodeir and Pierre, L'Exposition coloniale; and Blanchard and Lemaire, Culture coloniale.

103 Aldrich, ‘Imperial Mise en Valeur and Mise en Scène’.

104 Hanotaux and Martineau, Histoire des colonies françaises; and Blanchard and Lemaire, Culture impériale.

105 Conklin, A Mission to Civilize.

106 Sibeud, ‘Faut-il décoloniser l'histoire de la colonisation?’. On the rise of the ideology of development, see Cooper, Africa since 1940, introduction and ch. 5.

107 Taithe and Davis, ‘“Heroes of Charity”’.

108 Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost.

109 The ambivalence of this polysemic environment also features regularly in Latin American novels belonging to the genre of the novela de la selva. Wylie, ‘Colonial Tropes and Postcolonial Tricks’.

110 On the commemoration of the Flatters mission, see Strachan, ‘Murder in the Desert’.

111 See, for instance, Lambert, Désert, nomades, guerriers, chercheurs d'absolu; Vatin, ‘Désert construit et inventé’; Roux, Le Désert de sable; and de Montigny, ‘Le Retour du désert’.

112 Trumbull IV, An Empire of Facts; and Brower, A Desert Named Peace, ch. 10.

113 See, for instance, Casajus, Henri Duveyrier; and Casajus, Charles de Foucauld.

114 Sèbe, Heroic Imperialists in Africa, 84–85, 255.

115 Howe, Les Héros du Sahara. Though the book seems to have been initially written in English, its first edition was in French—apparently because no British publisher was interested in it.

116 For a summary of Free French activity in the Sahara, see Bimberg, Tricolor over the Sahara. For a history of the French presence see Porch, The Conquest of the Sahara.

117 Delmas, Écritures du désert.

118 Riffenburgh, Myth of the Explorer; and Barczewski, Antarctic Destinies.

119 David, Arctic in the British Imagination.

120 Spufford, I May be Some Time; and Leane, Antarctica in Fiction.

121 Jones, ‘“The Truth about Captain Scott”’; Taithe and Davis, ‘“Heroes of Charity”’; and Yeandle, ‘“Heroes into Zeroes”’. For analyses of the cultural consequences of the end of empire, see Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies; Ward, British Culture and the End of Empire; Webster, Englishness and Empire; and Schwarz, White Man's World. For the extensive literature on decolonisation and Britain, see Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation; White, Decolonisation; for decolonisation and France, see Sheppard, The Invention of Decolonization.

122 Bickers, ‘Moving Stories’.

123 Sèbe, ‘From Post-Colonialism to Cosmopolitan Nation-Building’; and Taithe and Davis, ‘“Heroes of Charity”’.

124 The concept of multi-directionality is borrowed from Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory. See also Johnson, Double Impact.

125 Ifversen, ‘Myth and History’. More generally, see Furedi, Mythical Past, Elusive Future; Ferro, Use and Abuse of History; and Slater, Teaching History in the New Europe.

126 Schmitt, ‘“War Guilt” in Germany and France’; and Elliot, ‘An Early Failure of Curricular Reform’, 40.

127 van der Leeuw-Roord, History for Today and Tomorrow.

128 Phillips, History Teaching.

129 Yeandle, ‘“Heroes into Zeroes”’.

130 Fortier, ‘Pride Politics and Multiculturalist Citizenship’, 563.

131 Nora, Les Lieux de mémoire; and Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of Tradition.

132 The Iltis memorial in Robert Bickers's Shanghai is good evidence of this. See also Aldrich, ‘Marshal Lyautey's Funerals’.

133 L'Invention du Sauvage, an exhibition focusing on human zoos that engaged explicitly with Edward Said's concept of the colonial Other ran from 29 November 2011 to 3 June 2012. See Blanchard, Boëtsch and Snoep, Exhibitions. For a wider perspective, see Lebovics, ‘The Dance of the Museums’.

134 MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, ch. 5; and Craggs, ‘The Commonwealth Institute’.

135 Sèbe, ‘From Post-Colonialism to Cosmopolitan Nation-Building’.

136 Cottret and Henneton, Du bon usage des commémorations.

137 Sessions, By Sword and Plow; Heathorn, ‘The Long Retreat of Stone Generals', 43.

138 For an example of the revision of values resulting from a war of decolonisation, see Cooper, ‘Heroes and Martyrs’. More generally, see Bancel and Blanchard, ‘Les Méandres de la mémoire coloniale’; Thompson, Empire Strikes Back, ch. 9; and Howe, ‘Colonising and Exterminating?’.

139 Aldrich, Vestiges of the Colonial Empire. See also Sèbe, Heroic Imperialists in Africa, 33–40, 50–51, 120–23; and Schalk, ‘Of Memories and Monuments’.

140 With the exception of Hughes, Coombes and Karega-Munene, Heritage, History and Memory.

141 Sèbe, ‘From Post-Colonialism to Cosmopolitan Nation-Building’; and Bickers, ‘Moving Stories’.

142 Rickards, The Hand of Captain Danjou.

143 http://www.scott100.org/. Accessed 17 Sept. 2013.

144 http://www.discovergravesham.co.uk/. Accessed 17 Sept. 2013.

145 Dion, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, 4–5.

146 Kennedy, ‘Imperial History and Post-Colonial Theory’; and Sibeud, ‘Post-Colonial et Colonial Studies’.

147 Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure.

148 For Lawrence's reputation, see Tabachnick and Matheson, Images of Lawrence; and Crawford, Richard Aldington and Lawrence of Arabia.

149 For debates about Kitchener, see Adams, ‘Was “K” Gay?’; and Heathorn, Haig and Kitchener, ch. 6.

150 See Jones, ‘“National Hero and Very Queer Fish”’. For an example of biographical psychoanalysis, see Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder.

151 Jones, ‘“The Truth about Captain Scott”’.

152 Boyer, Histoire générale du tourisme; and Cohen, Contemporary Tourism.

153 Lorcin, Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia.

154 Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, 168–84.

155 Gilroy, Post-Colonial Melancholia; and Gilroy, After Empire.

156 Filmed versions tending towards commercial propaganda are better known: Bloom, French Colonial Documentary, ch. 3. There were some other rallies from Algeria to the Niger in 1930. See, for instance, Franconie, ‘Une compétition méconnue’; and Béjui and Béjui, Exploits et fantasmes transsahariens.

157 ‘L'Historique du Dakar.’ Accessed 5 Sept. 2013. http://www.dakar.com/2011/DAK/presentation/docs/historique-dakar-1979-2009_us.pdf. This event picked up the language and representation and used as its logo the image of colonial camel-mounted troops or méharistes: Grévoz, Les Méharistes français.

158 Rivet, ‘Le Fait colonial et nous’.

159 Ferro, Le Livre noir du colonialisme; Dard and Lefeuvre, L'Europe face à son passé colonial; Deslaurier and Roger, Passés coloniaux; and Etemad, Crimes et réparations.

160 Aldrich, ‘Colonial Man’.

161 Alfred Sauvy, L'Observateur, 14 Aug. 1952; Davey, ‘From Tiers-Mondisme to Sans frontiérisme’.

162 Bayly et al., History, Historians and Development Policy.

163 Smith, Voyage en postcolonie.

164 MacKenzie, ‘David Livingstone and the Worldly Afterlife’.

165 Werbner, Memory and the Postcolony.

166 On the shortcomings of the African colonial state, see Young, The African Colonial State; Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works; and Bayart, The State in Africa.

167 ‘L'acte inqualifiable du Gouvernement’, MaliJet. Accessed 3 Sept. 2013. http://www.malijet.com/les_faits_divers_au_mali/lettres_ouvertes_mali/10904-rection_du_monument_archinard_s_gou_l_acte_inqualifiable_du_gouv.html.

168 Notable exceptions include Stephen Heathorn's work; Konaté, ‘Mémoire et histoire’; de Jorio, ‘Politics of Remembering and Forgetting’.

169 Atondi-Momondjo, ‘Pouvoir congolais et évisionnisme postcolonial’; Tonda, ‘Le Mausolée Brazza’; Bernault, ‘Colonial Bones’; and Bernault, ‘Quelque chose de pourri dans le post-Empire’.

170 On the celebrations of Cecil Rhodes that have remained in South Africa, see Maylam, Cult of Rhodes. On Rhodes' resting place in Zimbabwe, see Ranger, Voices from the Rocks.

171 Thanks to John M. MacKenzie for sharing this anecdote. It was also mentioned in the press at the time: M. Barrett in ‘Presumed Innocent: Michael Barrett on the Contentious Life and Work of David Livingstone, “the First African Freedom Fighter”.’ New Statesman, 1 July 2002.