Members of the American, Central, Eastern, Far Eastern, Northern and Southern Departments, 1939–41

ON 19 June 1250 the great and the good of the Scottish kingdom assembled at Dunfermline abbey. Their number included the king, Alexander III (1249–86), and his mother, Marie de Coucy (fl. c. 1218–85), who were accompanied by seven bishops, seven earls and several abbots and barons. At a distance, the townspeople of Dunfermline perhaps looked on. We will return to their interest in what unfolded later but the entire Scottish political and ecclesiastical establishment of its day had come to witness the second translation of the ‘bones and [Walter Bower added in the 1440s] the earthly remains’ of Margaret, the late eleventh-century queen and great-great-greatgrandmother of Alexander III. When her body was exhumed, the air was suddenly filled with such an intense and sweet-smelling fragrance that, it was said, ‘men thought that the entire sanctuary had been sprinkled with the fragrance of spices and the scents of flowers in full bloom’. Amidst musical accompaniment and singing Margaret's body was then carried to its new resting place; but as the cortege passed the burial plot of her husband, King Malcolm III (1058–93), the pallbearers found themselves paralysed and unable to move the deceased queen's remains any further. Utterly perplexed, they eventually heard a divinely inspired voice ‘which loudly proclaimed that it was perhaps not God's will that the bones of the holy queen be translated before her husband's tomb had been honoured in the same way’. Malcolm's bones were then raised, this releasing the invisible impediment to Margaret's progression; and king and queen could then be duly reinterred ‘in tombs which had been elegantly decked out’ for the occasion. There were two very clear reminders in this pageant that the audience was witnessing sanctity. Sweet fragrances were stock in trade for the exhumation of saintly bodies; and miraculous powers (such as the inability of the cortege to progress beyond Malcolm's body) were exactly what the devout population of the middle ages expected of its saints. Indeed, very similar phenomena had been reported in 1083 in Hungary, on the translation of King Stephen, to whom Margaret was perhaps related and in whose kingdom she had certainly spent much of her youth.

There were two principal reasons to defend the Mediterranean. The first was to safeguard the British line of communication to the Empire east of Suez. The second was to attempt to contain the war by preventing Germany, Italy and Soviet Russia from expanding into the Balkans and threatening the Middle East and Suez. The former was an aspect of the wider question of dealing with Japan and will be dealt with in a subsequent chapter. It is the latter that concerns us now. For the Foreign Office, preventing Germany, Italy and Soviet Russia from extending the war into the Balkans meant attempting to persuade Turkey and the Balkan states to resist the threats and blandishments emanating from Berlin and Moscow at the same time as persuading Italy to remain neutral or abandon the Axis.

Finding a policy to deal with the tangled skein of interests in the region involved answering a number of questions. Could Italy be weaned away from Germany by British actions? Would Italy split from the Axis in the face of the threat of the spread of communism in the Balkans? Would the Nazi-Soviet Pact withstand the conflicting aims of Moscow and Berlin in the region? Could the Balkan states themselves be persuaded to cooperate in their own defence? The answers to these questions had to be found in the context of alliance politics, the possibility of operations in alternative theatres and the military resources available to underpin British strategic foreign policy. The keys to this were Italy and Turkey.

PREMATURE ‘ASSUMPTION OF ITALY's NEUTRALITY’: DEALING WITH MUSSOLINI, AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1939

In the spring of 1939, as we have seen, Anglo-Turkish relations had undergone a major change. First, there was the signing of the Anglo-Turkish declaration on 12 May; second, there were the negotiations to convert this into a tripartite Anglo-French-Turkish alliance. The negotiations proceeded slowly over the summer. One of the key sticking points was the Turkish demand for a British loan and munitions of war. Nonetheless, the British were determined that the Turks should be brought into a full-fledged agreement. The outbreak of war only intensified this feeling. At the War Cabinet on 4 September, achieving an agreement with Turkey was judged ‘of the utmost importance’ both militarily and politically.

POLITICAL FIGURES

Butler, Richard Austen (1902–82), Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, cr. 1965; ed. Marlborough, Pembroke College, Cambridge; MP (Cons) for Saffron Walden, 1929–65; Parliamentary Under-Secretary for India, 1932–37; to Ministry of Labour, 1937–38; for Foreign Affairs, 1938–41; President of the Board of Education, 1941–45; Minister of Labour, 1945; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1951–55; Lord Privy Seal, 1955–59; Home Secretary, 1957–62; First Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister, 1962–63; Foreign Secretary, 1963–64.

Chamberlain, (Arthur) Neville (1869–1940); ed. Rugby School, Mason College, Birmingham; MP (Cons) for Birmingham Ladywood, 1918–29, Birmingham Edgbaston, 1929–40; Minister for National Service, 1916–19; Postmaster-General, 1922–23; Minister of Health, 1923, 1924–29 and 1931; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1923–24 and 1931–37; Prime Minister, 1937– 40; Lord President of the Council, 1940.

Chatfield, Sir (Alfred) Ernle Montacute (1873–1967), 1st Baron Chatfield, cr. 1937; ed. St. Andrew's School, Tenby; entered Royal Navy, 1886; Captain, 1909; Fourth Sea Lord, 1919–20; Rear-Admiral and Naval Aide-de-Camp to the King, 1920; Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, 1920–22; Commander 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, 1922–25; Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, 1925–29 (Vice-Admiral since 1926); Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet, 1929–30 (Admiral since 1930); Mediterranean Fleet, 1930–33; First Sea Lord, 1933–38 (Admiral of the Fleet since 1935); Minister for the Coor¬dination of Defence, 1939–40.

Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer- (1874–1965); ed. Harrow; MP (Cons) for Oldham, 1900–04, (Lib) 1904–06, for Manchester North West, 1906–08, and Dundee, 1908–22, (Cons) for Epping, 1924–45, Woodford, 1945–64; Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies, 1905–08; Pres¬ident of the Board of Trade, 1908–10; Home Secretary, 1910–11; First Lord of the Admiralty, 1911–15 and 1939–40; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1915; Minister of Munitions, 1917–19; Secretary of State for War and Air, 1919–21; Colonial Secretary, 1921–22; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1924–29; Minister of Defence, 1940–45 and 1951–52; Prime Minister, 1940–45 and 1951–55.

On the outbreak of war, it was vital that the conflict be contained as much as possible. In Europe, one of the most important regions was the Baltic. The key to limiting the war in that area was Soviet Russia. The Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September and subsequent attack on Finland on 30 November made the Baltic an area of concern for British strategic foreign policy, and a knowledge of Soviet intentions an important issue in British policy. But that was not the limit of Soviet influence. Soviet Russia was also important with regard to British plans for blockade. The British desire to strangle the German economic war effort threatened to be vitiated by the steady flow of vital raw materials into the Reich from Soviet Russia. Much of British policy with regard to Moscow was designed to limit the extent of the breach as much as possible. Underlying all of the British desires was the hope that Soviet Russia could be weaned away from Germany, obviating the worst effects of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

THIS ‘RUSSIAN MONSTROSITY’: THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT AND ITS AFTERMATH, AUGUST–OCTOBER 1939

This latter was important. In the aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and before the war itself began, the ‘world’, Halifax remarked, ‘looks very black’. In this darkened Europe, the Foreign Office attempted to discover just what that agreement portended. Its Far Eastern ramifications will be discussed in a later chapter, but there was immediate speculation as to its impact on Europe. A conversation with a well-informed Czech journalist spurred concerns about the future of Eastern Europe. The belief was that the Nazi-Soviet Pact adumbrated the formation of a ‘Congress Poland’, which would serve as an ‘uneasy buffer’ between the two aggrandising states. In the absence of any definitive knowledge of the secret protocols of the Pact, it was assumed that Latvia and Estonia were to be allocated to Soviet Russia and that Moscow would be given a ‘free hand’ in Finland.

In its retrospective analysis of the reasons behind Soviet Russia's signing of the agreement with Germany, the Foreign Office was convinced that Moscow had made a bad bargain. Explaining why the Foreign Office had not anticipated the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Laurence Collier's view reflected long-standing beliefs in the Foreign Office.

A Mess Revealed

All music engages with time in multiple ways. This is not a useful statement with which to conclude this volume. That is, of course, not to suggest that such a statement is not true. Musical time is experienced by listeners, enacted by performers and composers, and offers meaning(s) to all parties. And in each context, whilst the subject matter remains ultimately the same, the terms of the discussion are fundamentally different. Instead, it is not useful because – having traversed this volume – it tells us little of the polyvalent, volatile, and mobile nature of the space now revealed.

Chapters 1-4 demonstrated the plurality of experiences of musical time that can be felt or offered. Time in music is felt to pass through the experience of it – and as we feel and acknowledge it. The LEMI model proposed by Phillips in Chapter 1 demonstrates the multi-layered and intertwined factors which shape these experiences. As such, experiences of musical time are innately plural, different for each listener on each listening. One may be enthralled – lost in a performance – whilst the person in one's neighbouring seat begrudges every second. How we then talk about these experiences is therefore equally multifaceted. In Chapter 2, Harrison demonstrated how such experiences can be offered, with a journey through musical time now adopting a materiality, to be bent or warped, sculpted or shaped artistically. Jones, in Chapter 3, reminds us of the extent to which musical time can change dependent on the way we think about it, be that prospective or retrospective in nature, whilst in Chapter 4, Connor and Smith demonstrated a plurality of models for understanding or conceptualising the musical present, all of which appear flawed in different ways.

Musical time is volatile, especially from the perspective of those who enact it. The material presented in Chapters 5–7 illustrate this well. Wing, Witek, Stables, and Bradbury revealed the hidden world of micro-scale ensemble synchronisation in Chapter 5, where performers engage in group dynamics at the level of the millisecond to constantly find, adjust, and rectify the temporal grid of the music in which they find themselves. The question of timing and tempo here emerged, not as something fixed and regular but as something ever-changing and fragile.

THE title of this article rather gives away one of its chief conclusions: Henry V (1413–22) made a mess of relations with Scotland. Some of the blame for this failure can certainly be laid at the feet of the king himself. His preconceptions and personality traits did not equip him well to deal with what might fairly be called an English governmental problem with the Scots throughout the later middle ages. But the reasons for Henry's difficulties are far more than just personal. He is not, after all, generally thought to have been a stupid man. He might be expected to have found a way of coming to grips with the challenges posed by the Scots. That he did not sheds interesting light not just on the king himself, but on the constraints under which his foreign policy, if such a term is appropriate for medieval rulers, had to be conducted. It is fitting that an article in tribute to Sandy Grant explores such themes. The honourand has already shown, in his discussion of Richard III (1483–85) and Scotland, the multiplicity of insights that can arise from examining English rulers in the light of their Scottish policies. Dealing with a king who has received much scholarly (and even more popular) attention, Sandy showed that the Scottish angle could provide abundant illumination on the workings of Anglo-Scottish relations, naturally; on Richard III himself, both the king and the person; and on broader contexts in which we can seek to understand interactions between states in the later middle ages. I hope that the current article makes its own contribution to these themes.

Little scholarly attention has been paid to Henry V's relations with Scotland. On one level this is quite understandable. Given that Henry, and most other English kings, attached scant weight to the Scots, it is not surprising that his-torians primarily interested in English government and politics should do like-wise. So we find, for instance, that the collection of essays on Henry's kingship edited by Gerald Harriss gives little place to Scotland, which does not merit a mention in Maurice Keen's chapter on diplomacy. The Scottish angle also impinges tellingly little in Keith Dockray's volume on the king, an overtly his-toriographical work. The Scots do, of course, feature more than this in many other approaches to Henry's reign.

THE Scottish Legendary is a collection of saints’ lives written in Early Scots apparently dating to the last quarter of the fourteenth century: internal references in the text suggest that it was composed after 1371 by an author (assuming a single author is responsible for the entire work) whose life overlapped with the reign of David II (1329–71). The saints’ lives included in the collection are drawn from various texts but the single most significant source was the thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea (Golden Legends) of the Dominican Jacobus Voragine, a widespread and popular work across late medieval Europe. The Scottish Legendary survives in one fifteenth-century manuscript (Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.2.6), the provenance of which can be traced to the library of a bishop of Ely who died in 1714, but no further back. The work has been the subject of recent historical and literary scholarship, most notably a monograph by Eva von Contzen. The author of the Legendary remains unidentified although several candidates have been proposed. The prologue claims that the work of translating the legends from Latin was taken up at the point that the writer became too frail to continue his duties as a ‘mynistere of haly kirke’. The inclusion in the collection of material on St Machar, a saint whose cult was largely confined to Aberdeen and its hinterland, has led to suggestions that the author was connected to that region/burgh. Aberdeen cathedral kirk was dedicated to St Machar and the preamble to the tale of the saint in the Legendary noted that Machar was the patron of the city of Aberdeen before lamenting that he was not better known in the land where he wrought his miracles: ‘bot in tis land we ken hym nocht’. It may, or may not, be a coincidence that the tale preceding that of St Machar in the Legendary was an account of St Nicholas of Myra, dedicatee and patron of the parochial church of the burgh of Aberdeen. By the mid-fourteenth century the church of St Nicholas in the burgh had acquired a well-endowed altar dedicated jointly to St Lawrence and St Ninian.

The 1930s and the period of the Second World War are never out of fashion amongst historians. A continuous stream of publications – be they learned monographs, scholarly articles or popular histories – testifies to that fact. For Britain, this period continues to play a significant, if not indeed determinant, role in how the country sees itself and its relations with the rest of its continent.

This view is all too often tinged with the sepia tones of nostalgia and coloured by exaggerated assumptions of Britain's power. The waxing and waning of British influence in the world, and the nature of the elements of power that underpinned the nation's international position and the nature of their interaction, have been the subject of enduring fascination for historians. They lie also at the core of the work of Keith Neilson (1948–2015). A native of Alberta in Western Canada, and from his vantage point at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, he brought an ‘imperial’ and global perspective to studies of Britain's external relations in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work did not neglect the fundamentally European setting of British policy, however. On the contrary, it is remarkable for its finely balanced appreciation of the global nature of British policy, encompassing both its European and the overseas dimensions. Whilst appreciating the cultural or ideological aspects of the subject – entirely befitting for someone of his fine literary sensibilities – Keith nevertheless placed questions of political and material power at the heart of his studies. These matters are also at the heart of The Foreign Office's War, 1939–41: British Strategic Foreign Policy and the Major Neutral Powers. It offers a finely drawn, yet robustly argued and meticulously evidenced, portrait of a department that was central to the framing and executing of foreign policy but that struggled to (re)gain some degree of control over fast-moving events. As with Keith's earlier works, it is its author's good historical an antennae, highly sensitive to subtle and profound shifts of opinion and power, that distinguishes this book.

The Foreign Office's War follows on, but in significant ways transcends, his 2006 monograph on interwar Anglo-Soviet relations. In narrow chronological terms, it continues the account of great power relations from early 1939 to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Introduction

The ability to perceive the duration of events and distinguish them from other shorter or longer events is a fundamental part of consciousness and the way in which we understand and interact with the world. Despite this, within psychology itself (and even within the study of the senses and perception), the domain of time perception is not widely known about. There are several likely reasons for this: firstly, up until the 1980s, the field was heavily based on animal work, with little or no applied human models or data, apart from some very early experiments in the nineteenth century. Secondly the field is often confused with other types of timing such as circadian timing (regulation of the body's sleep-wake cycle) or reaction time (how quickly one can react to a presented stimulus). Thirdly, although we talk of people having a sense of time, it is not strictly a sense, as we possess no sensory organ for time; unlike the cochlea for hearing, or the retina for vision.

The aim of this chapter is to give the reader who has no prior knowledge of the field of time perception an overview of the important facts, models, distinctions between different types of timing, and the factors that affect them. This chapter does not delve too deeply into the specific implications of these facets to our specific perception of music, as such an undertaking is provided by Phillips in Chapter 1 (this volume), although that is not to say that no reference to music will be made.

I will start by talking about the perception of duration and the models we use to explore it and the factors that can affect or distort it. I will then move on to talk about another type of timing phenomenon termed ‘passage of time judgements’ which are concerned not with the perception of how long an event lasted, but how quickly time seemed to pass while engaged in a particular activity.