Conservative History Journal

Charles Moore’s article in Friday’s Daily Telegraph dealt with the present Middle Eastern crisis and the somewhat incredible comparisons certain misguided British politicians (alas, the one he singles out is a great supporter of the CHG, Sir Peter Tapsell) have been making between Israel’s actions against Hezbollah and the German Nazis’ actions against the Jews in 1943.Inevitably, Mr Moore looks at the background to the fact that, no matter which way one looks at it, European countries have next to no say in what is likely to...

It is a little unfortunate that Tory Historian was so busy on other matters as to miss one of the crucial dates for this country and the Conservative Party in the twentieth century.Thursday saw the fiftieth anniversary of President Gamal Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. This act, in itself not unexpected, triggered off what turned eventually into a political crisis in Britain and made it clear to all the participants that the...

Yesterday Tory Historian attended a wonderfully interesting meeting of the Conservative History Group on the subject of Chamberlain’s reputation. A write-up of that will follow as soon as it is practicable.Central to our understanding of the crisis that took up the second half of 1938 is the double appreciation that despite the fact that Churchill wrote the history of the period, Chamberlain was probably right politically and from the point...

Disraeli again, I am afraid (there will be postings about Peel and others, I promise), as today is the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, the ending of the month-long Congress of Berlin in 1878.“The treaty recognised the complete independence of the principalities of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and the autonomy of Bulgaria, though the latter remained under formal Ottoman overlordship and was divided between the two principalities...

Whenever I want to get depressed about American rather than British politics (well, after all, isn’t that what being Tory Historian is all about?) I think about the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the successor to Daniel Patrick Moynihan as New York Senator.Moynihan was a Democrat and it is useful to recall that until recently the division between conservative and “liberal” thinking was not along party lines. Moynihan, for instance...

Undoubtedly many of this blog’s readers will disagree with it celebrating American Independence Day. It is undoubtedly true that at the time many Tories opposed the presumptuous Colonists’ Rebellion and it was a Whig, though one who has been seen as one of the founders of Conservative political thought, Edmund Burke, who spoke most eloquently in their favour.It is, however, the 230th anniversary of the ringing proclamation of what can be...