Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WAR_WITNESS (Bearing Witness in Wartime: The East India Company’s Soldiers in the Public Domain, 1764-1857)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-10-01 al 2024-09-30
One of the fundamental characteristics of modern democracies is the tension between transparency and national security. A 2019 EU Directive designed to augment whistle-blower protection, for example, emphasized the importance of reporting and disclosure to public welfare, but identified the security and defence sectors as exceptions to the rule. These kinds of national security exemptions have become increasingly contentious. Proponents argue that unauthorized disclosures undermine military discipline and put ongoing operations at risk, while critics contend that military personnel are entitled to the same rights and obligations as other citizens, including the responsibility to speak out to prevent harm.
WAR_WITNESS applies a historical perspective to this issue, on the basis that understanding how this tension was negotiated in the past can inform our approach to this problem in future. In eighteenth-century Britain, modern ideals of open government were beginning to take shape, as growing calls for political accountability and parliamentary reform coincided with the expansion of the print industry and the development of the daily newspaper. At the same time, a trading corporation called the East India Company (EIC) was building an empire in India through a process of violent conquest. Because foreign correspondents did not yet exist, eyewitness testimony represented the primary alternative to official narratives disseminated in government gazettes. Since the EIC’s commercial monopoly restricted British access to the subcontinent, soldiers stationed in India became the most important sources of public information about the EIC’s wars of imperial expansion. The overall objective of WAR_WITNESS was to determine what soldiers disclosed and what impact this had on contemporary debates about the EIC’s military operations. In the process, WAR_WITNESS demonstrates that ideas and practices of military secrecy were once quite different. The important democratic functions performed by soldiers in the past indicate the potential value of making their voices heard in the future.
WAR_WITNESS applies a historical perspective to this issue, on the basis that understanding how this tension was negotiated in the past can inform our approach to this problem in future. In eighteenth-century Britain, modern ideals of open government were beginning to take shape, as growing calls for political accountability and parliamentary reform coincided with the expansion of the print industry and the development of the daily newspaper. At the same time, a trading corporation called the East India Company (EIC) was building an empire in India through a process of violent conquest. Because foreign correspondents did not yet exist, eyewitness testimony represented the primary alternative to official narratives disseminated in government gazettes. Since the EIC’s commercial monopoly restricted British access to the subcontinent, soldiers stationed in India became the most important sources of public information about the EIC’s wars of imperial expansion. The overall objective of WAR_WITNESS was to determine what soldiers disclosed and what impact this had on contemporary debates about the EIC’s military operations. In the process, WAR_WITNESS demonstrates that ideas and practices of military secrecy were once quite different. The important democratic functions performed by soldiers in the past indicate the potential value of making their voices heard in the future.
The research for WAR_WITNESS consisted of three work packages reflecting the three key audiences addressed by soldiers. First, the impact of soldiers’ statements within the EIC itself was assessed using the records of internal inquiries and shareholders’ meetings alongside print debates in colonial newspapers. Second, soldiers’ role in holding the EIC accountable to parliament was evaluated using committee records, transcripts of parliamentary debates, and the private correspondence of Members of Parliament (MPs). Third, soldiers’ impact on public discourse was determined by analysing books, pamphlets, and letters in British newspapers, and then tracing how these publications were received in literary reviews, editorial commentary, and letters to the editor. Because many soldiers’ letters that were read aloud in parliament or published in newspapers were private letters that were not originally intended for public consumption, the unpublished letters to friends and family collected in major archives in London and Edinburgh were also consulted for further insights into how information circulated through personal networks.
Research findings have been disseminated in different forms to reach target audiences. Results were presented at international conferences in the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the United States. One research article is under review by the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and a second article is in preparation for submission to the British Journal of Military History. An interdisciplinary survey of scholarly approaches to official secrecy has been submitted for publication in an edited handbook. Because the genre of soldiers’ letters from the front is so underutilized, a research guide has been prepared to assist researchers in effectively identifying and analysing soldiers’ letters in future. An annotated bibliography of military memoirs and campaign narratives has also been compiled for use by researchers in the field. The primary outcome of this project will be the publication of an open access academic monograph. A book proposal is under review by the University of London press and four out of a proposed six chapters have been drafted.
Research findings have been disseminated in different forms to reach target audiences. Results were presented at international conferences in the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the United States. One research article is under review by the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and a second article is in preparation for submission to the British Journal of Military History. An interdisciplinary survey of scholarly approaches to official secrecy has been submitted for publication in an edited handbook. Because the genre of soldiers’ letters from the front is so underutilized, a research guide has been prepared to assist researchers in effectively identifying and analysing soldiers’ letters in future. An annotated bibliography of military memoirs and campaign narratives has also been compiled for use by researchers in the field. The primary outcome of this project will be the publication of an open access academic monograph. A book proposal is under review by the University of London press and four out of a proposed six chapters have been drafted.
This research revealed that soldiers had a significant impact on public debate about empire in Britain, though not always in the ways we might expect. Rather than protesting through official channels, many military officers chose to correspond privately with EIC shareholders, MPs, and newspaper editors. These public figures then used soldiers’ testimony to hold the EIC to account. While officers were able to exercise the greatest influence within parliament and the EIC, from the 1830s writing by the rank and file was also given a public platform, particularly in the provincial press. Letters and memoirs published by soldiers of different ranks supplied the public with evidence of mismanagement, incompetence, and breach of military convention, particularly relating to the deaths of women and children and the execution of prisoners of war. The letters that appeared in newspapers were not usually written for public consumption, however; instead, they were submitted to newspaper editors by soldiers’ friends and family in Britain. These accounts caused controversy and inspired widespread distaste with wars of conquest in India. The growth of organized pacifist societies in the second half of the nineteenth century was fuelled by, and in turn helped to amplify, soldiers’ descriptions of the horrors of war. Pacifists circulated excerpts of soldiers’ writing in cheap tracts, specialist periodicals, and books, thereby giving certain texts a long afterlife.
This research revises conventional understandings of public debates about empire and develops new approaches to the subject. First, WAR_WITNESS shows that imperial politics were not monopolised by the political and intellectual elite. Instead, it illuminates the important role played by military personnel and their families, including the mothers, wives, and daughters who actively participated in public debate by forwarding letters to the newspapers. Second, WAR_WITNESS demonstrates the value of studying this neglected aspect of media and print history. It shows that soldiers’ letters from the front constitute a distinctive journalistic genre which had an important impact on public attitudes to war and empire. Third, this research reminds us that ideas and practices of military secrecy are not set in stone. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, even military authorities were often unwilling to constrain soldiers’ freedom of speech, while soldiers themselves insisted on their right to participate in public debate. By drawing attention to this previously overlooked history of negotiation and resistance, this research indicates the need for further research on the relationship between soldiers and civil society.
This research revises conventional understandings of public debates about empire and develops new approaches to the subject. First, WAR_WITNESS shows that imperial politics were not monopolised by the political and intellectual elite. Instead, it illuminates the important role played by military personnel and their families, including the mothers, wives, and daughters who actively participated in public debate by forwarding letters to the newspapers. Second, WAR_WITNESS demonstrates the value of studying this neglected aspect of media and print history. It shows that soldiers’ letters from the front constitute a distinctive journalistic genre which had an important impact on public attitudes to war and empire. Third, this research reminds us that ideas and practices of military secrecy are not set in stone. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, even military authorities were often unwilling to constrain soldiers’ freedom of speech, while soldiers themselves insisted on their right to participate in public debate. By drawing attention to this previously overlooked history of negotiation and resistance, this research indicates the need for further research on the relationship between soldiers and civil society.