Can London Keep Calm and Carry On? A Look at Morale Boosting and the Battle of London

             The London Blitz is an event from the Second World War that has always been remembered as a time of unity. It is often remembered as a time when London and other cities across Britain were bombarded by the German air force, known as the Luftwaffe. In the city of London, writes Richard F. Snow, one can still see the reminders of the Blitz on “the drab new buildings around St. Paul’s Cathedral,”¹ which is seen as a symbol of Britain’s “simple refusal to dissolve under the Luftwaffe’s hammering.”² Though it is seen as a time where Britons joined together and held out while their homes were destroyed, there was a need to keep morale up during the Blitz in order to prevent Britain from being put into a place where they would have to surrender to Nazi Germany. The methods of morale boosting came from the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and those who were helping to maintain order in London during the air raids. The use of the morale boosting tactics served to not only to keep order in the capital of the British Empire, but also as an example of British determination to the world stage.
Total War Par Excellence

          The origins of the Blitz can be traced back to August 24, 1940 during the Battle of Britain, when two German bombers, without orders from control, dropped bombs on the city of London.³ The Royal Air Force (RAF) responded with an air strike on the German capital of Berlin, which prompted Adolf Hitler to declare that “London would be subjected to the full wrath of the German Luftwaffe.”⁴ On September 4 of that year, annoyed from the continued attack on German cities, Hitler announced that the Luftwaffe would destroy the British capital of London and the German air force to shift its concentration from RAF Fighter Command Bases and Communications.⁵ On September 5, the Luftwaffe had an introductory raid sent to London but Reichsmarshall Herman Göring gave the official order for raids to commence on September 7.⁶ On that day, close to one thousand Luftwaffe bombers were sent across the English Channel on route to the London.⁷ The attack marked the beginning of the Blitz; a period that would last from September 1940 to May 1941 with London facing “fifty-seven consecutive days at the start of the onslaught.”⁸

           In his book Britain and 1940: The History, Myth and Popular Memory, Malcolm Smith notes that the bombings were indiscriminate in who were killed. Over the course of the Blitz, over forty thousand civilians were killed, exceeding that of British uniformed casualties until late 1942.⁹ For those who lived through the Second World War, an aerial attack was “total war par excellence” and an air war would mean “there will be collateral damage, that hospitals will be bombed and children killed.”¹⁰ To the British public, the collateral damage was seen as a deliberate act rather than rather than as an “unavoidable side-effect.”¹¹

A War of Words

Winston Churchill
British Prime Minister 1940-1945

            One of the ways the British Government attempted to keep morale up during the Blitz, and throughout the war, were the speeches of their Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill was an interesting figure. Seen by his own party, the Conservatives, and the Opposition as untrustworthy for “being a turncoat, an extremist, as a politician more fond of rhetoric and dreams than practicalities.”¹² For this reason one can see there was little support for Churchill in Parliament after the formation of the coalition government on 10 May 1940.¹³

            From a technical stand point, Churchill’s speeches use rhetoric to shape the view of the threat of German invasion. In his article “Words as weapons for mass persuasion: dysphemism in Churchill's wartime speeches”, Eliecer Crespo-Fernández presents the how Churchill uses words to structure the image of Nazi Germany by “expressing negative evaluation of behaviours through emotionally loaded and intense language.”¹⁴ One example of this can be seen in an earlier speech before the Battle of Britain known as “Fight them on the Beaches”. In this speech, Churchill uses imagery to portray the Nazi Germans as animals.

… [T]he Navy, using nearly [one thousand] ships of all kinds, carried over [three hundred thirty-five thousand] men, French and English from the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead.¹⁵

In this excerpt, Churchill is describing the Germans as the animalistic jaws of death to bring to mind “images of human tragedy.”¹⁶ Crespo-Fernández notes that the use of this portrayal of humans as animals is meant to “deny their humanity,”¹⁷ this in turn “reinforces the intentional force of the insult and ultimately justifies their elimination.”¹⁸ Churchill, drawing influence from the Nazi Germans, who used this same kind of animal imagery to portray the Jews as “parasites that threaten the body of the German nation” and therefore had to be removed.¹⁹ In this case, Churchill is using the animal imagery to unite the British populous under the idea that the Germans themselves are animals and inhuman for their attacks on British and French soldiers.

Adolf Hitler
Fuhrer of Germany 1934-1945

            Churchill used these speeches not only to unite British support against the Germans, but also to boost morale. This is used by elevating the British against the Germans through the use of descriptors to place the Germans in a negative light. The use of negative adjectives, writes Crespo-Fernández, is “appropriate for creating emphasis and attaching emotive value to the noun,”²⁰ which in turn makes Churchill’s use of such descriptors useful in emphasising the threat Nazi Germany was toward Britain. Evidence of this use can be seen in Churchill’s speech from 11 September 1940:

These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler’s invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians… that he will terrorize and cow the people of this mighty imperial city, and make them a burden and anxiety to the government and thus distract our attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught he is preparing.²¹

In this section of that speech, Churchill uses adjectives such as cruel, wanton and indiscriminate to shape the actions of the Germans against the city of London. He ends this section with the warning that the bombings are only part of a further attack that Hitler is planning. In using this description, Churchill can convince his audience that the Germans are not only a threat to the city of London, but also the empire.

In this same speech, Churchill uses positive descriptors to meet the same means Crespo-Fernández describes in the case of London. Following his description of Germany’s acts on London, Churchill writes:

…Little does [Hitler] know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners, whose forebears played a leading part in the establishment of Parliament institutions and who have been bread to value freedom far above their lives.²²

In this case, Churchill uses positive descriptors to paint Britons as morally just. While before this excerpt, he portrays Hitler and Nazi Germany negatively, here Churchill argues that the Londoners and, to a greater extent, Britain will overcome the force of Nazism because of their determination and democratic heritage. Thus, by looking at the speeches of Winston Churchill, one can see how the British government used rhetoric to keep up public support during the time of the Blitz.

Londoners seeking shelter in the London Undergrounds
during an air raid.  A common sight during the Blitz.

In addition, the use of images of servicemen, such as the air raid warren and fire crews in the city of London, served as a way of keeping confidence up during the Blitz. Malcolm Smith points out that life in London during the Blitz was full of inconveniences. Because the city was too large a target to be “hit decisively by a medium bomber force,”²³ Londoners had to deal with situations where “railway termini were often out of service, buses had to follow a circuitous route to avoid demolished streets or unexploded bombs, and gas, electricity and telephone services failed frequently,”²⁴ all due to the constant bombings by the Luftwaffe. On top of all this, Londoners suffered from lack of sleep due to the frequent trips to the bomb shelters every night.25

An air raid warden coming to rescue after an air raid.

Though the public felt strained from all this, it was nothing compared the sleepless work done by the civil defense, air-raid wardens and firemen who would be “stretched to their limit and sometimes beyond throughout the Blitz.”²⁶ The air-raid wardens, writes Malcolm Smith, were seen at the beginning of the war as a “little Hitler” of sorts, always shouting to “put that light out!”²⁷ This image changed as the war progressed due because many of these wardens were locals who had extensive knowledge of their community, the people and its geography.²⁸
Fires Were Started

Auxiliary Firemen putting out a
fire on Oxford Street.

The most remembered of those who served within the city of London were the members of the Auxiliary Fire Service. Throughout the Blitz, fire storms erupted all over London due to the bombings, they even acted as a beacon for bombers during a second wave of attacks.²⁹ As these fires ravaged London, it was the Auxiliary Fire Service who worked to prevent further damage from causing further damage during the raids of September 7 and December 29, where they had to contend with up to one thousand five hundred separate fires.³⁰

The Auxiliary Fire Service found itself being used to both boost support within the empire and to gain support from the United States. Within Britain, the fire service found themselves the subject of a feature-length film by Humphrey Jennings 1942 film Fires Were Started. In this film, real firemen were used to play the characters as the audience is shown the working day of the Auxiliary Fire Service during 1940.³¹ What is unique about this film, when compared to other British propaganda films of its time, is that Fires Were Started does not feature any signs of the war such as bombings, the cursing of Nazis, nor does it emphasis the “the courage of the firemen in the face of great danger.”³² The reason this film is effective as propaganda, according to Malcolm Smith, is because by the time Fires Were Started was made “such notions had become established truths in the realm of common sense.”³³

The American Connection
The efforts of London’s fire brigade also found its way into the United States as a way to gain further support. On February 1, 1941, the Officer Commanding London Fire Services, Major F. W. Jackson DSO, sent word to the secretary of the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), E. M. O’Rourke Dickey, that he had found a group of artists within his force with “a large amount of hidden talent.”³⁴ Jackson had hoped that the WAAC would be able to judge them and, if they were of sufficient quality, be sent to the United States.³⁵ After the proposal gained the support of the WAAC chairman, Kenneth Clark, Dickey made arrangements for J. B. Manson, former curator of the Tate Gallery, to inspect the art pieces.³⁶ Upon inspection, Dickey, who had accompanied Manson to see the paintings, concluded in a message sent to Clark that the artworks would be “worth sending to the United States for propaganda purposes.”³⁷

Auxiliary Firemen by Leonard Rosoman.

By March 10, 1941, preparations were made to show the “first public ‘firemen artist’ exhibition” in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, serving as a practice before sending the one hundred pieces of art to the United States.³⁸ It was titled The Great Fire of London, as a reference to the seventeenth century event as to promise “paintings of spectacular action and heroism.³⁹ The collection was met with as many as thirty thousand visitors and high praise from journalists, who had been told in advance of the intentions for the exhibition.⁴⁰ British newspapers, such as the Daily Telegraph, claimed that the United States was about to see “the most dramatic collection of pictures ever assembled: impressions of the Siege of London as set down by 20 auxiliary firemen and women auxiliaries.”⁴¹ When the exhibition was finally sent out for the United States, it was decided to send a group comprised of “one auxiliary artist, one injured auxiliary Blitz veteran and one senior regular fireman, who would be capable of answering technical queries.”⁴²

The strategy of the whole operation was to gain further support from the United States. By sending art work depicting the events of the Blitz on London and having firemen who had experienced working in those conditions first hand, the American public would then be moved to push their government to send more support to the British, and it was a success in gaining American support. At the end of 1942, over half a million Americans attended the exhibitions, with over six hundred thousand attending the lectures provided by the firemen.⁴³

In conclusion, through studying the forms of propaganda used to boost morale during the Blitz, one can see that it not only served to keep the support of the British people but also served to gain support from the United States. Churchill’s wartime speeches shaped the people to view Nazi Germany as the dangerous threat it was and to emphasis the determination of the British, particularly in London, to hold out during the war. The efforts of those serving as air-raid wardens and in London’s Fire Service were used as examples for the British people during the war, the latter even being used to gain further support in the United States. These images tactics proved to be successful in their mission and have played a part in shaping the memory of the Second World War. Therefore, the use of propaganda served a role in forming the united image that has shaped the popular memory of the Blitz.

Bibliography

Aceto, Guy. “Shadows of the Blitz in Today's London.” World War II 24, no. 5 (January 2010): 28-30. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 6, 2014).

Attar, Rob. “Where History Happened: The Blitz.” BBC History Magazine. October 12, 2009. http://www.historyextra.com/blitz.

Churchill, Winston. His Finest Hours: The War Speeches of Winston Churchill. Edited by Graham Stewart. London: Quercus, 2007.

Crespo-Fernández, Eliecer. “Words as weapons for mass persuasion: dysphemism in Churchill's wartime speeches.” Text & Talk33, no. 3 (May 2013): 311-330. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2014).

Kelly, Anthony. “Taking the Blitz to America.” History Today 62, no. 6 (June 2012): 21-27. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 6, 2014).

“More information about: Germany bombs London.” BBC History. Accessed February 23, 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/germany_bombs_london.

Smith, Malcolm. Britain and 1940: History, Myth and Popular Memory. London: Rouledge, 2000.

Snow, Richard F. “London calling.” American Heritage 42, no. 8 (December 1991): 31. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2014).

Notes

1 Richard F. Snow, "London calling," American Heritage 42, no. 8 (December 1991): 31, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

2 Ibid.

3 Guy Aceto, "Shadows of the Blitz in Today's London," World War II 24, no. 5 (January 2010): 28, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

4 Ibid.

5 “More information about: Germany bombs London,” BBC History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/germany_bombs_london.

6 Ibid.

7 Rob Attar, “Where History Happened: The Blitz,” BBC History Magazine, http://www.historyextra.com/blitz.

8 Ibid.

9 Malcom Smith, Britain and 1940: History, Myth and Popular Memory, (London: Rouledge, 2000), 70.

10 Ibid., 71.

11 Ibid.

12 Smith, 91.

13 Ibid.

14 Eliecer Crespo-Fernández, “Words as weapons for mass persuasion: dysphemism in Churchill's wartime speeches,” Text & Talk33, no. 3 (May 2013): 316, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

15 Winston Churchill, His Finest Hours: The War Speeches of Winston Churchill, edited by Graham Stewart, (London: Quercus, 2007), 50.

16 Crespo-Fernández, 319.

17 Ibid., 318.

18 Ibid.

19 Crespo-Fernández, 318.

20 Ibid., 325.

21 Churchill, 81.

22 Churchill, 81.

23 Smith, 77.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Smith, 77.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid, 78.

29 “More information about: Germany bombs London.”

30 Smith, 78.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 80.

33 Smith, 80.

34 Anthony Kelly, “Taking the Blitz to America,” History Today 62, no. 6 (June 2012): 22, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., 23.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Kelly, 23.

43 Ibid., 27.

The Black Shirts in London: A Study of the popularity of Fascism in Britain

The inept and unimaginative
Sir Oswald Mosley

            During interwar period, Europe became exposed to new political ideologies: Communism and Fascism.  Fascism was able to gain notice on the world stage and had established a strong presence in Germany and Italy.  It also found some popularity in Britain during the 1930s, most notably under the leadership of Sir Oswald Mosley and his party the British Union of Fascists (BUF).  Through looking at the case of Sir Oswald Mosley, this blog post will show that Fascism gained a foothold in Britain due to a variety of issues in the 1930s.

            It is first important to understand the reasoning behind Mosley’s turn to Fascism.  His motivation was partially rooted in the crash of the United States stock market in October 1929.[1]  The crash was only a part of other events that helped to bring about the Great Depression.  High grain prices during the First World War allowed for farmers to “put more land into production,”[2] but the end of the war caused both prices and demand to drop during the interwar period.[3]  The first to be affected by this were the smaller Eastern European states, who pressured their governments to introduce tariff barriers on imported agricultural goods.[4]  Britain faced a similar situation with the coal industry; a staple of its economy since the industrial revolution, though it was also facing displacement from oil by this time.[5]

            In addition, the move to return to the gold standard played into the economic issues.  The move to do so was based on the idea that currencies would be secured and be protected from “wild fluctuations in exchange rates that would result in inflation and social disorder.”[6]  The British government chose to reinstitute the gold standard in 1925 in order to respond to the balance-of-payments deficits.[7]  This was hazardous to the economy due to the fact that previously Britain had been importing too many goods and were paying for these goods with their gold supplies.[8]

James Ramsay Macdonald

            By 1931, unemployment in Britain grew from ten percent to sixteen percent while exports had declined by half.[9]  To combat these issues, the British Labour government under James Ramsay Macdonald, in an attempt to keep Liberal support, chose to face the economic crisis through classic economic solutions by implementing austerity measures such as “sharp increases in taxation and drastic spending cuts.” [10]  Mosley did not support these measures.  To Mosley, the 1929 crash had proven to him that Britain’s structural and ideological basis were now lost and the future of the British economy was now “bound up within a competing global market place.”[11]  While critics were looking to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, who proposed “increased governmental spending and lower interest rates to stimulate the economy,”[12] or Stalin’s fine-year-plans, Mosley looked to Mussolini’s corporate state for a solution.

Benito Mussolini (left) and Sir Oswald Mosley(right)

            Mosley lacked faith in the democratic system.  Mosley had originally been a member of the Conservative Party when he first ran for the riding of Harrow in 1918.[13]  In 1920, Mosley crossed the floor of the House of Commons over conflictions with the Conservative Party to join the Labour Party in 1924, only to leave the party sometime after.[14]  According to Matthew Worley’s article “Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists,” the basis for Mosley’s departure from the Labour Party derived from his experience as a government minister, which “undermined his belief in the efficiency of a of a democratically elected parliamentary government.”[15]

This conclusion came from the fact that all of Mosley’s proposals to combat unemployment were simply knocked down by senior colleagues in both the cabinet and the treasury.[16]  For this reason Mosley believed that the “archaic traditions of parliamentary procedure” were “ill-suited to tackling the severe economic problems” that were effecting Britain.[17]  The British parliamentary system, according to Mosley, was prone to being tedious and easily caught up in party politics.[18]  In the case of the Macdonald government, Mosley thought the Labour party’s approach to the economic crisis as similar to “the Salvation Army taking to its heels and running away from the Day of Judgment.”[19]

For Mosley, the alternative was simple: replace Parliament with a five minister cabinet that would be given the power to carry through the necessary emergency policies.[20]  This platform was adapted by Mosley’s newly formed New Party, along with plans to streamline parliament to the point where government issued orders would only be subjected to “limited parliamentary discussion and accepted or rejected within a specific time frame.”[21]

Flag of the British Union of Fascists

In September 1931, Mosley had the New Party renamed the British Union of Fascists.[22]    It was not the only Fascist party to appear in Britain, nor was it the first.  The earliest party to form in Britain was the British Fascisti in 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman.[23]  Seen as a more conservative form of fascism, the party was well known for volunteering “personal services for patriotic purposes” and for having a role in the 1926 General Strike.[24]  Another fascist party that appeared before the BUF was the Imperial Fascist League, co-founded by Arnold Leese in 1928.[25]  Unlike the other fascist parties who were eventually incorporated into the BUF, Leese refused to allow his party to be absorbed, though he did collaborate with Mosley’s party in “joint ventures.”[26]  Leese did not approve of the British Union of Fascists, dubbing Mosley to be only a “Jew fascist” running a group of “kosher fascists” and called the BUF “The British Jewnion of Fascists.”[27]

It can be noted that among the BUF’s supporters were members of the Anglican Church.  In late February 1934, a group of BUF members were openly welcomed at a special service by the minister if Saint John’s Church, Sutton-on-Plym.[28]  That same week, an entire BUF attended christening was held at Holy Trinity Church in Sloane Square, London.[29]  According to Thomas Linehan, the Anglican Church’s support for fascism was based from their dislike toward Bolshevik communism.[30]  Communist treatment of the Orthodox Church in Russia and the Roman Catholic Church in Spain had pushed Anglican clerics into emotional fits of hatred.[31]  In one case, the Reverend M. Yate Allen described Christian priests and nuns being “cruelly tortured and slain” by these communist groups as if it were “by a tribe of most cruel savages.”[32]  In the same piece of anti-communist rhetoric, Allen presented that there were only two sides to choose: the side of fascism where there was God, “health, purity, industry, faith, hope, [and] charity;”[33] or communism, the cradle of “cruelty, murder, filth, immorality,” and the Devil and Antichrist.[34] 

Officially, the BUF supported the role of Christian church.  It saw churches as having a significant part in developing social law and wanted to develop a fascist society based upon Christian principles.[35]  The BUF also promised to protect the “principle of religious belief and worship” from the threat of “secular liberalism and communism.”[36]  Though this was the case, Mosley himself could not care for the Christian faith, finding its methods “puritanical and ‘dull’” for being used to recruit the youth.[37]  In siding with the Church of England, the BUF was able to show itself to the British public, mainly those of the middle class, that they were a morally just party.

Another form of appeal to the public came in the use of Anti-Semitism, the “crassest of blunt instruments” used by the BUF.[38]  In Jewish households in Britain, Mosley became a monstrous figure who would go after Jewish children if they did not behave.[39]  Though Mosley used anti-Semitic values since he ran for the Conservative Party in 1918 under his anti-immigration platform, it, like the conception of a fascist political party, it was not an original idea.[40]  Between 1901 and 1905, the British Brothers League stood against Jewish immigration and a strong position toward eugenics.[41]  This anti-Semitic sentiment was also popular among pro-fascist Anglican clerics, who feverously spread such rhetoric in the BUF press.  One cleric, who went under the pseudonym “Vicar”, accused Jews of hiding in Britain, “cloaking their identities under ‘assumed’ English names.”[42]  The Vicar of Saint Bede Church in Bristol, George Henry Dymock, argued that Jews in Britain were plotting to flood the world in a “bath of blood” through “supposed war-talk in the press,”[43] feelings that find their way in the speeches of Enoch Powel in the 1970s.

The equally inept and
unimaginative Enoch Powell

Despite Mosley’s use of anti-Semitism to gain public support, it was limited in gaining a mass following with such a discourse.  Robert Benewick’s article, “Interpretations of British Fascism” points out that the BUF were only successful in gaining public support through such a platform in East London.[44]  The reason, according to Benewick, was because of locations such as Birmingham.[45]  These towns were not attracted as much to the BUF due to its “relative prosperity and the low density of Jewish population.”[46]

Though the BUF was unable to gain support via anti-sentiment, the party was able to gain support through the use of violence.  According to Jon Lawrence, violence was “the essence for Mosley’s ‘fascism’.”[47]  It is even believed that British fascism was formed from the “disorderly Ashton by-election in May 1931.”[48]  That same year, Mosley had his personal bodyguards known as “Biff Boys” reformatted into the Nuppa Youth Movement.[49]  Nuppa would serve as an “embryo” for the BUF’s Fascist Defence League, which acted on the party’s behalf in combating communist groups.[50]

Olympia Rally, 1934

The best example of fascist violence can be seen in the Mosley’s address at Olympia on June 7, 1934.[51]  Here Mosley was meant to publicize the BUF before an estimated audience of fifteen thousand people.[52]  The disorder caused at Olympia allowed for Labour and Liberal newspapers to make fascist violence an issue, running articles, such as the case of the News Chronicle, of “gang attacks on single victims.”[53]  The issue was even brought before Parliament, where it became the hope of the National Government to discredit both Mosley and the BUF.[54]  The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, believed that fascism was as dangerous as communism, citing both group’s needs to “supress opposition” and their need for dictatorial methods.”[55]  The violence committed at Olympia eventually put the British Union of Fascists into decline.  The anti-fascist interpretations of what happened began to dominate and influence the public over the months that followed.[56]

As the summer of 1934 progressed, the BUF began to lose supporters and influence.[57]  The root of this decline was the fact that the British Union of Fascists only “threatened public order” and not the state.[58]  Britain’s system of “institutional legitimacy” of a “secure position [for] the ruling groups and the entrenched class basis of political loyalties” prevented the party from gaining any actual influence.[59]  In addition, Mosley caused confusion for party supporters by allying with Christian pacifists, communists, and fascists in campaigns in 1939 to keep Britain from going to war.[60]  This conflicted with the party message of “empire patriotism” for BUF members, who went on to join the British armed forces when war did eventually break out.[61]

In closing, the formation of fascism in Britain was a reaction to the events of the interwar period.  Ramsey Macdonald’s response to the economic crisis facing Britain caused many to look to other alternatives, such as Keynesian economics.  For Sir Oswald Mosley, the answer to Britain’s troubles was fascism.  The formation of the British Union of Fascists came as a result of Mosley trying to form a better alternative to the parties in power after feeling that the parliamentary system was too long-winded to address the economic issues.  The party gained support through its hatred of communism and use of anti-Semitism by providing the British public with something to blame for the issues facing the empire.  Though the party was gaining much support from influential institution, like the Church of England, the BUF eventually fell into decline by the mid-thirties because of its growing use of violence.  The established British system and its contradiction in philosophy, made party rhetoric difficult to follow for members.  For this reason the British Union of Fascists makes fascism to be nothing more than a passing movement in British history.

Bibliography

Benewick, Robert. “Interpretations of British Fascism.” Political Studies 24, no. 3 (September 1976): 320-324. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

Di Scala, Spencer M. Europe’s Long History: Society Politics, and Culture, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Lawrence, Jon. “Fascist violence and the politics of public order in inter-war Britain: the Olympia debate revisited.” Historical Research 76, no. 192 (May 2003): 238-267. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

------. “‘Why Olympia mattered’.” Historical Research 78, no. 200 (May 2005): 263-272. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 16, 2014).

Linehan, Thomas. “‘On the Side of Christ’: Fascist Clerics in 1930s Britain.” Totalitarian Movements & Political Religions 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 287-301. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

Martin, Paul. “Contexualising Mosley.” History Today 48, no. 5 (May 1998): 62-63. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 16, 2014).

Worley, Matthew. “Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists.” History 96, no. 321 (January 2011): 68-83. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

---

[1] Spencer M. Di Scala, Europe’s Long History: Society Politics, and Culture, 1900-1945, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 239.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Di Scala, 241.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 243.

[10] Ibid., 242.

[11] Matthew Worley, “Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists,” History 96, no. 321 (January 2011): 72, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[12] Di Scala, 242.

[13] Paul Martin, “Contexualising Mosley.” History Today 48, no. 5 (May 1998): 62. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[14] Worley, 72.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., 72-73.

[19] Ibid. 73.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Worley, 73.

[22] Ibid. 81-82.

[23] Martin, 62.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid., 63.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Thomas Linehan, “‘On the Side of Christ’: Fascist Clerics in 1930s Britain,” Totalitarian Movements & Political Religions 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 287, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[29] Linehan, 287.

[30] Linehan, 289.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid., 297.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Martin, 62.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Linehan, 295.

[43] Ibid., 296.

[44] Robert Benewick, “Interpretations of British Fascism,” Political Studies 24, no. 3 (September 1976): 322, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[45] Benewick, 321.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Jon Lawrence, “Fascist violence and the politics of public order in inter-war Britain: the Olympia debate revisited,” Historical Research 76, no. 192 (May 2003): 245, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[48] Ibid., 244.

[49] Ibid., 245.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid., 238.

[52] Ibid.

[53] Ibid., 246.

[54] Jon Lawrence, “‘Why Olympia mattered’,” Historical Research 78, no. 200 (May 2005): 268, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[55] Jon Lawrence, “‘Why Olympia mattered’,” 268.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Benewick, 322.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Martin, 63.

[61] Ibid.