Militarism, Sport, Europe: War Without Weapons (The European Sports History Review, Volume 5)

THE EUROPEAN SPORTS HISTORY REVIEW Volume 5 Editors and Advisers Executive Academic Editor J.A.Mangan De Montfort Uni...

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THE EUROPEAN SPORTS HISTORY REVIEW Volume 5

Editors and Advisers Executive Academic Editor J.A.Mangan De Montfort University (Bedford) EDITORIAL BOARD Evangelos Albanidis, Democritus University of Thrace Hans Bonde, University of Copenhagen Jean-Michel Delaplace, University of Montpellier Vassil Girginov, University of Luton Giglola Gori, University of Urbino Wojciech Lipo ski, Adam Mickewicz University Henrik Meinander, University of Helsinki Gertrud Pfister, University of Copenhagen Thierry Terret, University of Lyon Wolfgang Weber, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Austria Ingomar Weiler, Karl-Franzens Universität Pieces appearing in this collection are abstracted and indexed in Political Science Abstracts, Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life and Physical Education Index

THE EUROPEAN SPORTS HISTORY REVIEW Volume 5

MILITARISM, SPORT, EUROPE War without Weapons Editor

J.A.Mangan De Montfort University (Bedford)

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First published in 2003 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, OR 97213–3786 Copyright © 2003 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. Website: www.frankcass.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Applied for. ISBN 0-203-50405-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-58190-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-7146-5360-8 (cloth) ISBN 0-7146-8295-0 (paper) ISSN 1462-1495 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Applied for. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

List of Tables

viii

Prologue: Combative Sports and Combative Societies J.A.Mangan

1

1.

From the Battlefield to the Arena: Gladiators, Militarism and the Roman Republic Donald G.Kyle

10

2.

Lasting Legacy? Spartan Life as a Germanic Educational Ideal: Karl Otfried Müller and Die Dorier Orestis Kustrin and J.A.Mangan

29

3.

Ball Games, from the Roman Gentleman to the Renaissance Warrior John McClelland

47

4.

Military Drill—Rather more than ‘Brief and Basic’: English Elementary Schools and English Militarism J.A.Mangan and Hamad S.Ndee

67

5.

‘Pig Sticking is the Greatest Fun’: Martial Conditioning on the Hunting Fields of Empire J.A.Mangan and Callum McKenzie

100

6.

Wartime Opportunities: Ladies’ Football and the First World War Factories Ali Melling

123

7.

Antidote to War: The Balkan Games Penelope Kissoudi

145

8.

Children into Soldiers: Sport and Fascist Italy Roberta Vescovi

169

vi

9.

191 Confronting George Orwell: Philip Noel-Baker on International Sport, Particularly the Olympic Movement, as Peacemaker Peter J.Beck

10.

Compromise and Confrontation: Danish Sport under the Swastika Hans Bonde

212

11.

Cold War Diplomats in Tracksuits: The Fräuleinwunder of East German Sport Gertrud Pfister

226

12.

Fitness ‘Wars’: Purpose and Politics in Communist StateBuilding Vassil Girginov

257

Epilogue: Many Mansions and Many Architectural Styles J.A.Mangan

284

Notes on Contributors

290

Abstracts

293

Select Bibliography

299

Index

310

List of Illustrations

7.1 The Balkans in the Inter-War Period 147 7.2 Dimitrios Dallas, One of the Prime Movers of the Balkan 154 Games’ Establishment 7.3 Michael Rinopoulos with Greek Champions in Zagreb, 1934 155 7.4 The Panathinaikon Stadium in the Early Twentieth Century 158 7.5 Greek Premier Eleftherios Venizelos Entering the 160 Panathinaikon Stadium, 1930 Balkan Games 7.6 The Greatness of Sport: Turkish Racers Congratulate the 161 Greek Sprinter, Balkan Games 1930 7.7 Balkan Athletes Enter the Panathinaikon Stadium Caught in 163 the Light of Torches, Symbol of Peace and fraternity, Balkan Games 1936 9.1 Noel-Baker’s ‘Man of Sport, Man of Peace’ sculpture at the 192 University of Hiroshima, Japan 11.1 The Top Level Sport System of the DDR 236 11.2 The German Gymnastic and Sport Federation (DTSB der DDR) 236

List of Tables

12.1 The Evolution of the Concept of Fitness in Bulgaria, 1949–89 269 12.2 Bulgarian Sports and Fitness ‘Production Units’ and Members 273 Between 1958 and 1988 12.3 Number of Fitness-Badge-Holders During Communist Period 274

Football is war, ballet, drama, terror and joy rolled into one. Headline, Daily Telegraph, 8 June 2002, p. 20. Sport, to us, seemed to mean earnest exercise, and modest sobriety in victory or defeat. To these sepoys it was… warfare, boasting, condescension, triumph, mercy. I began to perceive then, however unclearly, how these men might fight for real, with what raw fury in adversity, with what tears of compassion in relief. Michael Ross, Out of India: A Raj Childhood (London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2001), p. 106. With the growing acknowledgement of the benefits of regular physical exercise for both the individual and the Army, men increasingly began to fill both their leisure hours and some of their working hours with sport. Football was to become a passion in the 1880s and 1990s in the Highland regiments and many men later to be professionals began their playing career in Highland battalion teams. Diana M.Henderson, Highland Soldier: A Social Study of the Highland Regiments 1820–1920 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1989), p. 130. [T]he Prussian cadet…was best known for the ‘military’ qualities he acquired during the carefully planned and deliberately administered socialization process. During his long years in school a cadet learned, foremost, unquestioning obedience to orders. He was inured to physical hardships intentionally to prepare him for the rigors of the campaign. He played sports, not as recreation, but to harden his body and learn the meaning of teamwork. John Moncure, Forging the King’s Sword—Military Education between Tradition and Modernization: The Case of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, 1871–1918 (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), p. 20. Part of Scott’s job was to map the lawless frontiers of this ‘geographical nowhere’.… But he also widened the imperial goal posts in another way; he introduced footballl to Burma

x

where it is today the national sport. The boisterous Burmese loved the game, Scott noted, ‘because it’s just like fighting’. Andrew Marshall, The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of Empire (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2002), pp. 6–7. Along with the idea of Man’s aggressive nature, and from the time of the first Olympic Games, in popular thought and learned circles, we find a recurring hope that sports and warfare might act as alternatives to each other; that possibly our intergroup problems could be resolved on the playing field rather than the battlefield. Richard G.Sipes, ‘War, Sports and Aggression: An Empirical Test of Two Rival Theories’, American Anthropologist, 75(Feb. 1973), 65.

Prologue: Combative Sports and Combative Societies J.A.MANGAN

‘The aim of the realistic novelist’, Guy de Maupassant once claimed, ‘is not to tell a story, to amuse us or to appeal to our feelings but to compel us to reflect, and to understand the darker and deeper meanings of events.’1 Deep, and on occasion dark, aspects of the relationship between war and sport are the themes of Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons. Memory has a special power. Memory, it has been written, resembles a film with sharply focused images, with the set tidily arranged and brightly lit and the script learnt and unchangeable.2 The memory of war3 is one of the most significant ways of shaping national identity: images of sacrifice, heroism, mourning and loss provide symbols of unity in suffering, in sadness, in valediction. Sport, and the memory of sport, while of a different order of individual and collective experience, also has the power to shape national identity. To return to a statement made elsewhere: Sharply focused memories of sporting moments—played or watched—are among the most frequently recalled and infrequently forgotten. Such ‘poetic’ images enjoyed in pensive mood are rooted in particular places and perhaps, above all, in particular things: ‘images which are the life of poetry, cannot be raised in any perfection but by introducing particular objects’: fresh mown grass on an early summer cricket outfield, the smooth new ball—round or oval—of the new season, the first flashing puck sizzling into the winter netting.4 Sporting memories often offer the security of belonging. In the modern world, therefore, war and sport are potent forces in the creation of imagined communities. Both unite individuals in shared ecstasy and despair, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain.

2 MILITARISM, SPORT, EUROPE

In European history war has served sport and sport has served war. To concentrate on one without the other is to be guilty, on occasion, of an incomplete entry in an incomplete ledger—the association is that strong. Military activities have become community recreations and community recreations have become military activities. The one has reinforced the other. More than this, Heroes of sportsfield and battlefield have much in common. They are both viewed as symbols of national prowess, quality and virtue. The warrior and the athlete are crucial to the perceived success of the state. The sportsfield and battlefield are linked as locations for the demonstration of legitimate patriotic aggression. The one location sustains the other and both sustain the image of the powerful nation. Furthermore, the sportsfield throughout history has prepared the young for the battlefield. Throughout history sport and militarism have been inseparable.5 Less often, sport has been an attempted antidote to war—bloodless competition with the purpose of assuaging bitterness, seeking reconciliation, attempting conciliation, pursuing comity. John Gillis in his introduction to The Militarization of the Western World attempts to distinguish between the terms ‘militarization’ and ‘militarism’. He argues that While not all the contributors would make a sharp distinction between militarization and militarism, it is useful to try to explain why the former is the focus of this volume. Militarism is the older concept, usually defined as either the dominance of the military over civilian authority, or, more generally, as the prevalence of warlike values in a society. Militarization, on the other hand, does not imply the formal dominance of the military or the triumph of a particular ideology. Instead, it is defined here as ‘the contradictory and tense social process in which civil society organizes itself for the production of violence’.6 This seems to be splitting hairs and in this volume militarism will subsume Gillis’ ‘militarization’. Certainly, ‘militarism’ must be used with caution, and its meaning in specific contexts made clear, but it is argued here that this is perfectly possible, and to add a close and potentially confusing term to the lexicon is not helpful. ‘Militarism’ is perfectly capable of embracing ‘militarization’ within its meaning— and analytical capacity. It is perfectly capable of exploring ‘the

PROLOGUE 3

relationship between organization for violence and modernity in a sophisticated manner’, arguably in a more sophisticated manner than ‘militarization’, since ‘militarism’ embraces attitudes as well as systems. Furthermore, militarism need not ‘shift blame onto others’, another Gillies’ suggestion.7 It can be simply an analytical term useful in a variety of settings if attuned to those settings. Nor need be it seen, as he further suggests, ‘as something exceptional, archaic, even exogenous to modern society’.8 It is part and parcel of past and present society. It simply requires a modern definition for modern analysis—the one is the precursor of the other. And it simply juggling with assertions to say that ‘militarization’ as distinct from ‘militarism’ should force us to take a long hard look at ourselves, and that it ‘compels’ us to override ‘the conventional distinctions between political, economic, cultural, and social history’.9 Militarism serves these purposes equally well. What both ‘militarization’ and ‘militarism’ do have in common is that neither is ‘a singular, unified process, moving lockstep throughout society’.10 Thus in Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons the definitions of ‘militarism’ and ‘anti-militarism’ are as follows: militarism: a strong concern with military preparation and readiness in the interests of communal survival and success or in the face of a perceived military threat; and anti-militarism: a strong concern with rejecting militaristic attitudes that welcome strong efforts at military preparation and readiness. In European history, militarism, sport and anti-militarism travel together down the decades. This journey, in part and to an extent, is recounted in this volume. It concentrates, lacking unlimited space, selectively, on various aspects of the relationship. It is an eclectic study. Thematic coherence is not the intention. Its pursuit can be a false trail. To travel further with an extended simile—exploration of diverging trails offers different views to those who wish to follow divergent pathways tracing the relationship between sport and war grounded in existential reality. To ensure no one loses their way, this point will be made again in the Epilogue. Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons hopefully will persuade others to take the same journey and augment the evidence, argument and analysis that follows. There is a need to explore the role of sport in martial socialization, in gender construction and in contemporary aggressive androgynous identity. There is a further need to examine to what extent sport is a useful substitute for war—competition without killing—and to what extent, if


at all, it deflects nations from military aggression because of heightened national amour-propre due to sporting success, the satisfactory humiliation of other nations and the reassuring involvement that makes evident a common humanity. Contact through sport, of course, can, and does, have opposite outcomes. Sport reinforces antagonisms bred on battlefields, keeps alive memories of ‘battles long ago’, defeats deep in the past and victories recorded in history books, and as such exacerbates antipathy, fuels hostility and extends dislike. Sport can be sublimated warfare kept alive repeatedly year after year, in ‘conflicts without casualties’ in national stadiums keeping vivid past conflicts with casualties, and perhaps contributing to future conflicts with casualties! What is clear from this volume is the extent to which nations have used, and use, sport as a form of cultural conditioning to project images of desirable masculinity which lead directly to desirable images of martial masculinity. This theme, of course, has been pursued in the series ‘Sport in the Global Society’ in Making European Masculinities, Tribal Identities: Sport, Europe, Nationalism and Shaping the Superman: Fascist Body as Political Icon—Aryan Fascism,11 but the topic is hardly exhausted and much remains to be revealed in its varieties about the relationship between masculinity, nationalism, sport and militarism. Also requiring further inquiry is the response to national educational policies, the discontinuities between policy and practice, the rebuttal of dominant demands and the range of reactions stimulated by perceived and prescribed national policies translated into policy implementation. What is beyond question is that analysis should move on beyond the reductionist comment of Konrad Lorenz: The team spirit inherent in all international sports gives scope to a number of truly valuable patterns of social behaviour which are essentially motivated by aggression, and which, in all probability, have evolved under the selection pressure of tribal warfare at the very dawn of culture. The noble warrior’s typical virtues, such as his readiness to sacrifice himself in the service of a common cause, disciplined submission to the rank order of the group, mutual aid in the face of deadly danger…were obviously indispensable if a small tribe of a type we have to assume for early man was to survive in competition with others. All these virtues are still desirable in modern man, and still command our instinctive respect…. Fortunately there are other ways (apart from war) in

PROLOGUE 5

which the above mentioned admittedly valuable virtues can be cultivated.12 Richard Sipes perhaps has more a convincing, if equally deterministic, argument: The prevalence of combative sport throughout the world…does not require reference to individual innate hunting patterns, aggression, need to excel, or the like. Such sports are components of combative cultural themes, and since warlike societies are widespread so are combative sports. This infers some propensity for consistency in group cognitive and behavioural patterns but such consistency perhaps can best be explained as an outgrowth of group…requirements. It need not reflect any innate propensity in the individual human.13 Is it, as Sipes suggests, the case that society, not instinct, is the key to the relationship between sport and war? What would win the agreement of both Lorenz and Sipes is that, in the words of Phillip Goodhart and Christopher Chataway, ‘the harder and more dangerous forms of sport…all give scope for militant enthusiasm’14 and, of course, scope for more than military enthusiasm— military competence both psychological and physical.15 Goodhart and Chataway, in their always readable if rather superficial tour d’horizon, spoil this intelligent observation by adding the over-sanguine addendum to the effect that dangerous sports allow nations ‘to fight each other in hard and dangerous competence without engendering national or political hatred’.16 They are, unfortunately, rather given to unqualified assertions of this kind: ‘The most important function of sport lies in furnishing a healthy safety valve for that most indispensable and at the same time most dangerous form of aggression…described as… collective militant enthusiasm.’17 If this is so, it is not very obvious: needless to say, sport can inflate this enthusiasm as much as it can deflate it! Another often optimistic assertion is that ‘As the twentieth century devises yet more total means of mass destruction, it is not too fanciful to discern an instinct for self-preservation in the popular passion for representative sport. A kind of warfare perhaps. But war without weapons.’18 What is more to the point is that war will continue to serve sport and sport to serve war well beyond the twentieth century. Sport will serve anti-militarism far less well. The most horrific military confrontation in history—the Great War—stimulated in 1915 only a brief, pitiful, unsuccessful effort to replace war with sport. On


Christmas Day at various locations along the Western Front something resembling football occurred. Private William Tapp of the Warwickshires wrote at Christmas from just above Ploegsteert Wood: ‘We are trying to arrange a football match with them—the Saxons—for tomorrow, Boxing Day.’ Harassing British artillery fire, he claimed later, prevented it. There were other plans for such sadly pathetic competitions, right up to New Year’s Day, once the clearance of corpses from no man’s land had made available space for play.19 Britain in the imperial afternoon and evening provides the clearest evidence of the functional association between sport and war, socialization and militarism. It is defined in this commentary on Edward George Henderson, VC, a public schoolboy in the brash militaristic era of the New Imperialism: Of George Henderson’s life and work at Rossall one can assume that it was hard and regimented with the accent on the physical rather than on the academic disciplines. As in all public schools in that era of the pre-eminence in the world of Britain and her Empire, the qualities of leadership, example and pride in country were the foundation stones on which boys were prepared for positions of authority and responsibility…. Who knows, however, what combination of ideas and pressures made him finally decide on the Army as his career; probably the traditional attractions of sport, travel and a secure society—and some rather uncertain and reserved aspirations to an abstraction loosely defined as ‘glory’…. It is, however, said that, in the years just before the First World War, sixth form masters were in the habit of reminding their pupils that the Germans would have to be fought some day soon. If this was the case at Rossall then perhaps it was the only spur George needed to go for the Army.20 In the era of Britain’s New Imperialism the reason for the reminder was not hard to find: ‘Other things being equal, a society proficient at and prepared for warfare and willing to engage in it has had (until recently) a better chance of surviving and growing than had a society not proficient, ready and willing.’21 Much energy and effort was expended in the period in public schools to produce the Henderson mind-set.22 Noel Malcolm in a masterly review of Geoffrey Parker’s Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe admired Parker’s cogent analysis of the role of military technological invention and innovation in the rise

PROLOGUE 7

of European imperialism but drew from Parker’s essays a conclusion Parker himself failed to draw: Each essay draws its own lessons; an over-all conclusion is not given, but part of it might go something like this. The rise of the West was stimulated by a long process of intensive competition between Western states; this competition produced decisive advances in military technology, and it also strengthened centralising tendencies in the state, but the winners of the competition were those states which worked out how to combine state power with the economic strength of private commerce and investment.23 and Malcolm added shrewdly: Such a bald summary may, however, leave out the most important thing of all: the fact that, in early modern and Enlightenment Europe, people began to think in a different way. Parker only touches on this briefly—in a discussion of the decline of religious war, for example, or in his account of the positive role of religious and moral education. But like any good historian, he knows that some of the most important changes were the ones that went on in hearts and minds, leaving little in the way of quantifiable evidence in the archives.24 It is here that socialization of the young makes its contribution to history. To say this is to play an old tune on an old whistle, but when will the tune be adequately appreciated? While it is certainly not the only one, this tune is an important recitative running through this volume. Parker, incidentally, admires Hugh Trevor-Roper for his insistence that historians should attempt ‘to provide a perspective from the past on present problems’25 and quotes with approval from Trevor-Roper’s 1980 valedictory lecture to Oxford University: Historians of every generation, I believe, unless they are pure antiquaries, see history against the background—the controlling background—of current events. They call upon it to explain the problems of their own time, to give to those problems a philosophical context, a continuum in which they may be reduced to proportion and perhaps made intelligible.26


Trevor Roper’s view is endorsed in Militarism, Sport, Europe. What is the relationship between sport and modern militarism and antimilitarism, sport and modern war and modern peace? These are questions well worth further investigation. It is not a dead but a living relationship. NOTES 1 . Quoted in John Lukacs, At The End of the Age (London: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 81–2. 2 . See J.A.Mangan, Series Editor’s Foreword, in Stephen Weiting (ed.), Sport and Memory in North America (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2001), p. x. 3 . See Martin Evans and Kenn Lunn, War and Memory in the Twentieth Century (London: Bera, 1997), p. 6. 4 . Mangan, Foreword, in Weiting, p. x. 5 . J.A.Mangan, Foreword, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Shaping the Superman: Fascist Body as Political Icon—Aryan Fascism (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999), p. xii. 6 . John R.Gillis (ed.), The Militarization of the Western World (London: Rutgers University Press, 1989), p. 1. 7 . Ibid., p. 3. 8 . Ibid. 9 . Ibid. 10 . Ibid. 11 . See J.A.Mangan (ed.), Making European Mentalities: Sport, Europe, Gender —The European Sports History Review, 2 (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), passim; Mangan (ed.), Shaping the Superman, passim’, J.A.Mangan (ed.), Superman Supreme: Fascist Body as Political Icon—Global Fascism (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), passim. 12 . Quoted in Phillip Goodhart and Christopher Chataway, War Without Weapons (London: W.H. Allen, 1968), p. 146 (emphasis added). 13 . R.C.Sipes, ‘War, Sports and Aggression’, American Anthropologist, 75(Feb. 1973), 80 (emphasis added); J.A.Mangan (ed.), Tribal Identities: Nationalism, Europe, Sport (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 10, 38. 14 . Goodhart and Chataway, War Without Weapons, p. 158. 15 . See J.A.Mangan, ‘Duty unto Death: English Masculinity and Militarism in the Age of the New Imperialism’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Tribal Identity: Nationalism, Europe, Sport (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996). 16 . Goodhart and Chataway, War Without Weapons, p. 146. 17 . Ibid. 18 . Ibid. 19 . Stanley Weintraub, Silent Night: The Remarkable 1914 Christmas Truce (London: Simon and Schuster, 2001), p. 116. 20 . R.King-Clark, George Stuart Henderson: The Story of A Scottish Soldier 1893–1920 (privately printed, 1975), pp. 24–5.

PROLOGUE 9

21 . Sipes, ‘War, Sports and Aggression’, 80. 22 . See J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), Ch. 8, and J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998), Chs. 1, 2. 23 . See Noel Malcolm’s review in Sunday Telegraph, 14 April 2002, Review section, 14. 24 . Ibid. 25 . Geoffrey Parker, Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe (London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, 2002), p. 8. 26 . Quoted in Parker, Empire, War and Faith, p. 8.

1 From the Battlefield to the Arena: Gladiators, Militarism and the Roman Republic DONALD G.KYLE

Even before Russell Crowe’s Maximus suffered and slaughtered his way through Ridley Scott’s epic movie Gladiator in 2000, Roman gladiators were a hot topic. Excellent traditional works had collected sources and detailed the phenomenon earlier, but new works were interpreting the paradoxical significance of the arena in Roman civilization.1 Focusing on gladiatorial combat at Rome under the Republic, this essay will discuss the origin of gladiatorial combats, their relationship to Roman militarism, and the ambivalent attitudes to gladiators in Roman society.2 As gladiatorial entertainment at Rome emerged in the Middle Republic (264–133 BC) and was politicized further in the Late Republic (133–31 BC), the imagery of gladiators evolved in terms of the inconsistency between their base and vile social status and the growing popular appeal of these warriors of the arena. GLADIATORS AND RECENT SCHOLARSHIP The symbolism of gladiators in Roman society has been seen as paradoxical, anomalous, ambiguous, ambivalent and polyvalent. Romans loathed gladiators for their lowly or alien social origins or their heinous crimes, but they also associated them with glory, military discipline and eroticism.3 Little wonder, then, that the Christian writer Tertullian presented the Romans as inconsistent, fickle and confused: Look at their attitude to…gladiators [arenarios], most loving of men, to whom men surrender their souls and women their bodies as well, for whose sake they commit the sins they blame; on one and the same account they glorify them and they degrade and diminish them…. The perversity of it! They love whom they lower; they despise whom they approve; the art they glorify, the artist they disgrace [artem magnificant, artificem notant].4

MILITARISM, SPORT, EUROPE 11

Gladiators might achieve fame, money or freedom by fighting successfully, but even free, former gladiators lived beyond the edge of respectable society. They were glorified by spectators but not wanted as neighbours, magistrates, or in-laws. Like actors, gladiators were branded with the indelible infamy associated with their performances.5 Today, our star athletes can become criminals and yet remain star athletes; in Rome criminals could become star gladiators but still remained criminals. Fascinated by Rome’s fascination with the arena, recent works offer various explanations for the irony and inconsistency in the social symbolism of the gladiator. Applying impressive interpretative and theoretical approaches, studies use the allure, violence and virtues of gladiators to relate the arena to other phenomena (e.g. imperialism, emperorship, sacrifice, political suicide) and to broad social themes (e.g. death, desire, [dis]order).6 Wiedemann presents the arena as a marginal, liminal site where Romans confronted the limits of human mortality in the gladiatorial combat. He feels that the Romans’ ambivalence about gladiators hinges on the gladiator’s possible survival by his fighting ability and bravery. Despised gladiators achieved ‘resurrection’ and passed from social death to reintegration into society, a form of resurrection, Wiedemann suggests, that rivaled the Christian notion of resurrection and inspired Christian opposition to spectacles.7 Plass approaches the arena from an interpretative sociological perspective in terms of the universal problem of social violence and the desire for order and security. He finds the arena’s excessive violence consistent with the antithetical logic of liminal institutions, which incorporate potential dysfunction to assure proper function.8 As socially sanctioned violence and controlled disorder, deaths in the arena addressed social anomaly by incorporating disorder into order, restoring social routine, and (re)affirming security. Futrell sees gladiatorial spectacles as ‘a sacrificial complex’ of empire, in which the re-enactment of suffering and death served as a metaphor for the foundation of Roman imperialism.9 Gladiatorial combat at Rome did begin in association with funerals, but gladiators as sacrificial victims recalls the ancient Christian position that gladiatorial games began as sacrifices to dead ancestors. Seeing all pagan games, from Greek athletics to Roman chariot racing, as idolatry rooted in worship of dead ancestors as gods, Tertullian10 and others are engaged in a cultural discourse between pagans and Christians. Offering a polemic rather than a historical argument, they accuse the Romans of human sacrifice and cannibalism, thus ‘labelling’ them as ‘the other’.

12 FROM THE BATTLEFIELD TO THE ARENA

Historically, however, there is no strong evidence of a regular practice of human sacrifice of gladiators at Rome, and the arena can be seen as a place of sacrifice only in an abstract sense.11 Barton relates the arena to the Romans’ collective psychology during the disturbing transition from Republic to Empire. She suggests that extremes of despair, desire and envy caused Rome’s ‘gladiator madness’, the simultaneous degradation and exaltation of the gladiator. As the arena became the new battlefield for demonstrating virtus, gladiatorial combats became a form of simplified, purified soldiering, and the gladiator’s volunteerism recalled the notion of devotio or ceremonial self-sacrifice. The gladiator achieved an ‘inverse elevation’, an escape from the humiliation of compulsion through enthusiastic complicity, an ‘empowerment’ by collusion with his masters.12 These and other works justifiably see gladiatorial combats as cultural performances;13 but, from rather abstract or intellectual perspectives, they explain the ambivalence about gladiators in terms of liminality, paradox, reflexivity, the gaze, alterity and anomaly.14 They attempt too much—to find the essential nature of violence in Roman society, or to find a general explanation for a pluralistic phenomenon that had different attractions and meanings for different people over the centuries, especially under the Empire. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: MILITARISM AND THE ROMAN REPUBLIC To understand gladiators we must not lump them, and so confuse them, with other performers or victims in the arena—those who hunted or were abused by beasts, or criminals killed in ritualized executions. Recent revisionist scholarship has clarified what a gladiator was, and was not.15 In the fully developed phenomenon, a gladiator (from gladius, sword) was a skilled, trained and armoured weapons fighter who performed in public combats against another gladiator. Even with the well-designed protective armour, militaristic gladiatorial duels involved a significant chance of injury and the possibility of death; but they have been misunderstood as fights, necessarily and sadistically, ‘to the death’. Potter is quite right to see these ‘shows of skill and endurance’ as ‘entertainments’.16 The combats were not war without weapons, but rather war games with weapons—deep and dangerous play indeed. I suggest that we return to a more historically grounded approach. Studies should not leap from the question of early origins to the later fullblown phenomenon of the age from Caesar to Domitian, the first


centuries BC and AD. Scholars agree on dramatic change, institutionalization and virtual monopolization under Augustus, so rather than focusing on gladiators and emperors, we need to understand the rise and development of gladiators before emperors.17 Why did arena games become so popular, so compelling, under the Republic that emperors had to control them? Whatever sophisticated variations of meaning they offer, all studies recognize militaristic imagery as a consistent feature of the appeal of gladiators. Warfare and games are often seen as analogous;18 and with weapons and armour, with training and skill in fighting, with the excitement of combat, gladiators unquestionably had military overtones. Stressing the metaphor of gladiators as soldiers, Hopkins feels that the arena turned war into a game or drama in the ‘domesticated battlefield of the amphitheatre’ set up in memory of Rome’s warrior traditions.19 Both gladiatorial combats and the earliest amphitheatres developed in the context of Roman militarism and imperialism under the Republic. Rome was a warrior state accustomed to violence and cruelty, and violent spectacles escalated with, and symbolized, the territorial expansion of the empire. Various festivals (ludi) began as military thanksgivings, and military triumphs included the presentation of foreign beasts and captives. Stoic and elitist literary sources might criticize the emotionalism of spectators, but they often praised the gladiator’s soldierly discipline and acceptance of death through training.20 Cicero21 declares that, like Roman soldiers of old, gladiators show discipline and a desire above all to please their masters; offering an education for pain and death, they sustain wounds, die with honour and when defeated they offer their necks for the death blow.22 Gladiators supposedly provided emotional conditioning for the soldiercitizen;23 and, as Rome moved from survival to imperial security, fewer Romans were personally involved with military action and hence increasingly fascinated with military virtues (e.g. gravitas, disciplina). There is no doubt that gladiators came to mean a great deal to the Romans, but there is a great deal of doubt and debate about whence and why gladiatorial combat came to Rome. ORIGIN(S), EXPOSURE AND IMPORTATION On the question of origins, older works assumed that Rome adopted gladiators from the Etruscans as a form of funerary human sacrifice turned into a ritual competition.24 As Wiedemann notes, moderns were long willing to blame the ‘oriental’ Etruscans for corrupting the European Romans.25 Sixth-century Etruscan tomb paintings do depict a


blindfolded man with a club being attacked by a large dog and attended by a masked figure named Phersu with a whip or leash. The involvement of a beast and some hindrance or abuse of the victim are intriguing, but it is not clear whether the ‘game of Phersu’ was an execution, sacrifice, contest or performance. There are no certain depictions of gladiators in early Etruscan art, and at most the Phersu game was a precursor to Roman beast combats.26 It is unlikely that gladiatorial combats per se came to Rome solely through Etruscan influence, but the Etruscans did give Romans their preference for foreign, slave or captive performers, and also the notion that good citizens watched rather than performed in public games. Most scholars now favour an early fourth-century (or earlier) Campanian, Sabellian or Osco-Samnite origin for gladiators. Campanian tomb paintings and vase paintings seem more obviously to depict armed single combats—and even referees; and sources refer to combats at Campanian banquets. The motives or status of the fighters cannot be determined with certainty, but Ville argues that Campanian funeral games included gladiatorial fights in which elite volunteers competed for prizes but originally fought only to the point of first bloodshed.27 Some sort of early combats probably did take place; but they were not yet found at Rome, nor were they culturally Roman. Realistically, the origin of Roman gladiatorial combats is probably not a historical question answerable—and verifiable with certainty—in diffusionist terms of a single original location (e.g. Etruria or Campania), a single original context (e.g. funeral contests, vengeance, sacrifice, scapegoats) and a simple linear transmission (e.g. Etruria to Rome).28 Combats, sacrifices and blood sports simply were too widespread in antiquity. Before the first recorded gladiatorial fight in 264 Rome had already been exposed, directly or indirectly, to all the suggested original influences (e.g. rituals of sacrifice and condemnation, grand funerals, Homeric prototypes, single combats, scapegoats, etc.).29 Early Rome already knew other spectacles of death: animals sacrificed in festivals, criminals consecrated to infernal deities and publicly executed, and countless acts of brutality in war. Moreover, the adoption of imported cultural features such as sports and spectacles usually involves cultural adaptation—some cultural ‘discourse’, ‘dialectic’ or ‘negotiation’—and certainly Roman gladiatorial combat became culturally distinctive. Whatever the precursors before and beyond Rome, the best historical approach is to concentrate on the more immediate context of Rome’s adoption, adaptation and development of gladiatorial combats.


Romans became familiar with Campanian gladiatorial combats in 308 BC when the Romans and Campanians won a battle against the Samnites, who fought with plumed helmets and greaves on their left leg. As Livy30 says, after the victory, the Romans adorned the Forum with the captured arms ‘to do honour to the gods; while the Campanians, in consequence of their pride and in hatred of the Samnites, equipped after this fashion the gladiators who furnished them entertainment at their feasts, and bestowed on them the name of Samnites’. The Romans did not immediately adopt Campanian-style gladiatorial entertainments, held at banquets; and Livy seems to imply that the Romans found that custom inappropriate. However, Romans were exposed in 308 to elements of later gladiatorial shows: Samnite gladiatorial armour, staged combats and ‘Samnite’—like later ‘gladiator’—as a hateful insult.31 The earliest recorded gladiatorial combat at Rome was over half a century later, in 264 BC, when the sons of Decimus Junius Brutus gave a gladiatorial show to honour their dead father. This munus—a duty, tribute or obligation to the dead—was a modest affair with only three pairs of gladiators, and it was held in the Forum Boarium, not even in the main Forum.32 This probably was simply a forced combat, possibly to the death; there is no mention of later standard elements (e.g. prizes, crowds, a special facility, training and skills, the appeal—missio—for life or death, possible manumission).33 Perhaps this first combat was simply a trial balloon, a novelty in an age of expansion when Rome was experimenting widely with spectacular entertainments.34 Futrell sees the introduction of gladiators in 264 BC as a ‘morale-boosting’ reform tied to a sense of crisis with the start of the First Punic War, but there was no great panic in 264.35 Despite some senatorial rhetoric, the Romans in 264 could not have known the ultimate, imperial consequences of entering this first overseas war. Also, even with disasters and crises in the First Punic War, it is interesting that our sources do not record any further gladiatorial combats between 264 and 216. The Romans had encountered but not adopted gladiatorial combats in 308 BC, but did so by 264. In the interim much had changed. However déclassé in modern historiography, war and politics were very much on the Roman mind. Rome had completed the conquest of Italy, and the political ‘struggle of the orders’ between the plebeians and patricians was over. The conquest of Italy had spotlighted military leadership, and politically the struggle of the orders ended Rome’s old caste system. Plebeians were becoming consuls, they dominated the Tribal Assembly and by 287 they could legislate; but Rome did not


become egalitarian nor did its elite welcome upward mobility in politics. The Roman elite readjusted politically and went on to reformulate itself as the ‘nobles’ (nobiles), a class of descendants of office-holders. No longer able to rely simply on birth, this elite restored the deferential tendencies of the masses by competitive demonstrations of their worthiness for leadership. The provision of military displays in triumphs, beast shows and munera at funerals became essential features of popular politics; and, as it expanded overseas, Rome also was culturally influenced by the spectacular entertainments of the Hellenistic world.36 CANNAE AND THE IDEOLOGY OF ELEVATION A crucial stage in the peculiarly Roman construction of the gladiator took place in the wake of Hannibal’s defeat of Rome at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC. When Cannae brought a national crisis of both mass despair and depleted manpower, the Senate declined a Carthaginian offer to ransom Roman freeborn prisoners of war from Cannae. Livy tells us that, instead, Rome proclaimed a new levy of troops and even turned to using slaves: They ordered that armour and weapons should be made ready, and took down from the temples and porticoes the ancient spoils of enemies. The levy wore a strange appearance, for, owing to the scarcity of free men and the need of the hour, they bought, with money from the treasury, 8,000 young and stalwart slaves and armed them, first asking each if he were willing to serve. They preferred these slaves for soldiers, though they might have redeemed the prisoners of war at less expense.37 The slave volunteers swore an oath to serve courageously as long as the enemy was in Italy. Rome preferred slaves, selected for their fighting potential and equipped with the dedicated spoils of earlier wars, to free men who had already surrendered and broken their oaths.38 Roman tradition stressed a hierarchical social order based on freedom, landownership and military service, but Cannae forced Rome to appreciate that even slaves—selected and sanctified by a voluntary oath —could serve Rome, like gladiators later, by fighting and by inspiring others to military virtue. Cannae crystallized the ideology of military virtue, of enlistment, endurance and elevation that Rome traditionally expected of its soldiers in battle and came to demand of gladiators in the arena. By his victory,


and possibly by staging his own combats, Hannibal strengthened Rome’s desire to demonstrate publicly that poor fighters would be punished and good soldiers, of whatever origin, would be rewarded.39 Cannae left a legacy of insecurity, a need for reassurance through brutality,40 a willingness to see moral exempla beyond the ranks and an approval for the elevation of the lowly by demonstration of martial virtus and amor mortis. According to Roman mores, those who contributed to the needs of the state—as soldiers or as gladiators— earned privileges. After Cannae, Romans embraced the notions of elevation and missio crucial to the later gladiatorial paradox. The arena’s military morality plays reenacted the lessons of Cannae: gladiators faced death in the arena like those slave volunteers and like the heroes who died in battle.41 After Cannae gladiatorial spectacles at Rome escalated dramatically: 22 pairs in 216 BC, 25 pairs in 200, 60 pairs in 183.42 The imagery suited an age of continuing and expanding warfare, warfare that provided a ready supply of POWs to turn into slaves and gladiators. On the decline of morality after 146 due to excessive prosperity, Florus43 says the excessive size of slave establishments led to servile wars: ‘How else could those armies of gladiators have risen against their masters, save that a profuse expenditure, which aimed at winning the common people by indulging their love of shows, had turned what was originally a method of punishing enemies into a competition of skill?’ Of course the shows were spectacularly appealing and politically effective. In 122 Gaius Gracchus, seeking popular support as tribune, took down the barriers built around an arena in the Forum for a gladiatorial show and opened spectatorship without payment to all Romans.44 Politicians responded to the people’s desire to watch gladiators, and performances developed a hierarchy of craft or entertainment value, with gladiators as star attractions. GLADIATORS AND SOLDIERS With the escalation of gladiatorial combats, the fighters’ virtues and skills became more appreciated and the worlds of the gladiator and soldier were increasingly correlated, especially after 105 BC. The Roman defeat at Arausio by the Cimbri and Teutones in 105 was the worst since Cannae, and the Romans in crisis turned to Marius and to gladiatorial instructors. The consul Rutilius Rufus began the practice of using gladiatorial trainers to instruct landless army recruits.45 An experimental archaeologist, Junkelmann, details the military equipment and the paramilitary training and organization of gladiators under the


Republic. As he notes, ‘there was no clear distinction between the equipment of soldiers and gladiators in the pre-Augustan period’.46 Furthermore, Welch has tied the spread of gladiatorial shows and amphitheatres to military training and the interests of military veteran colonists in the first century BC. Rejecting the usual interpretation of the amphitheatre as a Campanian invention, she makes a convincing argument that the form of amphitheatres spread from the Roman Forum to Campania and elsewhere with the establishment of military colonies. She feels the amphitheatre at Pompeii of around 70 BC was made specifically for veteran colonists, and that such amphitheatres made statements about Roman power and cultural distinctiveness.47 Ironically, it is probable that Rome borrowed gladiators from Campania, Romanized their ideology and operation, designed a specialized facility and then exported the whole system back to Campania, as it later exported gladiatorial spectacles and amphitheatres throughout the Empire.48 It is important, however, to clarify that, while Romans associated with the military prowess of gladiators, they did not see gladiators as ‘Roman’ soldiers. The gladiators themselves were seen as threatening outsiders, ‘others’—not the ideal, patriotic, landholding citizen-soldiers of early Rome. One scholar has suggested that gladiators represented anti-soldiers.49 The earliest gladiators at Rome probably were prisoners of war forced to fight with their own equipment in their own ethnic style. The main early ‘types’ of gladiators (Samnites, Thracians and Gauls) were named after historical military foes of early Rome. Rome had fought and defeated such enemies, but old fears and distrust persisted. There was no Roman ‘type’ of gladiator because producers would not have risked the possible defeat of a fighter symbolizing Rome. Gladiatorial combats were carefully arranged with well-matched opponents to provide the entertaining element of suspense and unpredictability essential to ‘sport’. The fights were not fixed, and crowds would not have tolerated watching a ‘Roman’ gladiator being defeated.50 Moreover, Roman citizens were not supposed to fight in the arena, for proper Romans were not to display their skills and bodies for the entertainment and pleasure of others. The Romans’ role was to produce the shows, control the performers and decide whether they had fought adequately enough to be spared. Romans identified not with the actual individual, a lowly, despicable foreigner,51 but rather with the skills and virtue that Rome gave to him through training and demanded from him—or else. Spartacus, when his gladiators’ revolt turned into the slave war of 73– 71 BC, was Rome’s worst nightmare. Whatever his origins, Spartacus


was trained by Rome as a gladiator, and he and other skilled warriors became rebel soldiers against Rome—the complete perversion of 216, when slaves were trained by Rome to be soldiers for Rome.52 Although the war was initially disdained as merely a matter of slaves and gladiators, Rome grudgingly had to respect the virtues of Spartacus’ army.53 Florus says Spartacus’s men fought to the death as befitted men led by a gladiator, and that Spartacus died bravely ‘as became a general’.54 Rome’s ambivalence about gladiators was like Rome’s ambivalence about its greatest enemies: Rome wanted to crush and dominate them but they were granted respect for their military skills and fighting spirit.55 CAESAR AND AUGUSTUS: EXPANSION AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION In the first century BC rival generals expanded and conflated existing spectacles and imported or invented variations to court popular support. In theory or pretext, munera under the Republic continued to be associated with funerary honours, but aspiring politicians clearly saw violent spectacles as politically expedient and even necessary. Great generals, such as Sulla and Pompey, put on grander and more complex shows, using funeral and triumphal honours and the festival calendar as excuses. In another age of experiment in entertainment and popular culture, the careers of Caesar and Augustus were crucial to the further development of gladiators and other blood sports under the Empire.56 Fully appreciating the political potential of the arena, Caesar broke the restriction of gladiatorial munera to funerals, and he expanded and experimented with diverse spectacles (e.g. naumachiae and other mock battles). For his own ambition, but also for the stability of Rome in the crucial transition from Republic to Empire, Augustus took control of the arena. As in so many other dimensions of life at Rome, Augustus set up the system and the message of the Principate, a message of control but also one of imperial patronage and attentiveness. As Wiedemann has argued, Augustus monopolized the symbolic value of munera for the principate; he institutionalized and centralized munera on an official basis with legislation, imperial gladiatorial schools and an imperial administration, and he expanded and dispersed these spectacles of death through the emperor cult.57 In terms of standardization of rules, equipment, procedures, and facilities through some centralized authority, Augustus can be said to have institutionalized gladiatorial combats as a national (and imperial)


Roman ‘sport’—a brutal blood sport, yes, but a professional spectator sport nonetheless. Central new features here—the collapse of a functional republic, and the monopolization of politics and spectacles by emperors—added new dimensions to the cultural significance of the arena. That significance, the links between the emperor and Romanitas and gladiators and arenas, was exported throughout the Empire. However impressive the architectural remains or the imperial bureaucracy behind the spectacles in the Christian era, we must not overlook the early emergence and formulation of gladiatorial combats. Those early developments were tied to a broader context of war: anxiety persisting from Cannae, the use of military captives as performers and the growing appreciation of their impressive and entertaining military virtues in the arena. CONCLUSION: A ROMAN ENTERTAINMENT The origin of gladiators at Rome will continue to be debated, influenced by scholars’ definitions and predispositions, without complete consensus or resolution. Also, scholars will continue to plumb the depths of the meaning of gladiators in sophisticated ways, again without any likely resolution because the phenomenon obviously became multifaceted by the time of the Empire. This essay has focused historically on the early centuries of the phenomenon as it developed both in activity and cultural significance under the Republic. Rather than pursuing gladiatorial predecessors, we should concentrate on how staged militaristic duels became particularly Roman entertainments. Historically, the symbolic dynamics of the gladiatorial combat—what its actions and participants meant to the Romans beyond the demonstration of the status of the provider—cannot be separated from the military and political contexts of the Middle and Late Republic. ‘Gladiators’ were introduced at Rome in 264, perhaps as a novelty, but they became understood in Roman terms after 216; and they became more and more appreciated, however ambivalently, under the Republic until they were institutionalized by Augustus. Sociologically, the origins of the gladiators themselves in Rome under the Republic are as significant as the origins of the combats before Rome. The earliest gladiators in Rome probably were prisoners of war from the battlefield, the best source of supply for the arena. Violent criminals and unmanageable slaves might be chosen for gladiatorial training, but foreign soldiers made the best gladiators. Complete social outsiders without rights or privileges, captives with some training and experience were routed through slavery, a dehumanization as ‘the other’,


undergoing further training and conditioning to become combative but controlled performers in Roman arenas.58 As the Roman Republic remained engaged in wars almost continuously, and as elitist or ambitious leaders utilized gladiators in shows with increasing numbers and frequency, Romans became knowledgeable and attentive sports ‘fans’ who recognized skilled performances. Appreciating gladiators as models of martial virtue and as specialized providers of mass entertainment, Romans gave them increased privileges, even fame and wealth. Death and victory were probably the only options for the first gladiators, but later gladiators were granted improved chances of survival. Sparing losers probably arose as a way for spectators to express appreciation or as an economic measure by producers not wanting to waste valuable resources.59 The first reference to awarding the rudis—the wooden sword symbolizing release from the arena—is from Cicero.60 By his time gladiators were essential stars in Rome’s entertainment industry. The emergence and specialization of gladiators from 264 to the first century BC is an example of ‘structural differentiation’.61 Despite their early and continuing vile social origins, gladiators were becoming ‘professionals’ who were trained, talented and recompensed (by contracted wages or prizes won). They were specialized weapons fighters, expert craftsmen who bound themselves by a sacred oath to train, suffer and fight with decorum until killed or released. The status of the actors and the virtues of the actions became increasingly inconsistent with the sociology—the origins and social status—of that group. Hence the symbolic paradox of the gladiator: the elevation, glamour and privileges given to debased men. The root of the ambivalence was the enduring disjunction between the Roman view of the type of people who were gladiators—an aboriginal and constant stigma—and the growing status, privileges and glory won by professional gladiators. If they put on a good show, they might escape the arena but they never escaped the stigma of their origins or of their profession. Tertullian misunderstood the origins and rituals of the pagan arena, but he was right about the ambivalent feelings of Romans about gladiators. As he said, Romans loved the art (the orchestrated performances of virtue and skill) but continued to hate the artist (the threatening, guilty outsider). NOTES 1 . See recent review articles, e.g. K.Welch, ‘Recent Work on Amphitheatre Architecture and Arena Spectacles’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 14(2001),


2

3

4 5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

492–8; D.Kyle, ‘Rethinking the Roman Arena: Gladiators, Sorrows, and Games’, Ancient History Bulletin, 11(1997), 94–7. . This article expands on materials in my Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 1998) [hereafter Kyle], with updating in light of recent scholarship. Abbreviations of ancient sources herein follow the format of the Oxford Classical Dictionary; translations are from the Loeb Classical Library. I thank J.A.Mangan for inviting me to publish this piece. . G.Ville, La Gladiature en Occident des origines a la morte de Domitien (Rome: Palais Farnèse, 1981), pp. 228–55, 329–44, discusses the paradoxical social position of gladiators and stresses the profound ‘ambivalence’ of the gladiator as virtuous fighter and walking dead man. Also see R.Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972), pp. 19–45; T.Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 102–27. C.A.Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 1–81, investigates the symbolism of gladiators in depth, and, pp. 12–13, collects various comments, e.g. Pliny Pan. 33; Ps. Quintilian Decl. Maj. 9.21.1. . Tertullian De spect. 22, Loeb. . As a moral stigma and a legal status of diminished rights for citizens, infamia also applied to actors, criminals, prostitutes and debtors. See C.Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 98–136, on Rome’s ambivalence towards actors and the theatre. . K.Hopkins, ‘Murderous Games’, in Death and Renewal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1–30, suggests understanding arena spectacles, among other things, as ‘political theatre’, as by-products of warring traditions, as a ‘psychic and political safety valve’ for the release of tensions, as dramatic reconfirmations of the emperor’s power and as ritual reestablishments the moral and political order. . Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 34–8, sees the combats not as a public display of killing but as a ‘demonstration of the power to overcome death’: dying by the sword the gladiator, in a sense, overcomes death, and the gladiators’ deaths provide consolation for spectators gathered to honour the death of a great man with games. . P.Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and Political Suicide (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), applies Girard’s theory of violence, the ideas of V. Turner on liminoid states, and Van Gennep’s model of a three-stage process through which societies deal with threats. For similar arguments about punitive aspects of arena spectacles, see Kyle, pp. 76–127. . A.Futrell, Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1997). . E.g. De spect. 12. . See J.Rives, ‘Human Sacrifice among Pagans and Christians’, Journal of Roman Studies, 85 (1995), 65–85; Kyle, pp. 36–40. . Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, pp. 14–16, 20–2, 59, 81.


13 . J.C.Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas: Gladiatorial Presentations in the City of Rome and the Construction of Roman Society during the Early Empire’, in W.J.Slater (ed.), Roman Theater and Society (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 69–112, approaches ‘gladiatorial presentations’ as ‘cultural performances’ at which emperors and participants (both in the stands and the arena) could make ‘dynamic contributions’ to the active construction of Roman cultural values and social relationships. 14 . Focusing on the meaning of the arena for the elite classes in the early Empire, E.Gunderson, ‘The Ideology of the Arena’, Classical Antiquity, 15 (1996), 113–51, feels that ‘Nearly every major theme of the Roman power structure was deployed in the spectacles: social stratification; political theater; crime and punishment; representations of civilization and empire; repression of women and exaltation of bellicose masculinity’ (149). Applying Foucault’s Panopticon, Gunderson suggests that the arena was a ‘social organ of sight’; and, applying ideas from Louis Althusser, he presents the arena as an ‘ldeological State Apparatus in Rome, and hence a vehicle for the reproduction of the relations of production’ (117). 15 . See D.S.Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, in D.S.Potter and D.J.Mattingly (eds.), Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 256–325, on categories of entertainers, especially pp. 303–24 on gladiators. 16 . On the actual techniques and conduct of the combats, see Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, pp. 311–16, and now M.Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria: The Heroes of the Amphitheatre’, in E.Köhne and C.Ewigleben (eds.), Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000) [hereafter Junkelmann], pp. 31–74, especially pp. 40–43, 64–9. 17 . Junkelmann, p. 35, admits that there is less evidence for the early centuries, but he says it would be wrong to assume that gladiatorial combat was the same under the Republic and Empire, ‘since a rapid and fundamental change in the equipment and classification of gladiators seems to have occurred around the beginning of the imperial period. In many respects it was Augustus who gave the gladiatorial system…its final form.’ 18 . In his classic work, Homo Ludens: The Study of the Play Element in Culture (1938, repr. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1950), pp. 9–10, 89–104, J.Huizinga sees games as surrogate war, agonistic struggles as a means of reconciliation with defeat and death. 19 . Hopkins, ‘Murderous Games’, pp. 1–3, 5, 29. 20 . Shows in the arena faced no widespread opposition in Roman society. There was no modern sense of compassion or humanitarian distress about intentional violence against humans, or even animals. See Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 128–53; M.Wistrand, Entertainment and Violence in Ancient Rome: The Attitudes of Ancient Writers of the First Century AD (Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1992), pp. 15–29. 21 . Cicero Tusc. 2.17.41. 22 . Willing to die with integrity: e.g. Seneca Dial. 2.16.2, Ep. 30.8; Cicero Phil. 3.14.35.


23 . Epictetus, Diss. 1.29.37, claims imperial gladiators, resentful if not selected, offered prayers and pressured officials to be allowed to fight. Pliny, Pan. 33.1, claims that in Trajan’s games even slaves and criminals showed a desire for praise and victory, and thus inspired Romans to endure honourable wounds and to disdain death. On the educational value of gladiatorial spectacles, i.e. as in inspiration to military virtue, as a theme in Seneca and works of the first century AD, see Wistrand, Entertainment and Violence, pp. 14, 28, 75– 9. 24 . Athenaeus, 4.153f–154a, Loeb, quotes Nicolaus of Damascus on Roman gladiatorial fights during banquets: ‘The Romans staged spectacles of fighting gladiators not merely at their festivals and in their theatres, borrowing the custom from the Etruscans, but also at their banquets.… Some would invite their friends to dinner…that they might witness two or three pairs of contestants in gladiatorial combat.… No sooner did one have his throat cut than the masters applauded with delight at this feat.’ Note, however, that Athenaeus mentions this within an eclectic discussion (4.153e–154d) of deadly combats and games among Campanians, Celts or Mantineans (as well as Etruscans), and he also mentions duels, self-sacrifice for prizes, a Thracian game involving a noose and a knife and more esoterica. 25 . Etruscan origins are accepted e.g. by Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization, pp. 248–9; and J. Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975; orig. 1941), p. 208. On Suetonius De Regibus, see Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, p. 8, n. 32. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, p. 33, says the ascription of an Etruscan origin ‘has to be explained as a result of Roman ambivalence about the games, and not vice-versa’. 26 . Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 2–6, feels that this contest (agon) was an element in funeral games, and that the object was to spill blood and not to kill the man. On three depictions of Phersu in Etruscan tomb frescoes, see J.P.Thuillier, Les Jeux athlétique dans la civilization Étrusque (Rome: Palais Farnése, 1985), pp. 124, 267, 338–40, 587–90, who argues that the game of Phersu is not a gladiatorial combat, that the munus came to Rome from the south, and that the Phersu figure was acting as an executioner in an Etruscan version of exposing a doomed victim to a beast. To assist her interpretation of the arena as a sacrificial site, Futrell, Blood in the Arena, pp. 12–19, tries to revive the idea of an Etruscan origin but the physical evidence for Campania is simply more persuasive. 27 . See Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 7, 19–42; Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 30–34; K. Welch, ‘The Roman Arena in Late-Republican Italy: A New Interpretation’, J. Roman Arch., 7(1994), 59–80, at 59 and n. 3; Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, pp. 305–6. 28 . J.Mouratidis, ‘On the Origin of the Gladiatorial Games’, Nikephoros, 9 (1996), 111–34, suggests that forms of gladiatorial combat originated in early Greece and passed via Greek colonization to Campania and ultimately to Rome. There were armed duels and single combats in Greek history (as in Homer’s Iliad, Bk. 23), but going back to early Greece just raises the question of where the Greeks might have picked up such customs. The same methodological problems (e.g. definition, distinctiveness, Ur-origin) pertain to the origins of Greek sport as well.


29 . Welch, ‘The Roman Arena’, 59, n. 3, says the origin of gladiatorial combat is a ‘vexed (and probably unanswerable) question…the Romans themselves did not have the answer’. 30 . Livy 9.40.17. 31 . Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 33–4, surveys theories about the original gladiatorial context and feels that Rome borrowed gladiatorial combats from Campania. He suggests that Rome’s motives for adoption may have differed from the original purpose of munera elsewhere. 32 . Livy Epit. 16; Valerius Maximus 2.4.7. 33 . Unfortunately the reference from Livy survives only in summary form in the Epitomae. Compare his remarks, 7.2.13, on the introduction of theatrical spectacles, which he says started out in a small way but became extravagant. 34 . Note that Valerius Maximus, 2.4.7, says that Scaurus added a ‘contest of athletes’ to the ceremonies in 264. The first display of animals, elephants captured in warfare shown by a general, had taken place in Rome in 275 (Seneca De brev. vit. 13.3), and in 270 Rome held a public execution of rebel soldiers in the Roman Forum (Polybius 1.7.12). 35 . Futrell, Blood in the Arena, pp. 21–4. 36 . Köhne, in Köhne and Ewigleben, p. 10, notes that the third century was an age of great expansion and experimentation in spectacles: wars in Italy and against Carthage brought resources and exposure to Hellenistic and other cultures, votive entertainments were promised to gods, and generals staged lavish triumphal displays of plunder, exotic beasts and captives. On the influence of Hellenistic world on Roman ‘spectacles’, defined very broadly, see various essays in B.Bergmann and C.Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999). Bergmann’s ‘Introduction’, pp. 9–36, supports the current argument that performance culture changed in the fourth century, that Hellenistic kings used politicized spectacles in more elaborate and sophisticated ways, that a theatrical mentality emerged, and that Roman leaders learned this ‘art of spectacle’ as Rome encountered Hellenistic kingdoms. 37 . Livy 22.57.9–12, Loeb. Valerius Maximus, 7.6.1, comments that Rome now turned to slaves even though before it had rejected free men without property as soldiers. 38 . Livy, 22.38.1–5, points out that in 216 immediately before Cannae the military oath was changed from a voluntary agreement not to desert the field of battle into a mandatory and legally binding oath formally made before the military tribune. The oath gave commanders the power to put deserters and disobedient soldiers to death without trial. 39 . To teach his men glory of victory or death in battle rather than in captivity, in 218 Hannibal invited prisoners captured in the mountains to use Gallic weapons and to flght duels with the possibility of death or freedom, and thus avoid death as a slave or captive: Livy 21.42–3; Polybius 3.62–3. 40 . The news of Cannae brought panic and religious fervour: Livy, 22.61.1–3; Plutarch Fab. 18.3. Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome, pp. 29–45, sees the taste for brutal games as a function of tensions and insecurity in Roman history. Gladiatorial violence, which evoked and exorcized military danger and built morale, became stylized into a celebration of civic power.


41 . Livy, 22.51.5–8, describes the battlefield at Cannae strewn with corpses; some soldiers, still alive but incapacitated with their thighs and tendons slashed, bared their necks and throats (i.e. for the death blow); some committed suicide by burying their heads in holes they dug in the ground. 42 . In 216 BC, 22 pairs of gladiators fought in funeral games for Marcus Aemilius Lepidus given by his sons in the Roman Forum (Livy 23.30.15); in 200 BC, 25 pairs fought in funeral games for Marcus Valerius Laevinus (Livy 31.50.4); in 183 BC, 120 gladiators appeared at the funeral of Publius Licinius (Livy 39.46.2). 43 . Florus 1.47.10, Loeb. 44 . Plutarch C.Gracch. 12.3–4. 45 . Valerius Maximus 2.3.2. From the school of Aurelius Scaurus (consul 108) at Capua, the earliest recorded private gladiatorial school, the instructors taught skills and also possibly the virtue of facing death without surrendering. Vegetius, Mil. 1.11, asserts the importance of training with weapons at stakes for both soldiers and gladiators. Welch, ‘The Roman Arena’, pp. 62–5, argues that gladiatorial instruction continued on a regular basis in the postMarian army. A fifth-century AD writer, Ennodius (Panegyricus dictus regi Theodorico 213.25, ed. Vogel), claims the consuls of 105, Rutilius and Manlius, put on the first publicly sponsored gladiatorial games to give common Romans a sense of the battlefield. As Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 46–7, and Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 6–7, correctly note, this was not an institutionalization of state munera. 46 . See Junkelmann, pp. 31–8. ‘Gladiator’ itself comes from gladius, the ‘Spanish sword’ used by Roman soldiers from the late third century BC. As Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, pp. 315–16, notes, gladiators’ prizes sometimes included lances and torques, traditional rewards for military valour. 47 . Welch, ‘The Roman Arena’, 59–80; also see her ‘Roman Amphitheatres Revived’, J.Roman Arch. 4 (1991), 272–81, especially 274–7. Welch, ‘The Roman Arena’, 80, concludes that ‘The stone amphitheatre was born during a time of military activity and cannot, therefore, be explained as a substitute for warfare or as a symptom of collective ennui.… The Romans’ interest in the arena had much to do with their conception of themselves as a military people, that is, their conception of what it meant to be Roman.’ 48 . Junkelmann, p. 31: ‘Gladiatorial combat was not invented by the Romans, but Rome developed all the essential features of the system, bringing it to the state of perfection it had reached around the beginning of the present era. It can therefore be correctly considered a specifically Roman form of competitive sport—if such a euphemism may be used.’ 49 . J.Maurin, ‘Les Barbares aux arénes’, Ktèma, 9(1984), 103–11, feels that gladiators fighting with barbarian weapons symbolized types of barbarians in stark contrast to the Roman infantryman as a proper military model. 50 . On gladiatorial types and equipment under the Republic, see Junkelmann, pp. 31–8. Junkelmann, p. 74, explains that naumachiae never had Roman themes or sides, because a Roman defeat would have been unacceptable. 51 . Junkelmann, p. 45, notes that the use of new visored helmets under the Empire gave fighters a ‘threateningly anonymous appearance’.


52 . In another inversion, Spartacus, according to Florus, 2.8.9, cited by Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, p. 183, n. 29, honoured his fallen officers with funerals ‘like those of Roman generals, and ordered his captives to fight at their pyres, just as though he wished to wipe out all his past dishonour by having become, instead of a gladiator, a giver of gladiatorial shows’. 53 . Appian B Civ. 1.118; Florus 1.4.7.5, 2.8.12. 54 . Florus 2.8.14. 55 . Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, pp. 323–4, notes the continuing ambiguity between Romans respect for gladiators’ aristocratic, military virtues and their fear and loathing for the actual individuals. As Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, p. 27, explains, Rome’s ambivalence about gladiators also related to continuing anxiety about maintaining control over them. During the conspiracy of Catiline in 63 BC the Senate was fearful that gladiators might be recruited to join the revolt. 56 . On Caesar’s games, see Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 68–71, 93–4. On Caesar and Augustus, see Kyle, pp. 50–52. For a recent survey of Caesar and Augustus as masters of shows of all kinds, from the circus, arena and stage to the political platform, see R.C.Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments of the Early Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 74–154. 57 . Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 40–46. Augustus limited others’ shows to 120 gladiators (Dio 54.2.3–4) and he himself gave eight shows with a total of 10,000 gladiators (Mon. Anc. 22.1). Junkelmann, p. 51, notes major changes in gladiatorial spectacles around the time of Augustus: some types died out (e.g. Gauls) and others developed (e.g. Provocatores), and there was more standardization of equipment and procedures. On the meaning of Augustus’ ban on munera sine missione (Suetonius Aug. 45.3, Ner. 4), see Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, p. 119; Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 403–5; and now Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, p. 307, who defines them as combats in which missio was not permitted without a clear victory. On imperial legislation about munera, see Ville, pp. 121–3; Wiedemann, pp. 132–5. 58 . Tertullian, De spect. 12, says early gladiators were ‘captives or slaves of criminal status (mali status)’; Servius Ad Aen. 3.67 says captives fought at funerals. On the supply or recruitment of gladiators, see Kyle, pp. 79–90. Veteran freedmen gladiators often did contract themselves out as auctorati, essentially contract gladiators or free agents. However, too much has been made of volunteer or dilettante gladiators. Out of need, curiosity or obsession, a few free citizens contracted themselves out as gladiators, but they received disproportionate attention from elitist, moralistic sources. See Kyle, pp. 87–9. 59 . Elite gladiators had a chance, perhaps a good chance, of survival. Inscriptions often refer to ties and even losses, so many fights must not have been to the death. Certainly many gladiators survived the arena to freedom and to retirement. Discussions of gladiators’ chances of survival include Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 318–25; Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators, pp. 119–22; Kyle, pp. 85–6; Junkelmann, pp. 69–70.


60 . Cicero Phil. 2.29.74, a metaphorical use of gladiatorial retirement; see Ville, La Gladiature en Occident, pp. 325–9. 61 . See K.Hopkins, ‘Structural Differentiation in Rome 200–31 BC: the Genesis of an Historical Bureaucratic Society’, in I.M.Lewis (ed.), History and Social Anthropology (London: Tavistock Publications, 1986), pp. 63–79. Usually applied to political and administrative changes as societies make the transition to a market economy, the pattern of ‘the institutionalization of spheres of conduct which had previously been relatively undifferentiated’ can be applied to gladiators. Similarly, early cooks had the status of the lowest slaves but in the second century BC they came to acquire prestige. What had been scorned became acclaimed as an art. See E. Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), pp. 50–51.

2 Lasting Legacy? Spartan Life as a Germanic Educational Ideal: Karl Otfried Müller and Die Dorier ORESTIS KUSTRIN and J.A.MANGAN

For many nineteenth-century Germans, the classical Greeks held a position of honour and were inspirational. The Hellenic tradition represented a moral vision and thus had relevance for the whole of German society. The attraction was the clarity to view life in terms of an idealism that could be attained within an established tradition. Thus, the revival of classical Greek antiquity was viewed as part of a developmental process. The progress of the nation was seen as a transformation only possible along essentially classical lines. Among those who promoted this view was Karl Otfried Müller. The life and works of Karl Otfried Müller, one of the most innovative, famous and influential German scholars of his time, reveal a combination of Christian beliefs and classical ideas as the vital ingredients of civilized life. Müller was a pupil of August Boeckh (1785– 1867), was influenced by B.G.Niebuhr (1776–1831) and adhered to the so-called Totalitätsideal. Both romanticist and classicist, he contributed greatly to specifying the contrast between the Dorians and Athenians within a framework that defined national character. In Die Dorier (The Dorians) of 1824, a major work, he set out the many assets of the Dorians: their environment, clothing, manner of thinking, vivacity, politics and, most importantly, their language which, in his view, never found its equal. For Müller, the Dorians possessed the highest human qualities. They had honour and liberty and patriotism. Müller was so inspired by them that he created his own ‘Doric’ way of life. Later theories of culture, like those of Gobineau and Spengler, tended to operate on a global plane, explaining the origins and development of world cultures ethically, through recording debates on values; educationally, through analysing the nature of contemporary societies: and psychologically, through locating different types of ‘character’. Furthermore, after Müller, during the remainder of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, classical civilization

30 SPARTAN LIFE AS A GERMANIC EDUCATIONAL IDEAL

as a rich repository of inspirational cultural motifs progressively degenerated into a narrow-minded nationalist militarism. In educational methods and consequent military efficiency, the Dorians had much in common with the Prussians. With this cultural conjunction, the Dorians were attractive to the German people. With the result that by the 1930s, Die Dorier was cut off from its traditional context in order to serve right-wing political assumptions rather than to revive an interest in Müller’s ideas. Education, of course, was only one, but an important, aspect of Müller’s total historical work. Like many German radicals of his generation and later, Müller was no militaristic fanatic; nevertheless from a consideration of Müller’s views, it may become clear why Sparta eventually became a model for many later Germans. LIFE AND WORK It seems best initially to present a short and straightforward portrait of Karl Otfried Müller. The best fuller introductions, incidentally, to Müller are by H.J.Gehrke (1991) and W.M.Calder III and R.Schlesier (1998).1 In addition, Karl Otfried Müller’s correspondence has been published in the classic volumes edited by O. and E.Kern and S.Reiter.2 Müller was born on 28 August 1797 in Brieg, Silesia. He was the first child of Karl Daniel Müller, a pastor, and his wife Juliane. He was raised in a Lutheran family where he received a liberal stimulus to an intellectual life. Initially, he was educated by his father and later attended the gymnasium in his home town from 1806 to 1814. In 1809, however, the Müllers moved to nearby Ohlau. In 1814, at the age of 16, he began the study of ancient and modern languages (Italian, Arab and Hebrew), theology and philosophy at the University of Breslau. He also attended lectures on history (the Middle Ages and Reformation) and natural sciences (anthropology, botany, geography). Among his teachers were the philologists Friedrich Schmieder (1770–1838), Ludwig Fr.Heindorf (1774–1816), Franz Passow (1786–1833), and in particular Gottfried G Bredow (1773– 1814) and Henrik Steffens (1773–1845). Müller demonstrated on a number of occasions his outstanding knowledge of Latin. For Müller, languages represented the manifestation of an inner character and nature. His interest in languages was developed by reading the works of Schiller, Klopstock, Jean Paul, Tieck, Novalis, Uhland and Rückert. In 1816, now fascinated by antiquity, he went to the University of Berlin. In Berlin, August Boeckh represented a new trend. He was a strong upholder of the importance of art and archaeology in the study of antiquity. He also possessed a broad conception of the study of


antiquity. He completed important work on Greek poetry, established the study of both private and public economics and pursued the systematic collection of inscriptions. Boeckh greatly influenced Müller, who was also in contact with other leading intellectuals: Philipp Buttmann (1764–1838), Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and Friedrich W.Schelling (1775–1854). Müller’s methodological and theoretical development advanced in the years of study at Berlin and by the completion of his studies, his destiny was determined. In 1817 he gained his degree with a dissertation on the history of Aegina, Aegineticorum liber. The need for a total reconstruction of ancient reality stimulated him to undertake descriptions of individual Greek cities and tribes as a preparation for a later holistic work. His dissertation was a model of local history, but a complete historic and cultural overview became the scientific aim of his later research. Between 1818 and 1819 Müller taught at the well-known Gymnasium Magdaleneum in Breslau, where J.K.Fr.Manso, the historian of Sparta, was headmaster. In May 1819, on the recommendation of Boeckh and the headmaster at the time, Arnold H.L.Heeren, Müller obtained a post at Göttingen university. In 1823 he became a professor there, rejecting an invitation from Berlin in the same year. Müller taught philology and archaeology in the tradition of Chr. G. Heyne (1729–1812). The government of Hanover financed his travels and studies of the collections of antiquities in Dresden and also financed his visits to Holland, France and England in 1822. Müller now fulfilled brilliantly all expectations of him as an academic. In 1824 he married Pauline Hugo, daughter of the famous jurist Gustav Hugo, founder of the Historical School of Law in Göttingen. In the following years, Müller published numerous essays and reviews, which posthumously have been edited as K.O.Müllers kleine deutsche Schriften über Religion, Kunst, Sprache und Literatur (1847–48) and Kunstarchäologische Werke 1817–1849 (1873). More importantly, in time he published various books, which brought him international recognition and made him one of the most famous academics at Göttingen. Müller started his ‘total’ history of the Hellenes, the series Geschichte Hellenischer Stämme und Städte (History of Hellenic Tribes and Cities) in 1820 with the first volume on Boeotia: Orchomenos und die Minyer (Orchomenos and the Minoans). 1824 saw the volumes on the Peloponnese, Sparta and Crete, Die Dorier,3 which concluded the series. His essay Über die Wohnsitze, die Abstammung und die ältere Geschichte des makedonischen Volks (On Residence, Ancestry and the


Ancient History of the Macedonian People) of 1825, in much abbreviated form, covered much the same ground. To criticism of his theoretical formulations in reviews of his work by E.R.Lange4 and F.Chr.Schlosser5 he replied in the same year with his Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology). In 1828 the two volumes of his prize-Z winning essay Die Etrusker (The Etruscans), in which he presented a summary of the whole Etruscologic knowledge to date, were published. Then in 1830, the Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst (Handbook of the Archaeology of Art), Müller’s major archaeological work, was published. This handbook summarized the basic findings of contemporary archaeology, and was eventually reprinted several times. In 1832 Müller became a privy councillor and in 1837 an honorary doctor of law. By 1834, he was also a member of the building commission at the university, where he strongly influenced construction plans for the new Aula building along Greek lines. By 1835 he was a Professor eloquentiae. In 1839, he set off on his fatal voyage to Italy and Greece,6 where he died in Athens on 1 August 1840 as a result of an accident in Delphi. So much for a brief biography: now it is time to consider his writings, their relevance to nineteenth-century German thought and action and their relationship, direct and indirect, to a later twentieth-century militarism. PIETISM, ROMANTICISM AND CLASSICISM A strong influence on Müller’s mental development came from the protestantism of Pietism. In general, the refined and liberal upbringing of K.O.Müller did not involve a melancholic pietistic view of the world, despite the fact that basic principles of Pietism were clearly evident in many of his letters. He possessed ‘a quiet pity in which the Bible has ceased to take a prominent place; a sober attitude towards a worldly life, wary of excess or immorality; a distance from politics with the inevitable tendency toward conservativism’.7 Müller’s patriotic and religious Breslau teacher, H.Steffens, described the tranquil sobriety of the Müller family in his autobiography, Was ich erlebte (What I Experienced), shortly after Müller’s death.8 His view is to be respected. Müller admired Steffens, describing him years later as ‘a man of true fortitude in soul and word’.9 Steffens was a profound Christian. He confessed in his memoirs to being a protestant, ‘with my whole soul’. He added:


I was convinced that religion was not mere speculation, it was not philosophy; this was ideal and subjective; but religion must be objective truth, having the same relation to the soul and its wants that nature had to scientific investigations. Like nature, it was a gift of God, and it must be known and become real to the consciousness.10 Müller’s protestant upbringing merged with Romanticism to form a nucleus of ideas which became the basis of his scholarship. Together with the Schlegel brothers and the philosopher Fr.W.Schelling in Jena, German Romanticists saw themselves primarily in opposition to the French Enlightenment and rational belief. Müller also opposed these which had been initiated by the encyclopédistes and came to reign by way of revolution.11 He declared his basic support for the inner life forces by a legality of inner life.12 Müller disliked all the Enlightenment’s attitudes and was of the opinion that an essential understanding of antiquity was, in general, a task for the German mind. The historical understanding of Müller was based on the experience of the world as a source of poetic impressions on mind and spirit. Human existence, as a synthesis of spirituality and creativity, culture and nature, was for Müller was a gift of higher forces. With his preference for Romanticism, he has to be seen clearly as the founder of a distinctive romantic Classicism. His romantic research did not lead him to medieval customs or ancient Germanic traditions, but always to the Greeks. He claimed that the ancient Greeks had more romanticism in their nature, far more sentiment and a more intense feeling for nature, than the later Greeks.13 Prior to Müller, the German interest in Sparta was small. Nineteenthcentury German Classicism was largely focused on Athens. However, the eighteenth-century classicist and art critic J.J. Winckelmann (1717– 68) had in his Gedanken über die Nachahmung der Griechischen Werke in Malerei und Bildhauerkunst of 1755 claimed Sparta as a place where the Greek bodily ideal had been attained. Thanks to a simple and hard lifestyle, the Spartans, according to Winckelmann, had realized not only the physical potential of the European race, but of human nature itself. The ancient Spartan—and indeed the ancient Greek—therefore appeared to be the perfect type of man. The physical appearance of ancient Greek bodies was explained as a result of both nature and nurture. This view was first inspired by ancient statues and then from the archaeological evidence of the existence of gymnasia in the majority of Greek cities. Later northern European nations


attempted to develop male bodies as the result of Greek influence. These bodies, of course, eventually became symbols of the Fascist Superman—sport and militarism came together.14 However, in Müller’s time there was German criticism of Spartan state legislation and of its founder Lycurgus.15 The negative aspects of Spartan society were seen to be a result of its government. Sparta, in the eyes of the liberal middle class, was the prototype of a restrictive police state. As a model for humanity, therefore, Sparta remained suspect. However, Thermopylae won admiration, as did the Greek independence war of 1821, with which Müller fully agreed.16 Müller was not concerned with political arguments when he insisted on the Doric life as an ideal. He was largely influenced by the romanticidealistic Doric views of Friedrich Schlegel, who had declared Sparta to be the incorporation of an older Greek tradition. His emphasis on race and character led him to view the Dorians with admiration. His description of the Doric character anticipated Müller. For both, Müller and Schlegel, the Doric state consisted of a successfully integrated community. In Müller’s work, integration as a central concept in the Greek tribal unit received special attention. Müller’s pupil Ernst Curtius compared Die Dorier with Justus Möser’s (1720–94) Osnabrükkische Geschichte (1780), one of the first comprehensive local histories.17 Müller dealt with the Doric tribe as an organic unit. According to him, nature and landscape, myth and religion had formed, along with the social structure, state institutions and political history, the inner nature of the Doric tribe itself. He therefore attempted to combine archaeology and geography, philology and philosophy together with a study of constitutions, ethics and history, to create ‘a discipline which hitherto for the most part has been a mixture of different kinds of things’.18 Müller saw important consequences arising from Lycurgos’s constitution, to which Sparta definitely owed its specific orientation. He saw its adherence to traditional structure and a unique constitution as the declaration of a sensible established order. For Müller, the characteristic feature of Doric nature was communal integration and the subordination of the individual to the whole. In communal unity he saw the possibility of an entirely harmonious existence, founded and based on a lived tradition. By the methodical study of antiquity, he hoped to combine all ‘thousand relations’19 of this total history. This methodically new and complex approach was more impressively subtle than that of his predecessors and, as a result of this, the romantic ideas of Die Dorier proved to be influential.


Müller considered the Dorians to be morally superior to other peoples; however, there are some important differences between his position and later fascist positions on race. Firstly, Müller didn’t argue for categorized racial separatism, but instead for cultural diversity, brought about by historical developments. In fact, he assumed all peoples to be endowed with identical mental equipment. Secondly, he did not identify Germans directly with Greeks, even if he thought that German scholarship had contributed more to the historical understanding of the Greeks than other nationalities. He also shared several positions with his Romantic contemporaries: for example, he particularly valued the Greek as an embodiment of freedom. Müller’s general interest in Dorian antiquity lay in its value to his time as the seminal seed of history: ‘Ancient history possesses a definite advantage: it shows us individual life distinctively developed and connected with the whole life of a nation, whereas in recent times this connection of the individual with the whole national character cannot be established.’20 Thus, in his view, the study of ancient history had an uplifting influence which Müller utilized in his personal life. In his Göttingen house, built in 1835–36, we see reflected Müller’s ethical and moral ideas as influenced by Doric ideals, and his attempt to live according to these ideals.21 This stone building, with its many expensive cut-stone blocks and its ordered columns, revealed Müller’s own personality. The entire building was a novelty in the Göttingen of the 1830s. Müller didn’t associate Dorian columns with luxury as was usual in his days. Instead, he saw the house and garden as a Dorian romantic retreat. The building reflected the builder’s inclinations: ‘It is the Dorian character which created Dorian architecture.’22 His friend Friedrich Lücke clearly understood Müller’s construction, which others had called his ‘GreekSilesian style’,23 commenting that ‘Dorian tribal character… determined [Müller’s] thoughts’.24 Müller’s house is, incidentally, a remarkable period testimony to the fact that a professor of modest income could manage to provide for seven children, purchase an impressive library, build and equip a large house without debts, and finance, shortly afterwards, a voyage lasting one year.25 Times have changed! SPARTAN EDUCATION According to Müller, educational investigation, especially regarding the education of the body, an elementary need for adequate manhood, revealed the quality of Dorian life. He gave the matter, therefore, close attention.


Circa 1800, concerning the body, there was no lack of educational ideas in pedagogical writings. There were John Locke’s (1632–1704) proposals, the demands of medical practitioners and the views of JeanJacques Rousseau (1712–78) and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746– 1827). The philanthropic school of education, which had its roots in the Enlightenment, also had opinions on the matter. Contentment was generally declared to be the pedagogical aim of the care of the body. Moreover, there were the ideas of scholars like Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Kant, Arndt, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Jean Paul, Schleiermacher and others. Nevertheless, education was dominated by Niemeyer’s Grundsätze der Erziehung und des Unterrichts, which between 1796 and 1832 had achieved nine editions and was translated into six languages. In this company Müller cut a small figure. However, he had his own distinctive ideas. It would be incorrect to believe that he was not wellread on the topic. Müller was recognized as such and he knew personally many scholars who were established scientists and politicians and who had much to do with gymnastics and education. These men were either for or against the worth of gymnastics—a subject of some debate.26 As noted earlier, Müller’s inclination was to avoid any involvement in political affairs. Later this changed to cautious involvement. His political lack of interest was shown in the way that at times of intense study he failed to read the newspapers, often for a fortnight or more.27 In contrast, his more politically interested father-in-law, G.Hugo, was ‘one of the first in town in the morning to read the newspapers’.28 Nevertheless, Müller held strong political views. Lücke described Müller as aristocratic in the most positive way. He added that he praised the old order and condemned all democratic and revolutionary humbug.29 Despite this conservatism, Müller, who was raised in Silesia, disliked Prussian militarism.30 As a Göttingen scholar, he considered himself a Hanoverian patriot, loyal only to Göttingen. Müller not only mostly eschewed politics, he also disliked intense academic disputes. To criticism he responded ‘in a short, distinct and highly modest way’.31 Müller advocated intellectual and academic freedom, which for him meant, above all, freedom from politics, but also freedom from any pressure to conform within the university. In short, he stood apart from any extremism and his moderate views generally had a stabilizing influence on his scholastic community. It was not Müller’s style generally to indulge in outspoken comment. In accordance with his moderate stance, he opposed only those things


that in his view might harm the community. Müller certainly did not agree with politicizing education, which after 1815 had increased in the universities. He accused most historians of too overt tendencies to ‘to relate rigorous studies of antiquity to contemporary history’.32 Just as in Plato’s view, philosophers were responsible for leadership in culture and education, the same was true in Müller’s view of his contemporary universities and academics. For him the university was a place to realize self-knowledge and a preparation for all later decisions and opinions. He did not endorse the idea of a university as a breeding ground for revolutionary political ideas. Indeed, he saw the main causes of the restlessness of youth in superficial contemporary philosophy, which confused minds rather than clarified them, thus leading to extremism. Müller took his lead from ancient history. In his view, Sparta had avoided revolution because ‘being a part of the whole was the great freedom of the Spartans’.33 He expressed this view in various statements: ‘Nothing individual shall remain for itself, but has to find its aim and measure in the whole. Everyone shall remain distinctively inside the borders, which a higher order of the whole has prescribed for him’; ‘the state’s life, education, army are structured by a complex but also systematic order of command and subordination. Everyone has to obey’; and ‘everywhere graduation, nowhere independent equality’.34 In these circumstances, he argued, ‘the education of youth was a highly sophisticated organism’ and ‘anything but senseless’.35 This was in contrast to the concept of a free citizen as the main demand36 and he pointed out firmly that ‘nothing was more important in the Doric State than government’.37 In pursuit of sound uniformity, he asserted, education itself…is partly of the body, partly of the spirit…even this separation shouldn’t be understood as too severe, since every exercise of the body is at the same time one of the spirit…of patience, persistence, power of mind. For the former, the Greeks had the common expression gymnastics, for the latter music. That the Dorians before all other Hellenes attended to gymnastics is well known.38 In short, in his view, a holistic approach to mind and body reflected a sound wider political arrangement. Müller linked the education of the body and the education of the mind.39 He also considered the education of the body as a general and obligatory requirement for the whole nation. In this Müller’s thinking was similar to that of his day. The education of the body proposed by


philanthropists was based on holistic pedagogics. There were others of like mind. Johann Guts Muths (1759–1839) linked ‘qualities of the body and mind’;40 Pestalozzi’s physical training was based on pedagogical views that aimed at a harmonious development of mind and body; and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778–1852) wanted ‘to reconstruct the lost regularity of human education, to relate one-sided spiritualization to real corporality [Leibhaftigkeit]…mbracing the whole human being in its youthful social companionship’.41 After a detailed consideration of the education of Spartan youth,42 Müller offered his interpretations of its purpose: In Sparta regarding the education of the body, all exercises of the body in the gymnasium were considered less important than another set, which had the purpose the steeling of body through pain and strain. The boy had to learn to withstand hunger and cold—and both were to be found in excess in nature in that narrow valley of Sparta—indeed, he had to learn to withstand hunger, thirst and all kinds of misery.43 This was achieved by ‘hunting frequently in the mountains [and] “prowling in the remote locations of wide Lakonika”, entirely deprived, where Sparta’s youngster grows up to be a man’.44 Müller further stated that ‘what steeled and hardened the whole nation in its former youth had now been found useful for education… the triumph of Spartan toughness owed much to the whipping in front of the altar of Orthia’.45 In short, he praised unequivocally the harsh Spartan system of training the young for military success. It can be argued that in praising all Dorian institutions and minimizing the negative aspects, he often went too far in his statements. He saw only a virtuous structure. This is true of his reaction to the institution of krypteia. Of this practice, he noted defensively: ‘One surely too often has a very biased image of this strange practice, selecting only one outstanding aspect of an innerconnected whole, and criticizing it.’46 Again, he argued: ‘For a proper judgement on this practice there can be no other point of view than such an initiation was for strength and the exercise of courage and cunning.’47 At first sight Müller’s position was close to that of Jahn. The philanthropists’ and Pestalozzi’s physical training had been driven mainly by contemporary theoretical educational considerations. Jahn, for his part, was inspired partly by military considerations. Both Jahn’s (and Müller’s) interest in physical training derived from politics. Nevertheless, Jahn’s gymnastics, which, as is well known, he called


Turnen, also had their roots in the wider national pedagogic thought of the early nineteenth century. In fact, in some respects Müller and Jahn are hardly identical in their approaches to education. Müller was concerned with Dorians and not modern Germans, even when he attributed to both of them an identical spirit. In contrast, Jahn argued for a national plan of education for the contemporary German nation (Volkstum). And in other ways, Jahn and Müller differed. Above all, Müller was a scholar, not a politician. Only briefly, in 1837, did Müller involve himself in public politics, when in the case of the exile of the so-called ‘Göttingen Seven’ he joined a protest movement that set up a nationwide German fund for the expelled. He disliked the termination of the university’s selfgovernment as a result of the king’s abolition of the constitution.48 Müller’s foray into politics, however, was timid and extremely limited. In the end, the whole affair produced considerable personal stress, from which he fled by means of his voyage to Greece. However, Müller and Jahn did have several things in common. They agreed on the need for physical education. For both education of the body was a necessary form of education, leading youth to physical and mental health while strengthening a conscious belief in the nation. It was for this reason, Müller asserted, that ‘great influence on every individual is exerted by education’,49 while for Volk and nation, in Jahn’s view, the education of the body held a central position. And for both Müller and Jahn, the education of youth had as its purpose the formation of a martial masculinity, based on nationalistic ambitions. It was Jahn’s demand, of course, that there should be ‘education for the nation, education towards the nation’.50 Like Müller, Jahn understood Volkstum to mean the inner spirit, with its power of national regeneration.51 Of course, for Jahn, national education’s ‘formation and practice is always work for the “fatherland” and national spirit; always they are used to be connected with their time and nation, according to the requirements of heaven, country and people’.52 The links with later fascism are clear in such statements. For Müller, gymnastics was the medium of education for youth. He always connected philosophical arguments and historical principles with human action. For this reason he did not see Dorian gymnastics as simply a theory of physical exercise or merely a form of physical activity, but as a public institution, a basic part of daily life. At all times the young male, in his view, should practise varied forms of gymnastics freely or under instruction. With regard to value of gymnastics, Müller did not have any specific contemporary political objectives other than the creation of individual


submission to an ordered community. In his opinion all gymnastics ensured disciplined character formation, ‘setting a boundary and keeping a tight rein on oneself’.53 In short, physical education assisted moral development. It hardened the individual physically, making the body stronger, fitter and harder, in order that life’s challenges may be managed more easily and moral qualities of character successfully developed. Central to gymnastic practice was working together with others to promote the subordination necessary for the good of the community. Submission to the laws and the regulations of society was to be achieved through voluntary cooperation. In addition, involvement with others established social bonds that lasted a lifetime. Müller advocated group competition. The value of competitive participation was that the individual was forced to extend himself as fully as possible —ideal training for manhood—as it ensured committed action in adulthood. In summary, the hardening process produced by gymnastic exercise, replete with deliberate privations and dangers, was to produce a strong nature, a sense of personal responsibility, and capacity of confronting all risks with an inner life force (Kraft des innem Lebens). The essence of education, then, Müller argued, was gymnastic drill or exercise. It demanded thorough, careful and positive participation by the pupil. This participation was always to be monitored with affectionate but stern authority. At the Desseau Philanthropinium one guiding principle was that the pupil should never be left alone. The pupil knew at every moment and in every activity to whom he was responsible, and obedience, in the last resort, was to be ensured by physical punishment. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Müller wrote with approval that ‘two of the noblest Spartan princes, Leonidas and Agesilaos, have felt the rod of the guardian’.54 Müller’s rationale for such a belief has already been made clear. For Müller life existed only in society. Outside society the individual was worthless. To be accepted by society, individual egotistic and selfish traits must be overcome. Egotists must not be allowed to destroy fellowship by going beyond accepted bounds (die das Maa überschreiten). Deviant behaviour, therefore, must be corrected by the individual himself, or by the society in the interests of society and individual. For Müller the relationship between the individual and his society mirrored the relationship between individual parts and the organic whole. Giving and receiving, the ‘ego’ finds its true shape and form only when moulded by the corporate ‘we’ into a union of strength. In such views are to be found the foundations of later fascist militarism.


This merging of self with others Müller called ‘Spartan freedom’. For Müller, paradoxically, freedom was the consequence of merging self into society. Only when this principle of ‘connection’ existed was society a true community. The community permitted no individual desires, only communal demands. Under such conditions, selfishness, separation and social disintegration were not possible. The Spartan state, in Müller’s idealistic, indeed utopian, view, represented freedom founded as it was not on separateness but on unity—of the collective perpetual will! To achieve the regeneration of Volk and ‘fatherland’, Jahn’s modern state, of course, required just such a collective togetherness, with a national education which took upon itself responsibility for the future defence of the nation, as eventually did Hitler’s Third Reich. Thus state education was to include, for reasons of practical necessity, physical training for physical fitness as a form of pre-military training— an educational component Steffens called a ‘dangerous experiment’ and J.F. Herbert regarded as a necessary home guard (Landwehr) for the making for a ‘weaponed and war pre-trained nation [Volk]’ Thus the ideas and the ideals of Müller’s Sparta had certain things in common with Jahn’s Volk. There was a continuity of idealism, practicality and purpose in Müller’s Spartan state and Jahn’s German state—the individual was to be subsumed within a collective, national education which created a nationalistic will. This education was to incorporate the education of the body as a means of training to ensure the ultimate survival of the state in the face of war. In his consideration of Dorian gymnastic war games (gymnastische Kriegsspiele), Müller was, however, quick to make a crucial point: Gymnastics were linked more closely with war than in the rest of Hellas. However, it would be wrong to see the education of the body of the ancient Dorians as simply to get the upper hand in war. Isn’t victory in war simply a medium for the realization of a perfect life—of free power and sane beauty? This ideal, with its clear and distinct features, should be clear to the unbiased and reveals the manner in which the Spartans became the most healthy of the Hellenes.55 This is not the militaristic idealism of fascism!


NATIONAL EDUCATION Guts Muths’s, Pestalozzi’s and Jahn’s didactic ideas are to be found later in Adolf Spiess’s (1810–58) system of Schulturnen.56 His model, however, lacked a theoretical underpinning. It was essentially pragmatic. Spiess simply repeated pragmatically the programme of earlier exercises. In Prussia it was his system that became predominant —for the simple reason that he implemented a practical system of drill as physical education that had as its primary purpose the inculcation of regimented discipline in order to ensure subordination to the state in peace and war: ‘First of all a Turnschule has to be a school for discipline and order…a school for all citizens to work for peace and to work for war.’57 Thus mechanistic physical education (gymnastics) was reduced by Spiess in meaning and purpose. It had nothing to contribute to the learning of individual mastery for the later demands of life. It was a far cry from the idealism of Müller and his idealistic interpretation of the Spartan exercise of the body. The Spiess drill became notorious for its formalistic, mechanistic nature and its clear conformist and militaristic functions. Drill was now not only for the development of the body by means of repetitive, monotonous, regimented movement pressing all individuals into the same psychological mould, but was also a form of preparation for the military service required of every Prussian subject.58 Rhetoric reinforced political purpose. In classrooms, every Greek sentence practised, every Latin phrase uttered, every example from history, every verse of the classics, had one purpose—that the pupils could sacrifice their lives for the Kaiser and empire on the field of honour.59 German humanism, which transformed German intellectual life from the late eighteenth century onwards, in other words, eventually narrowed down to a self-assured nationalistic preoccupation with the nation’s history more and more; language and culture and became increasingly militaristic in emphasis. The signs could be read at an early stage. One of Müller’s teachers, Steffens, gave a series of speeches to inspire young men to military service. As a German patriot, he volunteered for the Prussian Landwehr (home guard) and took part in the war of 1813–14. In 1813, Boeckh became a captain in the Landsturm (home guard) and Niebuhr himself was involved in war propaganda. In view of the widespread support for the Dorians, it should come as no surprise that German classical scholarship eventually rejected constitutional forms of democracy despite inquiries into, and the knowledge acquired of, Athenian cultural achievements.60 In broad


terms, the conflict over an appropriate political system can be viewed as a confrontation between conservatives and liberals. The essential point is that the conservatives came out on top. The dominant influence of the conservative ideas of the nineteenth century ensured that German society was convinced that the citizen existed for the state. Everything was for the state, nothing beyond the state and nothing against the state. Hence, it was the primary purpose of education to merge the people of the state into a political unit—the separate parts of which were organically connected one with one another. The citizen found fulfilment only in the state. The Prussian state had a fundamental interest in the concept of the individual existing for, and through, the collectivity. Müller’s ideas were timely. His Dorians attracted attention beyond historical circles. The importance which he attached to the state, as exemplified by the Spartan ideal, had resonances for the Prussian authorities. He introduced them to a Sparta that served nicely as the prototype of a hierarchic, ordered, militaristic, modern nation. His Dorians—die Normannen Griechenlands (the Normans of Greece)—were considered to reflect Prussian virtues and values. A.Momigliano also brought the Spartans close to home by pointing out their similarities to ancient Germans.61 E.Will, for his part, drew attention to linguistic similarities between Spartans and Germans and drew on Müller for a programme of nineteenth-century political Germanism.62 In reality, of course, Müller’s influence on the relationship between state, exercise and war was longer-lasting. Müller’s organic elements of a common Volksgeist—with a public willingly subservient to state service—were taken up by Oswald Spengler in his influential Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West), published in 1918: ‘Power belongs to the whole. The individual serves the whole. The totality is sovereign… Everyone has his place. It will be ordered and subdued.’63 He added: ‘It is of the Prussian character that the individual is part of an entirety’ Müller was kept alive in the rhetoric of Spengler. It is small wonder that in his cyclic theory of the rise and fall of nations Spengler compared the Doric age with the Gothic age.64 Thus by the early twentieth century there was a German view of the state as the embodiment of a hierarchic political will and a German recognition of the need to prepare the individual by education—mental and physical—for service to the point, if required, of necessary martial self-sacrifice. It was his given duty and destiny. In an ironic twist of circumstance, Goethe’s classical Greek had become bourgeois Germany: ‘Old Fritz…our military drill, nobody will


copy that! With this and the classics, we’ve managed everything in the world.’65 More dramatically, tragically and horrifically, Müller’s Sparta, with its union of sport and militarism, was resuscitated as an obscene chauvinistic travesty in a militaristic Nazi idiom in the twentieth century —and the muscular perfection of Arno Breker’s supermen was inspired by Spartan iconic imagery and seen as the desirable outcome of exercise as preparation for war.66 NOTES 1 . H.-J.Gehrke, ‘Karl Otfried Müller und das Land der Griechen’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Athener Abteilung [=MDAIA], 106 (1991), 9–35; W.M.Calder III and R.Schlesier (eds.), Zwischen Rationalismus und Romantik. Karl Otfried Müller und die antike Kultur (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1998); see further the ‘Seminario su K.O.Müller’, Annali della scuola superiore di Pisa, XIV, 3(1984) (hereafter Annali della scuola superiore di Pisa). 2 . O. and E.Kern (eds.), C.O.M. Lebensbild in Briefen an seine Eltern mit dem Tagebuch seiner italienisch-griechischen Reise (Berlin, 1908); E.Kern (ed.), Aus dem amtlichen und wissenschaftlichen Briefwechsel von C.O.Müller, ausgewählte Stücke mit Erläuterungen (Göttingen, 1936) and S.Reiter (ed.), C.O.Müller. Briefe aus einem Gelehrtenleben 1797–1840, 2 Vols. (Berlin, 1950). 3 . K.O.Müller, Geschichten Hellenischer Stämme und Städte. Zweiter und Dritter Band: Die Dorier (Breslau: Fr. Schneidewin, 1824), Zweite Ausgabe, 2 Bände (Breslau: Fr. Schneidewin, 1844)—in English, The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, trans. H.Tufnell and G.C.Lewis (London, 1830), 2 Vols. (hereafter Die Dorier). 4 . E.R.Lange, ‘Rezension von K.O.Müller, Die Dorier’, Jenaische Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung, III(1824), 241–331. 5 . F.Chr.Schlosser, ‘Rezension von K.O.Müller’, Die Dorier, Heidelberger Jahrbücher, 48(1824), 898–927. 6 . See K.Fittschen, ‘Karl Otfried Müller und die Archäologie’, in W.M.Calder III and R. Schlesier (eds.), Zwischen Rationalismus und Romantik. Karl Otfried Müller und die antike Kultur (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1998), pp. 187–216; Gehrke, MDAIA; H.Döhl, ‘Karl Otfried Müllers Reise nach Italien und Griechenland 1839/40’, Göttinger Universitätsschrifien, seria A, 14 (1989), 51–77. 7 . J.H.Blok, ‘Romantische Poesie, Naturphilosophie, Construktion der Geschichte: K.O. Müller’s Understanding of History and Myth’, in Calder and Schlesier, Zwischen Rationalismus und Romantik, p. 59. 8 . H.Steffens, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben: 1844 (Stuttgart, 1996), IX, pp. 284–8; cf. 1843, pp. 174–5. 9 . Reiter, Briefe aus einem Gelehrtenleben, 11(to Tieck, 5 Dec. 1819).


10 . H.Steffens, The Story of my Career as Student in Freiburg and Jena, and as a Professor at Halle, Breslau and Berlin, trans. W.L.Gage (Boston, 1863), p. 281. 11 . E.Müller (ed.), K.O.Müllers kleine deutsche Schriften, 2 Vols. (Breslau, 1848), Vol. 2, pp. 69–70. 12 . Ibid. 13 . Kern, Aus dem amtlichen und wissenschaftlichen Briefwechsel, p. 95:8 Aug. 1828(to A.Schöll). 14 . J.A.Mangan (ed.), Shaping the Superman. Fascist Body as Political Icon— Aryan Fascism (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000). 15 . Cf.Fr.Schiller, ‘Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon’, Thalia, 11(1790), and J.G. Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (Riga, 1784–91). 16 . Kern, Lebensbild in Briefen, p. 11; Reiter, Briefe aus einem Gelehrtenleben, Vol. 1, pp. 35–6 (to L. Tieck), both 12 April 1821. 17 . G.P.Gooch, Geschichte der Geschichtsschreibung im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1964), p. 46. 18 . Müller in Göttingischer Gelehrter Anzeiger, 184(1831), 1827. 19 . Müller, Orchomenos und die Minyer (Breslau, 1820), p. 6. 20 . Ibid., pp. 8–9. 21 . See P.Zanker, ‘Carl Otfried Müllers Haus in Göttingen. Zur Selbstdarstellung eines deutschen Professors um 1835’, in Annali della scuola superiore di Pisa, 1129–46. 22 . Müller, Die Dorier, Vol. 2, p. 254. 23 . Fr.Lücke, Erinnerungen an Karl Otfr. Müller (Göttingen, 1841), p. 35. 24 . Ibid., p. 37. 25 . See Döhl, Göttinger Universitätsschriften, 1132. 26 . A.B.Kayssler, Würdigung der Turnkunst nach der Idee (Breslau, 1818); Fr.Passow, Turnziel—Turnfreunden und Turnfeinden (Breslau, 1818); H.Steffens, Turnziel (Breslau, 1818). 27 . Lücke, Erinnerungen, p. 37. 28 . Zanker, Annali della scuola superiore di Pisa, 1145. 29 . Lücke, Erinnerungen, p. 37. 30 . Kern, Lebensbild in Briefen, 15(May 1815); 40(17 Dec. 1819), pp. 60–61. 31 . Ibid., 45, p. 85: to his parents (23 Aug. 1820). 32 . Müller, Die Dorier, Vol. 2, p. 137. 33 . Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 2. 34 . Ibid., p. 394. 35 . Ibid., p. 294. 36 . Ibid., p. 295. 37 . Ibid., p. 394. 38 . Ibid., pp. 299–300. 39 . Ibid., p. 309. 40 . J.Ch.F.Guts Muths, Gymnastik für die Jugend (Schnepfenthal, 1793), in M.Schwarze and W. Limpert (eds.), Quellenbücher der Leibesübungen (Dresden, 1970), Vol. 1, p. 201.


41 . For Jahn see G.L.Mosse, Das Bild des Mannes. Zur Konstruktion der modernen Männlichkeit (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1997), pp. 58–63 (hereafter Das Bild des Mannes). 42 . Müller, Die Dorier, Vol. 3, p. 299. 43 . Ibid., p. 304. 44 . Ibid., p. 304. 45 . Ibid., p. 306. 46 . Ibid., p. 305. 47 . Ibid., p. 305. 48 . I.e.Ernest Augustus II. (1771–1851), 1799 Duke of Cumberland, 1837 King of Hanover; for the incident see G.von Selle, Die Georg August Universität zu Göttingen 1737–1937 (Göttingen, 1937), pp. 273–81. 49 . Müller, Die Dorier, Vol. 3, p. 294. 50 . F.L.Jahn, Deutsches Volksthum (1810), in C.Euler (ed.), Friedrich Ludwig Jahns Werke (Hof: J.C.Lion, 1884–87), I, p. 154. 51 . Ibid., p. 272. 52 . F.L.Jahn and E.W.B.Eiselen, Die deutsche Turnkunst (1816), in C.Euler (ed.), Friedrich Ludwig Jahns Werke (Hof: J.C.Lion, 1884–87), II/1. 53 . Müller, Die Dorier, Vol. 3, p. 300. 54 . Müller, Die Dorier, Vol. 3, pp. 295–6. 55 . Ibid., p. 307. 56 . J.N.Schmitz, ‘Die Leibesübungen im Erziehungsdenken Johann Friedrich Herbarts’, Beiträge zur Lehre und Forschung der Leibeserziehung, 27 (Stuttgart: Karl Hofmann, 1965). 57 . A.Spiess, ‘Das Turnen in den Hangübungen’ (1840–44), in J.C.Lion (ed.), Kleine Schriften über das Turnen (Hof: J.C.Lion, 1872), p. 17. 58 . L.Wiese, Verordnungen und Gesetze für die Höheren Schulen in Preußen (Berlin, 1886), p. 223. 59 . W.Mehring, Müller. Chronik einer deutschen Sippe (Hannover: Claassen, 1960), p. 236. 60 . M.Landfester, Humanismus und Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988), p. 82. 61 . A.Momigliano, ‘Premesse per una discussione su K.O.Müller’, in Annali della scuola superiore di Pisa, 899. 62 . E.Will, Doriens et Ioniens. Essai sur la valeur du critère ethnique appliqué à l’étude d’histoire et de la civilisation grecques (Paris, 1956), p. 12. 63 . O.Spengler, Preu entum und Sozialismus (München: C.H.Beck, 1920), pp. 15, 57. 64 . O.Spengler, Untergang des Abendlandes (München: C.H.Beck, 1924), p. 41. 65 . Der Hauptmann von Köpenick, M.Fuhrmann, ‘Der Griechenglaube der Goethezeit und das Nationalbewusstsein der Deutschen’, Humanistische Bildung, 13(1989), 97. 66 . See Mangan, Shaping the Superman, Ch. 7.

3 Ball Games, from the Roman Gentleman to the Renaissance Warrior JOHN McCLELLAND

Though no longer much in vogue as an interpreter of ancient athletics, H.A.Harris makes the very valid point that we must understand Roman sports to have existed at three levels of proficiency and seriousness. At the top were the highly professional chariot races and Olympic-style sports (to which he might have added gladiatorial fights); in the middle and at the bottom were various other games that were not—apparently —practised professionally but which might be used for pure recreation or, conversely, be played in a way that demanded some degree of involvement and expertise.1 Chief among these non-professional sports were ball games, ludi pilae, a term that referred indiscriminately to leisurely recreations, games played for exercise, and physically demanding team games, however much they might differ from each other. Most prominent among the first two categories was the lusus trigon or pila trigonalis, three-cornered catch that might be played both at the baths and on the Campus Martius, the open space near the Tiber which was originally the army’s training ground. In the last category the dominant games seem to have been harpastum and episkyros. In the first of these, players stood in two lines or a circle and threw a ball at or over a ‘middle runner’. He, in turn, attempted to either avoid it or intercept it, all the while struggling to break out of his encirclement by knocking the other players out of the way. In the second, played on a field marked out with centre and end lines, two teams tried to propel the ball over each other’s goal. Generally, however, the ‘game of ball’ remained a referentially indeterminate concept that might denote several different forms of play. Whatever their rules, in the loose sense of that term, and whatever the degree of exertion involved, ancient Roman ball games seem to have enjoyed a certain social prestige. The Roman poet Horace tells us that Maecenas, the intimate friend of the emperor Augustus, relaxed after a tiring journey by playing a strenuous game of ball, and in

48 BALL GAMES FROM ROME TO THE RENAISSANCE

another poem he links three—cornered catch to the leisure classes.2 A century later, Petronius, the friend of Nero, depicts the nouveau riche Trimalchio showing off his newly-won status by playing ball at the baths, but not deigning to pick it up when he failed to make a catch.3 Petronius’s contemporary, Calpurnius Siculus, lavishes extravagant praises on the great aristocrat C.Calpurnius Piso for all his considerable talents; not least among these is his ability to play ball—apparently lusus trigon—so spectacularly that people playing nearby stop their game to watch him.4 When it comes to finding out how the games were actually played, again the sources link them to society’s upper echelons. Descriptions of episkyros, the game for which we have the most information, are found in several writers, most notably the Roman biographer Suetonius and the Athenian university professor, Julius Pollux,5 both of whom were close to imperial court circles: in the early second century, Suetonius was briefly secretary to the emperor Hadrian, and Pollux owed his position to the emperor Commodus (d. 192 AD).6 The most detailed account of harpastum is given in a letter by the fifth-century AD Gallo-Roman aristocrat and later bishop, Sidonius Apollinaris.7 He claims to have been an avid player of the game, limits the participation to students (scholastici) and citizens of the first rank, and recounts the athletic (mis)adventures of a certain Philomathius who was of the highest senatorial class.8 On the surface at least, Roman ball games appear then to have been the polar opposite of the three leading manifestations of Roman professional athletic culture: the native Roman ludi (chariot racing, equestrian sports, boxing), the sports that the Romans preferred to believe had been imposed on them by the Etruscan kings (wild beast shows and gladiatorial combats, known as munera) and the Greek-style games (foot races, pentathlon, pancratio) referred to as certamina. The first distinction is social. Despite their enormous individual celebrity, Roman professional athletes were marginalized either by virtue of their national origins or because they were slaves or otherwise lower-class. Greek athletics in particular were thought eccentric because the athletes’ nudity implied debauchery and social equality, an idea that was anathema to class-conscious Romans. Ball games were clearly upperclass and, because they did not imply danger or injury to the players, they were played far from the madding crowds of the Circus and the Coliseum.9 They also seemed to involve no skills that could obviously be applied to warfare, though the second-century physician Galen argued that they did:


This too is no small advantage, whenever the exercise [i.e., playing with a small ball] can assist both things, the body and the mind, towards the excellence that is peculiar to each of them. And that it is able to train [people] in regard to both of the most important actions that the kings and laws of a state especially order the generals to pursue is not difficult to understand. These are the tasks of good generals: to attack at the right time, to avoid detection while attacking, to seize the initiative opportunely, to appropriate the property of the enemy, either by violent means or by attacking unexpectedly, and to guard what has been acquired.10 Galen’s remark is surprising, in the sense that his short book is otherwise concerned only with the medical advantages of ball games, but his point is none the less clear: physically intense ball games might foster both the intellectual and the physical skills that would be useful in battle. Galen’s brief advocacy of the military advantages accruing from ball play seems, however, to have been neglected both in his own day and later. Vegetius, for example, in the fourth century makes no mention of ball games in his outline of the training of Roman soldiers.11 Thus, despite a real possible link to the central focus of Roman professional sports—military preparedness—episkyros, harpastum and pila trigonalis vanished from the athletic panorama during the chaotic and very warlike conditions that prevailed throughout most of western Europe following the collapse of the Roman and Ostrogothic administration in the fifth and sixth centuries.12 Like the chariot races that had been a hallmark of Romanization in the western provinces of the Empire, organized ball play seems to have been almost forgotten. There is, of course, no end of plausible hypotheses about the survival of ball games, and tales do abound of villagers playing soccer with the severed heads of captured Viking marauders, but documentary evidence is hard to come by.13 As both Georges Duby and Ytzahk Hen have pointed out, the sources for our knowledge of the centuries following the collapse of the Roman empire are very meagre. This is especially true for sports and games, since most of the documents are religious and ecclesiastical and most forms of popular, physically-oriented culture are non-literate.14 However, there are occasional bright spots. In the sixth century Gregory of Tours refers to a game that involved running inter spheristarum ordinem, among an organized group of ball-players, which sounds like harpastum.15 This game may thus have survived into


Merovingian times (the seventh to eighth centuries), but it is clear that this distinct element of Roman culture was none the less slipping away. The early seventh-century bishop of Seville, Isidore, who was trying to preserve the classical tradition during this troubled period, does mention ball games, but only perfunctorily. In his Etymologies, for example, ludi pilae come only at the end of his chapter on warfare and games, after he has discussed physical exercise, Greek-style games, chariot races, theatrical performances, gladiatorial combats and dice and other table games.16 A more significant reference to ball games in found in the early ninthcentury Historia Britonum. This chronicle tells of a fourth-century search for the prophesied future king of Britain. The oracles lead the seekers to a boy (identified with Merlin) who, significantly, is playing an unspecified ball game (pilae ludum) with some other boys. When questioned by the reigning king, he replies that his father was ‘unus de consulibus Romanorum’, a member of the Roman consular class, i.e., like Sidonius Apollinaris, a person at the very top of the socio-political scale.17 This story thus links three themes: ball games, upper-class behaviour and the faintly recalled prestige of Roman culture. Though this future king will be required to exercise his authority by military means, his predestined claim to power is founded on his descent from the Celto-Roman patriciate and his participation in an aristocratic, unsoldierly form of physical competition. But apart from these isolated references, Roman ball games seem no longer to be found and even the Latin words for ‘ball’ —trigon, sphaera, follis, folliculus, paganica, pila —do not survive into the modern vernaculars. Both the medieval French esteuf and the Italian palla (which ultimately gives us ‘ball’) are Germanic in origin.18 Of course, as I have intimated, ball games were not the only element of Roman athletic culture to disappear in the centuries following the fragmentation of the Western Empire. Outside Italy, the ludi and munera had become increasingly infrequent from the third century on under the double impact of Christianity and rising costs, while the certamina had at most limited popularity outside Italy. Attempts by post-Roman rulers to revive them had failed.19 In short, from the seventh to the tenth centuries, we can find little evidence of there being any sporting culture at all, despite the continued presence of the large circuses and arenas that had been built throughout the Western Empire and despite our unwillingness to imagine a world in which strenuous peaceful physical competition did not exist. When a recognizable athletic ethos does emerge in the eleventh century, it owes nothing to the Roman past and arises within the


context of a new polity that was defined around the year 1000 and remained operative until the great peaceful and violent revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The pragmatic social and political structures that had gradually materialized in the aftermath of the ‘barbarian’ incursions from the east and north were eventually theorized into a tripartite structure. Medieval society was henceforth composed of three mutually exclusive—but also mutually dependent— classes or estates of people: ecclesiastics who prayed, knights who fought and peasants who worked.20 The new athletics became correlative to the new social structures. The knightly class took as its prerogative the military and equestrian sports, and left the ball games to the other two classes, where, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, documented evidence can first be found. From an athletic point of view, the Middle Ages thus finds itself in contradistinction to ancient Rome: the blood sports—tourneying, jousting, killing animals—are now practised by the nobility, while ball sports (not the same ones, to be sure) have been split between the clergy and the farm boys. It is, of course, hazardous to imagine that the equilibrium of this tripartite order could remain unchanged throughout the five centuries of the Middle Ages. Cities grew larger and became autonomous entities not envisaged by the original theory. The schools and universities created ever larger bodies of students and secular intellectuals who were neither knights nor churchmen nor peasants. It is equally hazardous, in the field of sport, to try to assign a precise meaning to every mention of ludus pilae—by now, in administrative Latin, the only term that refers to ball games. What follows, then, must be understood as an attempt to be precise while speaking of a historical period that is anything but immutable, and while interpreting varieties of language that existed without dictionaries and that were used by people who were not native speakers.21 In general terms, though, we can postulate a preliminary distinction. Less physical games, corresponding approximately to pila trigonalis, were played by clerics in the confines of the cloisters and the monasteries, while the rough-and-tumble ball games, the ones that were analogous to harpastum and episkyros, came to be played in open spaces by the peasant (i.e. working) class and by young men generally. Thus a twelfth-century reference to the game known in France as soule or choule simply says that it was played by ‘rustici homines’ (country folk). A contemporary English account tells of all the youth of London going out to the fields ‘adlusum pilae celebrem’, to play the famous game of ball, in a match that pitted the pupils from the various schools


against the tradesmen.22 That said, we know very little about the games that were actually played on those occasions. Soule required a ball about the size of a man’s head, but it might be made of wood or leather, and if the latter, be stuffed with a variety of materials or even be inflated. The ball could be kicked or carried or struck with some sort of club, and the game might even be played on horseback. Rules seem to have been mostly ad hoc, but if the game was played with sticks, the notion of ‘out of bounds’ was applied. Played more in the north of France than the south, it was a team game in which nonetheless one individual player—the one who carried or propelled the ball to the designated goal—was the winner. It was obviously a very rough game, and injuries and deaths were not unknown, especially when clubs, sticks or flails were used. It was also a ritualized game in the sense that it was played on specific dates, often in specific places, and had some symbolic content.23 This and the fact that men apparently did not practise to play soule, but merely used it as a means of settling rivalries or achieving personal success, mean that the game was purely recreational and did not enter into any equation with military training. Boisterous ball games studded with injuries and deaths were also noted in England in the thirteenth century, but what is noteworthy is that from 1314 on, football (pelotes de pee [pied], pila pediva, pila pedalis) is singled out by name and thereby distinguished from other forms of ludus pilae. Like soule, early football was ‘a rough and tumble, formless punting game, played by an indeterminate number of players’ with no mention of rules or goals, though a late fifteenth-century text does mention boundaries.24 Lord mayors try to outlaw it because of the ‘rageries’ that accompany its playing and the damage done to property; educational theorists decry its violence (while recognizing that it is good exercise); but, like soule, it is both a popular form of recreation and a ritualized game linked to specific dates on the calendar. Interestingly enough, though football was historically a lower-class game, by the late Middle Ages students in the best schools and universities were eager to play it and the authorities had to try to discourage them. Sport, among other things, was breaking down the tripartite equilibrium that was the foundation of society. More importantly for our purpose, however, is the fact that English monarchs beginning with Edward III consistently tried to ban football and to force its fans to practise archery, long considered the key to England’s military superiority.25 This last point is very significant, because it reveals that despite Galen’s arguments in favour of ball games—available by the late fifteenth century in the original Greek and in Latin and later in vernacular


translations—medieval and Renaissance theorists could see no military application in football and indeed thought that such games had a largely negative value for the individual and the state. Thus James I gave advice to his son and heir in 1598 that ‘Certainly bodily exercises and games are very commendable …. But from this count I debar all rough and violent exercises, as the football, meeter for laming than making able the users thereof.’26 On the other hand, the French king Henri II (1547–59) was fond of playing rough ball games—indeed he was fond of all sports and died as a result of a jousting accident— though whether he actually played soule or an Italian-style game using a large ball is open to interpretation.27 The other dimension of medieval ball games can be seen, as I have said, in the (apparently) non-contact sports played by, and associated with, ecclesiastics, mostly within the confines of their monasteries. The earliest references come from about the middle of the twelfth century. The first concerns an out-of-body experience by a young monk who temporarily died and went to hell, where the devils played a ‘a kind of ball game’ (similitudinem ludi pilae) with his soul. The second is a text that expresses disapproval of the practice of certain high ecclesiastics who play games, and even ‘ludum pile [pilae] with other clerics ‘in the cloisters’.28 Throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages there are many documents, usually municipal or ecclesiastical ordinances, that attest to monks and other young men (pupils in the cathedral schools run by religious orders?) playing ball games in the open courtyards and even in cemeteries that were part of, or adjacent to, churches and monasteries. Historians usually equate these games with tennis, i.e. real tennis, or with its pre-racquet version, jeu de paume, though these terms replace the indeterminate ludus pilae only in the fourteenth century.29 The notion that tennis was originally a monks’ game is well-attested in the archives and in literary and historical sources. Morgan, however, disputes this, arguing on grounds that are archaeological and anthropological that, while no medieval cloisters are suitable for playing real tennis, there is ample evidence from existing folk ball games that it was in the beginning a game played in the open country that later moved into urban spaces.30 Whether monkish or rustic, the game quickly became very popular among royalty and the aristocracy, who built specially constructed courts, roofed or unroofed, or renovated existing spaces to resemble the features possessed by cloisters. Morgan records a private tennis court built in Valencia in 1285 and another in Paris before 1308,31 and Mehl has discovered 13 registered makers of tennis balls in Paris in 1292. By the fifteenth century the game


had spread to the bourgeoisie, who played the game in public courts especially built for that purpose. These continued to multiply, to the point where there were reputedly 250 jeux de paume in Paris in 1596 and 7,000 people living off the avails of tennis.32 Despite the game’s secularization, however, the link with Christian ecclesiastical architecture survived. As Mehl describes it, ‘if it is open to the sky, the tennis court reminds us of the cloister with its gallery running along two or three of its sides. If it is roofed over, its height and the way it is lit [by windows placed near the top of the walls] evoke the nave of a church.’33 This was already the opinion of a sixteenthcentury Italian rabbi, who in 1560 wrote an opinion on whether Jews could play tennis with Christians on the Sabbath. For him, tennis was a specifically Christian game and the physical features of a tennis court made it resemble a church. (He nonetheless allowed the game as long as no racquets were used and not too much energy was expended.34) This apparently close relation between tennis and the Christian church, at least in its material manifestations, is seemingly at odds with the frequent metaphorical application of tennis to war. The most familiar of these, at least to English speakers, is set out in a tirade that Henry V delivers in response to a French insult in one of Shakespeare’s history plays. Dismissing Henry’s claim to the French throne, the Dauphin has sent him a gift of tennis balls as an occupation more suitable to a young man than kingship. Henry’s reply to the French ambassadors runs thus: When we have match’d our rackets to these balls, We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard. Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler That all the courts of France will be disturb’d With chases… And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his Hath turn’d his balls to gunstones.35 In this very striking (and in some of its later imagery very moving) speech, Shakespeare has turned the metaphor into an allegory by carefully plotting the technical language of the game—rackets, balls, set, hazard, courts, chases—onto warfare. The equation of tennis balls to cannon balls seems particularly apt, but in fact Shakespeare is only capitalizing on a topos well entrenched in European literature. Gillmeister argues that much of the language of tennis was in fact taken from siege warfare, via both real and fictional accounts of


tournaments. In an especially notable use of the borrowing, the anonymous Bataile of Agyncourt (c. 1420) describes the artillery bombardment of Honfleur by four English cannon. In succession, each of them fires a shot and scores its hits as one of the four points needed for game.36 In a less concrete but even more extended use of the metaphor, the Franco-Burgundian poet Jean Molinet describes the capture of Ghent in July 1492 and all the attendant European political manoeuvrings as a game of tennis.37 That sport and war might borrow each other’s vocabularies is not, for us, particularly surprising. The link between soldiering and athletics goes back to Homer’s Iliad and much of the ancient Olympic Games took the form of military fighting skills disguised as competitive athletics. Except for Galen there was, however, no ancient tradition that equated ball games with war; in fact quite the opposite, as I have tried to show. This appears to be, then, a medieval innovation, which Gillmeister explains in evolutionary terms: the knightly tournament (not jousting, but fighting on horseback en mêlée) developed as a training exercise, and then as a sport around the beginning of the eleventh century. Violent ball games such as soule and football were peasant or lower-class imitations of the tournament (which were originally conducted in the open countryside) in that they were team games in which nonetheless a single player was declared to be the winner. The absence of horses, armour and weapons reflects merely the economic realities of the players, unable to afford such expensive toys. Monks were forbidden to play such rough games and so, still according to Gillmeister, substituted an early form of what we may call tennis. This bore enough physical similarities to tournaments and siege warfare to make it psychologically satisfying for young men avid for excitement but confined by their calling to more peaceful kinds of exertion.38 Just as the tripartite structure of society that I have described above grew out of the specific functions assigned to identifiable social groups, the tripartite organization of sport reflected the limits and the aspirations of each of these groups. Why, then, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries did the compartmentalization of these three sports break down, particularly in the sense of the upper classes— royalty, nobility, the knightly class, the upper bourgeoisie, university students—wanting to play lower-class and ecclesiastic games? And secondly, why and how were these games then appropriated by their new masters and made to serve their own aristocratic—which is to say military-purposes?39 The answer to the first question is to easy to find, or at least hypothesize. By the mid-fifteenth century the traditional aristocratic


sports of tourneying and jousting were becoming more codified and less spontaneous, more concerned with rules than with athletics, less like war and more like putting on a show.40 They also required a good deal of preparation and expense, whereas tennis and soule/football could be played at a moment’s notice. Apart too from the attraction of slumming and breaking the social rules, tennis in particular offered the moneyed classes multiple opportunities for gambling, either on themselves or as spectators.41 On the other hand, the spontaneous violence of football was a source of excitement and physical release that was fast moving and immediate. The second question is particularly acute when dealing with tennis. Originally, in its monkish form, this game involved two teams of players, one attacking and the other defending the cloister gallery behind it. The attacking team attempted to drive the ball under the slanted roof of the gallery—the penthouse—or through one or another of the small openings in that wall by hitting it with their hands (racquets appeared only after 1500). No net or rope separated the teams and by convention (one hesitates to speak of rules at this early date) the defending team could stop the ball after its second bounce rather than returning it after the first. This play was called a ‘chase’, and after a second one, the teams changed ends and roles, the new attackers trying to force chases, i.e. make the ball unplayable by the new defenders, at a point further down the court than the chases that had been imposed on them. If they succeeded, the points went to them; if not, then to the other team. In other words, all the scoring took place in one end of the court. Subsequent changes, which can be attributed to an ongoing attempt to render the game more interesting, made the court symbolically symmetrical—points could be scored at either end— and led by the mid-fifteenth century to complex tactics, rules and points systems to which contemporaries were careful to conform, even though they found them hard to explain and to articulate.42 Taken together with the church-like confinement within which the game was played, the generally accepted rules of tennis—even if they were not codified until the mid-sixteenth century—made it a reassuring game. Its vocabulary and its history, the lack of uniformity of the courts, the speed of play and the element of real danger (tennis balls could and did kill) meant it was still exciting to play and watch, but the emotions it aroused were none the less contained within the physical limits of the court (at most 30m×10m×6m) and within the certainties of the rules and conventions. In the mid-sixteenth century the priest Antonio Scaino could say of tennis that ‘if anyone wanted to consider the game from a theological point of view, he could draw from it


norms and models for life’, precisely because it teaches self-control and moderation and because its dominant principles are ‘brains and skill, and not fortune and chance’.43 It would be hard to overestimate the intellectual drive in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to impose mathematical models on all forms of human and natural activity, in short to submit irregularity to some degree of ideal, measurable, theoretical control. Tennis, this self-enclosed pursuit defined by its own laws, with its measured courts built for no other purpose than the game itself, was the only sport that could fit into what might be described as the Renaissance paradigm.44 Given, then, the strong moral and intellectual content attributed to tennis, as well as its ongoing ecclesiastical connotations, it is surprising to find Scaino advocating the game as an exercise for training soldiers. He was, after all, a humanist who would later write a book on Aristotle; he certainly knew the role of ball games in ancient cultures and indeed quotes Galen’s Exercise with the Small Ball on the very first page of his book, but only with respect to the medical advantages it preaches. Yet by page 3, even before he adduces the metaphor tennis=life, we find this: Out of this noble and honourable game, brave Commanders can draw many wise insights when it comes to organizing their battalions on the field, ordering a battle, seizing or defending a fortress, pushing forward or retreating at the right time and in an orderly fashion; inventing stratagems the enemy has not thought of, catching him off guard and forcing him to make a mistake, terrifying him not only by your actions, but also by gestures, shouting, and other utterances…. [Tennis also has the effect of] making young men strong, full of courage, and fit for war.45 The movement of this passage reflects, both semantically and syntactically, the movements of a tennis game, complete with the ‘trash talk’ that apparently gave the game an ungentlemanly tone. Later in the book,46 Scaino returns to the military imagery. He insists that a tennis ‘team’, consisting of four players, must have a capo, a chief who just like an army commander will be the one to achieve victory. He will organize his players into a battaglia, a fighting unit, and arrange them in the campo (field) so that two form the antiguardia that will conduct scaramuccie (skirmishes) and two the retroguardia. These latter two will be the stronger, more experienced players, able to receive the serve


and return it. It is also up to these two to execute the strattagemi that will produce the game-winning points. What is more significant, however, when we compare this text to the other parallels between tennis and war, is that the author is not merely substituting one lexical code for another. Scaino is advocating the application of a rule-defined sport, played with essentially harmless objects within an enclosed room, to a military action that would unfold pragmatically in an unbounded space and whose purpose is to cause death and destruction. That ball sports might be used to train soldiers was, for the time, a revolutionary idea. Scaino was a client of Alfonso da Este, the prince of Ferrara, and it was to him that he dedicated his book. The Este family were avid sportsmen, and both the ducal palace and their secondary residence, the Palazzo Schifanoia, were partially decorated with frescoes depicting athletes. Alfonso was a keen jouster—in 1559 he was part of Henri II’s jousting team when the French king was killed—and so fond of tennis that he had a court built in the palace and kept at least two tennis pros on his payroll, with and against whom he would play.47 Scaino obviously did not have to justify tennis to him as a game. That he felt he did have to do so on more practical and philosophical grounds suggests that sport per se was still morally problematic for the Renaissance, despite—or perhaps because of—Castiglione’s advocacy of athletics as a means for noblemen to display their talents: It is frequently necessary to show one’s prowess in such things [physical exercises], whereby a good name is to be won, especially with the crowd…. Another noble exercise and most suitable for a man at court is the game of tennis which shows off the disposition of the body, the quickness and litheness of every member, and all the qualities that are brought out by almost every other exercise.48 In short, Castiglione’s justification of sports is concentrated exclusively on the advantages the individual can derive from practising them, whereas Scaino seems intent on broadening their function to include the benefits that they hold for society, in particular moral edification and military preparedness. Though Scaino’s almost exclusive preoccupation throughout the Trattato is to create a typology of tennis games, according to whether or not they are played with bare hands or some kind of striking instrument (paddles, racquets, bats) and whether or not a cord (i.e. net) is present, in the last chapter of the second part49 he suddenly shifts gears to describe calcio, a game that is the antithesis of tennis. In


modern Italian, calcio refers to soccer/football, and the word itself means a ‘kick, a blow given with the foot’. In Renaissance Italian it referred, however, to a game much more akin to soule or to the unregulated forms of football played in England. It seems to have been played spontaneously in various parts of northern and central Italy, but the Florentines considered it their national game. Elaborate literary accounts of matches go back to the 1460s and particularly significant games were recorded in the annals, for instance the match played on the frozen River Arno in January 1491 or another played in full view of the enemy during the siege of the city in 1530.50 Scaino seems almost painfully aware of the differences between calcio and tennis. He specifies that the former is played by any number of players from 20 to 40 or more to a side, in a rectangular space whose only requirement is that the length be greater than the distance a strong man can throw a stone, and the width be half that. It does not have any of tennis’s complicated rules or scoring system; players can propel the ball any way they want, except by throwing it, just as long as they get it across the opponents’ goal line. The very simplicity of the game leads Scaino to conclude that it was one of the first games humans ever invented, implying thereby that it was subsequently polished into tennis. The interest of this chapter lies in the way that Scaino tries to appropriate calcio to his larger purpose. Like Sidonius Apollinaris he talks about students (Scolari) playing the game and says they do so in the ‘arena di Padova’, the remains of the old Roman amphitheatre, thus linking the game to the upper classes and to prestigious Roman culture. He also tentatively accepts the suggestion that it is the game Galen is describing in the Exercise with the Small Ball. More importantly, perhaps, he punctuates his account here and there with military terms: ‘engage in this battle’, ‘the enemy’, ‘skirmish’, ‘combat’, ‘the most experienced soldiers’, ‘deeds of arms’, ‘squadron’ and so on.51 And then Scaino finishes the chapter with this remark: In this game more than in any other an image of an almost real battle is represented. Very many times, here and there on the field, players are spectacularly knocked head over heels, and so in this game more than in all the other ball sports, you can see the strength and courage of the fast runners and of those who are agile and powerful when it comes to a struggle.52 This chapter is, in fact, the last chapter in which Scaino analyses the tactics and rules of ball games per se, since the third part of his book is devoted to what we would now call exercise science. His closing


account of the military implications of calcio thus brings the argument back full circle to his opening remarks concerning the ways in which ball games can teach the elements of strategy. Wars are not won only by outsmarting the enemy; wise commanders also need strong soldiers who have the emotional and physical disposition necessary to defeat the enemy in face-to-face, hand-to-hand combat. A much more extensive and circumstantial account of calcio was published in 1580 by Giovanni Bardi in his Discorso del giuoco del calcio fiorentino (An Essay on Florentine Calcio).53 Bardi was an aristocrat, a humanist, a mathematician and a composer to whom is attributed the invention of the art form known as opera. He was also an advocate of traditional Florentine culture and apparently feared that the national game might disappear; hence he tried to set down its rules, tactics and conventions in a form he hoped would be canonical. To organize a calcio game was an expensive procedure. A fence had to be built around a city square—the Piazza Santa Croce was a favourite place—and covered stands erected for the judges and the VIP fans; there was usually a pre-game parade; the players had to be provided with uniforms; and since the matches were frequently the source of a lot of crowd violence, there had to be heavy security.54 In short, calcio was a costly expensive proposition that Bardi’s current political master, the grand duke Francesco I de’ Medici, was willing to support but his successors might not. Bardi is thus at pains to show that the antiquity of calcio—citing Julius Pollux, he claims it descends from episkyros—is equal to the antiquity of the city itself, founded by Julius Caesar. It is, he asserts, exclusively an aristocratic game and he goes to some lengths to regulate it in the same way that Scaino did for tennis. He establishes precise measurements for the playing area, limits the players to 27 a side, shows how to set out the teams on the field, and legislates a rational scoring system. Also, and not unexpectedly, he demonstrates that calcio is useful for the state, especially in the way it trains men to be soldiers. A calcio match came about when two groups of young men conducted mock negotiations with each other in the manner of autonomous states; when the negotiations broke down, they would ‘resolve on a battle at Calcio’55—exactly in the way that Clausewitz would later describe war as a continuation of diplomacy by other means. In Bardi’s Discorso the military applications of calcio run throughout the text. The game has been structured to serve the art of war, as it accustoms us to both its fatigues and its rewards.56 Chief among the men allowed to play calcio are ‘soldati onorati’, soldiers recognized for their valour.57 The team is referred to as a ‘battalion’58


and its disposition on the field at the beginning of the game is derived from the ancient Roman battle formation. The forwards are equivalent to ancient ‘slingers’ or to modern ‘riflemen’ and are organized into three ‘squads’;59 their job is to ‘besiege’ the ‘enemy’ players.60 The winners are ‘victors’ and the player that scores a point receives as much gloria e applauso as would a soldier who had managed to capture an enemy king.61 The sconciatori (blockers), who play in the second line, are like the field commanders who determine the overall course of the battle.62 As in warfare, each team tries to capture and destroy the battle flags of the other.63 Bardi concludes his essay by emphasizing to the grand duke that calcio players do not aspire merely to the onore that the game brings, but also to be seen and recognized as brave and valiant and ready to serve their ruler in grave and serious matters. By running and fighting one another and wearing themselves out on the calcio field, by practising to become brave and noble champions of calcio, they are learning how to become courageous, strong and fit to be involved in any kind of undertaking and to achieve victory in whatever they do. The language is not specifically military but the meaning definitely is.64 Scaino and Bardi were scholarly men as well as being sports fans. They had read ancient literature and knew that the ball games of the Roman empire were not seen as having a military function. But between Rome and them a new socio-political ethos had been created. The Roman distinction between a governing class and a warrior class had been obliterated and a new caste of characters, the ecclesiastics— enormously more numerous than the ancient priests—had come upon the stage. Within this new polity new ball games had developed which, even if they kept something of the ancient games, were believed by contemporaries to be original. Whether or not these ‘new games’ were symbolic reconstructions of the soldiers’ sports, it is none the less true that war, and not gentlemanly recreation or physical exercise, was their model and their raison d’être. When Scaino and Bardi tried to accommodate these ball games to the Renaissance criteria of rationalization, control, and conformity to ancient models, they had no choice but to add an element of which the Romans had not thought: ball games as semblances of, and training for, the art of war. NOTES 1 . H.A.Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 76–8.


2 . Horace, Satires I.5.48–9 and I.6.126. Unless otherwise specified, classical authors are cited here according to the standard referencing system used by the Loeb Classical Library, Oxford University Press, the Budé editions in France, and the Teubner editions in Germany. Translations from other languages are usually my own, occasionally with acknowledged assistance. 3 . Satyricon XV.26–7. 4 . Laus Pisonis II.185–9. 5 . Suetonius, Peri paidiôn [On Games] 2; Julius Pollux, Onomasticon IX.103– 7. 6 . On episkyros, see N.B.Crowther, ‘The Ancient Greek Game of Episkyros’, Stadion, 23 (1997), 1–15. Both Suetonius and Pollux provide condensed references to a few other ball games, but these seem more recreational than athletic. 7 . Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters V.17. 8 . The identification of Sidonius’s game with harpastum is made by J.P.Thuillier, Le sport dans la Rome antique (Paris: Errance, 1996), pp. 89–90. See also my ‘From Word to Deed’, in Actas: V Congreso de Historia del Deporte en Europa (Madrid: Universidad Politécnica, 2002), pp. 407–16. 9 . This account of Roman sport generally follows Thuillier, who hypothesizes the existence of professional Roman ball-players demonstrating their skills for small audiences of nobles and wealthy freemen (Thuillier, Le sport dans la Rome antique, pp. 87–91). 10 . Claudius Galen, Peri tou tês smikras sphairas gymnasiou [Exercise with the small ball] in Scripta minora, para. 905 (my translation, with the expert assistance of Professor J.M.Bigwood). 11 . Vegetius De re militari [Soldiering] I and II 12 . Georges Duby describes Western Europe in the year 600 AD as being ‘profondément sauvage’ (Guerriers et paysans, VIIe-XIIe (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), p. 11. 13 . Francis P.Magoun records ‘the tradition…that Shrove Tuesday football at Kingston-upon-Thames (Sr) had its origin in the kicking about of the head of a defeated Danish chieftain’ and also notes later cases of severed heads used as footballs, both in fact and in fiction (History of Football from the Beginnings to 1871, Kölner Anglistische Arbeiten, 31, Bochum-Langendreer: Heinrich Poppinghaus, 1938; repr. New York: Johnson, 1966, pp. 6, 9, and 49). Unless otherwise noted, Magoun is the chief source for my summary of medieval football. 14 . Duby, Guerriers, p. 11; Y.Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul AD 481–751 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 207. 15 . Gregory of Tours, In gloria confessorum, ed. H.Morf (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1922), p. 5. 16 . Isidore, Etymologiae sive origines XVIII.lxix. 17 . [Nennius], The Historia Britonum, 3: The ‘Vatican Recension, ed. D.N.Dumville (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1985), pp. 92–5 (§§24–42). 18 . Pila, which originally meant a ball stuffed with hair, did survive in a limited way as the Italian diminutive pilotta and thence the French and Spanish pelote/pelota.


19 . Hen, Culture and Religion, pp. 216–26; Thuillier, Le sport dans la Rome antique, pp. 52–5. 20 . See Georges Duby, The Three Orders, Feudal Society Imagined, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 21 . Thus, for example, in England French was the language of the administration well into the fourteenth century, if not later, though it is clear that many of the decrees were written by clerks who had only a scanty knowledge of its syntax and vocabulary. Similarly, medieval Latin cannot solely be understood by reference to the classical tongue. 22 . Jean-Michel Mehl, Le jeu au royaume de France du XIIIe au début du XVIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1990), p. 70 and Magoun, History of Football, p. 3 and n. 8. 23 . For the best account of what was a very complex game, see Mehl, Le jeu au royaume de France, pp. 68–75 and 256–9. 24 . Magoun, History of Football, pp. 14–16. 25 . The French kings Charles V and Charles VI tried similar measures in 1369 and again in 1393: Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century (New York: Knopf, 1978), p. 546. 26 . James I, Basilikon Doron, or His Majesty’s Instructions to His Dearest Son, Henry the Prince, ed. D.Fischlin and M.Fortier (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1996), pp. 166–7. Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning list 23 royal edicts against football between the fourteenth and the early seventeenth century: ‘Folk Football in Medieval and Early Modern Britain’, in Readings in the Sociology of Sport (London: Frank Cass, 1971), p. 188 (also published as Sport: Readings from a Sociological Perspective [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972]). 27 . Bernard Gillet claims the king played the peasant game: Histoire du sport (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 6th Edn., 1980), pp. 50–51, but his source—Claude Binet, Discours de la vie de Pierre de Ronsard (Paris, 1586)— simply refers to ‘jouer au ballon’. 28 . Both references in H.Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History (London and Washington, DC: Leicester University Press, 1997), pp. 1–2 and notes. For the history of tennis and tennis-like games, see also the sections on jeu de paume in Mehl, Le jeu au royaume de France, in particular pp. 31–48, and Roger Morgan, Tennis: The Development of the European Ball Game (Oxford: Ronaldson, 1995). The cloister of a monastery or cathedral was a rectangular open space adjacent to the monks’ or priests’ living quarters. Surrounded by an arcaded covered walkway, the space could be used for exercise in all kinds of weather. 29 . Also known as royal tennis and court tennis, real tennis is played on an enclosed court that incorporates various non-symmetrical physical features: one or more projecting slanting roofs (known as penthouses), openings in the walls, at least one oblique surface, etc. For simplicity’s sake, I shall simply refer hereafter to tennis and understand the term to include real tennis, jeu de paume and longue paume (the outdoor version of the game). 30 . Morgan, Tennis, pp. 1 and 20ff. 31 . Ibid., p. 28.


32 . Mehl, Le jeu au royaume de France, pp. 34 and 262. 33 . Ibid., p. 42: ‘A l’air libre il fait songer au cloître, avec la galerie qui court sur deux ou trois de ses côtés. Couvert, son elevation et son mode d’éclairage évoquent la nef de l’édifice religieux’; also p. 261: ‘La liaison entre le cloître et le jeu de paume est permanente aux XIVe et XVe siècles.’ 34 . Uriel Simri, ‘The Responsa of Rabbi Moses Provençalo (1560) about the Game of Tennis on Sabbath’ [in Hebrew], in Proceedings of the First International Seminar on the History of Physical Education and Sport (Netanya: Wingate Institute, 1973), pp. 19–25 and 51–2. I am grateful to Professor George Eisen for giving me a copy of this paper and Professor Ilana Zinguer for providing me with a summary of the Hebrew text. 35 . Shakespeare, Henry V, 1.2 36 . Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, pp. 110–17. 37 . The poem ‘Le jeu de palme’ is 72 lines long and is initially based on the homonymy of ‘Gand’ —French for Ghent- and ‘gant’, the glove worn in the jeu de paume: text in Jean Molinet, Faictz et dictz, ed. Noel Dupire, 3 Vols. (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1936–39), pp. 255–7. 38 . This thesis runs throughout Gillmeister’s book. 39 . Through to the end of the Renaissance, i.e. until the ideas developed by Castiglione in the Book of the Courtier (1528) had been transmogrified into the French classical ideal of the honnête homme (post-1660), the nobility could not conceive of itself as having any function other than military. 40 . On the evolution of the tournament see most recently Joachim Rühl, ‘Francesco Sforza Visconti’s “Regolamento sopra una giostra” (1465) and John Tiptoft’s “Ordinances for Justes of Peace Royal” (1466)’, in Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the History of Sport in Europe (Florence: Istituto Superiore di Educazione Fisica, 1999), pp. 94–104. 41 . Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, pp. 16–17; Mehl, Le jeu au royaume de France, p. 270. 42 . See, e.g., [Guillaume?] Gosselin’s Declaration de deux doubtes qui se trouvent en comptant le jeu de la paume (1579); the 1592 Ordonnance du royal et honorable jeu de la paume, printed in Albert de Luze, La magnifique histoire du jeu de paume (Paris: Brossard, 1933), pp. 246–51; Forbet l’aisné’s translation of Galen’s Exercise with the Small ball, to which he appends other texts dealing with the game’s intellectual difficulties: L’utilité qui provient du jeu de la paume…(Paris: Thomas Sevestre, 1599). 43 . Antonio Scaino, Trattato del giuoco della palla [A Treatise on Ball Games] (Venice: Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1555), pp. 4–6: ‘Chiunque theologicamente volesse contemplare, da questo giuoco possa prender norma, & esempio sopra la vita nostra…. Ha principale dominio l’ingegno, & l’arte, & non la Fortuna, o il caso.’ Selections from Scaino’s book can be found in Carlo Bascetta (ed.), Sport e giuochi, 2 Vols. (Milan: II Polifilo, 1978), II, pp. 271– 323. 44 . On this see Robert Klein, La forme et l’intelligible (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), especially Ch. XIV, ‘Les humanistes et la science,’ pp. 327–38; and J.McClelland, ‘The Numbers of Reason’, in J.M. Carter and A.Krüger (eds.), Ritual and Record (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990), pp. 53–64.


45 . Scaino, Trattato, pp. 3 and 6. Though Scaino does not acknowledge Galen here, both the content and the rhythm of this passage seem to imitate the text quoted near the beginning of this article: ‘Da questo gentile & honorato giuoco i valorosi Capitani posson ritrarre molti saggi avedimenti, per disporre i loro eserciti, per ordinare une battaglia, espugnare, & difendere une luogo forte, spignersi innanzi, & ritirarsi a tempo, & con misura; fare stratagemi non pensati dall’avversario, cogliendolo d’improviso, & facendolo errare, col isbigottirlo, non sol con fatti, ma ancora co i gesti, col grido, & con le parole…rendendo i giovani atti all guerra, forti, & animosi.’ 46 . Scaino, Trattato, part II, Chs. 42–43 and 57, pp. 219–23 and 247–52. 47 . Scaino claims (Trattato, pp. 9–10, 46–7) that he wrote his book to explain why, when refereeing a match in which Alfonso was playing, he made a call that his master did not agree with. 48 . Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, I, 22, trans. Charles S.Singleton (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), p. 39. 49 . Scaino, Trattato, Ch. LXXII, pp. 282–6. 50 . See Luciano Artusi and Silvano Gabrielli, Calcio storico fiorentino, ieri e oggi (Florence: Calcio Storico Fiorentino, 1986) and Horst Bredekamp, Florentiner Fussball, die Renaissance der Spiele (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1993). 51 . The Italian terms are ‘esercitar questa battaglia’, ‘nimici’, ‘scaramuccia(re)’, ‘combattere’, ‘triarii’, ‘fatti d’arme’, ‘squadrone’. 52 . Scaino, Trattato, p. 286. The original reads: ‘In questo piu che in alcun’altro rappresentandosi quasi una imagine di vera battaglia, nella quale spessissime volte, quinci, & quindi vanno i giuocatori con grandissima ruina sozzopra rivolti, & sendo giuoco, nel quale piu, ch’in tutti gli altri della Palla si scorge il valor de’ buoni corridori, & di quelli ch’alla lotta son destri, & possenti.’ 53 . After the 1580 edition, published in Florence by Giunti, the book was republished in 1615, 1673, and 1688, each time with new illustrations and added material. The 1580 text, together with the 1688 illustrations, can be found modernized in Bascetta, Sport e giuochi, I, pp. 131–62, which is the text I shall quote. 54 . On the ritual and violence surrounding calcio, see Richard Lassels, The Voyage of Italy, 2 Vols. (Paris: Vincent du Moutier, 1670), I, pp. 212–15. 55 . Ibid. 56 . Bardi, Discorso del giuoco del calcio fiorentino, in Bascetta, Sport e giuochi, I, p. 138. 57 . Ibid., p. 140. 58 . Ibid., p. 142. 59 . Ibid., p. 143. 60 . Ibid., p. 148. 61 . Ibid., p. 150. 62 . Ibid., p. 153. 63 . Ibid., p. 161. 64 . Ibid., p. 162. The full Italian text runs as follows: ‘Quello onore che ciaschedun desidera acquistare…a piu alto fine trapassa, cioè di essere da Vostra Altezza Serenissima veduto e lodato e conosciuto per valoroso e prode e atto a servirla ancora ne i gravi e alti affair: per questo corrono, per questo


s’affrontano, per questo si battono l’uno l’altro e s’ammazzano di fatica, esercitandosi nel calcio campioni sì valorosi e sì gentili, e in tal contesa si fanno coraggiosi e forti e atti a mettersi a ogni impresa e conseguire ogni vittoria.’

4 Military Drill—Rather More Than ‘Brief And Basic’: English Elementary Schools and English Militarism J.A.MANGAN and HAMAD S.NDEE

Somewhat casually, and certainly misleadingly, it has been argued that in the years before the First World War drill in the English elementary school was brief, basic and provided merely a little rudimentary exercise.1 The reality was rather more complex. In English elementary education in the years before the First World War its inclusion was widely considered to be important; it served a number of purposes; it won extended time in the timetable; it generated public debate, even fierce controversy, and in the opinion of some at the time was an important, even crucial, aspect of the education of the elementary schoolboy. It is certainly time that more adequate consideration was given, not least by historians of sport, to this controversial aspect of English elementary education before the Great War. Hopefully, this chapter is a step in that direction. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN NINETEENTHCENTURY BRITAIN: AN OVERVIEW It is unwise, of course, to generalize about British elementary education and its physical activities in the nineteenth century. Each individual nation within the United Kingdom had its own peculiarities. Scotland, for example, had its own educational traditions and patterns of administration.2 It was only in the last three decades of the nineteenth century that an attempt was made to develop the Scottish elementary school system along lines broadly similar to the English,3 and while Wales and Ireland shared much with England, both had their distinctive cultural traditions.4 In the following brief discussion reference will be made exclusively to English elementary schooling. The intention is not to cover the provision of nineteenth-century elementary education in Britain. Such an examination would inter alia require more space— which is not available. More to the point, it would be different in purpose, extent and direction. The quest here is to establish the place of


drill in English elementary schools at that time and, more importantly, its purposes—political, social and military. As is well known, the year 1870 is a key date in the history of elementary education. The Education Act of 1870 made elementary education universally compulsory. This, in turn, had far-reaching consequences for school physical activities. Before that year, elementary schools in England were set up largely by the Church of England. In fact, elementary education was ‘dominated by religious organisations’.5 In 1860, the Church of England’s National Society owned about ninetenths of elementary schools and enrolled about three-quarters of all schoolchildren.6 However, Nonconformists or other religious sectarian groups, who did not want their children to go to the Church of England schools, also set up their own schools. There were also non-sectarian voluntary societies such as the Royal Lancastrian Institution (later known as the British and Foreign School Society) which provided elementary education for the working class.7 This institution, founded in 1808, was the first of a variety of voluntary educational societies by means of which fortunate working-class children received education.8 In the first half of the nineteenth century the government appears to have been reluctant to get involved in the provision of elementary education: ‘Conflict between the Church and Nonconformist schools was an important factor in delaying state participation.’9 Sectarian rivalries would have presented a formidable obstacle had the British government attempted to intervene.10 Its attitude was to be rather different at the end of the century as will be seen—and a main reason was the concern to ensure military drill. However, some state aid to religious bodies for building schools began in 1833, when ‘the British government decided that annual grants of twenty thousand pounds should be paid to denominational schools’.11 Subsequently, the government continued to provide grants to these bodies. Two factors seem to have been largely responsible for the steady allocation of grants from the national budget during the second half of the nineteenth century. Firstly, the child population itself increased sharply and an uneducated proletariat was increasingly seen as politically dangerous; secondly, industry, facing increased foreign competition, looked for the improved education of the young of all classes.12 The educational facilities required by the country to provide the necessary education to meet these demands were now quite beyond the resources of the voluntary societies. However, by the 1890s there was another compelling reason—the fear of German militarism. By the early years of the twentieth century Alfred Milner for one

MILITARY DRILL IN ENGLISH ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 69

brooded on Britain’s incapacity to defend herself against a continental enemy. He was not alone. This was fast becoming a national obsession and the constant theme of articles in papers such as the Daily Mail and the National Review as well as in ‘invasion-scare’ and spy novels, a very popular genre.13 The political background to the ‘popularity’ of military drill in the 1880s and 1890s requires attention. Between 1870 and 1891, after the 1870 Education Act, state and church schools competed ‘levelly—and the state schools lost: practically nobody attended them, and their over provision created more than a million empty school places’.14 Schools were then nationalized because the Conservative government ‘worried by the German threat, wanted the schools to teach military drill but the church schools refused to become Prussian academies’.15 The result was that in 1891 state school fees—paid by all but the children of the poorwere abolished in schools that taught military drill. The strategy worked. To pay for the ‘free’ state schools, Salisbury did not double the income tax of the rich; instead he doubled the domestic rates, the tax that preferentially hit ordinary people. Under this double whammy of targeted taxes and ‘free’ schools, a third of all parents had, by 1902, transferred their children from church to state schools. The church schools thus found their margins so squeezed that they had to apply for government grants —which were provided only if they accepted local authority control and if they introduced…military drill.16 The bribe was successful; furthermore, time for military drill was extended in schools—thus military drill was far from insignificantly ‘brief and basic’. It was central to educational policy, important to school survival, elaborate in its monotonous rituals and given extra time requiring legislation. More on drill later, but first it may be helpful to examine the growth of state education in a little more detail. Richard Burton Haldane’s military reforms in the first decade of the twentieth century were of course part and parcel of this government concern with the German threat. Among these reforms was the bringing to life of ‘Officer Training Corps in secondary schools and universities, a plan which at least partially fulfilled Lord Robert’s goal of making mandatory military drill a part of the higher—education curriculum’. Indeed Haldane’s scheme to restructure ‘the army within a Liberal framework which demanded economic retrenchment and voluntarism’


was a particularly British response to the ‘spirit of the militarism of the decade’,17 a militarism than can be defined succinctly as stressing ‘the virtues of military organization and citizen sacrifice’18 and it should be added, adequate military preparation in the face of the threat of a Continental militarism that did things differently by menacingly. No more and no less. Kipling caught the martial mood of anxiety in these lines from The Dykes: Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we delayed: Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons as our fathers we have betrayed.19 Geoffrey Best, writing of Britain at the onset of the First World War, states that the nation, measured by any static ideal type of militarismsomething, it is stressed here, that should be carefully avoided—seemed wanting in many things to sustain total war. However, he goes on: ‘But of its militarization there can be little doubt. However, uneven and contradictory this process may have been, it produced a civil society successfully organized for the sustained violence of total war.’20 Furthermore, in a statement of special perceptiveness, John R.Gillis has observed: There has been a distinct tendency to identify militarism with particular political and social formations (the Prussian Junkers, for example), these becoming the standard by which other politics and social groups are judged to be militaristic or not. But judging one’s own society against this ‘other’, even if it is an ideal type, begs the question as whether militarism itself might mean different things in different societies, and, furthermore, whether its definitive characteristics might not change over time.21 More on drill in the context of a special British militarism later, but first it may be helpful to examine the growth of state education in a little more detail. In England, the campaign for non-sectarian or state education began as early as the mid-1820s, but for reasons touched on above gained significant momentum only in the 1860s. Campaigners such as the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the National Educational League ‘feared that as Britain was on the verge of population explosion, it must, therefore, be on the verge of revolution’,22 and argued, first, that the secular education of the masses


was the way to avert catastrophe and, second, that ‘useful knowledge’— of which political economy was to be a major component—should provide a constructive basis for children’s education.23 The society was anxious to introduce political economy into the elementary school curriculum in order that the working classes might understand their appropriate role in an industrial society.24 The society seemed to have greatly favoured Richard Whateley’s booklet Easy Lessons on Money Matters, published as early as 1833.25 Extracts were read widely by several generations of schoolchildren.26 The National Education League, for its part, had one main objective: the establishment of a system to secure the education of every child in the country.27 The league suggested that this could be achieved through the creation of local authorities, which would be responsible for establishing schools where necessary.28 Teachers who had been struggling for years to work through a biblical syllabus also saw the need for a wider curricular content.29 Perhaps the most outspoken critic of scripture education was the Scottish educationist James Simpson, who launched devastating attacks on it and argued vehemently for secular education.30 Probably the turning point in the campaign for non-sectarian education was when the voluntary societies themselves came to accept the idea of a secularized curriculum. In 1839, the British and Foreign School Society gave way to its critics and published its first secular reader as a companion text to scripture lessons.31 The changes in the school curriculum unfortunately were not matched by developments in teaching methods. In Education: Elementary Education 1780–1900, J.M.Goldstrom writes: ‘Despite the expansion of educational facilities over the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, and adjustments in the curriculum at about this time, the monitorial system lingered on’32—a system Herbert Spencer once termed ‘the mechanical, rote-learning…utilitarian education’.33 The traditions of the monitorial system were slowly, but not completely, disappearing in the 1850s, allowing teachers too little classroom freedom.34 Class teaching is said to have been more of a harsh interrogation than an enjoyable inculcation of perceptions and values. Spencer sought to replace rote learning with something more meaningful to the child.35 His critique reflects increasing period unease about the narrowness of elementary school methods, an unease which gradually brought mitigation. Problems associated with the curriculum, as noted above, also lingered on. They too took time to resolve. When religious organizations began to establish charity schools for children of the poor in about 1780, as touched on above, religious instruction dominated


the curriculum.36 Instruction was designed to ‘condition the children for their humble position in life as servants and labourers’.37 Reading matter was the Bible, catechisms, sermons and school readers of stern moral tone.38 For the poor it was a matter of take it or leave it—‘there were virtually no other educational opportunities for poor children in the eighteenth century’.39 With the government’s involvement from 1833, some improvements, at least in the numbers at school if not in curriculum content, resulted. The combined efforts of church and state resulted in increasing numbers of the children of the poor receiving at least a little daily schooling.40 The dominant religious content of the curriculum, too, as already briefly discussed, slowly began to change. Major change in numbers and curriculum, however, had to wait until the last quarter of the century. After years of argument and agitation,41 elementary education in England, as mentioned earlier, eventually became ‘universally compulsory’ following the Education Act of 1870.42 However, in Targeting Schools: Drill, Militarism and Imperialism, Alan Penn notes usefully that the Elementary Educational Act of 1870 was a compromise.43 The Act certainly overnight ‘did not create a new national system, nor a completely compulsory system, nor a free system’.44 Nevertheless, the 1870 Education Act made provision for the creation of school boards—local authorities that were to be responsible for the organization and administration of elementary education in their respective areas.45 It increased numbers in schools and widened curriculum opportunities. One component of these widened opportunities was physical training. In his introduction to Physical Education in England Since 1800, Peter Mclntosh distinguishes between two distinctive traditions of boys’ physical education in England in the nineteenth century—one for public schools, and the other for elementary schools. However, in pursuit of comprehensiveness, and to ensure the inclusion of boys and girls of the upper, middle and lower classes, Jonathan May46 added to these two traditions, a third: the provision of physical education in girls’ schools. McIntosh writes: ‘In public schools organised games began to appear early in the nineteenth century and they were regarded as an important element in the education of the sons of the middle and upper classes.’47 As is well known, eventually, these games ‘became a feature of all public schools, old and new, great and small’.48 According to McIntosh, in contrast, the physical education programmes of elementary schools throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century in England comprised merely physical exercises, springing from


several roots— military drill, callisthenics and gymnastics.49 From these early mixed physical exercises a system of physical education known as ‘physical training’ evolved which, again according to McIntosh, was widely adopted in elementary schools by the end of the nineteenth century. In girls’ secondary schools, as May notes, there was a rather more comprehensive system of games, gymnastics and drill than in comparable boys’ schools.50 Be that as it may, During the late-Victorian period the development of physical education…in English schools was marked by notable class… differences. The view was generally accepted that each class had its own educational and physical requirements. Social and economic conditions thus produced two distinct systems, one for the rich and one for the poor.51 More on this later. However, it is useful at this point to briefly consider physical activities in elementary schools before 1870 as a prelude to a discussion of physical training after the milestone Education Act of 1870. PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND BEFORE 1870 Gymnastics and drill, of course, were the major components of physical education52 in Continental European elementary schools well before 1870.53 The gymnastics derived broadly speaking from the educational theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his disciples.54 In practical terms, however, it was Basedow’s Philanthropinum, founded at Dessau in 1774, which was to become the source of a general system of gymnastics suitable for schoolchildren.55 Johann Bernhadt Basedow led an educational movement that proposed, among other things, physical education. The avowed aim of the Philanthropinum at Dessau was to ‘develop a healthy and well-exercised mind and a pure conscience in a healthy and well-exercised body’.56 Instruction consisted of the four ‘knightly exercises’ of dancing, fencing, riding and vaulting.57 In time, various physical educators at the school modified the exercises to suit even younger children. Basedow’s Philanthropinum practices were imitated. Arguably the most significant imitator was Johann Christoph Guts Muths. He took over as physical education teacher at a school called Schenpfenthal in 1786.58 He ‘not only developed and systematised the work of his predecessors but he was also the first practising teacher to publish manuals of physical education’.59


Gymnastik fur die Jugend appeared in 1793, followed subsequently by other similar publications. Within a few years, versions of Gymnastik fur die Jugend appeared in several countries in Europe and in America.60 The first English edition was published in 1800 in two volumes, the first one a plea for gymnastics and the second a practical manual. Guts Muths included, in his work, a wide range of physical activities such as jumping, running, throwing, wrestling, climbing, dancing, walking, swimming and military exercises.61 Guts Muths must have made a favourable impression on the British armed forces because in 1822, P.H.Clias, a Swiss army officer and one of Guts Muths’s disciples, was appointed to organize gymnastics courses at military and naval establishments in England.62 Another system of gymnastics that was making an impact in Europe in the nineteenth century, well before the Education Act of 1870 of course, was Ling’s Swedish gymnastics. The system, initiated and developed by the Swede Per Henry Ling in 1814, was classified into educational, medical, military and aesthetic gymnastics.63 The fundamental difference between the German and Swedish systems was that the former was based on the use of apparatus—pole and ropes as well as horizontal and parallel bars—while the latter was composed mostly of free-standing exercises without apparatus.64 The Swedish system of gymnastics was first brought to England in 1838.65 But it was in the 1850s, through the indefatigable efforts of the physician Mathias Roth, that the Swedish system was introduced into the elementary curriculum.66 Roth considered the Swedish system of gymnastics appropriate not only for schoolchildren but also for healthy and robust soldiers and civilians.67 Roth called his approach ‘rational gymnastics’—essentially Ling’s therapeutic ‘free exercises’, a name derived from the fact that they were executed without the help of technical apparatus. Of course, gymnastics were not unknown in England in earlier centuries. One of the earliest written treatises on vaulting was that of William Stokes, which was published in London as early as 1652.68 Nevertheless, the gymnastic systems that appear to have found favour in English elementary schools in the nineteenth century were derived from either the German or Swedish systems.69 Eventually the Swedish system predominated and formed the basis of an indigenous system, which was later sponsored by the medical department of the Board of Education.70 Drill71—military and otherwise—was another component of physical training of elementary schools before 1870. It appears that a military type of drill dominated the physical training curriculum of these schools for most of the nineteenth century.72 It is important to


note that the presence of military drill in schools in England goes back at least to the Napoleonic Wars of 1793–1815.73 It was associated with the use of the word ‘fit’, introduced and used by surgeons to describe the men who were returning to duty in the Napoleonic Wars.74 Those who were passed for duty were thus described as ‘fit for service’.75 The concept of ‘physical fitness’ started to acquire wide popularity both in military and civilian life. Physical fitness regimes in the army eventually included schemes to ‘toughen’ recruits through athletic exercise, including drill.76 DRILL IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, 1871–1906: AN ASPECT OF MILITARY TRAINING AND AN INTEGRAL PART OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION Drill was officially sanctioned by way of legislation in the curriculum of English board schools in 1871. As a direct result of the amendment of the code,77 ‘attendance at drill under a competent instructor, for not more than two hours a week, and twenty weeks in the year could be counted as school attendance for grant purposes’.78 Military drill became an acceptable practice in many of the nation’s elementary schools between 1870 and 1875.79 In making this point it is necessary to correct the misleading argument that drill was a minor aspect of elementary education.80 A recent study81 clearly reveals the wide extent of military drill in schools, the considerable debate it stimulated and the strong beliefs expressed by those for and against.82 Certainly military drill in schools became a controversial issue. When military drill was introduced to elementary schools, for example, there was an immediate anti-militarist reaction, particularly on the part of the trade unions and committed individuals.83 One major criticism of drill, and military drill in particular, was centred on the people who delivered it. These were largely (with some exceptions)84 non-commissioned officers who, to say the least, were ‘rough and ready’. These ex-drill sergeants bellowed at young children in exactly the same way that they would have done on the barrack—square when drilling enlisted men. Consequently, many educationists felt that these drill sergeants were entirely the wrong kind of people to be delivering programmes to children: Working-class boys especially suffered, because for decades what physical training they received rested primarily on monotonous and mindless forms of military drill. Generations marched, turned and wheeled, stiff as pokers…there was no room for freedom of


movement or individuality, because such were considered unnecessary and undesirable in the masses.85 Drill was therefore anything but ‘rudimentary’ in its controversial impact, in its interpreted significance, in the careful consideration given to its implementation and, not least, in the amount of state support. For its advocates, it was part and parcel of a necessary militarism (endorsement of military training as a necessary means of state survival) that saw its counterpart in their advocacy of military training in the secondary school system. For its opponents, it symbolized unacceptable chauvinism. Thus it became an important element of elementary schooling that polarized sections of the community, broadly divided classes, raised issues of educational principle and fostered a fierce debate on the proper nature of the curriculum. For it to be dismissed as, in essence, marginal, unimportant and insignificant is unwise. Among other things, the drill that was sanctioned in board schools in 1871 was designed as a disciplinary measure—and was supposed to cultivate in boys the habits of obedience, smartness, order and cleanliness.86 The problem of indiscipline among children in urban areas was a major one. In schools in large cities, with their huge classes of children drawn from homes where dirt, disorder and illiteracy were common, the problem at first was not so much to give instruction as to establish conditions in which instruction could be given.87 McIntosh, incidentally, noted the similarities underlying the authorizing of drill in elementary schools in 1871 with the sanctioning of organized games in public schools in the 1850s: ‘It was the need for better discipline in public schools that led Cotton and other Arnoldian headmasters to sanction organised games. It was the same need that encouraged the introduction of drill and physical exercises into elementary schools.’88 Control was at the centre of motivation and implementation. However, the methods adopted in the public schools were very different.89 More to the point, however, regarding the elementary schools, the official recognition of drill, particularly military drill, at that time appears to have been a preparatory measure taken, as noted earlier, in response to the fears aroused and the lessons learned from the FrancoPrussian War of 1870.90 Anne Bloomfield estimates about 15,000 turners of the National Gymnastic Association (Turnverein) had fought in that war with efficiency and patriotism.91 Germany had introduced military drill into its physical education curriculum early in the 1800s through the extensively discussed initiatives of Johann Fredrich Ludwig


Jahn and other compatriots.92 The National Gymnastic Association, in addition, had provided thorough training in gymnastic exercises for much of the male population over the years.93 Bloomfield supports McIntosh’s view that military considerations were partly responsible for the strong military flavour of the regulations of 1871.94 She also quotes J.O.Springham, who argues that commercial as well as naval rivalry between Britain and Germany seems to have inspired noblemen such as Reginald Brabazon, twelfth Earl of Meath, to advocate military drill in elementary schools in England at the end of the nineteenth century.95 Lord Meath put a strong emphasis on aspects of militarism and patriotism. He was both impressed and startled by German training methods, in which national defence and imperial conquest were linked to the importance given to physical prowess and associated military efficiency,96 illustrated by a Prussian army general who remarked: ‘We have not vanquished the Austrians, we have outmatched them’97—a clear and direct reference to, among other things, physical supremacy. Referring specifically to Germany’s defeat of France and anxious to see military drill in elementary schools, Meath suggested to his readers the probable eventual need for a ‘wake-up’ call: ‘Perhaps it will be necessary for us to undergo some such national humiliation as the French had experienced.’98 Meath believed that military drill, apart from enhancing sound physical qualities, had value in teaching obedience and alertness,99 essential qualities for effective performance in war. And with regard to imperial patriotism he was in no doubt that the time had come to spread the responsibility for the heavy moral commitments of ‘white men and women’ of the British Empire: In former ages the burdens of Empire or of the State fell on the shoulders of a few; now the humblest child to be found on the benches of a primary school will in a few years be called on to influence the destinies not only of fifty-four millions of white, but of three hundred and fifty millions of coloured men and women, his fellow subjects, scattered throughout the five continents of the world.100 Not only individuals but associations and eventually the government pressed the case for military drill in schools. Probably the most forceful advocate was the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures in Great Britain (also referred to as the Society of Arts), founded in 1754.101 The society first concerned itself with the Poor Law district schools, where drill was introduced initially to


combat the indiscipline of the children attending those schools.102 The society then expanded its sights to embrace other elementary schools, especially after the establishment of the school boards in 1870.103 Many members of the society used the rising costs of the military establishment as a basis for their argument in favour of military drill. They maintained that if ‘a more efficient military organisation’— involving making drill an essential component of the curriculum in boys’ schools and employing military pensioners as instructors—was achieved, it would save the country a lot of money.104 Furthermore, the society wanted military drill to help ensure a commercially competitive and militarily powerful nation capable of defending its commercial interests. The trade unions for their part were not keen on military drill. They saw it as exploitation of young boys in the interests of commerce. Drill acrimoniously divided society. In this regard alone, it was significant. The complexity of the controversy associated with military readiness, which involved among other things compulsory military service as well as military drill in schools, is well discussed incidentally in a balanced and carefree manner by R.J.Q.Adams and Phillip P.Poirier in The Conscription Controversy in Great Britain, 1900–1918.105 The issue saw socialists such as the Webbs and the Fabian Society flirting ‘with some form of the mandatory training’ and Liberals in general disinclined to support it, while the Conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law gave higher priority to, among other things, Tariff Reform.106 As already noted, there are certainly grounds to suggest that as early as the 1870s the official recognition of military drill in the curriculum of elementary schools was a government attempt to promote military preparation. In March 1871, an attempt was made in the House of Commons to make drill compulsory for boys over the age of 18.107 The prime mover of the resolution drew attention to the fact that such provisions had already been attempted in Continental countries such as Switzerland.108 Such provisions, he maintained, underlined the importance of military drill as an aid to national defence. In the debates that followed in the House of Lords, such as that of April 1875, almost all contributors were in agreement that military drill in the nation’s elementary schools was necessary to diffuse a military spirit in the nation.109 Attention was drawn to the general concern of the ruling classes that the common people should be prepared from an early age for an orderly and compliant role in society, and be ready to participate in the defence of that society as occasion might demand.110 Drill was to be taught only to boys.111 These were the potential candidates for


future service in the armed forces. Theoretical arguments went hand in hand with practical actions. At the national level, the Education Department made special arrangements with the War Office in which the latter supplied the former with drill sergeants at a reasonable rate of sixpence a day and a penny a mile marching money.112 The London School Board113 provides a good example of local support for this policy. The board appointed as drill master a regimental major who was responsible for organizing courses in drill for serving teachers.114 On successful completion of the course, these teachers were sent to teach military drill in board schools.115 The board’s arrangement ensured the continuous delivery of this type of drill and guaranteed a steady supply of trained teachers. Such initiatives clearly demonstrate the importance attached to drill for military preparation in elementary education. The number of schools that included military drill in their curriculum of physical education increased steadily during the years that followed the Education Act of 1870.116 In 1872 there were 926 such schools; by 1880 the number had risen to 1,277.117 Bloomfield states simply that ‘[military] drill became an accepted and acceptable part of British formal education’.118 The reasons have already been provided. What this drill meant in terms of the pupil’s experience unquestionably left much to be desired. The exercises, which were included in this drill, were described by E.G.Holland, who was at school in 1877, ‘as unbearably boring’.119 The exercises consisted of command-type instructions—attention, stand at ease, eyes right, eyes left, about turn, left turn, right turn and the like. Undoubtedly the repetition was monotonous and certainly the concept of physical training was narrow. This was not accidental. In the eyes of the ruling class, it was the ‘right type of education’ for the lower classes, as drill taught obedience and conformity. Curiously, such an early introduction to military training, it was hoped, might encourage boys to join the militia or the army upon leaving school. There were echoes of Jesuit belief. One enthusiast put it optimistically that ‘if instruction began when the child was five and a half or six years of age, by the time he reached ten he would be ready to practise with a light rifle’ and, he added, later with more advanced weapons.120 Apropos of the Jesuits, an interesting aspect of the educational adoption of the militaristic attitude, which offers an insight into a general social ambience of the time, is to be found at the Jesuit St Francis Xavier’s College, Liverpool.121 The attitude there reflected an attitude that was not uncommon in both elementary and secondary education and indeed in the wider society: the approach of the prefect of


studies, Father James Harris, while not directly military in nature, was severely militaristic in approach.122 This should not be entirely surprising: Late Victorian Britain was to witness both a growing association of religious and military ideals and a new interest in the needs of adolescents, especially boys. ‘Christian militarism’ and ‘Christian manliness’ together found expression in the remarkable and rapid proliferation of organizations and voluntary activities for the young in the period 1880–1914: brigades, scout groups, youth clubs and cadet corps sprang up everywhere, especially in the industrialized cities of Britain. In its emphasis on militarism and manliness, Harris’s Brigade at St. Francis Xavier’s College, Liverpool, inevitably invites comparison with the two most prominent manifestations of this phenomenon in the Victorian era—The Salvation Army and The Boys’ Brigade.123 Official recognition of elementary school physical education as largely restricted to (military) drill disappointed some physical educationists and their allies from other professions, and indeed others. While the physician Mathias Roth criticized it on the grounds of its narrowness, in that it put a too heavy emphasis on the inculcation of qualities of discipline—habits of obedience, smartness, order and cleanliness—his professional opponent, Archibald MacLaren, objected to it on the basis of the physical immaturity of the boys.124 MacLaren recommended that drill, especially the military kind, should be given only to older boys above the age of 14. J.A.Hobson, for his part, found it politically repugnant, and objected fiercely to the mechanical nature of military drill, which stultified children’s free play, put an onus on combat, resulted in the creation of false heroes and gave rise to false values and pseudo-ideals.125 Opposition to military drill gradually gained pace and was voiced in Parliament and school board meetings.126 The earliest significant step towards the ‘demilitarization of physical education’ and the formulation of a systematic physical education programme in elementary schools came, interestingly enough, from the London School Board. It didn’t abandon its commitment to military drill but it did introduce additional exercises. On the initiative of individual members of the board such as Mrs Westlake, a member of the School Board for Marylebone, in 1878 a Swedish ‘expert’, Miss Concordia Löfving, was appointed as ‘Lady Superintendent of Physical


Education’.127 Löfving introduced Swedish gymnastics first to the girls’ schools of the London School Board and then to its departments.128 Although her re-appointment was opposed in 1880 and 1881, the impact of her work was already showing: ‘Within a year of her appointment there had been applications from over six hundred schoolmistresses for her courses.’129 Löfving resigned in 1881 and Martina Bergman was appointed in her place.130 The board now agreed to the adoption of the Swedish system for boys in 1883 on condition that ‘the military drill required by the New Code of Education Department in the case of boys be not interfered with’,131 and for a time the Swedish system existed in parallel for girls and boys.132 Girls in the London Board schools continued with the Swedish system after the departure of Madame Bergman in 1888, but physical education for boys took a different course following the death that year of the board’s drill instructor, Regimental Major Sheffield. The board made two significant appointments.133 A Swede, Allan Broman, was appointed ‘Organising Master of Exercise in Boys’ Departments’ and Thomas Chesterton was designated superintendent of what came to be known as an ‘English System of Physical Education’. Two years later Broman’s post was abolished, leaving the English system supreme. According to Chesterton, the English system was an eclectic drill from various Continental systems and was designed to counteract the effects of school life rather than constitute a preparatory military training.134 Nevertheless, despite the rhetorical semantics, in practice the English system consisted mainly of military drill: innovation had become conservatism. Other school boards made similar efforts to introduce varied exercise. In 1880, a ‘system of physical exercises’ was introduced into the board schools in Birmingham and a highly signiflcant innovation came in 1886 when the Birmingham board made provision for 20 minutes a day to be devoted to physical exercises—a radical time extension.135 This, however, needed an extension of school hours as the Education Department code of regulations did not allow it to count as school ‘attendance’. Soon Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and many other boards followed the examples of London and Birmingham.136 It was the beginning of a ‘revolution’ in physical education in elementary schools. In passing, it might be noted that it clearly reveals the importance attached to physical activities. A powerful impetus was given by the report of the Cross Commission. Indeed, as a consequence of both


the Cross Commission’s gloomy findings on the state of children’s health, and pressure from teachers, physicians, and educational reformers, the Education Department was finally convinced that all lower-class children needed to be systematically physically educated by trained teachers. It thus recognized both military drill and scientific exercise as legitimate forms of instruction for boys, made physical training compulsory, and ordered that no higher governmental grants would be paid to schools not conforming to its requirements.137 As noted already, a main motive for this stipulation was anxiety over lack of military readiness in the face of German militarism. The Cross Commission had been appointed in 1886 to review the state of elementary education since the enactment of the 1970 Education Act.138 The commission gave physical education a significant impetus. The commission was impressed by the evidence that was brought before it on physical training. Its report noted that both teachers and the military authorities called for the inclusion of ‘some system of physical exercises in elementary education’, and made a recommendation to the same effect.139 In addition, the commission suggested that the systems already put into operation by the War Office, by the Birmingham School Board and by the London School Board might be more widely adopted.140 As a direct consequence, in 1890 the Education Department formerly ‘recognized’ physical exercises141 as well as drill but, it should be noted, still relied heavily on military handbooks together with MacLaren’s System of Physical Education, republished in 1895.142 The reasons have been given earlier. Recognition made physical education eligible for a grant as a subject of instruction, effective from 1895.143 This was a significant gain in terms of status for the subject. As already made clear, schools that did not include physical exercise in their curriculum did not receive a grant.144 Obviously this acted as a powerful inducement to schools to provide physical education which included military drill. Here is further evidence, if any were now needed, of the continued belief in the value of drill with a military flavour—and the significance rather than the insignificance of this drill. Nevertheless, as already made clear, a major commission and several educational authorities recommended necessary change; ‘contemporary writers did not shut their eyes to this situation’145 while school inspectors, for their part, made various recommendations, which were only implemented long afterwards. Medical examination of schoolchildren, the provision of gymnastic apparatus and the inclusion


of organized games in the curriculum are among the recommendations that now came from the inspectorate. The inspectors argued that ‘military drill, callisthenic exercises with clubs and dumbbells were not enough’.146 Schoolteachers also thought that the recommendations of the commission did not go far enough. Thus teachers in London took the initiative in encouraging their pupils to play games: ‘the teachers were struck by the contrast between the bored faces of children at drill’ and the ‘happy joyous delight’ that they showed ‘when at play in the yard’.147 The teachers from time to time also arranged games against neighbouring schools in the parks or on the nearest available suitable ground. They also organized school clubs for football, cricket and other sports.148 This was a significant step towards organized games in elementary schools in England. It was thanks to the enthusiastic and devoted work of teachers outside school hours that the South London Schools’ Football Association was founded in 1885.149 Other school boards followed suit almost simultaneously, and eventually the organization of school games by teachers became a national movement.150 In short, in elementary schools in the 1890s, significant developments took place in the realm of competitive games, the introduction of which, from the 1890s, was the result of encouragement by school inspectors and initiatives taken by energetic male teachers who began to arrange for boys to participate in sports outside school hours. By 1893 there was a London Schools Football Association, and soon thereafter, organized inter-school competitions in football, cricket and athletics in a number of other cities and large towns. Through the 1890s, however, games and sports among elementary school pupils depended almost entirely on the initiative and encouragement of selfless teachers working on their own time without proper facilities and without financial assistance or official encouragement from any level of government; and the focus was almost exclusively on boys.151 Nonetheless, military drill remained an official component of the curriculum of physical education in elementary education and the criteria for receiving a government grant before 1906.152 It remained an important part of the curriculum. Military drill, as yet, was by no means extinct. Indeed, in 1900 it could still inspire the most spirited defence:


But what are the objections to drill? Are not its discipline and obedience as morally good as are its physical developments? Watch a football match, and mark the manner and morals of the spectators. Yet drill has taken in hand thousands of the class which crowds the football fields on high days, and made them the fit, well-disciplined and splendidly brave men who are fighting for their fatherland in South Africa. Drill would mean a higher ideal of citizenship, better physical development, and discipline.153 This ardent apologist added that drill was not intended to make ‘barrack soldiers’ but ‘capable, well-disciplined citizens’ and threw in for good measure, the argument that Might not a national system of boys’ drill, rightly organised, grow into a Boys’ Volunteer Movement, which in ten years could furnish the elements of a well-disciplined citizenship, out of which might be formed a People’s army, that would make Britain impregnable by land and sea, the most sure guarantee for European and world-wide Peace?154 To pull the threads together into a broad weave, before 1870 the exercise received by boys was mostly ‘a monotonous form of military drill’ and after 1870 and the famous Forster Education Act military drill was still encouraged; in fact, it was more encouraged. In short, from 1871, elementary schools’ physical education certainly included military drill. The concept of physical training was a narrow one. It still embraced military drill in spite of attempts by a few individuals to broaden the curriculum.155 Furthermore, in reality the introduction of drill into the curriculum of board schools in 1871 took priority over other forms of physical activities. As already made clear, this was due to the widely held social view that that games were more suitable for the children of the middle and the upper classes and that drill was more suitable for the children of the working class,156 the basis for this being that there should be ‘one type of physical education for the ruling class and a different one for the masses’.157 Team games were expected to teach the sons of the ‘ruling class’ to lead, as playing games involved fair play, decision-making and teamwork. Drill, on the other hand, was to teach the sons of the masses to follow158 as it taught obedience, compliance and conformity—so the arguments went. In the case of the London School Board, J.A.Mangan and C.Hickey have revealed the social factors behind the official recognition of military drill in elementary schools between 1871 and 1906.159 Mangan


and Hickey have pointed out that some of the challenges that faced board members at the board’s meetings, convened to deliberate on the appropriate elementary education in the constituency, had much to do with the composition of the board itself. The board comprised conservatives, liberals and socialists. The conservatives believed that ‘if the mental horizons of the working class were enlarged they might get ideas above their station and this would subvert the existing social order’.160 Thus the conservatives were opposed, at least initially, to compulsory education, free education and advanced or ‘higher grade’ elementary schooling.161 The conservatives also favoured the then ‘separate and different system of physical education’ in order to maintain the status quo. They won. The liberals and the socialists, the board’s progressive faction, for their part advocated a broader education for the working class. The liberals contended that a welleducated working class was an aim desirable in itself as it was important to national economic advancement. The socialists demanded good education for the working class in order to create an educational ladder and to ‘civilize’ the masses.162 Conservatism, in thought and deed, lingered. It was not until 1900 that the newly constituted National Board of Education began to recognize games as a suitable alternative to drill.163 Influential officials who believed in the educational values of games had been appointed. Among these officials was Robert Morant, brought up in the public school games-for-character tradition, who became permanent secretary. He was ‘as keen on the physical welfare and physical development of children as he was on administrative tidiness’.164 In the preface to the New Code of Regulations for Elementary Schools in 1904, he wrote that ‘the purpose of the Public Elementary School is to form and strengthen the character and to develop the intelligence of the children entrusted to it’.165 ‘The school’, Morant added, ‘must afford the children every opportunity for the development of their bodies, not only by training them in the appropriate physical exercises and encouraging them in organised games, but also by instructing them in the working of some of the simpler laws of health’.166 He concluded by advising that ‘the corporate life of the school, especially in the playground, should develop that instinct for fair play and for loyalty to one another which is the germ for a wider sense of honour in later life’.167 Morant seemed to have inspired a new official attitude to elementary education. His ambitions are clear indications that the Board of Education was now changing its attitude towards physical education in the elementary school. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the government appears to have succumbed to the opposition


to military drill and to have come to the conclusion that what was good for secondary schools, namely games, was good for elementary schools. Nevertheless, it should not be overlooked that military drill had had a good run in English elementary education, that it had attracted the attention of politicians, ideologues and educationists and had become an extensively discussed, contentiously debated and deeply considered issue, widely practised and government-endorsed, given increased time in schools. Without any doubt, it was rather more than slight in impact, small in influence and insignificant in implementation. The man directly responsible for putting the board’s ideas into practice after 1886 was, it appears, His Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, A.P.Graves. In his article in the Contemporary Review in 1904, Graves had ‘deplored the way in which school playgrounds were so little used and called for the introduction of games in elementary schools’.168 As a direct consequence, ‘in 1906 organized games, namely cricket, hockey and football were introduced in school hours’;169 thus the Board of Education officially allowed games into the physical education curriculum of English elementary schools. However, Graves’s argument that playgrounds were under-utilized as a reason for the introduction of games was only part of the story. The crucial point was that the board had accepted that discipline, esprit de corps and fair play could be acquired by all children through the games field,170 with the result that a new conception of the purpose and content of elementary education had become de rigueur.171 Graves himself wrote portentously: It has been repeatedly pointed out that English character has been largely formed in the playgrounds of the public schools; and few Britons are inclined to dispute Wellington’s assertion that ‘Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton’. It is clear that English character should be similarly moulded in the playgrounds available for the use of the children in the people’s schools. They have much yet to learn in the way of give and take, frank acknowledgement of defeat and generous attitude towards rivals… had the body of the British working men played them [games] in childhood under proper supervision, and therefore with due regard to the principles of fair play, Trades Unionism would show no bad spirit, and ‘barracking’ cricket and football crowds would be unknown.172 Ironically though, even though the board now officially allowed games as an alternative to drill and physical exercises in elementary schools, ‘the hard realities of the situation [finance] prevented a very large


number of children from benefiting from this innovation of policy—on or near school premises’.173 For some time to come—indeed a very long time to come—elementary schools were still denied funds to help them construct sports facilities such as playing fields and the like. GAMES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AFTER 1906: AN INTEGRAL PART OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION Athleticism, the ideological force behind the new elementary school games, is comprehensively defined as Physical exercise…taken, considerably and compulsorily, in the sincere belief of many, however romantic, misplaced or myopic… that it was a highly effective means of inculcating valuable instrumental and impressive educational goals: physical and moral courage, loyalty and co-operation, the capacity to act fairly and take defeat well, the ability to command and obey.174 In the elementary schools, as in the public schools, in late Victorian and Edwardian England, games of course had various functions, including those of control, amusement and fitness.175 However, the primary official educational purpose of games at that time was moral—the inculcation of the qualities encompassed in the definition above.176 As an ideology, athleticism, of course, was ‘born and nurtured in public schools’.177 When team games were introduced into public schools in the 1850s, they were used initially as a means of controlling upper-and middle-class boys.178 Once control had been achieved, athleticism evolved into an educational rationale to sustain imperial masculinity.179 Over time this ideology ‘permeated the late nineteenth and early twentieth century grammar schools, which increasingly emulated the… public schools and attempted to distance themselves from the elementary schools’.180 The spread of athleticism in elementary schools seems to have gone through certain phases. The first phase involved the sporadic playing of team games supervised by interested teachers. This phase is characterized by what Mangan and Hickey have labelled ‘the pioneering efforts of a number of influential headmasters (and teachers) who acted as proselytizers’.181 The second phase saw the expansion of these efforts and their organization. Simultaneously with both phases, but particularly the second phase, there was the growth of a muted rhetoric which, reinforced by a measure of government support after 1906, sustained an ideology of what Mangan and Hickey have called


‘adapted athleticism’,182 All this culminated in the final phase that ‘produced the official recognition and legitimization of the ideology through the inclusion of games playing in the formal curriculum’.183 The athleticism184 that was introduced into the elementary education system at the turn of the nineteenth century unsurprisingly embraced strongly a belief in the moral value of team games. In conjunction with the personnel of the Board of Education, staff of teacher-training colleges embraced this public school ideology and their products left these institutions imbued with a sense of the moral value of games.185 These teachers then ‘took this moral conviction into the elementary schools’.186 In other words, the introduction of athleticism into elementary education was a pedagogical policy promoted by state and state school teachers who themselves were products of public schools and training colleges respectively.187 Nevertheless, for obvious reasons—in particular lack of funds and facilities—athleticism, as an ideology, did not have the same powerful impact in elementary schools as it had in public schools. There might also have been a fundamental difference between what games meant to the boys in elementary schools and what it meant to those in public schools. In ‘a clumsy verse’ about sport which appeared in the magazine of one London elementary school, Mangan and Hickey suggest tentatively that if anything the verse might illustrate at least in one regard the difference between athleticism in these ‘two camps’.188 The central theme of the poem was how to beat an opponent by (artful) means and win useful prizes, such as a marble clock or a nice little watch and chain.189 ‘Such sentiments were not normally found in the doggerel in public school magazines in which “fair play” was more commonly celebrated.’190 Nonetheless, whatever some boys’ interpretative differences regarding the ideology, games officially formed part of the physical education curriculum of elementary schools as well as the public schools in England at the beginning of the twentieth century.191 The following quotation neatly summarizes the evolution of physical education in the elementary schools in the late Victorian and Edwardian Britain: By the time of the First World War, physical education in English elementary schools had undergone a radical transformation. Originally introduced into the school timetable as military drill and intended as a means of instilling discipline, drill had moved first towards a ‘non-military’ variety and finally, been assimilated in the early twentieth century, into a physical education


programme reflecting a holistic view of education. In particular, team games, which were not allowed originally in the curriculum or in school time, saw their significance reassessed until they were formally introduced into the curriculum in 1906.192 This model was transported to the empire, to a large extent, by training college schoolmasters.193 CODA: DRILL DISPLAYS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS—A MEANS OF INCULCATING IMPERIAL VIRTUES AT HOME AND ABROAD A final comment may serve to set in more complete context the rather limited analysis revealed in the opening sentence of this chapter and offer further period evidence that reinforces the existence of a militaristic thrust in elementary school physical activity. Concomitant with drill and games in elementary schools were the drill displays. Drill, aesthetically performed as a public spectacle by schoolchildren, was used to create an imperial mentality in Britain at the turn of the nineteenth century.194 Human formations of imperial symbols such as flags was one effective method that was used to provide picturesque performances. Usually, the children were dressed and arranged in such a way that they formed a ‘living Union Jack’ by establishing the designs of the flag in sequential order, culminating in the colourful representation of the flag.195 More imaginative teachers included a wide range of spectacular configurations in these drill displays. Often these teachers taught the children to perform patterns of known patriotic emblems such as the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland and even the shamrock of Ireland.196 Other symbolic gestures included the display of British naval supremacy, which was represented, for example, by the display of the marine emblem of the anchor. Christianity was represented by images of the crucifix. The belief was, that through such displays, it was possible to kindle and reinforce the spirit of nationalism, patriotism, imperialism and Christianity.197 The teaching of drill for the purpose of display appears to have been carefully progressive. Initially children were taught graded exercises, moving from the simplest configurations to more complicated figures.198 Usually pupils would form a single line and then evolve into many lines, with each child being allocated a number as required. Throughout the entire performance children obeyed the teacher’s commands and strictly followed marked lines on the playground in


order to achieve precision.199 It was clearly part military in inspiration and part militaristic in purpose. There were, it was argued at the time, physical and mental qualities to be gained through the teaching of display drills. From the onset, the objective of marching was to cultivate uniformity of step, style and rhythmic movement while maintaining good carriage and discipline.200 The physical repetition and conformity of design was expected to create a menial frame of mind. The further belief was that as the pupils learned their drill so their loyalty to the Empire would develop. In short, ‘harmony of thought and deeds was to culminate in an imperial ideal’.201 The purpose of such displays then, in part, was to promote imperial education through the assimilation of the image and the message of the British Empire. Thus these displays became common during Empire Day202 celebrations and the basic ingredients of the Empire Day Movement.203 Drill effectively assembled and dispersed large numbers of children in school playgrounds and in the process resulted in powerful ceremonial displays, which, it was argued, combined patriotic sentiment with effective teaching.204 These drill formations were often performed to dance tunes, folk music and military-style marches.205 In this way, the importance of British imperialism was conveyed and it was possible to further the cause of the Empire through the veneration and perpetuation of British traditions.206 Accompanying the drill displays were ritual flag-raising ceremonies, which were believed to be useful in promoting among schoolchildren a sense of duty to their king and country and to their God.207 Drill displays and flag-raising ceremonies occurred throughout the country in the years that preceded the First World War.208 They symbolized commitment to the Empire.209 The expectation was that such spectacularly organized festivals formed around drill would forge an imperial bond at home and abroad. They were an outward sign of inner beliefs—loyalty to the flag, allegiance to the nation and subscription to the empire.210 CONCLUSION ‘The hardest and most important judgements are always relative.’211 This is an apt quotation for a consideration of the late nineteenthcentury English elementary school, period militarism and military drill. Such judgements are also frequently illuminating. As a corollary, absolute judgements born of inadequate investigation lend themselves to less illuminating judgements.


New imperialism, German militarism and declining commercial preeminence had their influence on English education at both secondary and elementary education as the twentieth century approached. Democracy allowed a variety of responses for and against a specific English militarism—a concern with military readiness to cope in particular with the perceived threat of approaching military challenge. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century some—not least in the 1890s the government itself—encouraged a measure of military preparation in the elementary school; some resisted it. The reality was that elementary school military drill for a time was fostered, defended, admired and valued. It attracted considerable national attention, sparked heated debate, won government grants and gained extended space in the curriculum. Comments to the effect that it was brief and basic and involved a little rudimentary exercise ignore too much and reveal too little. Childhood training for war on sports fields and arenas has a long heritage among the world’s aristocratic and middle classes. What military drill demonstrated in the English elementary school of the late Victorian period was the democratization of this ‘sports’ training for war in inferior settings and inferior ways. NOTES 1 . See R.Holt, ‘Contrasting Nationalisms: Sport, Militarism and the Unitary State in Britain and France before 1914’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Tribal Identities: Sport, Nationalism, Identity (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996). For a comment on the inadequacy of Holt’s position, see J.A.Mangan, ‘Sport in Society: The Nordic World and Other Worlds’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 14, 3 (Dec. 1997), 188. 2 . G.Sutherland, ‘Elementary Education in the Nineteenth Century’, Historical Association of London (1971), 3. 3 . Ibid. 4 . Ibid. 5 . D.Rubinstein, ‘School Attendance in London 1870–1904: A Social History’, University of Hull Occasional Papers in Economic and Social History, 1 (1969). 6 . Ibid. However, the National Society might have owned slightly less than nine-tenths, as there were also ‘local’ denominational schools run by the various parish authorities. We are grateful to Dr Frank Galligan for this information. 7 . J.M.Goldstrom, Education: Elementary Education 1780–1900 (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1972), p. 44. 8 . Ibid. 9 . Rubinstein, ‘School Attendance in London’, 1.


10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43

. Goldstrom, Education, p. 62. . Ibid., p. 103. . Ibid., p. 140. . Hugh and Mirabel Cecil, Imperial Marriage: An Edwardian War and Peace (London: John Murray, 2002), pp. 204–5. . Terence Kealey, ‘Two Cultures’, Daily Telegraph, 6 Sept. 2001, 16. . Ibid. . See R.J.Q.Adas amd Phillip P.Poivier, The Conscription Controversy in Great Britain, 1100–1918 (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 29. . Ibid., p. 30. . Ibid. . Quoted in David Gilmour, The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling (London: John Murray, 2002). . Geoffrey Best, ‘The Militarization of European Society 1870–1914’, in John R.Gillis (ed.), The Militarization of the Western World (London: Rutgers University Press, 1989), p. 29 (emphasis added). . Gillis, The Militarization of the Modern World, p. 2 (emphasis added). . Goldstrom, Education, p. 118. . Ibid. Other campaigners worth of mention here are Edwin Chadwick, MP, and Mathias Roth, who effectively lobbied parliament for a national system of physical training. . Ibid., p. 83. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 141. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 62. . Ibid., p. 89. . Ibid., p. 92. . Ibid., p. 103. . Ibid. For detailed discussion of this see Herbert Spencer, Education, Intellectual, Moral and Physical (London, 1861), passim. . Ibid., p. 118. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 11. . Ibid., p. 12. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 103. . See, for example, F.Adams, History of the Elementary School Contest in England: The Struggle for National Education (Falmer: Harvester Press, 1972); G.Sutherland, Policy-Making in Elementary Education 1870–1895 (London, 1973); F.Smith, A History of English Elementary Education 1760– 1902 (London: University of London Press, 1931); Rubinstein, ‘School Attendance in London’; A.Penn, Targeting Schools: Drill, Militarism and Imperialism (London: Woburn Press, 1999). . Smith, English Elementary Education, Ch. IX. . Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 10.


44 . Ibid. 45 . Ibid. 46 . J.May, ‘Physical Education’, in R.Whitfield (ed.), Disciplines of the Curriculum (Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 1971), p. 200. 47 . P.McIntosh, Physical Education in England since 1800 (London: Bell and Hyman, 1968), p. 11. For the authoritative consideration of this point, see J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Comolidation of an Educational Ideology (Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000). 48 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 11. 49 . Ibid. 50 . May, ‘Physical Education’, p. 200. 51 . Kathleen McCrone, ‘Class, Gender and English Women’s Sports, c. 1890– 1914’, Journal of Sports History, 18, 1(Spring 1991), 160. 52 . ‘Physical education’ is used generically to describe the type of physical activities engaged in by elementary schoolchildren before 1870. These activities included drill and gymnastic exercises. The term ‘Physical Education’ began to be used to describe these activities or as a title of the official subject, Physical Education, in the 1930s. Before that it was called ‘Physical Training’. In his Targeting Schools, Penn notes that the terms: physical education, physical instruction, physical training, physical exercises and drill were used freely and often interchangeably, making it necessary for a reader to seek contextual clues to qualify the actual terms employed. For detailed discussion of the development of the term over the years see Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Education (London, 1909); Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Education (London, 1919) and Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Education (London, 1933). 53 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 77. 54 . Ibid. 55 . Ibid. 56 . J.G.Dixon, ‘Prussia, Politics and Physical Education’, in P.McIntosh et al. (eds.), Landmarks in the History of Physical Education (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 115. 57 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 77. 58 . Ibid. 59 . Ibid. 60 . Ibid. 61 . Ibid., p. 79. 62 . Ibid., p. 80. 63 . Ibid., p. 98. 64 . Ibid., p. 11. 65 . Ibid., p. 98. 66 . Ibid. 67 . Ibid. 68 . Ibid., p. 11. 69 . Ibid. 70 . Ibid.


71 . The term drill was vaguely used even by Her Majesty’s Inspectors. Penn has written that ‘military drill followed the recommendations set by the Field Exercise Book (1870) published by the War Office, but “ordinary” drill was less clearly defined. Ordinary drill relied, to some extent, on the Rev.C.H.Parez, who viewed it to comprise a few arm exercises and simple extension movements.’ See Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 30. 72 . J.A.Mangan and C.Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised: Drill and Athleticism in Tandem’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Sport in Europe: Politics, Class, Gender (The European Sports History Review, 1) (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999), p. 69. 73 . It is believed that the Napoleonic wars were directing attention as never before towards the need for physical fitness among the masses. McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 79. 74 . T.Hearl, ‘Fighting Fit: Some Military Initiatives in Physical Education in Britain, 1800–1860’, in ‘The Fitness of the Nation—Physical and Health Education in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, proceedings of the 1982 Annual Conference of the History of Education Society of Great Britain (Leicester, 1983), 46. 75 . Ibid. 76 . Ibid. 77 . See Report of the Committee of Council on Education (CCE) in England and Wales, 1870 (C-406-I), New Code, Article 24, p. cix; Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 26. 78 . Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 19. 79 . Ibid. 80 . Holt, ‘Contrasting Nationalisms’, passim. 81 . Penn, Targeting Schools. 82 . Ibid., passim. 83 . We are thankful to Frank Galligan for this information. His Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The History of Gymnastic Activity in the West Midlands, with Special Reference to Birmingham, from 1865 to 1918: With an Analysis of Military Influences, Secular and Religious Innovation and Educational Developments’ (University of Leicester, 1991), dealt with the question of military drill in schools in Britain in the nineteenth century, and he was kind enough to provide us with this information via email. 84 . In his investigations, Frank Galligan found some exceptions to this general situation in Birmingham, where the school board there had programmes in place as early as 1880, with virtually no military influence. Galligan concludes that it was largely due to the presence of the Birmingham Athletic Club, founded in 1886, which worked with the board and provided instructors who trained the board’s teachers. Another school board with an enlightened approach was London. In both Birmingham and London (and elsewhere) drill was often ‘militaristic’, but it was frequently delivered by civilians trained by retired drill sergeants. The public schools, of course, could afford to be ‘choosy’ in whom they employed and often their instructors were either hand-picked ex-army men possessed of at least some sense of decorum and propriety, or (for example, in the case of Cheltenham College) the senior instructor was an officer, who then employed assistants known to be of


85 86 87 88

89 90 91

92 93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

‘slightly better social quality’ (Galligan, ‘The History of Gymnastic Activity in the West Midlands’). . McCrone, ‘Class, Gender and English Women’s Sports’, pp. 163–4. . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 69. . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 119. . Ibid. See also Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School for a fuller and further consideration of this development as a disciplinary measure in the public school. . See Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, passim. . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 69. . Anne Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 81. . Dixon, ‘Prussia, Politics and Physical Education’, passim. . Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 71. . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 108. . Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, p. 82. . Ibid., p. 81. . M.D.Roth, ‘On the Neglect of Physical Education and Hygiene by Parliament and the Education Department’, quoted in Mclntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 108. . Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 71. . Ibid. . Lord Meath, ‘Duty and Discipline in the Training of Children’, in Essays on Duty and Discipline, Vol. 1 (London: Cassell and Co., 1913), p. 59. . Ibid., p. 43. . Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 71. . Ibid., p. 50. . Ibid., p. 43. . See especially Adams and Poirier, The Conscription Controversy, pp. 16–24. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 20. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 28. . Ibid. . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 66. . Ibid. . The Education Act of 1870, referred to as the Forster Education Act, made provision for the establishment of local school boards throughout England and Wales. These were responsible for the organization of elementary education in their respective areas. The schools that were established by these boards were known as board schools. Both the boards and board schools and are said to have emerged all over the country within a short space of time; see Mclntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 111.


114 . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 69. 115 . Ibid. 116 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 111. 117 . Ibid. 118 . Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, p. 81. 119 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 110. 120 . Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 43. 121 . See Maurice Whitehead, ‘Military, Prompt, Unstinting: The Religious Thinking and Educational Influence of the Reverend James Harris, SJ (1824– 83)’, History of Education, 15, 3 (1986), 175. 122 . Ibid. 123 . Ibid. 124 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 111. 125 . Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, p. 81. It is useful to note that MacLaren’s system was that adopted both by the military and the country’s public and independent schools. As these influences were significant in the development of the embryonic state system its is not unreasonable to assume that elements of MacLaren’s gymnastics also found their way into the nation’s elementary schools in those areas (such as Birmingham) where local enthusiasm and facilities permitted. 126 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 113. 127 . Ibid. 128 . Ibid., p. 114. 129 . Ibid. 130 . Ibid. 131 . Ibid. 132 . Ibid. 133 . Ibid. 134 . Ibid. 135 . Birmingham School Board Report, 1886, quoted in McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 117. However, some systems of exercise were present in Birmingham soon after the formation of the Birmingham Athletic Club in 1866–67, as already noted. 136 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 117. 137 . McCrone, ‘Class, Gender and English Women’s Sport’, p. 162. 138 . Ibid. 139 . Ibid. 140 . Ibid. 141 . Once again complexity should be confronted. As already noted, Alan Penn states that the terms ‘physical education’, ‘physical instruction’, ‘physical training’, ‘physical exercises’ and ‘drill’ were confusedly used by many contemporaries in the late nineteenth century. The terms were freely used and often interchanged, making it necessary for the reader to seek contextual clues to be clear about the meaning of the actual terms employed. See, Penn, Targeting Schools, p. 29. 142 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England since 1800, p. 118. 143 . Ibid.


144 . Ibid. 145 . Ibid., p. 120. 146 . HMI Danby, R.E.D., 1889, quoted in Mclntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 121. 147 . Ibid. 148 . Ibid. 149 . Ibid. The English Schools’ Football Association was founded in 1904. 150 . Ibid. 151 . McCrone, ‘Class, Gender and English Women’s Sport’, p. 161. 152 . Ibid. This was the year in which the army also adopted Swedish gymnastics. 153 . See G.S.Reany, ‘The Civil and Moral Benefits of Drill’, Nineteenth Century, 47(March 1900), p. 398. 154 . Ibid., p. 399. 155 . Danby, quoted in McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 113. 156 . See Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 66. 157 . Ibid. 158 . Ibid. 159 . See J.A.Mangan, ‘Physical Education as a Ritual Process’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Physical Education and Sport: Sociological and Cultural Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973), pp. 87–102. 160 . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 65. 161 . Ibid. 162 . Ibid. 163 . Danby, quoted in McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 123. 164 . McIntosh, Physical Education in England, p. 145. 165 . Ibid., p. 146. 166 . Ibid. 167 . Ibid. 168 . See Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 68. 169 . Ibid. 170 . Ibid. 171 . Ibid., p. 67. 172 . Alfred Perceval Graves, HM Inspector of Schools, in The Contemporary Review. 173 . Ibid. 174 . Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, p. 9. 175 . See Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 72. 176 . Ibid. 177 . Ibid., p. 71. 178 . Ibid., p. 73. See also Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, Part I. 179 . Ibid. See also Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism, passim. 180 . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 71. See also Mangan, ‘Imitating their Betters and Dissociating


181 182 183 184

185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192

193

194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202

203

204 205

from their Inferiors: Grammar Schools and the Games Ethic in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, in ‘The Fitness of the Nation’ (proceedings of the 1982 Annual Conference of the History of Education Society of Great Britain), 22. . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 74. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. See also P.C.McIntosh, ‘Games and Gymnastics for Two Nations in One’, in McIntosh, Landmarks in the History of Physical Education; McIntosh, Physical Education in England. . Mangan and Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised’, p. 72. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 84. . Ibid . Ibid., p. 88. . Ibid., p. 72. . Ibid., p. 88. 1906 saw the amendment of the syllabus of 1904 and included references to team games. We are indebted to Frank Galligan for this information. . For a recent study of this widespread process, see H.S.Ndee, ‘Sport, Culture and Society from an African Perspective: A Study in Historical Revisionism’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2001), Ch. 7; also J.A.Mangan and Colm Hickey, ‘A Pioneer of the Proletariat: Herbert Milnes and the Games Cult in New Zealand’, in J.A.Mangan and John Nauright (eds.), Sport in Australasian Society: Past and Present (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 31–48. . Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, p. 74. . Ibid., p. 75. . Ibid., p. 82. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Empire Day, held annually on 24 May, is the birthday of Queen Victoria. The message of the day was to convey the importance of British imperialism and to further the cause of Empire through the veneration and perpetuation of honourable British traditions and privileges. See Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, p. 74. . The Empire Day Movement, apparently inspired by the Japanese bushido— a code of honour extolling the virtues of loyalty, patriotism and obedience— was started in 1902 by Reginald, twelfth Earl of Meath. See Anne Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, p. 74. . Ibid., p. 82. . Ibid.


206 207 208 209 210 211

. Ibid., p. 75. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., p. 78. . Ibid., p. 80. . Max Hastings, review of People’s Witness: The Journalist in Modern Politics, by Fred Inglis (London: Yale, 2000) in Sunday Telegraph Review section, 5 May 2002, 13.

5 ‘Pig-Sticking is the Greatest Fun’: Martial Conditioning on the Hunting Fields of Empire J.A.MANGAN and CALLUM McKENZIE

In late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, the period soldier-hunter, more correctly the officer-hunter, is well represented by the iconic Frederick Courtney Selous (1859–1917). After a life of adventure, hunting, exploration and imperial wars, he died heroically on the Western Front in 1917, praised widely as the masculine archetype of the nation, a ‘true hero’ of his age. His self-reliance, courage and daring were fully appreciated by his alma mater, Rugby School, well before his death, in its magazine, The Meteor: Selous lectured at Rugby School in 1897 on ‘Travel and Adventure in South Africa’, and took the heads and skins of six lions on to the lecture platform with him, along with his hunting rifle.1 This clearly made something of an impact. The president of the school’s Natural History Society remarked in his vote of thanks that Rugby had ‘given to the world many great men, but there was no name which the world at large was accustomed to associate with the fame of Rugby School than that of Selous’.2 Praise indeed. Selous’s military peers all applauded his qualities of character, his contribution to the expansion of colonial boundaries and his ‘fair and upright’ dealing with native peoples.3 He set, it was once pronounced without the slightest hint of tongue in cheek, a standard of conduct which our own people, and those of other nations, might be proud to follow…he stamped his personality on the wilderness, where life is hard and a man easily loses his grip… he never shot a native except in self-defence, and established a reputation for square dealing and indomitable courage.4 For many of his countrymen, Selous affirmed not only a valued source of his country’s military power but also the righteousness of its imperial task. Widespread public pleasure at the glamorous subaltern-hunter’s domination of both nature and inferior peoples was not in short supply

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at the time. There was a prolific period demand for ‘laconic’ books on hunting written by late Victorian and Edwardian and indeed later army officers. Adventures in exotic locations were relayed to a thrilled public through a plethora of period autobiographies such as, to name merely a handful, Major C.S.Cumberland’s Sport on the Pamir Steppes in Chinese Turkestan and the Himalayas (1895), Major-General D.Macintyre’s Hindu-Koh: Wanderings and Wild Sport on and Beyond the Himalayas (1889), Major P.H.G.Powell-Cotton’s In Unknown Africa (1904), Major Hesketh Prichard’s Hunting Camps in Woods and Wilderness (1910), Lt. J.H.Paterson’s The Man Eaters of Tsavo (1910), and Lt.Col.A.Wilson’s Sport and Service in Assam and Elsewhere (1924). Descriptions of enthralling encounters with wild beasts by the military were also highly popular in magazines such as The Badminton Library, Baily’s Magazine and The Field. Major-General A.E. Wardrop’s Days and Nights with Indian Big-Game (1922), to offer but one illustration, was glowingly reviewed in The Field. It noted admiringly that Wardrop was ‘mauled by a panther’—but retained a warm affection for the boldness of the beast and recovered from his ‘extensive’ injuries by using cold water and strong carbolic—a ‘wonderful testimony to good health, pluck and determination’.5 He was subsequently bitten by a poisonous snake and saved only by impromptu first aid, dislocated his elbow and broke his left arm in a fall, but was still able to attend a pig-sticking meet shortly afterwards, riding, of all things, an elephant. Then, in the space of eight days in April 1899, Wardrop killed seven tigers, two panthers and a bear, but added to his incapacities by breaking his nose due to the incapacity of his previous injuries and the heavy duty .470 rifle he was using.6 Little wonder, perhaps, that The Field was entranced by such courageous, insouciant amateurism. This was the stuff of schoolboy fiction. More to the point, however, it was an uncoded message in masculinity for up-and-coming middle-class males. The casual dismissal of personal injury and even death, when circumstances demanded it, in ‘sport’ and of course eventually war itself, was de rigueur. Manhood ideologies have always included a criterion of ‘selfless generosity, even to the point of self-sacrifice’.7 The dangerous pursuit of big game by the officer-hunter served as a harbinger of sterner tests on battlefields.8 The association between, and acceptance of, sporting ‘self-sacrifice’ and martial ‘self-sacrifice’ was calculated and deliberate: ‘The prize of honour for which men have made faces at death’, according to the Spectator, included ‘achievements such as the acquisition of a lion’s skin or the conquering of a mountain top’.9


The dangers readily faced by the young subaltern when big-gamehunting, therefore, were regarded as useful preparation for his true function—the protection of imperial society. It was a preparation with a long heritage in human communities: If the group is to survive and prosper, boys must steel themselves to enter into struggles, they must be prepared by various sorts of tempering and toughening to be men, most of all, they must accept the fact that they are expendable. The acceptance of expendability constitutes the basis of the manly pose everywhere it is encountered.10 The manliness of the gun at the shoulder, popularized over and over again, not only sold books and magazines; it reassured imperial society. The glorious depiction of the steadfast subaltern facing the furious charge of the lion (or some other equally fierce beast) assured the readers of the competence of the calm and cool defender of the empire’s boundaries. From about 1850 images of the military officer ‘taking on’ the wild animal kingdom in foreign places, made possible by technical developments in photography and graphics, became numerous in the sporting press and general publishing. The cover of Captain Forsythe’s High Lands of Central India (1871), for example, with its successful kill of a ‘Man-Eater’, is a striking example. The demonstrated moral qualities of the middle-class military sportsman were widely admired as timeless and indestructible virtues: The certainty of hardship and the possibility of danger in pursuit of sport, possess invincible charms for the majority of our countrymen…justified and desirable upon much broader and higher grounds than mere amusement, and, systematically and properly pursued, they are grand auxiliaries to the performance of men’s duties and to the formation of their characters. The confidence in one’s self begot upon fieldsports tends to help men in the difficulties of life, and enable them to conquer. They are the justification of one of our most pronounced national characteristics.11 Subscribers to the iconography of hunting considered that the officerhunter represented a ‘British’ identity which had a proper and legitimate claim to imperial dominance.12 The warrior and the hunter, in their view, were synonymous in virtue. The daring spirit shown by the officer-hunters in their encounters with wild animals, it was argued,


not only proclaimed the prestige of the race, but also their acknowledged leadership as men.13 Imperial order and control, in short, rested in no small measure on the excellence of British officers as sportsmen. It was considered, by way of illustration, as ‘the second great prop of our ascendancy in India. If our officers had not always been such good sportsmen, we should have had greater difficulty in holding India.’14 Such blandly confident assertions were commonplace in the complacent rhetoric of the imperialist. Following the disaster of the Indian Mutiny of 1858, it was the hunting prowess of British officers that helped reconstruct their martial image. Established ‘shots’, such as the subalterns Walter Campbell and Walter Elliot, for example, attracted loyal ‘shikarees’15 pledged to produce the best possible sport for their ‘employers’ in admiration of their vigorous masculinity.16 An imperial image was thus reestablished. The shikaries’ devotion to imperial military sportsmen may well have been founded, of course, on memories of their own earlier hierarchical social systems based on duty, war, hunting, chivalry, and courage.17 Be that as it may, the dedicated efforts of such shikaries was essential to produce ‘the higher kinds of sport in India’18 and to offer the opportunity for image reconstruction. Not only did hunting, so the belief went, promote ‘order’ between ‘ruler’ and ‘ruled’; it also affirmed the military and social divisions of the rulers. Many subalterns would have been unable to afford a ‘sporting life’ in Britain,19 but they were able to pursue a full ‘sporting life’ in India,20 which was far less expensive. According to one observer, ‘the whole peninsula from Peshawar to Cape Comorin is practically the boundless undisputed preserve of the subaltern. In England, only a man of fair means keeps a horse; in India, the least affluent officer keeps a pony as a natural part of his outfit.’21 They were thus able to adopt the ‘caste’ credentials of the officer class— which maintained distance between officers and men. The dominant position, and domineering attitude, of the hunting imperialist was well illustrated in a curious incident in July 1901, in ‘Anglo-Egyptian’ Cairo.22 A fox-hunting party of British officers was physically assaulted by the land-agent and watchmen of the antiimperialist William Scawen Blunt23 after ‘straying’ on to his property in pursuit of a fox. Despite doubts about the alleged ‘assaults’, three of Blunt’s men were subsequently arrested and charged under Egyptian law and sentenced to between six and three months in jail. Their defence was that they acted under the strict instructions of Blunt not to let anyone on his property—particularly for sport—and to use what ever means were necessary to bar their way. It cut no ice with the


powers in the imperial hunting fraternity. Opposition to hunting was clearly a subversive activity. The subsequent confrontation between Blunt and the British imperial administration was widely reported in the British and Egyptian press and even became the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry.24 Blunt used the incident to publicize the scant regard for native cultivators and the laws of trespass typical of imperial sportsmen in pursuit of game. Natives were not protected by law against such trespassers, since they were unable to arrest or detain such transgressors.25 Blunt therefore acted on their behalf. It was a forlorn gesture. The eventual involvement of distinguished imperial administrators such as the Marquess of Lansdowne, Sir Rennell Rodd and Lord Cromer in the Blunt case in support of the fox-hunters provides the clearest evidence of the considerable steps taken to safeguard both the reputation of military sportsmen and ‘traditional’ hunting—the ‘backbone’ of imperial masculinity. As the case progressed, Blunt attempted to humiliate his opponents by questioning the ‘manliness’ of the officers involved, arguing that Egyptian ‘foxes’ were tame in comparison to English animals and failed to provide ‘manly’ sport. In the end it was Blunt who was humiliated and was forced to back down, eventually offering the Master of Foxhounds—a Major Rycroft—an apology.26 The hunter, in the interests of imperial defence, triumphed. The imperial establishment was cock-a-hoop. Hunting as a ‘man’s sport’ was not to be denied by whingeing natives and English ‘cranks’.27 Effeminate subversives, who spoke out against hunting and shooting, were always to be put in their place as criticism of hunting was viewed as a form of treason with the intention of transforming robust, decent gentlemen into a ‘race of petits-maitres deeply imbued with the vices of foreign countries’.28 Not only gentlemen were at risk. Misguided ‘liberal’ deviants, if given their way, would emasculate the hunt ‘foot-followers’ from the lower orders, endangering in turn their ‘honest’, manly sports, such as boxing—so the argument went.29 The antidote to emasculation lay precisely in character-building field sports in the colonies, which provided opportunities for exacting manliness far distant from the hand-wringing of metropolitan effeminate humanitarians. It was not to be threatened. Many considered the sport of pig-sticking or ‘hog-hunting’,30 a particularly hazardous test of riding, hunting and ‘spearing’ skills, the ultimate test of male mettle. It was widely extolled as ‘the most primitive of all hunts…the pursuit, with a good weapon in your hand, of an enemy whom you want to kill’, and as such, it was ‘the greatest fun’.31 With its brutal rules of engagement—the ‘drawing of first blood’ brought greater honour than the deathblow32—it was considered


eminently suitable for imperial warriors. It provided a ‘healthy’ distraction from the tedious routine of work, a perfect release for the ‘energy of the strong’ and, more to the point, efficient training in killing on horseback—a basic requirement of the cavalry officer.33 The hapless ‘foe’ provided for its imperial assailants spirited, unpredictable and dangerous sport—qualities tailor-made for perfecting the period techniques of war.34 This ‘acknowledged king of Eastern sports’, according to Robert S. Baden-Powell, was superior to tiger-shooting on foot, a sport which he considered ‘foolhardy’ rather than courageous.35 Pig-sticking, in his opinion, had the necessary ‘charm’ of danger and required cool calculation and was thus ‘worthy of the sportsman’s steel’.36 It also had the added attraction of being a sport which offered training in team work. Pig-stickers, observed Baden-Powell, ‘live and move and hunt in parties’, and yet the sport at the same time allowed for individual excellence and separated the superior from the ordinary.37 Pig-sticking was immensely popular not only with officers but with colonial officials (one governor even closed down his whole administration for staff hog-hunting ‘holidays’).38 He firmly believed that good pig-stickers made robust district officers. An overconscientious approach to desk work characterized the weedy ‘intellectual’.39 An image of athletic virility was a practical administrative asset, since, according to one hunter, the Indian native was well disposed to masculine rather than ‘feminine’ officials.40 Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, the sporting governor Charles Edward Trevelyan41 was as esteemed for his prowess at pig-sticking as for his commitment to desk work.42 Aggression born of sport was, of course, part and parcel of the subalterns’ upbringing since most had attended public school43 and trained at Sandhurst or the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. In both institutions, hunting was not only encouraged but was considered indispensable for career advancement.44 In his textbook for aspiring subalterns, Captain George Younghusband asserted that a ‘good’ staffofficer required ‘coolness’ and dash born of equestrian skills; those without such skills or indeed interest in sport, the ‘weed’ or ‘theoretician’, were professionally ‘heavily handicapped’.45 There was a logic to this. Warfare demanded physical fitness, required a capacity for fast decisive action and in the age of the horse, the technical ability to ride well. Killing wildlife also constituted a form of training. It is not all that surprising that effective hunting was elevated to a moral asset symbolizing an admired masculinity. Thus there was ample provision made for field sports at the staff college: a rifle club with a challenge


trophy, a ‘drag-hunt’,46 complete with hazardous obstacles, and the preservation of game by instructors underpinned a military masculine orthodoxy.47 Indeed, fox-hunting was an integral part of officer training and was written into standing orders. Liberal amounts of leave were available for the favoured meets of ‘Mr Garth’s Hunt’, the Queen’s Buckhounds and suchlike.48 For various reasons then, hunting was valued by the Victorian military hierarchy: commanders, it was written, have noted that although a man who devotes all his time and energy to military duty may be an excellent and valuable parade officer, yet in actual service, when anything dashing was done, it was, in nine cases out of ten, by those who loved the hunting-field or the grouse mountain, far better than the barrack square, and these were generally the most efficient officers in an arduous campaign.49 Hunting received an impetus from the 1850s onwards as the need to secure and protect imperial acquisitions and to annex new ones, added to mounting concern over the development of Continental armies, boosted the conviction that hunting was useful for national security. From the 1850s students at Woolwich, for example, found that their physical training involved a greater emphasis on field sports. ‘What the soldier wants these days,’ it was observed, ‘is the habit of endurance, a capability for roughing it.’50 Hunting was thought to fit the bill. Thus, by the late 1850s, in the interests of physical fitness and national security, it was thought that subalterns needed to spend less time in passive occupations such as bookwork and more time in active pursuits like shooting.51 How much actual bookwork they were involved in was not made clear. In 1857 the beneficial effects of soldiering based on hunting were described as a victory for the modern ‘Spartans’52 who were ‘camped forty miles north of Kurnool and shot all forms of life. This sort of life is very healthy-out of a force of two thousand men, we have lost but one man in seven weeks.’53 This attitude is well caught in the recorded experience of Lord Edward Cecil a little later, who when pressed by Lord Wolseley to consider staff college training, was not enthusiastic—life as a young officer was too congenial and besides, ‘the prevailing attitude towards Staff College on the part of the Army generally was that the officers there “were a set of shirkers who left their regiments with a view to two idle years at the College, to be followed by loafing in the plums of the


profession”’,54 with the result that any mention of staff college intentions would get him ‘jolly well disliked by his brother offlcers’.55 A number of influential sportsmen, including Samuel White Baker, Harry Hieover, Herbert Byng Hall, Anthony Trollope and the Earl of Wilton,56 peddled the view that hunting with a gun was a prerequisite for military success. The strength and nerve derived from ‘active and manly’ hunting, one enthusiast announced grandiloquently, were a major reason for England’s success over the armies of foreign powers.57 Hieover declared that sport provided preparation for later martial glory: ‘He does greatly who dares greatly…a glorious feeling that actuated Englishmen, and brought our country to the highest pitch of military achievement. This was not done by a servile adulation of foreign habits or foreign accomplishments, but by teaching our youth, before they become fiddlers, to become men.’58 ‘Men’, of course, were made more commonly at this time by galloping over ploughed fields than playing on games fields. Hunting, it is also clear from the above remark, consolidated prejudices about the inadequacies of lesser breeds. The conviction that hunting was a manifestation of proper imperial masculinity within the army—according to one, certainly not a typical officer, ‘any subaltern on overseas military duty who did not shoot or hunt was thought to have lacked military virtue’,59 found favour at the highest military levels. General E.A.Alderson advanced hunting as a builder of character in his Pink and Scarlet, or Hunting as a School for Soldiering in 1913, while Field Marshal Douglas Haig was still appointing cavalry men from the ‘old school’ with its hunting traditions to senior positions during the First World War.60 Indeed, ‘From the point of view of ambition, the cavalry had nothing against it —as the composition of the First World War High Command was to show’.61 Lord Cavan’s success in his role as Chief of the Imperial Staff, for example, was due in no small measure to his hunting proclivities which he continued to pursue assiduously throughout the war.62 Hunting advocates also were unequivocal about its merits for leadership in the heat of battle. General Alderson asked rhetorically how an officer could tell ‘at a glance that which hill should be a good position for his guns’ and having decided this, what taught him to take his horse by the head and turn him out of the road over the bank…and pop over the rails beyond in order to go and see quickly if the position was as good as he thought? How did he learn to take in the lie of the country at a glance.63


There was widespread agreement that such qualities were a consequence of ‘having hunted a bit’, a recreation without which ‘no man’s soldiering education was complete’.64 For many, it was big-game-hunting rather than fox-hunting that brought the best military returns. ‘The jungle’, according to one of them with an unusually eloquent turn of phrase, ‘was the battlefield of play hours; it leads straight up to the red ribbon and the Victoria Cross. Think of this, ye who destine your sons for the grand Indian career!’ However, he did not overlook the value of the fox-hunt or rabbitpotting: If the examiners will let you, subject your young hopeful to the discipline of the saddle; put him on pony-back almost as soon as he can walk; do not check the instinctive longings of boyhood. After the workmanship of Purdey and Marston, and the percussion of copper caps: there is rough work before him, for which he will need a true eye, a steady hand, a strong nerve, not to be acquired in the schoolroom and the cramming-shop. The writer added reassuringly: Do not fret yourselves if you find that he takes more kindly to the stable and the rabbit-warren that to Euclid and Eutropius. When the struggle comes, as come some day it will, for dear life, what will it avail him that he can demonstrate the Pons Asinorum or recount the labours of Hercules? But that true eye, that steady hand, that firm seat in the saddle, with all the cool courage of the hunting-field—these are the aids which will find him out in the hour of trial, and help him to the front in the grand Indian career.65 ‘To succeed in hunting’, according to another enthusiast, a man must be keen, but calm, he must have a correct eye for country, and at the same time he must thoroughly comprehend the character of his adversary, to know the position of his haunts and the secrecy of his retreat. He must understand the nature of the animal most thoroughly, in order to contend successfully with a vast superiority of physical strength, that must be matched by a mastermind. And fitness was to be added to fieldcraft:


A thorough sportsman should be sound in wind and limb, sharp of hearing, and quick of sight. His nervous-system should be under the most perfect control, to enable him to seize an immediate advantage without…irresolution or delay. In the moment of danger he should become preternaturally cool, instead of yielding to excitement. The art of a stealthy approach should be reduced to a science.66 Ruthlessness, too, was an valuable outcome, or so it was claimed— Colonel T.S.St.Clair argued that young men familiar with hunting subdued their ‘tender sensibilities’—an action necessary for the forthcoming ‘battle of life’.67 Hunting honed skills vital for nineteenthcentury warfare, asserted Lord Melgund,68 who, schooled in hunting and shooting from an early age, developed apparently into a noted strategist of both the battle and hunting fields.69 And this was not all— hunting contributed, it was asserted, to efficient imperial administration. It was, it was claimed, essential for the moral judgement required by the imperial administrator with the result that ‘home-staying, book taught theoreticians’ were deemed inferior to sportsmen as administrators.70 As already noted, after 1850 generous leave was available for hunting. Lieutenant William Rice hunted for a total of one year during his five years’ service between 1852 and 1857.71 J.T.Newall, a contemporary, was given two weeks’ leave for pig-sticking with the Nuggur Hunt only four months after beginning his service at Ahmednuggar Station in the Deccan.72 The promoting of military skills, however, was not the sole reason for support for hunters. Military authorities were well disposed to requests for leave for ‘shikaree’ because it reduced internecine rivalries and sexual tensions, and was an efficient distraction from overuse of the club bar.73 In the eyes of the authorities, it also kept officers from their frivolous wives and their gossip.74 The generous time given to subalterns for hunting, as mentioned earlier, was also a useful distancing mechanism which assisted the maintenance of discipline in the ranks by separating officers ostentatiously from other ranks. Similarly, hunting provided natives with a superior image of the colonial presence. It stressed privilege, the advantages of wealth (relatively speaking) and the possession of a superior ‘caste’ position. The ‘unapproachable Sahib’ on horseback, it was thought, added to the ‘natural and unassumed hauteur’ essential to ‘hold a huge Continent with a handful of men’.75 In fact, not only hunting of one kind or another but sport in general was often considered to be an asset to those in control. William Cotton Oswell,


for example, declared his spurs and whips, his racquets, his sport shoes and his bats were symbols of his ‘magisterial authority’.76 Authority was best displayed, some argued, by aristocrats. The views of Wellington died hard in some parts of the imperial army. Some were sceptical of middle-class officer applicants, complaining that they lacked the necessary leadership skills necessary for effortless command.77 The titled gentleman, on the other hand, it was claimed confidently, was so admired by virtue of his position that his men would follow him anywhere in any circumstances78—not always, of course, an advantage for the men! It was a period cliché that ‘natural leadership’ was an attribute of the landed elite. Social inferiors who ‘came into service to make money and a living’ were not infrequently considered poorer in quality to the titled.79 The view that the aristocratic officer exerted a ‘moral’ control over others due to lineage and estate experiences, and was therefore best qualified for a military career, took an inordinately long time to disappear.80 Of course, the middle classes were needed and useful—if not of the finest quality—so hunting by them was to be encouraged. It gave the middle classes a taste for disciplined labour, a love of healthy pursuits and recreations, subject to rule and regulation; a fine, manly, independence of character and bearing, enhanced by the virtues of discipline, duty, ‘coolness’ under pressure, self-denial, temperance and determination, which would provide both the morale and physique necessary for personal pride and imperial propriety.81 Training middle-class boys in arms and marksmanship would ‘implant in the youthful mind a respect for the manly virtues which tend towards the manufacture of good and useful citizens’82—if not out of the top drawer, then out of the middle drawer. The mid-nineteenthcentury Rifle Movement, which evolved into the Cadet Corps, produced, it was believed, pupils with martial skill, useful in the era of the new imperialism. Gideon Murray recalled his invaluable rifleshooting experiences at Blairlodge which he used in time to good effect to shoot a ‘mixed bag’: game, belligerent natives—and enemy soldiers in imperial outposts such as British New Guinea, South Africa, the West Indies and then later in France during the First World War.83 Thus a practical means of colonial enforcement—the rifle—was elevated to the status of a moral asset. Advocates of the effective use of rifle as a moral tool were numerous. John Rigby84 asserted aggressively


that game-shooting enhanced virtuous military skills.85 Horatio Ross and his son Edward Ross personified these virtuous skills in action, becoming celebrated, admired and respected exponents of both hunting and rifle-shooting, thus perfectly exemplifying martial masculinity.86 John Andrew Doyle, educated at Eton between 1853 and 1863, and later a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and William F.Waldegrave, also educated at Eton and later chairman of the National Rifle Association, spent considerable energy and time popularizing the rifle-range and advancing its associated moral role in the making of valued masculinity within privileged education.87 Both rifle-shooting and hunting produced an unreal period romanticism.88 Ignorant of the realities of war, many a public-school man applied for his commission in the firm conviction that war was a glorified form of big-game-hunting. His whole upbringing prepared him for that view. From his earliest conscious moments he had been taught that ‘it was the mark of a gentleman to welcome danger, and to regard the risk of death as the most piquant sauce to life’.89 Such conditions produced in him a perception of war as a ‘shooting expedition with just a spice of danger thrown in to make it really interesting’.90 The agony of warfare was hidden from him in the depicted images of battle in art and literature, memoir, autobiography and biography. In short, period propaganda ensured naivety.91 One propagandist argued meretriciously, for example, that ‘few sports were not connected with warfare, in particular, the war against wild beasts’.92 In short, there was little difference between the one and the other—the human enemy was a beast on two legs. Sparta was sometimes recreated in the upbringing of future officers. Gilbert John Elliot may serve perhaps to illustrate such preparation for both sport and war, not all that uncommon for the period.93 Even before attending Eton in 1859, Elliot had been ‘blooded’ with the Duke of Buccleuch’s hounds, and was proficient in ‘character-forming’ field sports such as otter-hunting, rabbit-shooting and fishing.94 In Scottish winters, Elliot was forced by his father to hunt without hat, gloves or coat.95 It was a Laconian training known to others of his background. Elliot’s contemporary, A.I.R.Glasfurd, also endured similar experiences hunting, fishing and shooting through Scottish winters as a childexperiences which he later regarded as essential for his successful military career.96 Elliot was as energetic at Eton as he was in the Highlands. He excelled in rowing, football, swimming and steeplechasing and hunted with the newly-formed beagles.97 In 1867 he took up residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his preference for gun and hound over academic activities was only too apparent. He


hunted with the Fitzwilliam and Pytchley and attended race meetings at Newmarket.98 His unacademic student life was approved by his mother who noted admiringly that ‘the boys’ talk of Cambridge is very amusing and thoroughly satisfactory—I mean to the moral effect of their residence’. And she added smugly: ‘I can’t see any evidence of intellectual training whatever.’99 In the late 1860s Elliot began a military career with the Scots Guards. The sedentary nature of military life at Windsor and Aldershot failed to satisfy his desire for action. His restlessness was partly assuaged by the Franco-Prussian War, and later as a special correspondent for the Morning Post attached to the Carlist Army in Spain in 1874.100 In between, he found time to establish the Border Mounted Volunteer Corps in 1871, made up of local gentry and followers of the Duke of Buccleugh’s Foxhounds.101 Elliot was typically a man of his class. During this period of ‘strenuous idleness’, his fundamental dislike of the nouveaux riches became increasingly evident.102 Elliot sang the praises of the superior upper-class military officer, with his relaxed, decent, ‘natural’ and manly style, born of hunting and shooting, and his preference for a ‘rough life in wild places’.103 Elliot’s own vigorous activities, mountainclimbing, soldiering and steeplechasing (he broke his neck steeplechasing in a fall during the Grand National in 1873), encapsulated an integral element of upper-middle-class masculinity in action, even to the point of anticipating a glorious death. In his youth, in his journal at Eton, he recorded: ‘When I think of death as a thing worth thinking about, it is …dying with the shout of victory in my ear— that would be worth dying for and more, it would be worth living for!’104 Glorious death in battle was denied him, however, despite action in the Russo-Turkish War (1877), the Afghan War (1879) and service in the Egyptian conflict of 1882.105 By the end of the nineteenth century the ‘dash’ exemplified so well by Elliot was increasingly called into question. There was an overdue move towards a professional ‘technocracy’, which led to a reduction in the members of the landed elite in the officer class.106 Many lamented this ‘usurpation’ of the ‘traditional’ officer type with his hunting lifestyle.107 The two went hand in hand for reasons of cost. Up to £1,000 per year was required to provide the uniforms and horses for a cavalry regiment, with a further £700 needed to cover the expected social expenses.108 The argument, as recorded earlier, went that expensive uniforms and accessories for both regimental and hunting duties helped in the projection of elegance and thus instilled awed respect among those earning the proverbial shilling a day!


Arguments concerning respect fell rather flat in the face of the poor performance of the officer class during the Boer War. This heightened concern about the army’s class structure and its associated incompetence. The Field, no less, exasperated at military mismanagement, stated bluntly that an inflexible upper-middle-class military elite, entrusted with the vital affairs of the empire, had been found wanting.109 Such criticism was met predictably by irritated hostility from hunting buffs who argued obstinately that any structural changes within the army that limited officers access to and experience of gun and hound were unsafe and unsound.110 In the military colleges there remained widespread support for hunting and shooting.111 One reason was the opportunity to curry professional favour that field sports provided, enabling officers such as Claude de Crespigny and his ambitious sons to entertain high-ranking officers such as Sir Evelyn Wood and General F.J.French of the Royal Marines at their sporting estate at Champion Lodge, Essex, in the years before the First World War.112 Useful social contacts were also established between officers and politicians when shooting or hunting. High-ranking officers were invited to ‘society’ shoots, such as those at Lord Lonsdale’s Cumbrian sporting estates.113 In this way the upper echelons of the military could be inspected and reviewed for suitability for professional preferment in the gift of the government. At a more mundane level, the argument was still advanced that male bonding, provided by the gun in ‘frontier’ and imperial settings, was a distinct advantage of ‘the fieldsport culture’. Few hunting accounts by Army officers overlooked memories of male-bonding based on camp life. Captain J.Newall’s record of his Indian military career between 1850 and 1890 was punctuated by pleasant reminiscences of camp life with his colleagues, and Captain Chauncey Stigand remembered the ‘charm of camp-life, with its absence of “civilized” restraints which allowed close contact with wild nature and which established friendships for life’.114 Captain T.Lucas, in his Camp Life and Sport in South Africa (1878) and Colonel R.F.Meysey-Thompson, in his Reminiscences of the Course, the Camp and the Chase (1898), both spoke affectionately of the robust camaraderie of ‘camp-life’, while Francis Grenfall waxed lyrical about life with his ‘soldier boys’, ‘all day and every day…riding, polo, stalking’. He added: Pig-sticking is the greatest fun…you get up alongside the brute and wait until he turns and goes at you, then if you are lucky, he runs on to the spear, and if you are unlucky, he runs on to yo…. There are buck, jackal and pig everywhere…. It’s very like heaven …


surrounded by the most glorious jungle…. We soldiered and played polo, and the rest of the time we spent in tents in the jungle, unwashed and undressed and unashamed, shooting buck, sticking pigs, which beats anything hollow for excitement. I loved the life and the soldier-boys.115 Male bonding, begun on public-school playing fields, was reinforced on imperial hunting fields. For many subalterns, hunting consolidated public-school esprit de corps—in a regimental setting. The old Rugbeian D.J.F.Newall,116 for example, dedicated his Highlands of India, Fieldsports and Travel in India (1887) to ‘all Rugbeians, past and present, comrades of Camp and Field’, happily linked by school moments and by hunting moments.117 Contributions to his book from ‘old school friends’—General J.Abbot, Colonel F.Debude, MajorGeneral G.Maister, Captain J.T.Newall, Major-General Sir Campbell Ross and Lieutenant General H.Sarel—‘fleshed out’ Newall’s own hunting reminiscences depicting post-school ‘great days and jolly days’. Public-school officers, in short, recreated their schooldays in empire days in an ambiance of post-school practices, even down to the singing of banal songs, ‘sitting round the camp fire after “a hard day’s sport” replicating the “merry” evenings after hard-fought house matches on school playing fields’. One such excruciating verse went: Boar, the mighty Boar’s my theme, Whate’r the wise may say, My hope throughout the day Youth daring spirit; manhood’s free Firm hand and eagle eye Does he require who would aspire To the wild Boar die!118 Chauvinists welcomed the comradeship of hunting activities, claiming that they contributed to the morale, performance and success of British arms: ‘The sportsman’s training in fieldsports…has made British officers the best officers in the world!’119 In 1905 F.C.Loder-Symonds, at odds with the Boer War critics, asked with specific reference to the Old Berks Hunt: ‘How many of that [officer] batch of gallant yeomen who sprang to arms in the hours of their country’s difficulties and who did such splendid service for their native land in South Africa were trained in the hunting field?’120 He clearly had not begun paying much attention to The Field of earlier years. Perhaps he had in mind the earlier, and rather easier, success of the British Mounted Infantry’s


campaign against the spearmen of the Mashona Rising in 1896, viewed by the not unbiased patriot as ‘a victory for sportsmen and good men to hounds’.121 Enthusiasts for hunting as essential military training bounced back from the drubbing by their critics in the period after the Boer War. The view was now, in the euphoria of victory, that hunting had ‘stiffened up’ the army for the Boer War.122 In the aftermath of the conflict, Baily’s Magazine asked: ‘What have We Learnt From the War?’123 It offered the blasé answer: ‘At no period of British military history have our officers shown greater robustness and activity, or greater capacity for enduring hardship, want and exposure than in the South African War. There cannot therefore be any fault with the system of life that all ranks pursued before the war.’124 ‘Hunting, fishing and shooting’ were back in favour. While admitting lapses in standards, a consequence of ‘misdirected training’ resulting in inadequate training in gunnery and marksmanship, Baily’s turned its back resolutely on calls for structural reforms which would limit opportunities for hunting in its various forms.125 Hunting as training for war was once again widely endorsed in the opening decade of the twentieth century. Comparisons were drawn again and again between the nerve required for shooting on the battlefield and the ‘cool’ required for shooting game and riding down foxes on moor and manor and elsewhere.126 Nothing, it seems, had changed since before the Boer War; The Field suggested that hunting skills would play a ‘leading part’ in any war of the future and demanded that more should be done to train the military in both shooting and equestrian skills.127 There was some, if not a lot of, sense in these remarks. The experienced hunter Major Hesketh-Pritchard drew on his big-game-hunting skills to train marksmen during the First World War and recalled this with pride in his Sniping in France, With Notes on the Scientific Training of Scouts, Observers and Snipers. Skills too were supplemented by resources. Lord Lonsdale gave his hunting horses to the Imperial Yeomanry at the outbreak of the war, as he did at the time of the Boer War. Little changed in Britain; little changed in the Empire. Old beliefs died hard. In India in 1904 the young officer Francis Grenfell, for example, advised a brother officer to go to Calcutta; stay with Curzon as Viceroy’s guest. Just like going to England and staying with the King. In mornings see Calcutta trade. Afternoon, racing; see hundreds of pals. Get a little pig-sticking. Then go to Cawnpore—biggest trade centre in India.


Then do Agra, Delhi, and on the Pindi; see F.G.; on to Peshawur and Khyber Pass. Across to Quetta and see other end of frontier. Back, play a little polo, perhaps Sialkote tournament. Go to Lucknow; play in open tournament in Civil Service Cup race week. Pig stick; arrange tiger shoot. If possible (doubtful), you have time to go to Mysore for an elephant. This tiger-shooting and pigsticking will take you into March. Come to Patiala. If I play for 9th I shall be there practicing for Inter-Regimental. Come to Meerut Inter-Regimental week. End of March, compete in Kadir Cup—pig-sticking, best sport in the world. If you only let me know in time, can buy you three good horses. Train to Bombay; arrange to see trade and town. Tip F.G., get on steamer, and leave about 1st April, having had best time in the world.128 One issue remains to be considered. The relationship between racial superiority, racial inferiority and hunting. By the autumn of Victoria’s reign, racial prejudice was nakedly discernible in ‘sporting’ accounts written by army officers. Once, retrieving a hippopotamus carcass, Selous, for example, noted that ‘it was a very foolish thing to do in a river full of crocodiles; but one cannot help it, if only to show the natives that a white man will do what they dare not attempt’.129 Biggame hunting served to reinforce racial prejudice among the officer class. Captain Shauncey Stigand wrote on one occasion: ‘I complained of the stupidity of some porters to a friend, who amusingly replied, “it’s a good thing for us that they are so stupid, for if they had any intelligence, they would never agree to hunk our loads around the country for us”.’130 Stigand also expressed concern about ‘civilised’ weapons used by ‘irresponsible black-men’ which, he noted, was destroying the balance of nature during a sensitive period for game preservation.131 Later, Stigand subscribed to the view that the indigenous idle African should be taught to farm animals to satisfy ‘his lust for meat’ without ‘having to exert himself ’.132 Thus, by the early decades of the twentieth century, hunting was used to consolidate beliefs about the inadequacies of lesser breeds and the superiority of the imperial officer. Sir Henry Newbolt, for example, commended the determination of the hunting officer class to maintain his ‘sporting spirit’ in adversity. It was, he claimed, evident in victory in 1918 when the superiority of this Anglo-Saxon sporting ‘spirit’ over ‘Teutonic materialism, order, and science’ was finally evident.133 In the Great War, patriotic articles such as ‘War and Sport’, ‘What Hunting Men Have done for Britain’, and ‘Famous Sportsmen Fallen’, in Baily’s Magazine not only emphasized the indefatigable nature of an indigenous


sporting ‘spirit’ but reiterated the class-specific contribution to selfsacrificing leadership by those steeped in hunting, in the interests of the well-being of the wider community.134 Criticism of this contribution was not to be tolerated. During the First World War the French were castigated by one British commentator for their failure to appreciate the importance of the ‘thrusting spirit’ of the British cavalry.135 Hard-riding British gentlemen, of course, were not to be put off by saloon Frenchmen. Baily’s Magazine, annoyed at this myopic criticism of Britain’s huntsmen-soldiers, insisted that the Royal Scots had enjoyed ‘great sport’ until stopped by the interfering French.136 Happily, Gallic criticism of British officers and their taste for hunting mattered little in the years following the First World War. As The Times remarked enthusiastically in 1931, opportunities for ‘real men’ to combine active duty with sports such as riding, polo and hunting and shooting were still abundant in the open spaces of the British empire.137 The military demands of imperialism gave special purpose and emphasis to hunting among the officer class—that at least was the rationale. The hunter-warrior was considered essential to the survival of the empire.138 He was to be adequately prepared physically and psychologically in childhood and adolescence to ensure this survival. An appropriate model of masculinity was carefully constructed, endorsed and implemented before school, in school and after school. Respected masculine virtues were requested and required: courage, endurance, confidence and ‘self-sacrifice’. Expendability was a learned expectation. Dangerous pastimes served to establish a state of mind that absorbed this message. To this end, qualities that demonstrated mental readiness for danger, death and sacrifice were praised as superordinate moral virtues. One pastime that lent itself to the creation of this appropriate mind-set was hunting, especially in its most perilous form—big-game hunting. Unsurprisingly, hunting was considered therefore a valuable preparation for military life, and an essential ingredient of a military career. Hunting, so the argument went, had additional advantages: it was a source of military distancing and a valuable disciplinary tool—it divided officers and men to advantage. It was also a method of male bonding, forging relationships valuable in war situations. At some levels, it was a very practical form of technical military training, with its stress on equestrian skills, shooting ability, terrain exploitation and familiarity with killing. For all these reasons, hunting grounds and battle fields were inexorably linked in the minds of the conventional officer of late-Victorian and Edwardian military imperialism. The defence and extension of the nation-state in the form of the empire served to reinforce the separateness of men and women, bound men to


men, and accorded special significance to military virtues. Of course, in history, the ‘warrior’ has been central to the survival of the state.139 Unsurprisingly, therefore, the stamina, confidence and ‘self-sacrifice’ required of the subaltern in the line of ‘duty’ were virtues admired by the Victorians and Edwardians. The fact that these attributes could be learned through hunting and especially big-game-hunting, reflected the importance of ‘blood sports’ in the making of a period martial ‘manhood’. NOTES 1 . The Meteor, Rugby School’s official magazine, started 1866. 2 . ‘Lecture by Frederick Courtney Selous’, The Meteor, 10 June 1897, 58–65. 3 . J.G.Millais, The Life of F.C.Selous (London: Longmans & Co., 1919), pp. 1–2. 4 . Ibid., p. 376. 5 . The Field, 122 (1923), 56–7. 6 . Ibid. 7 . D.Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 229. 8 . See F.Emery, The Red Soldier: Letters from the Zulu War, 1879 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977), p. 199. 9 . ‘The Pleasure of Peril’, The Spectator, 90, 24 Jan. 1903, 123. 10 . Gilmore, Manhood, p. 25. 11 . The Field, LVII, 8 Jan. 1881, 31. 12 . A.Rutherford (ed.), Kipling’s Mind and Art (Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1964), p. 185. 13 . J.Ross and H.Gunn (eds.), The Book of the Red Deer and Empire Big Game (London: Simpkin Marshall & Co, 1925), p. 137. 14 . H.Shakespear, The Wild Sports of India (London, 1862), pp. xi, 8, 105–7. 15 . ‘Shikaree’ was originally a Persian term for hunter, widely used by British hunters. 16 . G.Tancred, Annals of a Border Club (Edinburgh: John Menzies & Co., 1903), p. 215. 17 . Ibid. 18 . Major-General A.E.Wardrop, Days and Nights with Indian Big-Game, p. 205. 19 . Captain G.J.Younghusband, The Queen’s Commission (London: John Murray, 1891), p. 80. 20 . Wardrop, Days and Nights with Indian Big-Game (London: Macmillan & Co., 1923), p. 205. 21 . Younghusband, The Queen’s Commission, p. 116. 22 . Uncovered Editions, Wilfrid Blunt’s Egyptian Garden: Foxhunting in Cairo, 1901, Cd. 796 (Cambridge: The Stationary Office, 2001). 23 . Ibid. 24 . Ibid.


25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54

. Ibid. . Ibid. . Blunt was described as a professional agitator. . The Sporting Magazine, LXVII (Jan. 1826), 121, and The Sporting Magazine, LXXII (July 1828), 244. . Ibid. . Pig-sticking or hog-hunting involved the chasing down on horseback of a wild boar before impaling it with a lance. . R.S.Baden-Powell, Pig-sticking (London: Harrison & Sons, 1889), pp. 26– 7. . William Campbell, Indian Journal (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1864), p. 326. . H.Compton, ‘Pig-sticking’, in F.G.Aflalo (ed.), The Sports of the World, 2 Vols, Special Edn. (London: Cassell & Co., 1902), pp. 203–7. . Ibid. . Baden-Powell, Pig-sticking, pp. 24–5, 36–8. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Lord Curzon of Kedleston, British Government in India, 2 Vols (London: Cassell & Co., 1925), Vol. II, p. 29. . P.Woodruff, Men Who Ruled India (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953), Vol. 1, pp. 163, 289 and Vol. 2, pp. 181, 240. . Charles Edward Trevelyan, 1807–86, KCB, educated Charterhouse. After a successful career as a civil servant in India, Trevelyan was involved in establishing a number of educational and governmental reforms before returning to India in the 1950s as Governor of Madras. . Curzon, British Government in India, Vol. II, p. 29. . F.Emery, Marching Over Africa (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986), p. 27. . Younghusband, The Queen’s Commission, p. 80. . Ibid. . J.Colquhoun, Moor and Loch (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1854), pp. 37–8. . Drag-hunt was the term for following a pre-laid trail by hounds not involving the death of an animal at its conclusion. . Younghusband, The Queen’s Commission, pp. 155–7. . Ibid. . ‘Woolwich and its recreations’, Baily’s Magazine, 4(1861–62), 6–14. . The Field, 10, 21 Nov. 1857, 353. . Spartans—‘A Classical civilization founded on discipline, sacrifice and frugality, whose objective was to create the perfect state and the perfect warrior’. . ‘Wild Sports in India’, p. 353. . Hugh and Mirabel Cecil, Imperial Marriage: An Edwardian War and Peace (London: John Murray, 2002), p. 63. . Ibid.


55 . H.Hieover, Sporting Facts and Fancies (London, 1853), pp. 72–3; and A.Trollope, British Sports and Pastimes (London: Virtue, Spalding & Co., 1868). 56 . Hieover, Sporting Facts, pp. 72–3. 57 . Ibid. 58 . R.C.Bristow, Memories of the British Raj: A Soldier in India (London: Johnson, 1974), p. 73. 59 . T.Travers, ‘The Hidden Army: Structural Problems in the British Officer Corps, 1900–18’, Journal of Contemporary History, 17 (1982), 536–8. 60 . Hugh and Mirabel Cecil, Imperial Marriage, p. 26. 61 . N.Lytton, The English Country Gentleman (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1925), pp. 80–81. 62 . E.A.Alderson, Pink and Scarlet, or Hunting as a School for Soldiering (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913), Ch. 1 63 . Lytton, The English Country Gentleman, pp. 80–81. 64 . ‘The Career of an Indian Officer’, The Cornhill Magazine, 3(Jan.–June 1861), 73–4. 65 . S.W.Baker, True Tales for my Grandsons (London: Macmillan & Co., 1883), pp. 176–7. 66 . T.S.St Clair, Badminton Magazine, 9(July–Dec. 1899), 97 and 112. 67 . Gilbert John Elliot (Lord Melgund) of Minto House, Roxburghshire, Scotland, 1850–1913. 68 . National Library of Scotland, Minto Papers, Technical Letters, MS 12533. 69 . J.Buchan, Lord Minto, a Memoir (London: T.Nelson & Sons, 1924), p. 57. 70 . W.Rice, Tiger Shooting in India (London, 1857), p. vi. 71 . J.Newall, Scottish Moors and Indian Jungles (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1889), p. 198. 72 . Major Baslow, ‘A Week’s Tiger Shooting’, The Field, 31 Jan. 1924, 126–7: and see Rice, Tiger Shooting, p. vi. 73 . J.W.Best, Shikar Notes (Allahabad: Pioneer Press, 3rd Edn. 1931), p. 132. 74 . Younghusband, The Queen’s Commission, pp. 106–7. 75 . W.Oswell, William Cotton Oswell, 2 Vols (London: William Heinemann, 1900), Vol. 1, pp. 80–81. 76 . F.C.Kempson, The Trinity Foot Beagles (Cambridge: Edward Arnold, 1912), pp. 4–8. 77 . Ibid. 78 . Ibid. 79 . Ibid. 80 . The Spectator, 94, 1 April 1905, 471–2. 81 . ‘The Gentleman in Black’, ‘Volunteers and Their Views’, Baily’s Magazine (May 1861), 5–14. 82 . Gideon Murray, A Man’s Life (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1934), p. 18. 83 . John Rigby, superintendent of the Government Small Arms Factory at Enfield, 1890–98. 84 . J.Doyle, Essays on Various Subjects (London: John Murray, 1911), pp. 283– 4, 294–5. 85 . Ibid. 86 . Ibid.


87 88 89 90

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

114 115 116 117 118 119 120

. D.Hankey, A Student in Arms (London: Andrew Melrose, 1917), p. 91. . Ibid. . Emery, The Red Soldier, p. 199. . J.A.Mangan, ‘Games Field and Battlefield: A Romantic Alliance in Verse and the Creation of Militaristic Masculinity’, in John Nauright and Timothy J.L.Chandler (eds.), Making Men: Rugby and Masculine Identity (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 146–52. . P.Bigelow, Anglo Saxon Review (March 1900), p. 91. . Buchan, Lord Minto, pp. 4–7. . Ibid. . Colonel A.I.R.Glasfurd, Musings of an Old Shikari (London: John Lane, 1928), p. 10. . Buchan, Lord Minto, pp. 16–17. . Ibid., p. 17. . Ibid., pp. 31–2. . Ibid., p. 57. . J.Grierson, Records of Scottish Volunteer Force, 1859–1908 (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1909), pp. 8–12. . Buchan, Lord Minto, pp. 56–7. . Quoted in Buchan, Lord Minto, p. 19. . Ibid., p. 65. . Ibid. . Ibid. . C.Barnett, ‘The Education of Military Elites’, in R.Wilkinson (ed.), Governing Elites (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 206. . E.M.Spiers, Army and Society, 1815–1914 (London: Longman, 1980), p. 25. . Alderson, Pink and Scarlet, pp. 24–8. . The Field, 99(14 June 1902), pp. 895–6. . Alderson, Pink and Scarlet, Chs. 2–4. . Ibid. . C.C.de Crespigny, Forty Years of a Sportsman’s Life (London: Mills & Boon, 1910), p. 238. . Carlisle Record Office, MS D. Lons/L9/2, 53, 62. . Captain J.T.Newall, Hog-Hunting in the East (London, 1867), preface; and C.Stigand, The Game of British East Africa (London: Horace Cox, 1909), pp. 6, 176, 187. . J.Buchan, Francis and Riversdale Grenfell (London: Nelson & Sons, 1920), p. 54. . D.J.F.Newall, Highlands of India, Fieldsports and Travel in India, 2 Vols (London: Harrison & Sons, 1887), Vol. 1, p. v. . Ibid. . ‘Pig’, Baily’s Magazine, 55(Feb. 1910), 126. . ‘Blackthorn’, ‘Englishmen’s Sport in Future Years’, Baily’s Magazine, 85 (Jan.–June 1906), 346–50. . F.C.Loder-Symonds and E.P.Crowdy, The History of the Old Berks Hunt, 1760–1905 (London: Vinton & Co, 1905), pp. 1–2. . Ibid.


121 . ‘Cottenham Memories’, Baily’s Magazine, 79 (Jan.–June 1903), 332–4. 122 . ‘What Have We Learned from the War’, Baily’s Magazine, 78 (July 1902), 3–7. 123 . Ibid. 124 . Ibid. 125 . ‘The Yeomanry of the Future’, The Field, 197, 16 March 1901, 345. 126 . Ibid. 127 . Buchan, Grenfell, pp. x, 1, 2, 11, 54. 128 . F.C.Selous, Travel and Adventure in South East Africa (London: R Ward & Co., 1893), p. 300. 129 . C.H.Stigand, Hunting the Elephant in Africa (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1913), p. 205. 130 . C.H.Stigand and D.D.Lyell, Central African Game (London: Horace Cox, 1906), pp. 3, 34. 131 . Ibid. 132 . H.Newbolt, The Book of Good Hunting (London: Longman & Co., 1920), pp. 26–8. 133 . Baily’s Magazine, 103(Jan.–June 1915), 195–9, and J.Fairfax-Blakeborough, ‘Nature and Sport at the Back of the Front’, Baily’s Magazine, 107(May 1917), 196–9. 134 . Ibid. 135 . Ibid. 136 . The Times, 18 Feb. 1930, xiii. 137 . See J.A.Mangan, ‘Muscular, Militaristic and Manly: The British MiddleClass Hero as Moral Messenger’, in Richard Holt and J.A.Mangan (eds.), European Heroes: Myth, Identity, Sport (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 28–47; Mangan, ‘Games Field and Battlefield’. 138 . Mangan, ‘Games Field and Battlefield’.

6 Wartime Opportunities: Ladies’ Football and the First World War Factories ALI MELLING

On Christmas Day 1916, a ladies’ football match took place at Dragley Beck, Ulverston, between Ulverston Munition Girls and Ulverston Athletic, resulting in an 11–5 victory for the Munition’s. The Barrow Guardian noted that ‘Owing to bad weather, the girls did not turn out to full strength, but those who did played a very fine game’.1 This match is particularly significant as it is the first of its kind to be recorded in the region and marks the beginning of a recreational phenomenon that was to spread rapidly through munition factories the length and breadth of the British Isles. Ladies’ football teams were recorded from Renfrew in Scotland to Newport and Swansea in Wales and from Bath to Belfast.2 The formation of the teams appeared to be the result of a demand for a form of rational recreation that reflected the reordering of gender roles necessary for the war effort and an insistence on the part of the women workers ‘to do something for the soldiers’.3 The teams were organized by the workers and encouraged by middle-class welfare supervisors, who were employed by the munition factories on the initiative of the government to look after the moral and physical welfare of the women, and also by philanthropic organizations such as the YMCA and YWCA, who had a moral interest in organizing the leisure time of munition girls.4 Although the teams were primarily inaugurated on the intitiative of progressive welfare supervisors, such as Miss E.B.Jayne of Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co, who received an OBE for her wartime efforts, they were managed by male employees of the factory, who were either factory managers or fellow workers.5 The objective of this contribution is to explore the events that initiated the development of ladies’ football during the First World War and the reasons why it diminished so rapidly after demobilization.

124 LADIES’ FOOTBALL AND FIRST WORLD WAR FACTORIES

I The First World War was a devastating war in terms of human casualty and mortality on both sides, leaving those who lived through it bitterly opposed to any further conflict.6 No previous war had seen such a heavy loss of life or limb, and this was largely the result of the mechanization of modern warfare.7 The technological revolution on the battlefield had to be supported by a constant supply of artillery and ammunition from home and the demand for this increased as the war progressed.8 In England factories that had previously produced engineered goods or other products such as glass were turned over to munitions, and as Lord Kitchener’s sombre image reminded men that ‘Your Country Needs YOU!’, women began to take their places in the factories as rapidly as the men left for the front. According to Jenny Gould, ‘the response of thousands of women paralleled that of thousands of men’ in their enthusiasm for the war effort.9 The lives of all these men and women would be in some way revolutionized by the war.10 Women however, were empowered by the war. They lost their husbands, sons and brothers, but they gained a new self-confidence from being thrown into male spheres and proving that they could function within them on equal, if not superior, terms.11 The roles of working-class women in the war effort were to lead to a multifarious mesh of conflicting tensions from the various political and religious groups involved in the war. The number of women in warrelated industry increased between July 1914 and July 1918 from 2,178, 600 to 2,970,600. Although Woollacott states that there may be a certain amount of overestimation, there is no denying the scale of women’s war work by 1918. The nature of work and conditions in the munitions factories varied immensely. However, for the greater part it was dirty and dangerous, involving the use of toxic chemicals and heavy machinery. Women were expected to work between eight and 12 hours a day in poor conditions; it is unsurprising, therefore, that accidents frequently occurred. Considering the conditions and occupational hazards of munition work, it appears bizarre that so many women from across the social strata should flock to it in great numbers.12 However, although the money was a factor for those at the bottom end of the social scale, munition work offered a series of unique opportunities that many of the girls probably anticipated would only last the length of the war. Apart from remuneration, these opportunities included organized rational recreation activities, which were largely the preserve of male workers prior to the war; the freedom of moving away from home


communities, which was unheard-of for many working class girls; an alternative to domestic service, which simply meant moving from the control of parents to that of a mistress; and also the chance to meet people of different social backgrounds and ethnic origin, with girls travelling from Belgium and the dominions in order to work in munitions.13 As Krisztina Roberts suggests, taking part in war work was for many women the start of an exciting adventure.14 Furthermore, war work was an essential part of a revolutionary experience and necessary for the adoption of the gender identity that the war had created for women. The women sensed that they were taking an active rather than passive role in something gargantuan, which empowered and gave them an identity as war workers.15 Part of this identity was created for them by the propaganda of the war machine, developed from images of patriotism, heroism and death. However, as Roberts indicates, the women workers of the First World War selected specific aspects of government propaganda and by ‘internalizing’ it, created their own gender-based wartime identity, which was representative of their growing self confidence.16 However, this growth in self confidence was interpreted as a social threat not only by those who were opposed to women’s war work, but also by the agencies that encouraged it.17 The very nature of war work was revolutionary in terms of the established social hierarchy with reference to both gender roles and class. Firstly, according to Roberts, approximately 100,000 women joined the two different paramilitary auxiliary units, the Volunteer Corps and the Women’s Services, during the First World War. Gould states that ‘Although women’s support for the war effort was widely approved, the idea that women might play roles other than those of nurse, fund raiser, knitter or canteen organizer was not popular’.18 Women were accused of trying to be men and the Marchioness of Londonderry, founder of the Women’s Legion and colonel in chief of the Women’s Volunteer Corps, acknowledged years later that ‘aping men’ was a popular phrase of abuse towards women in paramilitary auxiliary units during the First World War.19 Although the women in the paramilitary units were criticized in certain quarters, it was the munitions girls who provoked action from the government and ‘morality agencies’, such as the YWCA. The paramilitary units recruited educated middle-class girls who supposedly upheld the established social hierarchy and would therefore be considered more likely to return to pre-war social forms after an armistice. Munitions girls, however, were predominantly working-class women displaced from their home communities, who were allegedly motivated by the remunerative benefits of war work, rather than


patriotism. Therefore it was considered increasingly imperative that their lifestyles should be subject to some form of social control. Woollacott quotes a letter from the president to members of the YWCA, dated February 1917: It is becoming increasingly clear that the forces for social and economic change in the position of women have received an immense impetus from the war, and that women and girls in many nations have reached at a bound an economic opportunity and a social platform for which they are scarcely prepared…. But we have also to reckon with the fact now receiving widespread recognition that there is a change, not merely in the mental and moral attitudes of many girls. The old conventions and restraints are thrust aside, and the new sense of independence and freedom expresses itself in very many on one hand in the disavowal of religion and on the other in a reckless search for pleasure and excitement.20 As the letter suggests, the nature of munitions work, with its freedom from the constraints of home or domestic service combined with an increase in expendable income, provided girls with the opportunity to indulge in leisure pursuits, sometimes for the first time. These included the music hall, dancing and the cinema.21 There were fears concerning the morals of these women and their social habits, leading to the imposition of women police patrols in order to impose some form of social control over the girls’ after-work recreation.22 In February 1916, the prospect of 2,000 munitions girls descending upon Lancaster was enough to provoke the mayor to call a delegation in order to plan how to deal with the matter. The mayor, Councillor W.Briggs, pointed out that ‘these were abnormal times’ and Chief Constable Harriss made a plea that the development of clubs should be supported as ‘the influx of 2,000 women workers presented problems for grave consideration’, calling for ‘all the sympathy and the most liberal help they could command’.23 The Ministry of Munitions was acutely aware of the situation through the work of its extramural welfare workers, who noted ‘insufficiency of wholesome recreation was leading to industrial unrest …and to public disorder’. It was concluded that ‘clubs were needed for the health and happiness of the workers, and to keep them off the streets’.24 However, the greatest effort within this sphere came from welfare agencies such as the YWCA, the Church Army, the Girls’ Friendly Society and the National Union of Women Workers, who involved themselves in the women’s welfare from the onset of the war,


and also from factory-based agencies such as the welfare supervisors who were put into factories by the government in order to oversee the moral and physical well-being of this mass of girls.25 It was the objective of these agencies to provide alternative forms of recreation to the cinema and dance-hall, which would simultaneously reinforce the established modes of social behaviour, encourage patriotism and boost morale in what was, by any standards, a dangerous and unpleasant occupation. The welfare agencies launched what Woollacott describes as a ‘network of social shelters for women around the country’.26 The YWCA was the most prolific, providing ‘rest huts’ for women at munitions factories and clubs in working-class communities. Within these institutions women could find recreational facilities, such as sewing classes, singing and reading and non-alcoholic beverages. They were also places where women could meet and socialize on an evening.27 Miss Campbell, secretary of the Munitions Workers Welfare Association, explained to a concerned delegation in Lancaster in 1916 that the woman munition worker needed a place where ‘she could go at any time when off duty and felt she had a right to go’.28 However, there was a ‘rougher’ element within the munition workers who could not be persuaded to visit the clubs, or if they did, would routinely disrupt singing or reading sessions with rude and inappropriate outbursts. One YWCA volunteer from a munitions town in the North-Eeast complained that they did not wish for singing, apart from outbursts of impromptu rag times, they did not wish to learn new dances, nor songs, nor games, nor have anything read aloud whilst they sewed. They would unite in attacking or opposing anything or any person they disliked, but they were slow to combine for the purposes of pleasure or work.29 As the YMCA and the girls’ clubs set up huts and social facilities for the women to engage in singing, sewing and the like, the welfare supervisors became responsible for encouraging the development of sporting activities, which provided an alternative for the more ‘rough’ or vigorous types who did not appreciate the niceties of Biblereading and so on. The development of sport for working-class women in the munition factories is interesting, as it demonstrates the dissemination among the masses, in unique circumstances, of more progressive ideas initiated within upper-class girls’ schools. There are two important factors in this: the social background of the welfare supervisors and the government’s interest in corporate paternalism and


‘scientific’ methods of increasing human productivity by forms of rational recreation. The latter point was reflected in Lloyd George’s choice of Seebohm Rowntree of the Rowntree cocoa dynasty in York, pioneers of corporate paternalism, for director of welfare within the newly established Ministry of Munitions.30 The concept of the welfare supervisor was adopted from the theories of a group of Quaker employers experimenting in productivity at the latter end of the nineteenth century; their ideas included the use of women supervisors to oversee the welfare of women workers. The use of women welfare supervisors was part of a huge government bureaucracy run by eminent business men on the lines of ‘Taylorism’ or scientific management.31 In 1915, Rowntree was elected the director of welfare with Sir George Newman, formerly of the medical department at the Board of Education, as chair of the Health of Munition Workers Committee. The appointment of George Newman is particularly interesting. According to Fletcher, he was sympathetic to the idea of physical culture for women and referred to Madam Bergman-Osterberg as ‘the morning star of a reformation’. However, although Newman may have had sympathies with the women’s rational recreation movement, he did not fully endorse it before the First World War.32 Their objective was to utilize scientific management and welfare work in order to increase output in munitions factories. As Woollacott suggests, whatever the aims of the charitable agencies, the government had only one and that was to maximize productivity; if welfare work was needed to achieve that aim, the state would provide it. By 1917, there were 600 welfare supervisors throughout the United Kingdom.33 Welfare supervisors managed canteens, checked toilets and cloakrooms and oversaw general conditions in the factories. In addition, they were responsible for keeping employees’ records, investigating sickness or time off work, checking the suitability of accommodation, supervising night shifts, moral guardianship and organizing ‘wholesome and healthy’ forms of recreation to keep the girls off the streets.34 Welfare supervisors came from the middle classes, as ‘Tommy’s sister’ was apparently like ‘Tommy’ in the fact that she preferred to follow her social superiors. Moreover, this would reinforce deference among the working-class girls, as working on an equal basis with some of their social ‘betters’ within the munitions factories had supposedly led to a lack of respect which only furthered concerns about the position of the established social hierarchy.35 Also, the role of welfare supervisor gave ambitious middle-class girls a ‘career’ during the war. For the greater part, welfare supervisors held formidable academic or sporting curricula vitae before taking on their wartime roles, which serves to


prove the seriousness of their status. Miss G.F.Panter-Downes, supervisor at Armstrong, Whitworth’s gun department at Elswick works, came from Kilkenny in Ireland and had previously competed and trained showjumpers before spending some time working with the Bristol Juvenile Labour Bureau.36 Miss N.E Smith, the supervisor at the company’s Openshaw works in Manchester, was a former pupil of the prestigious Bedford Modern School, famous for its progressive attitude towards girls’ sports. Educated women of relatively high social status had been actively participating in sports for some time, as these examples suggest. Progressive girls’ schools, such as Dartford College, run by Madam Bergman-Osterburg, and Roedean at Brighton, encouraged a regime of vigorous exercise along the principles of eugenics and social Darwinism. They believed that the only way to improve the quality of the race was to improve the fitness of future mothers so that they might produce healthy offspring.37 Middle-class welfare supervisors, educated in this ethic, were in a unique position at the optimum time to disseminate these ideas freely among the workingclass munitions girls. Working-class women, ‘on the cusp’ of a social revolution, were eager to try their hand at sports that had previously been outside their gender remit. The development of sports in munitions factories, particularly in the larger concerns, was aided by an established tradition of rational recreation for male employees, complete with facilities. Vickers in Barrow, for instance, had a long tradition of worker sports preceding the war, with rugby, cricket and football teams.38 Dick, Kerr and Co in Preston had an established sporting tradition and Lever Brothers at Port Sunlight, famed for their philanthropic ethics, had an extensive programme of worker sports which included football, Swedish gymnastics for boys and girls, cycling and athletics, which were carried out on purpose-built recreation grounds.39 Sports at Port Sunlight continued throughout the war, with the patriotic purpose of raising money to buy aeroplanes.40 Furthermore, established ideas of rational recreation, combined with the social Darwinist ethics of the welfare workers, tied in nicely with the Government’s scientific approach to the human aspect of productivity. Seebohm Rowntree, who represented the government in this area, came from a business dynasty that pioneered rational recreation and sport for its employees during the nineteenth century. It was relatively easy, therefore, to turn the principles of rational recreation from men to women. And as an afterthought, being true to scientific principles, the health of these women was important, not just in terms of material productivity, but


also for the great task that lay ahead of them, the replenishment of the race.41 II Welfare supervisors’ reports provide some indication of the extent of ladies’ football in munitions factories, and local newspaper reports provide useful examples. Although the number of teams is too extensive to list here, a random selection demonstrates the breadth of the sport across the country with teams representing Swansea National Shell Factory;42 Newport Shell Factory (although this was short-lived due to the hours the girls worked);43 Hackney Marshes National Projectile Factory had ‘girls’ football, swimming and netball’ on the sports list;44 Sutton Glass Works, St Helens, had two teams representing forgings and shells;45 Lancaster had a team;46 Ulverston munitions had two teams;47 Vickers, Barrow had a very strong team;48 Barrow YMCA had a team;49 Sir W.G.Armstrong, Whitworth and Co had a ladies’ football team in ‘nearly every branch’ of their extensive works, plus swimming, cricket and hockey, the latter being extremely popular at the Openshaw branch in Manchester.50 The statement that ladies’ football was very popular at Armstrong, Whitworth and Co is quite significant considering the scale of their operation. The company had 13 major works. These works incorporated approximately 36 branches or ‘shops’ and 20,000 employees on 11 November 1918.51 With Vickers of Barrow, they formed the two leading armaments suppliers in the country and both companies supported ladies’ football, with Armstrong, Whitworth regarding it as a means of ‘physical development’.52 However, although it is easy to appreciate how sport spread throughout munitions factories considering the infrastructures were already in place and the fact that it was encouraged by the government and welfare supervisors, there must be additional reasons why ladies’ football appeared to take precedence over any other sport. Woolacott believes that it was an expression of class solidarity by working-class girls, as football was by that time considered ‘the people’s game’.53 This is far too simplistic: class solidarity alone could not cause a phenomenon on this scale without external facilitation of some description. There is no concrete evidence so far to suggest either that the women chose football for themselves, or that it was introduced to them by middle-class welfare supervisors. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two theories of working-class solidarity and middle-class influence. Firstly, it is obvious from the reports of girls’—


club and YWCA volunteers, that working-class girls of a certain type made definite choices over their recreation and finding a form of leisure that would pacify them was an ongoing problem. If the girls did choose football themselves, the welfare agencies could use the sport to bring the girls under their control by allowing the use of company or club facilities and appointing a company ‘man’ to manage them.54 The problem of finding rational recreation for the ‘rougher’ element could thereby be solved. Furthermore, it is important to note that the idea of playing football could well have been introduced to the girls, for the same reasons, by welfare supervisors. This was not by any means the first time the game was played, as it had been in existence within the types of schools that the welfare supervisors would have attended for many years and was considered by the more progressive games mistresses as useful in improving the fitness of girls, so that they would make better mothers.55 It would not be at all outrageous to assume that the welfare supervisors were acquainted with the idea of women playing football long before their working-class charges. Furthermore, as Rob Lewis suggests, middle-class arguments ‘used to justify the advantages of athleticism included the use of football as one means of inculcating the Social Darwinist view of the “improvement” of mankind by exercise and moral training’.56 Therefore, although connotations of class solidarity may have proved popular with the munitions girls, the source of the concept may well have been a clever middle-class ploy. However, Armstrong, Whitworth’s own report on recreation states that ‘what existed was chiefly organised by the workers with the sympathy and support of the welfare staff’, suggesting a definite form of collaboration (or manipulation) here between classes.57 This final suggestion has added weight through the involvement of Miss E.B.Jayne, OBE, the ‘Chief Organiser and Inspector of Welfare’ for the whole of Armstrong, Whitworth and Co, as her endorsement of football was essential to its success.58 Miss Jayne was heartily in favour of ladies’ football and encouraged its development throughout all branches of the company, organizing matches herself and gaining the approval of government officials who visited the factory. Miss Jayne was a very well-respected and hugely influential figure with regard to women’s war work and apart from her duties with Armstrong, Whitworth, she was also founder and captain of a paramilitary auxiliary unit, the Newcastle Women’s Volunteer Regiment, with the objective of ‘stimulating patriotism, national service, discipline and ambulance training’. Her lieutenant was the distinguished academic Miss McLeish, and her quartermaster was Miss PanterDownes of showjumping fame. The regiment contained 300 munitions


girls from the Elswick Coy Works.59 Miss Jayne’s commitment to football can be seen in the amount of attention paid to discussing its development within her recreation report, to the extent that it virtually excludes anything else. The report states: The girls played a clean sporting game, worthy of the best tradition and one which although perhaps not up to the best scientific standard was interesting enough to always draw a large crowd of spectators of both sexes, and would compare with schoolboy football in its keenness and good temper.60 Three newspaper reports, discussing matches between ‘representative teams from the two leading armament firms, Sir W.G.Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. Ltd and Messrs. Vickers Ltd. (Barrow in Furness)’, were recorded ‘as showing the development of the game amongst munition girls’. The first of these was an extract from the Evening Chronicle on 1 December 1917; the second of these recorded games was a return match at Barrow-in-Furness, reported in the North Western Daily Mail on Saturday 12 January 1918. A third match was played on 23 November 1918 at St James’s Park ‘in what was to be their final encounter’, as the Armistice had taken place on 11 November. Armstrong, Whitworth won one goal to nil.61 These media reports are highly significant, not only in terms of the attention devoted to them in Miss Jayne’s record but also in what they tell us about the nature of the game, the players and the status which it was held in the war. Firstly, the press reports the matches in a positive yet professional manner, which is in marked contrast to later reports of matches, particularly after the FA ban in 1921. Furthermore, there is a representative of the ruling class present at each match, which automatically gives the sport a high public status. The omnipresent VIP providing the stamp of patriarchal approval necessary for respectability was to be characteristic of ladies’ football until the late 1950s. In addition, there is also a high level of public enthusiasm manifested in the numbers attending on what were reported as pretty grim days in terms of the weather—‘the cheering being reminiscent of cup-tie football’. Most importantly, however, were the implications the report held for the girls themselves and the objectives of the welfare agencies and management in encouraging the games. Both the reports draw attention to the horrendous weather conditions under which the games were played and how the ‘girls battled away bravely against the elements’. There is a strong suggestion here of the type of girl who would play football in these conditions; the ‘rough’ type the YWCA expressed


difficulties with. Playing football in a blizzard after a 12-hour shift is no mean feat by any standard and would demand high levels of commitment, stamina and fitness. As Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George’s main directive to the welfare workers was maximum productivity, and traditional modes of femininity were not compatible with working 12-hour shifts in appallingly dangerous conditions.62 The stereotype of the hefty, strong munitions lass was encouraged and this can be seen repeatedly in the language used by the media and in factory inspectors’ reports. Football was a means of encouraging, condoning and reinforcing the image of the strong, tough munitions lass. Further evidence of ideology regarding football and munitions work can be seen in an advert placed in the Prescot Reporter on 16 November 1917, by the YMCA of Barrow: St Helens Lady Footballers Wanted. Can a match be arranged? …Can a ladies’ football team be organised in St Helens? Of course it can. Think of the splendid hefty specimens of womanhood developed in local munitions factories over the last two years. The image of the hefty St Helens munitions lass was represented further in a factory inspector’s report on Sutton Glass works, one of the largest munitions depots in the country covering 67 acres and employing 3,000 staff, whose own two football teams boasted many of the players who formed the St Helens Ladies’ AFC and also some of those who went on to play for Dick, Kerr’s Ladies representing England, including the athlete Alice Woods. The report went on to say: Perhaps one of the most remarkable instances of the magnificent work done by the womenfolk of this Country during the war can be found at Sutton Oak, near St Helens…. The vast majority [of the workers] are girls, sturdy hard working women of the type that has made the Lancashire lass famous throughout the world. Practically the whole work of this depot, most of it involving continuous exertion, is cheerfully tackled by these strapping girls.63 This ideology had to work on a psychological as well as a physical level and override previous perceptions of womanhood for the duration of the war. Miss Jayne had this in mind when she stated to resounding cheers, that ‘It was evident that the women were able to play as well on the football field as in the munition factories and to stand behind the


men at the front’.64 As this statement suggests, Miss Jayne was intent on bolstering patriotism within her munitions workers, and football also provided a unique opportunity to do so. Alarmists had expressed fears over the patriotism of working-class munitions girls as they, unlike their middle-class peers, needed the increased level of remuneration certain aspects of munitions work provided.65 These fears were augmented by a series of strikes during the year 1917–18, which was gauged to be the most difficult year of the war in terms of standards of living.66 According to Woollacott, the more ‘rough’ munitions girls had expressed to welfare agencies a need to get out and ‘do something for the soldiers’, rather than sitting in girls’ clubs or huts listening to singing. Football provided an opportunity to do this and for the whole of the war it became a major fund-raiser for war-related causes. The recreation report for Armstrong, Whitworth noted that the principal girls’ football teams from the Naval Yard, Birtley Cartridge Case Factory, and the six teams from Scotswood raised in excess of £1, 500 for various war charities over three seasons until the Armistice.67 Playing football in order to raise money for war charities was one way that working-class girls could express their commitment to patriotism. Middle-class ideals of amateurism and charity were to characterize the women’s game from the early stages of its development. Raising money for the war was a national issue and the women in munitions factories took great pride in the amounts of money or war bonds they collected. Sutton Glass Works, with its two popular ladies’ football teams, was no exception to this. In May 1918, the Drake Tank from the ‘Tank Bank’ visited St Helens, amid great demonstrations of patriotism from the locals. The object of the tank was to bring the war to the people in a tangible form and therefore raise their patriotic consciousness. On the last day of the Tank Week, great scenes of celebration took place in Victoria Square, St Helens, in which the munitions girls from Sutton Glass Works played a leading part, marching to the Tank Bank under their banner, bearing the motto ‘Keep on Smiling’, to ‘dump their bit’ for the Silver Bullets Campaign.68 Another charity that the women football players patronized was that of the ex-servicemen, a cause which became the driving force behind Dick, Kerr’s Ladies’ from Preston as this team was founded on the object of helping ex-POWs.69 During the war, mixed-sex matches were not uncommon, particularly between the girls and ex-servicemen, in the interests of charity. Such a match took place at Dragley Beck, Ulverston between Vickers Ladies and the wounded soldiers of Fair View Military Hospital. One of the wounded soldiers who played was Frank Beusher,


‘an Ulverston lad who had played for Ulverston St Mary’s before the War [and] in spite of having one leg and crutches, he managed to score two goals’.70 This remarkable feat demonstrates the sporting courage and morale of the ex-servicemen in the face of tragedy, not to mention the level of Vickers’ game. A crowd of 1,000 attended the match and a collection raised £12 for the hospital. Barrow YMCA gives a most clear example of how women’s football could benefit charity. Rather than calling on the services of Vickers Ladies or Ulverston to raise money for their hut appeal, the YMCA used initiative and formed its own team. YMCA Ladies appear to have been a successful team and their fixtures are reported in the local media. They played Vickers Ladies for the Championship Shield on 20 April 1918 at Holker Park, losing two-nil.71 However, after 1918, there are no further reports of the team. Barrow YMCA was well-established in the town and the ‘Triangle Club’ was based in Abbey Road where it had facilities for munitions workers and servicemen, including a billiards table, concert room and an apartments register for the benefit of young men coming to the town.72 The hut appeal was an initiative by the YMCA to provide ‘huts’ at the front which would give some recreational and, hopefully, spiritual comforts to the soldiers. However, the cost of setting up ‘huts’ all over the world, wherever soldiers needed them, was expensive, costing about £500 a day. The hut campaign was regarded as a very worthwhile cause and patronized by the establishment across the country. The cause was also supported by the military at the highest levels. Like the ‘Tank Bank’, the ‘Hut Week’ had a very high status in the eyes of the public and the government, and much of this status would be conferred by association on the ladies’ football teams who contributed towards the fund-raising. III What is most interesting about the YMCA Ladies’ Football Team is the fact it was run under the jurisdiction of the YMCA rather than the YWCA, which was involved in the erection of huts across the country for munitions girls and in conjunction with other welfare agencies, and were heavily involved with the girls at Barrow through the Queen Alexandria Club.73 According to Duval, football was not the only aspect of women’s wartime physical culture that the YMCA was involved in. It also had an interest in munitions girls’ athletics competitions with the objective of raising money for war causes.74 However, the monopolization of ladies’ football by men was to become a long-term characteristic of the game, with consequences for its


development and future direction. Although ladies’ football in the munition factories during the First World War was initiated through a collaboration between the girls and their welfare supervisors, the sport was ultimately managed and controlled by paternal forces. Firstly, although the welfare supervisors, Miss Jayne in particular, had considerable influence over the girls’ leisure, they were answerable to the paternalist institutions of the factory management and then the government. Their brief was not to emancipate women, but to improve productivity for the course of the war: the end would invariably justify the means. Secondly, the welfare supervisors neither managed nor organized the teams, only facilitated their existence, providing a crucial distance between themselves, the girls and the girls’ activities. The teams were coached and managed almost exclusively by men. Furthermore, it is important to note that ladies’ football was very tightly controlled within the paternalistic infrastructure of the munitions works. Often, teams from one company would never play outside the factory. This can be seen at Sutton Glass Works and Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight, where interdepartmental matches took place.75 Also, even the more mobile teams, such as Vickers and the teams from Armstrong, Whitworth, tended to play quite close to home. A minority, such as Dick, Kerr’s and some southern teams, namely Plymouth and Bath, actually travelled around the country raising money for war charities.76 The majority were very insular in nature and appeared to be unaware of the extent of the game elsewhere. This is revealed in Barrow YMCA’s need to place an advertisement asking for a St Helens team to play it in November 1917, when Sutton Glass Works, one of the largest munition factories in the country and therefore not unrenowned, had fielded two strong teams the previous April. Paternalistic structures, such as those created by Sutton Glass Works and Lever Brothers, made it difficult, but also unnecessary, to form a national framework of teams. Interdepartmental matches were arranged for them and considering the length of hours they worked and the conditions therein, it is understandable how this developed, for they did not have the time to set up their own organizational structures. Moreover, neither did they have the experience and as ‘munitionettes’ football only lasted three seasons at the outside, they never had the time to acquire any. Realistically, the girls never had the option of organizing the sport independent of paternalistic infrastructures. Although the war was revolutionary in terms of gender reconstruction, pre-war social values still held true and it is very unlikely that uneducated working-class girls would have the self confidence at this


time to overcome the barriers necessary to form a fraternity of their own. IV According to the Armstrong, Whitworth and Co Recreation Report, ‘girls’ football was perhaps the most remarkable development in connection with recreation in munition factories.77 However, despite its popularity with the munitionettes and the general public, who flocked in their thousands to watch the matches, the sport declined swiftly in the years following the Armistice. This appeared to be a foregone conclusion as revealed in the report by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle following the final game between Vickers and Armstrong, Whitworth at St James’s Park on 23 November 1918. The paper commented that it was to be ‘their final encounter’, yet the game drew ‘not so large a crowd’, compared to previous matches, of 3,000. The reasons for this lack of interest were given as the Armistice and the recent holidays.78 Although in the next couple of years, the more enthusiastic munitionettes went on to form regional teams made up of former munitions workers, such as St Helens Ladies’ AFC, the game began to lose the high status conferred upon it as part of the war effort. This was encouraged by the same school of thought which opposed all of women’s war work, or certain aspects of it involving what was considered a drastic reordering of gender roles— such as the women’s paramilitary units Miss Jayne patronized and, naturally, football. The very high status ladies’ football achieved within the wartime establishment is revealed in a letter to Miss Jayne from Lady Newman, CBE, honorary secretary of the Women’s Work Sub-Committee, on 27 June 1918. The letter bears the stamp of government approval for all Miss Jayne’s work in connection with the munitionettes, including the playing of football, which was specifically referred to in the letter. Such evidence of high-ranking approval alone leads to the conclusion that football was universally endorsed within the government agencies that administered women’s war work. However, this was not the case: further evidence from The Bombshell magazine, the ‘official organ’ of the National Projectile Factory Templeboro’, proves that there was some conflict of ideology within the establishment itself regarding suitable recreation for women. An article entitled, ‘Playing the Game’ accentuates this discord and discusses the sport in terms of a necessary evil actuated to boost productivity and foster discipline within the hordes of munitionettes displaced from their traditional gender roles:


‘Machinery’, it has been said, ‘is the Cuckoo that has ousted woman from the nest of domesticity’. Certainly during the last few years, women have proved their metal in almost every sphere of activity. Who for instance, would have dreamt two years ago of women playing football? But ‘the times change and we change with the times’, and nowadays we regard with quite languid interest announcements of Great Ladies’ Football Matches and similar atrocities which would make our Grandmothers turn in their graves if they knew of them. In their great and determined effort to save their country, women have not only taken on to their shoulders the work of man, but his pastimes and recreations as well. It is the opinion of some people that playing football destroys woman’s chief charm, ‘femininity’. But if we can learn to apply the rules of football and cricket outside the playing fields to the great game of life, if we can play the game at our work as well as at our sport, then it will be worth and more than worth any real and imaginary sacrifice of early Victorian ideals. No one dreams of remaining at the wickets after being ‘given out’ by the umpire, or to question a ‘foul’ when the referee blows his whistle (at any rate fouls are patent enough in the NPF team!) and it is just this spirit of discipline and unquestioning obedience that should be applied to our work in the shops as well as to our play in the fields. Many of us know that splendid poem of Newbolt ‘Vitai Lampada’, one verse of which describes how men, worn out by fatigue and illness, are spurred on a fresh by remembrance of their code of honour when they were at school. The sand of the desert is sodden red, Red with the wreck of a square that broke; The Gatling’s jammed and the Colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. The River of Death has brimmed his banks, And England’s far, and honour a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks, ‘Play up! play up! and play the game’.79 The author of the article represents and endorses the view of those who find women’s war work an affront to traditional, ‘early Victorian’ social values.80 However, outright condemnation of women’s war efforts in a magazine purporting to represent their interests would be downright counterproductive. Therefore, the author invokes the ‘Vitai Lampada’


analogy of the sports field as the battlefield, to reinforce middle-class sporting ethics of discipline and obedience. This ideology was a doubleedged sword in the sense that it makes a metaphorical connection between women’s war work and the battleground, insinuating that they too need to be strong as they were also fighting a war. Alternatively, in line with the sense of obedience needed on the battle- and sports field, the women must be prepared to return to pre-war forms after the ‘game’ is over: ‘No one dreams of remaining at the wickets after being “given out” by the umpire.’ The explosion of ladies’ football from within the paternal infrastructures of munitions work during the First World War was not expected to be anything more than a transitory blast. From a more progressive viewpoint, it had obvious and immediate benefits for the war effort in terms of changing perceptions of femininity and physical fitness. This is reflected in the sentiments of Lady Newman in her praise of Miss Jayne and her unique and, most importantly, successful approach to women’s war work. However, the playing of football by women was considered by those represented in The Bombshell to be as great an affront to social stability as women wearing uniform and bearing arms. In the turbulent years that followed the war, the latter school of thought gained precedence, resulting in a shift in ideology from the ‘plucky lass’ back to fragile femininity: The Lady Football Player

Only one more football practice, Only one more tram to catch, Only one more goal to score, Then we’ve won this football match, When this rotten match is over, Oh! how happy we shall be, When I get my blouse and skirts on, No more footballing for me. By ‘One of Them’. 81 Furthermore, as discussed earlier, due to the fact that ladies’ football had developed within the constraints of wartime paternal infrastructures, within the context of the era it would have been difficult for educated women, never mind working-class girls, to construct an independent organization to develop the sport further.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank Professor John K.Walton and Dr Dave Russell of the University of Central Lancashire for support with this article. An earlier version of this article was presented as a paper at a symposium, ‘Football and Civic Identity: Preston and Pamplona’, The University of Central Lancashire, October 1999. The papers from this symposium will shortly be published as a compilation. NOTES 1 . The Barrow Guardian, 30 Dec. 1916. 2 . The Imperial War Museum, Women’s Work Collection (hereafter IWM and WWC), MUN24/6. 3 . A.Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1994), p. 158. Woollacott quotes Margaret Weddell, ‘My Friend Sarah’, The Common Cause, 9(March 1917), 632, with reference to organizing rational recreation for the munitions girls of the North-East. 4 . See Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 44, 135, 153–7. 5 . IWM (WWC), MUN24/15 p. 66. 6 . J.Bourke, Dismembering the British Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 33–4. 7 . Ibid. See also D.Lloyd George, The War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol. 1 (London: Odhams, 1936), p. 49, for a discussion of wartime expenditure on munitions ‘undreamt of before 1914’. 8 . See Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol. 1, p. 75ff, on steps to obtain adequate supplies of munitions; p. 102, conference on munitions, 5 March 1915; p. 132, growing uneasiness over shortage of muntions in 1915; pp. 153–4, Lloyd George’s analysis of position regarding munitions in July 1915; p. 187, setting up of Central Labour Supply Committee; p. 280, foolish attitude of allied generals to supply; p. 308, War Office neglect of munitions. 9 . J.Gould, ‘Women’s Military Services and the First World War in Britain’, in M.Randolph Higgonnett et al. (eds.), Behind the Lines: Gender in the Two World Wars (London: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 114–25. 10 . S.Kingsley Kent, ‘Gender Reconstruction after the First World War’, in H.Smith (ed.), British Feminism in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 66–83. 11 . S.Rowbotham, Hidden From History (London: Pluto, 1974), pp. 118–21. 12 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 37–45, 84–6. 13 . Woollacott states that ‘The women who made up this cohort were a mixture of all ages, classes, sexualities, ethnicities, and regional and national origins and represented enormously varied standards of living, cultures and political views’ (On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 37–45). 14 . For a further discussion on patriotism see Krisztina Robert, ‘Gender, Class and Patriotism: Women’s Paramilitary Units in First World War Britain’, The International History Review, XIX, 1(Feb. 1997), 52.


15 . For further details on women’s war experience and their feelings about it, see Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 192–7. 16 . Robert, ‘Gender, Class and Patriotism’, 128–47; see also M.Cooke and A.Woollacott, ‘Sisters and Brothers in Arms: Family, Class and Gendering in First World War Britain’, in M.Cooke and A.Woollacott (eds.), Gendering War Talk (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 128–47. See also S.Ouditt, Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 32–6, regarding ‘devotional glamour’. 17 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, Ch. 5; G.Braybon and P.Summerfield, Out of the Cage: Women’s Experience in Two World Wars (London: Pandora, 1987), Ch. 1. One of the major worries was the consumption of alcohol. Lloyd George commented that ‘The sudden onset of unaccustomed danger drove many who were out of the danger zone to the vicarious philosophy of “Let us eat and drink—especially drink—for tomorrow our comrades may die!”. The disorganisation of social habit through the war, the reckless excitement that thrilled the air, the feeling that tables of the law had once more been smashed amid the thunder of a grimmer Sinai, led some of both sexes to excesses in all directions—and as war work increased the earnings of the multitudes, those who drank, drank deeply, for they could afford the indulgence as they never did before. The evil was not confined to men—it spread to women.’ Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol. 1, p. 193. 18 . Robert, ‘Gender, Class and Patriotism’, and Gould, ‘Women’s Military Services’. See also P.Horn, Women in the 1920s (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995), pp. 8, 12, 15. Horn quotes: Trade unionist Mary MacArthur, when she admitted that although women had done “some wonderful War work,…a baby is more wonderful than a machine gun. I believe the hand that rocks the cradle will still be a power when the other is only a hateful memory”.’ From G.Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War (London: Pandora, 1981), p. 149. 19 . Gould, ‘Women’s Military Services’, pp. 114–25. 20 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 155–7. 21 . See Woollacott, pp. 139–52, and Braybon and Summerfield, Out of the Cage, Ch. 1; also Horn, Women in the 1920s, pp. 11–12. For a further discussion of these issues see Ch. 5 of this thesis on the socialization of women and girls. 22 . Horn, Women in the 1920s, pp. 11–12. 23 . Lancashire Daily Post, 19 Feb. 1916. 24 . Dr E.L.Collis, ‘Welfare Work outside the Factories’, 18 April 1918, PRO MUN/94/346/39:8, quoted in Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, p. 160. 25 . See Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, Ch. 6, and also Braybon and Summerfield, Out of the Cage. 26 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 155–61. 27 . Ibid. 28 . Lancashire Daily Post, 19 Feb. 1916. 29 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, p. 158.


30 . Lloyd George stated: ‘In the organisation of the welfare brands of our new factories we had the valuable direction of Mr Seebohm Rowntree, who is not only a highly successful man of business, but a student of social conditions of world wide fame…. Mr Rowntree is well known not only as a great employer of labour, bu tas one of the foremost successful pioneers in the development of improved conditions in his works.’ Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol. 1, pp. 151, 206. See also C.M.Parratt, ‘The Making of the Healthy Happy Home: Recreation, Education, and the Production of Working Class Womanhood at the Rowntree Cocoa Works, York, c. 1998– 1914’, in J.Hill and J.Williams (eds.), Sport and Identity in the North of England (Keele: Keele University Press, 1996), pp. 53–84. 31 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, p. 71. 32 . Dr George Newman’s appointment is significant within the context of women’s physical culture in the munitions factories as he directed the medical department of the Board of Education, established in 1907 due to fears of ‘physical deterioration’: Sheila Fletcher, Women First: The Female Tradition in English Physical Education 1880–1890 (London: Athlone, 1984), p. 35. Nevertheless, in his role on the Board of Education, Newman’s ideas were more conservative. He worked in conjunction with Mr W.N.Bruce to develop a physical education curriculum for girls. This was based upon Swedish gymnastics and did not advocate any form of vigorous exercise. In 1911 Newman stated, in a handwritten memo regarding PT in secondary schools that ‘girls in particular’ should be regularly observed during exercise by a medical officer for signs of fatigue (PRO ED12/233). Ironically, the man who represented the movement that officially sanctioned ladies’ football in the munitions factories became a leading member of the Board of Education, which openly declared, through an agent in 1921, that football was ‘too strenuous and hard and dangerous a game for [girls] to play’ (The Leigh Journal, 17 May 1921). 33 . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 72–5. 34 . Braybon and Summerfield, Out of the Cage, Ch. 1. 35 . See also Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, p. 40, on relations between the classes. 36 . IWM (WWC), MUN 24/15. 37 . See Fletcher, Women First, pp. 22–3, 28. 38 . A.Culson, ‘Sport in Barrow’ (unpublished BA dissertation, St. Martin’s College, Lancaster, 1999). 39 . For details on workers’ sports, see issues of the company magazine, Progress, Vols. 16–18, kept at Lever Brothers’ Record Office, Port Sunlight. 40 . Gymnastic Display, Progress, 17, 132(July 1917), 93; Welsh Flag Day, Progress, 18, 136(April 1918), 43–5; Sports Club, Progress, 19, 141(April 1919), 79; Gymnastic Display, Progress, 19, 142(July 1919), 114–15; Peace Celebrations, Progress, 19, 143(Oct. 1919), 129–35. 41 . Horn, Women in the 1920s, p. 12, quotes from a report issued by employers and trade unions in Bristol, March 1917, stating: ‘To provide the conditions which render a strong and healthy family life possible to all is the first interest of the state, since the family is the foundation stone of the social system.’ This reflected a ‘concern about preserving the health of mothers and


42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66

babies at a time when huge numbers of the nation’s young men were being killed and maimed on the battlefield’. . Progress, 18, 136(April 1918), 44–5. . IWM (WWC), MUN23/19, MUN23/22, MUN23/17. . IWM (WWC), MUN23/20, 23/23. . IWM (WWC), MUN23/15. . St Helens Newspaper and Advertiser, 14 Dec. 1917. . ‘Barrow Sporting History’, March 1916-March 1920, Barrow-in-Furness Library (303, 617, cc 200S/MAH), an unpublished record of the development of sport in Barrow-in-Furness compiled by a local historian whose identity is unknown. . Ibid. . Prescot Reporter, 16 Nov. 1917. . Barrow and District Year Book (1918), Barrow-in-Furness Library (LC 200 CA BAR), p. 39. . ‘Sir W.G Armstrong, Whitworth and Co, Welfare Supervisors Report on Recreation’, IWM (WWC), MUN24/15, p. 58. . ‘Chart of Women’s Welfare and approximate Numbers of Employees’ (11 Nov. 1918), Armstrong, Whitworth and Co, IWM (WWC), MUN24/15. . IWM (WWC), MUN24/15, p. 58. . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, p. 138. . The Armstrong, Whitworth recreation report states that ladies teams were managed by men. IWM (WWC) MUN24/15, p. 60. This is corroborated by details of other teams from this period, which will be discussed later. . See Fletcher, Women First, pp. 16, 15, 32, 34, 162. . R.Lewis, ‘Touched Pitch and Been Shockingly Defiled: Football, Class, Social Darwinism and Decadence in England, 1880–1914’, The European Sports History Review, 1 (May 1999), 117–43. . Armstrong, Whitworth Recreation Report, IWM (WWC), MUN 24/15, and also MUN24/3. . Ibid.. . Ibid., p. 65. . In January 1916, the Health of Munition Workers Committee issued a memo which clearly links the women’s physical condition with productivity: ‘If the present long hours, the lack of healthful and sympathetic oversight, the inability to obtain good wholesome food, and the great difficulties of travelling are allowed to continue, it will be impracticable to secure or maintain for an extended period, the high maximum output of which women are undoubtedly capable.’ Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol. 1, p. 207. See also Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, p. 72. . Prescot Reporter, 16 Nov. 1917. See also Factory Inspector’s Report, IWM (WWC), MUN6/2. . Armstrong, Whitworth Recreation Report, IWM (WWC), MUN24/15, p. 65. . Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend, pp. 119–22. . Braybon and Summerfield, Out of The Cage, p. 107. . Armstrong, Whitworth Recreation Report, IWM (WWC), MUN24/15, pp. 66–7.


67 . St Helens Reporter, 3 May 1918; Prescot Reporter, 26 April 1918 and 3 May 1918. 68 . G.Newsham, In a League of their Own! (London: Scarlet, 1997), p. 2. 69 . ‘Barrow Sporting History’. 70 . Ibid.. 71 . Barrow and District Year Book (1918), pp. 130–31. 72 . Barrow Guardian, 4 Nov. 1916. 73 . Barrow and District Year Book (1918), pp. 130–31. 74 . See Lynne Robinson, ‘Tripping Daintily into the Arena: A Social History of English Women’s Athletics 1921–1960’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Warwick University, 1996), pp. 283–4. As discussed earlier, the YMCA was also involved in the organization of women’s athletics in order to raise money for YMCA disabled soldiers’ and sailors’ hostels and trade colonies. Robinson (pp. 66–8) goes on to point out that ‘Sports days were often organized for the benefit of wounded soldiers’. 75 . Lever Brothers, although not a munitions factory as such, was very heavily involved in raising money for war causes. There are several photographs of the teams in Lever Brothers’ Record Office at Port Sunlight. The Toilet Department Football Team is shown with two male attendants, who may be managers or trainers (P5/80/15). The Number One Soapery Team, Hand Soap Department, is shown with a shield for the season 1917–18 (WO/P5/19/ 78). Progress, 18, 136 (1918), 43–7, shows a ladies’ match for Flag Day, between A Team and B Team. The men’s novelty match shows the men in ‘drag’—style fancy dress, which could be interpreted as a satirical comment on the reversal of gender roles necessitated by the war effort. 76 . For further discussions of teams from the North of England see D.Williamson, Belles of the Ball (Devon: R and D, 1992). 77 . Armstrong, Whitworth Recreation Report, IWM (WWC), MUN24/15 p. 66. 78 . Ibid. 79 . The Bombshell, 1, 4(June 1917), 7: IWM (WWC), MUN7/6. 80 . For further details on Victorian sporting values and Sir Henry Newbolt see J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 44–6, 198. Furthermore, as the North Western Daily Mail was to aptly state in January 1918, ‘the women were able to “play the game” as well on the football field as in the munitions factories and to stand behind the men on the front’. 81 . The Bombshell, June 1917, 20.

7 Antidote to War: The Balkan Games PENELOPE KISSOUDI

SPORT, POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY ‘As sport has grown to a gargantuan size’, J.A.Mangan has written, ‘progressively replacing religion in its power to excite passion, provide emotional escape, offer fraternal bonding, it has come to loom larger and larger in the lives of Europeans and others’. Athletes of all persuasions, he adds, ‘have the capacity to win the affection of millions within their own nations. Super athletes transcend national boundaries and become international icons. Nations are sustained through economic recessions, political disasters and identity crises by triumphant athletes who “symbolize” national virtues.’1 Moreover, it is widely believed that sport represents a universal language, provides possibilities of contact and communication, causes excitement and reveals skills and great abilities. On the other hand, popular interest and emotional involvement in sport may be disparaged or shrugged off by those who do not share in it; but its magnitude cannot be denied. But can sport contribute to settlement of political disputes, lead people to the acceptance of differences or reduce bigoted animosity? It is true that faith has been invested in the capacity of sport for bringing people together and for creating a comradeship that transcends divisions of religion, class, race and nationality. That sport should promote world peace by enhancing international understanding and respect and that it should bring nations of the world together were of course the ambitions of Baron de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games. Nowadays, there is a considerable and sensible range of opinion as to the impact of sport on inter-state relations. In fact, sport is not only a transnational activity; it can also be an instrument of government policy, for it encompasses so many dimensions of experience involving politics that states sometimes utilize sport as part of their internal and external policies. In foreign policy, sport has

146 ANTIDOTES TO WAR: THE BALKAN GAMES

occasionally been used under certain conditions to foster understanding and friendly relations. Thus, although bordering on utopianism and idealism, some international athletic meetings have been organized to bring about international harmony. One little-known example is the Balkan Games, the oldest regional athletic organization in Europe, which preceded the European and Mediterranean Games. It was initiated in Athens in 1929 and was seen as building bridges between historically antagonistic regional nations. Involvement in the games was considered more important than winning and harmony was the due ambition.2 More on the Balkan Games below. Put bluntly, sport is a field where arguably considerable international cooperation should and could be established. In the 1970s, goodwill between East and West was in the air and cultural and sporting exchanges came about. This was the moment when the United States first sought to establish fresh ties with China, initiating contact between the two nations in the form of a series of table tennis matches. In 1975, the Olympic Committee chose Moscow to stage the 1980 Olympics in an atmosphere of international détente and in recognition of the contribution of the Communist world to the promotion of world sport.3 Furthermore, the Goodwill Games were founded after the boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games in an attempt to bring the best athletes in the world together in a forum that emphasized global unity through sport.4 In the early moments of the Goodwill Games there were arts festivals, conferences and friendship initiatives in order that people from many different countries might be brought together to discuss world issues. The Berlin Marathon on New Year’s Day 1990 followed a carefully arranged route through both East and West Berlin as a symbolic action of reconciliation and unification reuniting East and West Germany.5 Just these few examples indicate that sport can be used to establish, promote or restore political relationships. The inter-war Balkan Games resulted from the advance of sport in the Balkans and the need to restore stability and hope in the region. In the 1920s, inter-Balkan relations were marked by great or small territorial claims that, combined with war indemnities disputes, generated and perpetuated conflicts between the states. The ‘Macedonian Question’ had grown into a highly controversial issue. After the Balkan War of 1912–13 and the later First World War, the Balkan map was totally changed—see Figure 7.1. Although a number of issues had been settled by various peace settlements, many others were to arise to replace them.6 Moreover, the Balkan states were striving to overcome underdevelopment, economic recession and


FIGURE 7.1 The Balkans in the Inter-War Period

widespread poverty as result of the lengthy Turkish occupation of the Balkans. Understandably, sport in general, and international athletics meetings in particular, were matters of little concern for the various governments.7 Before the establishment of the Balkan Games and their impact on transnational relations in the Balkan Peninsula is considered, the crucial issues that fed conflicts, stimulated distrust and decisively swayed relations between Greece and her neighbouring states in the 1920s will be briefly discussed to provide the necessary background.


BALKAN BACKGROUND: POLITICS, DIPLOMACY AND WAR Yugoslavia was the only Balkan country that traditionally was on friendly terms with Greece. In the years after the First World War, Yugoslavia, which had replaced Serbia on the post-war map of southeastern Europe with an enormously increased territory and population, steadily consolidated her position and improved her international prestige despite internal problems and difficulties. In 1927, Yugoslavia joined the French alliance, the so-called ‘Little Entente’, and followed French policy, which focused on the preservation of the status quo in Europe. As far as Yugoslavia’s relations with her neighbouring countries are concerned, Yugoslavia was on bad terms with Bulgaria and Albania, while Hungary and Italy were her great foes. Her insistence that Greece should be her satellite eventually roused Greece’s indignation.8 In 1924, the signing of the Polites-Kalfof Protocol between Greece and Bulgaria, touching on the protection of GrecoBulgarian minorities in both countries, produced considerable tension between Greece and Yugoslavia inasmuch as Greece and Bulgaria, according to that agreement, consented to the involvement of the League of Nations in internal affairs concerning the protection of the Bulgarian minority living in Greece and the Greek minority living in Bulgarian, while the Slav-speaking residents of Greek Macedonia were now recognized as Bulgarians. The protocol was rightly considered to set a precedent for every foreign intervention in matters touching on national minorities.9 Belgrade reacted in protest immediately and demanded that the Slavspeaking residents of Greek Macedonia be recognized as Serbs. When Greece refused to meet the Yugoslav demands, Yugoslavia denounced the 1913 Greek-Yugoslav treaty. This was not all. Questions touching on the Serbian minority living in Greek Macedonia, administration of the railway from Thessaloniki to Yugoslavia’s hinterland and the free zone in the port of Thessaloniki, which regrettably had been granted to Yugoslavia according to the convention of 10 May 1923, were raised. Thessaloniki remained the natural maritime outlet for southern Yugoslavia and its importance was taken for granted. The GrecoYugoslav dispute eventually reached a critical stage and the reestablishment of relations between the two sides required long and intense negotiations together with mutual concessions.10 Nonetheless, in August 1926, during the dictatorship of General Pangalos in Greece, a rapprochement between Greece and Yugoslavia was accomplished and a treaty of alliance was agreed. A series of


technical conventions providing for a Greek-Yugoslav administration of the railway from Gevgeli in Yugoslavia to Thessaloniki in Greece were also signed. Moreover, a joint statement was issued according to which the Slav-speaking residents of Greek Macedonia were recognized as Serbs.11 These agreements went too far for Greek public opinion. The overthrow of General Pangalos soon after the signing of the instruments involved the collapse of the settlement that had been negotiated during his regime. The new government formed after the election of November 1926 was expected to reopen negotiations with Yugoslavia with a view to modifying the August 1926 agreement.12 In addition, the Greek parliament did not ratify the conventions, on the grounds that they conferred benefits and favours to the Yugoslav side and constituted a threat to Greek sovereignty in Macedonia. A trade treaty was, however, signed in November 1927, combined with subsidiary conventions dealing with frontier traffic, railway tariffs and other technical matters.13 In Geneva in April 1928, during consultations at foreign-minister level, Vodislav Marinkovich, the Yugoslav foreign minister, and Andreas Michalakopoulos, the Greek foreign minister, agreed that negotiations on outstanding questions should resume. Despite all their exertions, by the late 1920s negotiations had led to no definite result and relations between Greece and Yugoslavia remained tense.14 Bulgaria, the only Balkan state that had supported the defeated Central Powers, was faced with many problems generated by the postwar amalgamation of territories. After the 1912–13 Balkan War, southern Dobrudja had been surrendered to Romania, and most of the Macedonian land had been portioned out between Greece and Serbia. According to the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria had been compelled to concede four border districts to Yugoslavia and western Thrace to Greece. Although Bulgaria lost her territory bordering on the Aegean, the peace treaty provided for negotiations with Greece concerning access to the sea.15 The first difference between Greece and Bulgaria arose over implementation of the conventions signed on 27 November 1919, which involved the voluntary emigration of the Bulgarian population from Greek territory and vice versa. In accordance with the agreement, about 30,000 Greeks left Bulgaria while 53,000 Bulgarians emigrated to their motherland. At the Lausanne Conference of 1922– 23, the Bulgarian premier, Alexander Stamboliski, contested the rights of Greece over western Thrace and claimed that Bulgaria should have a strip of territory and her own port in the Aegean. Eleftherios Venizelos, the Greek representative at the conference, offered a Bulgarian zone in the port of Thessaloniki similar to that assigned to Yugoslavia. The


Bulgarians considered the offer unsatisfactory, and dropped the question altogether, indicating that they were interested only in territorial acquisitions.16 Amidst a considerable number of pending issues for settlement and in a climate of hostility and distrust, the situation took a turn for the worst when a frontier incident between Greek and Bulgarian soldiers unexpectedly occurred on 19 October 1925. In an exchange of shots, a Greek border sentry was killed and an officer arriving at the scene to effect a cease-fire was also killed. What started out as a simple frontier incident escalated into a serious confrontation. Three days after the incident, Greek troops entered Bulgarian territory. Virtually demilitarized under the Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria was in no position to resist the Greek advance and appealed to the League of Nations. Diplomatically isolated and with the threat of sanctions looming on the horizon, Greece instructed her army to evacuate the Bulgarian territory immediately. After long deliberations and as soon as an indemnity of 30 million Bulgarian leva was paid by Greece to Bulgaria, the crisis abated.17 Nevertheless, every effort to settle the Greco-Bulgarian dispute met the lingering refusal of the Bulgarian government to accept the treaties’ terms. The Bulgarian insistence on a territorial outlet to the Aegean hindered the two states from reaching an agreement and establishing friendly relations. More important, the exchange of populations between Greece and Bulgaria resulted in an intense financial dispute, which led to stagnation of bilateral negotiations. Even the KafandaresMollov agreement in December 1927, which focused on the settlement of the financial obligations, remained a dead letter. The Greek government resolved not to ratify the 1927 agreement, which involved payment of a large amount of money to Bulgaria, on the grounds that Bulgaria had not fulfilled her financial obligations to Greece that were the result of First World War indemnities.18 Greco-Turkish relations were extremely tense in the 1920s. Vital interests clashed and pending issues of great consequence awaited settlement. After the defeat of the Greek army in Asia Minor (in September 1922), political friction and disagreement between the two states was finally settled by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, ratified by the Greek parliament on 25 August 1923. The most important part of the Lausanne Treaty concerned the exchange of the Greek and Turkish populations, signed by Eleftherios Venizelos and Ismet Inonu on 30 January 1923.19 For the first time in history the international community accepted the forcible uprooting, and the accompanying distress and hardship, of hundreds of thousands of peaceful and law-


abiding citizens. Furthermore, negotiations came to a deadlock due to arrears of indemnities resulted from the exchange of populations. According to the 1923 treaty, the exchanged population would receive land of equivalent value for the immovable properties abandoned and the balance of payments would be chargeable to the debtor country. The mixed committee appointed by the League of Nations was unable to settle the dispute effectively and urged the Greek government to submit all controversial issues to arbitration. However, the Turkish government persisted in an arbitrary evaluation of properties.20 Among other questions resulting from the Lausanne Treaty, the term établis (‘established’) in Article 2 of the treaty, concerning the Greek population in Constantinople and the Moslems in western Thrace, generated a sharp difference of opinion between the two states, provoked the greatest animosity and ultimately led them to have recourse to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The neutral members of the mixed committee appointed to settle the issue concluded that all Greeks inhabiting Constantinople and all Moslems inhabiting western Thrace before 30 October 1918 were to be exempted from the exchange. This was not all. Controversy over the Patriarchate and the Patriarch put additional obstacles to rapprochement between Greece and Turkey and by the mid-1920s the dispute over the status of the Phanar clerics had adverse impact on the Patiarchate.21 Finally, the hopeful evolution in Greco-Turkish relations in 1928 was closely connected to the re-establishment of Greco-Italian relations in September of the same year. Rome realized that reconciliation between Greece and Turkey, under Italian auspices, might be a forceful means for Italy to strengthen her influence in south-eastern Europe. Thus in March 1928 representatives from Greece, Turkey and Italy resolved to establish and promote political association by means of a treaty agreed by the three countries. The three sides eventually decided on bilateral treaties. A Greco-Italian and an Italian-Turkish treaty would lead off, then a Greco-Turkish agreement would come next, provided that the dispute between Athens and Ankara was settled. Conciliatory efforts, however, failed again and the Greek proposal, which made provision for an appeal to compulsory arbitration in the case of disagreement, was rejected by the Turkish government. By late 1920s rapprochement between Greece and Turkey was unfeasible.22 The main dispute between Greece and Romania concerned the construction of a railway that would join Greece to Romania. Romania aspired to a railway that would join her to Greece via Bulgaria. The Greek General Staff was concerned about this project and produced


serious objections involving the Greek defensive system. Nevertheless, in 1926, Andreas Michalakopoulos, the Greek Foreign Minister, got round objections and difficulties with the proviso that the Romanian government was pledged to the use of the new railway only for trade.23 After this breakthrough, negotiations between Greece and Romania were initiated in 1927 and gradually entered into a hopeful phase. On 21 March 1928, during the scheduled session of the League of Nations in Geneva, Nicolae Titulescu, the Romanian Foreign Minister, and Michalakopoulos signed the Greco-Romanian treaty of non-aggression and arbitration to crown the consultations.24 The two states reached an agreement that was expected to pave the way for separate agreements between Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In fact, Greece’s desire to enter into agreement with Romania resulted from the fact that the Greco-Yugoslav negotiations had reached a deadlock in 1927 and Greece remained diplomatically isolated. The Greco-Romanian convention was at first considered only short-term and unable to decisively affect Yugoslavia’s attitude towards Greece. In the final analysis, however, the 1928 treaty was the first agreement Greece signed after the 1923 Lausanne Treaty initiating bilateral Balkan agreements.25 Albania was the smallest and weakest country in the Balkans. During the 1920s it was clearly understood by the Albanian government that the country could not survive unless she placed herself under the protection of a great power. Italy was the only country which had political interests in Albania and which was amenable to the role of the protector. Serious problems between Greece and Albania were generated by the expulsion of the Greek population living on Albanian territory. In spite of Albanian hostility towards the Greek minority, a consular agreement that settled issues concerning both Greek and Albanian subjects was signed in Athens in 1926. Furthermore, a number of conventions were agreed touching on nationality, trade and navigation as well as the extradition of criminals—without, however, improving the living conditions of the Greek population in Albania.26 The nationality convention was not ratified by the Greek Parliament when the expenditure of money on indemnities for a million acres of expropriated land that belonged to Albanian residents became known. Albania’s appeal to the League of Nations was unsuccessful: its council decided in Greece’s favour. In addition, relations between the two states reached an extremely critical stage when Albania occupied northern Epirus, a region where most of the population was Greek.27 Against this background of complex, confused, confrontational


political issues and moments, the idealistic—yet also pragmatic—ideal of the Balkan games emerged. BALKAN GAMES: SPORT, POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY, DISTRACTION FROM WAR Bulgarian intransigence towards every Greek proposal for agreement and collaboration and Turkish pressure on Greece to pay indemnities resulting from the exchange of populations, combined with Yugoslavia’s claims on the free zone in the port of Thessaloniki, all demanded Greek concessions. In such unfavourable circumstances, the Greek government focused on the preservation of national security and sought collaboration with neighbouring states whenever it was feasible. One outcome of this attempted collaboration involved sport. The idea of creating a Balkan Games was raised for discussion for the first time in 1921, during a session of the Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association (SEGAS), and resulted initially from the Balkan nations’ inability to compete successfully in sport in Europe. The foundation of a championship in which Balkan athletes could compete among equals, improve their performance, break national records and equip themselves for successful European competition was seen as a promising idea. Moreover, and in the specific thematic context of this contribution, athletic meetings between and involving the Balkan states might, it was hoped, restore goodwill, friendship and peace in the Balkan Peninsula.28 In 1924, on the occasion of the Olympic Games in Paris, two leading personalities in Greek sporting circles, Pavlos Manitakes and Dimitrios Dallas (see Figure 7.2), were entrusted with meeting their Balkan opposite numbers, M.Dobrin from Yugoslavia and M.Iconomu from Romania. The prospect of establishing athletic relations among the Balkan countries in general, and a Balkan Games in particular, was the first item on the agenda.29 The Balkan delegates responded to the Greek proposal with enthusiasm, but they were not empowered to adopt resolutions and sign agreements. They promised, however, to discuss the proposal during the next sessions of their respective national athletic associations and to keep in touch. For unknown reasons, there were no further discussions.30 The years from 1924 to 1928 were considered the gestation period of the Greek proposal. The 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games provided the Greek sports delegates with a fresh opportunity to hold a meeting with the sports delegates of the Balkan countries under the presidency of Michael Rinopoulos (see Figure 7.3). Discussions focused once again on


FIGURE 7.2 Dimitrios Dallas, One of the Prime Movers of the Balkan Games’ Establishment

Michael Rinopoulos (standing third from left in third row) with Greek Champions in Zagreb, 1934

FIGURE 7.3



prospects for a new competitive institution in which athletes would come exclusively from the Balkan peninsula. After a long period of wars, lesser military operations, territorial claims and financial disputes, the establishment of athletic meetings in the Balkans, it was hoped, might bring the Balkan countries into peaceful contact with each other, a step towards greater regional understanding in order to avoid war.31 The proposal was at first well received and prospects for its implementation looked good. But as soon as talks proceeded to matters touching on finance, the Balkan delegates became circumspect. A large outlay was required to fund the organization, an onerous burden for each of the states. Furthermore, the Balkan representatives were not able to agree promises and obligations without the approval of their governments. In point of fact, finance and approval proved to be obstacles to the creation of a Balkan Games and the establishment of athletic relations seemed bound to fail.32 Nonetheless, the Greek delegates seconded the proposal with enthusiasm and suggested that Greece stage a trial ‘Balkaniad’ in Athens in 1929 under the auspices of the Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association. Expenses incurred by the organization, together with the cost of the athletes’ transport and residence in Athens, would be defrayed by SEGAS.33 The Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association set the dates of the games and began a hectic period of preparation and deliberation, overcoming various difficulties and misgivings. Invitations were sent to the Bulgarian and Albanian athletic associations, which were not represented at the Amsterdam meeting. Beyond all expectations, all Balkan states except Albania accepted the invitation. Greek efforts had begun to bear fruit.34 The magnitude of this Greek achievement should be stressed. It was accomplished despite inevitable national differences, power-struggles, confrontations and clashes. Furthermore, to achieve Balkan consensus for any idea was an achievement of rare accomplishment. Agreement clearly revealed the extent of the desire for regional rapprochement after what appeared to many to have been an interminable period of regional dissension. It may well be that using sport as an agent of political reconciliation was grasping at straws, but the fact remains that those involved were keen to make the attempt and considered that, within the bounds of possibility, some political good might come out of an astonishing initiative.


THE BALKAN GAMES (1929–39): FAIR COMPETITION, UNITY AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS The first stage of the Balkan Games occurred on 22 September 1929. More than 60,000 people crowded the stands of the Panathinaikon Stadium in Athens to welcome and applaud athletes from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece (see Figure 7.4). The so-called ‘PreBalkaniad’ was finally held under the auspices of Admiral Pavlos Koudouriotes, President of the Greek Republic. Greek ministers, the Mayor of Athens, high-raking military officers and the ambassadors of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania attended the spectacle amid enthusiastic acclamations and applause from the spectators.35 The president of the Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association, Michael Rinopoulos, addressed the audience and emphasized the necessity of the development of Balkan sport, the restoration of peace and the pursuit of hope in the Balkan peninsula.36 At an associated political session, the four competing states agreed that the Balkan Games should be held every year. A founding protocol was drafted and signed on 27 September 1929. It was a crowning achievement of considerable effort. According to its terms, the games would start officially in 1930, to be held in sequence in the capitals of the states that were involved in the meetings. It was obligatory on each of the competing countries to provide a minimum number of 20 athletes. The games initially would include athletic events, but there was provision for an increase in contests in the following years with the proviso that general consent was obtained for this. However, due to the financial difficulties faced by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania, the delegates entrusted Greece with the Balkan Games from 1930 until 1933.37 In the 1929 Pre-Balkaniad the Greek athletes put up excellent performances and achieved the highest number of points. Yugoslavia came second, Romania third and Bulgaria fourth. The Turkish Athletic Association had not been invited to be involved in the games and this resulted in unfavourable comments from the Turkish press about traditional Greek antipathy. The Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association managed to surmount the embarrassing situation and to repair associated political tension, assuring the Turks that it simply was a regrettable omission on the Greek part without any ulterior motive. In fact, Turkey was not invited by reason of the fact that internationally she was considered more an Asiatic than a Balkan state.38

The Panathinaikon Stadium in the early twentieth century

FIGURE 7.4



The Greek premier Venizelos, a politician of vision, gave his blessing to the 1929 games in the form of a congratulatory telegram from Paris, where he was on an official visit.39 Complimentary telegrams were also sent by the Bulgarian King Boris and the Yugoslav Athletic Association. The Bulgarian ambassador commented favourably on the Greek initiative in organizing the Balkan Games. ‘Sports meetings’, he stated, ‘could come to play an important part in the restoration of political trust and in bringing the Balkan peoples together’. He agreed that Involvement of young athletes in the Balkan Games provided them with the opportunity of establishing regional friendships and establishing a spirit of understanding in order that peaceful coexistence might be restored in the Balkan peninsula, an area of past transnational crises, military confrontations and human disasters too many times in the past.40 In the history of Balkan sport, 5 October 1930 was considered a landmark. The official Balkan Games were initiated in Athens at the Panathinaikon stadium. Athletes from five Balkan countries were greeted warmly. The event, momentous at least regionally, was addressed by Venizelos (see Figure 7.5), who laid stress on the part the games should and could play in the areas of sport, culture and interBalkan relations. Simultaneous with the inauguration of games, the city of Athens celebrated a great variety of cultural events. Receptions for the Balkan athletes were held by the Greek youth unions, while the University of Athens gave banquets in honour of the Balkan foreign ministers, who were in Athens participating in the first Balkan Conference of 1930. The Acropolis was illuminated for the occasion and from the top of Lycabettus Hill the ‘flame of peace’ was visible throughout the city. Furthermore, the Balkan Popular Fair opened on 10 October. The fair was highly successful due to the variety of the exhibited articles, which revealed common regional characteristics in past cultures and demonstrated past Balkan cultural unity.41 Even the President of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, responded positively to the event. He offered the organizers of the games his appreciative thanks for the friendly reception the Turkish athletes met (see Figure 7.6), expressed a devout wish for peace in the Balkans and even suggested that the newly established sports meetings might well pave the way to regional rapprochement, cultural and trade exchanges.42 In his complimentary telegram, King Boris of Bulgaria once more expressed similar hopes and expectations.43

The Greek Premier Eleftherios Venizelos entering the Panathinaikon Stadium, 1930 Balkan Games

FIGURE 7.5



FIGURE 7.6 The Greatness of Sport: Turkish Racers Congratulate the Greek Sprinter, Balkan Games 1930

The second Balkan Games were held in October 1931, once again in Athens. Ministers, members of parliament, the Mayor of Athens and the diplomatic corps were invited to attend. The Greek premier again graced the games with his presence and delivered a short address. At his side were Ismet Inonou, the Turkish prime minister, and Tewfik Rushdi, the foreign minister of Turkey, who were in Athens returning the visit of the Greek premier to Ankara the previous year.44 The Greek team dominated the games with 11 victories. Yugoslavia won five gold medals, while Turkey gained her first gold medal. Two young athletes, the Yugoslav hammer-thrower Pendro Goit and the Greek discusthrower Nikos Syllas, especially distinguished themselves, putting up excellent performances.45 In September 1931, the so-called ‘Sofia Balkaniad’ had been held in Bulgaria. Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey were the only countries to be involved. By contrast with the annual Balkan Games in Athens, in which athletics and tennis competitions took place, the games in Bulgaria offered swimming, football, cycle and motorcycle races, fencing, physical exercise, car racing and riding. The events of the Sofia athletic meeting occurred only in 1931.46


As agreed, Athens staged the games from 1929 until 1933. The 1933 Balkan Games saw the first Albanian involvement. The 1934 games took place in Yugoslavia, at the Zagreb Dynamo stadium. The Yugoslav athletes broke a great many records and gained the most points —a great victory. After Yugoslavia, it was the turn of Turkey to stage the games. The 1935 Balkan Games were held at the Fener Baktse stadium in Constantinople where, beyond all expectation, thousands of spectators attended the competition.47 With great ceremony, the Balkan Games returned to Athens in 1936. Athletes from five Balkan countries marched into the Panathinaikon Stadium illuminated by torches, symbols of the spirit of Apollo and eternal harmony, while thousands of spectators greeted them with thunderous applause (see Figure 7.7).48 In 1937, the Balkan Games took place at the Stadium of the Academy of Physical Education in Bucharest; King Carol of Romania graced the occasion with his presence and opened the games. The Romanian team put up an excellent performance and won second place after Greece. Belgrade was host to the 1938 games, with the Yugoslav athletes achieving an amazing start and winning six of the seven events on the first day and eventually 11 gold medals.49 With Europe on the threshold of the Second World War, the Balkan Games of 1939 took place in Athens. The following year, and in the shadow of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Europe was drawn in the vortex of war. The games began to falter; Romania did not enter for the 1940 games, which were scheduled to take place in Constantinople on the eve of Mussolini’s assault on Greece in October 1940. With involvement of only Turkey, Yugoslavia and Greece, a state of affairs that gave the games an unofficial character, the event had an unhappy outcome. Although it was agreed that no final score would be issued, the Turkish organizers surprised everyone by announcing Turkey as the winner. Perhaps this was a symbolic action. After a decade of achievement, the Balkan Games finally abandoned the spirit of ‘fair play’, cooperation and goodwill.50 Thus an exercise in bold and brave idealism, backed by practical commitment and efficient regional action, had come to a regrettable end, destroyed by the outbreak of hostilities and the renewal of fighting. It is more than a sad irony that the impetus for the games’ establishment came from a nation beyond the Balkans, renowned, historically at least, for its civilized cultural traditions. However, 13 years later, in 1953, after the Greek Civil War following the German occupation of Greece had ended, the games resumed in Athens. Romania, Bulgaria and Albania were not involved in the first post-war Balkan Games. In spite of good performances by the athletes, the pre-war glory of the games seemed to be a memory.

Balkan athletes enter the Panathinaikon Stadium caught in the Light of Torches, Symbol of Peace and Fraternity, Balkan Games 1936

FIGURE 7.7



However, beyond all expectation, the 1956 Balkan Games in Belgrade saw the resuscitation of the event. Romania and Bulgaria participated and the games approached its past success. Athletes from five Balkan countries met, ready once again to demonstrate friendship, cooperation and peace. In the post-war Balkan Games a considerable number of athletes became top performers both in Balkan and European competition.51 In 1979, on the Balkan Games’ fiftieth anniversary, representatives from the world of sport and politics met in Athens. They publicly stressed the part the games had played in the improvement of Balkan sport and restoration of regional cooperation and friendship. Adrian Paulen, president of the International Athletic Federation (IAAF) drew attention to the athletes’ creditable performances, achieved in a spirit of ‘fair play’ and good fellowship. Paulen mentioned that bonds of origin, culture and history, in conjunction with the bonds of modern sport, had gone a long way towards the restoration of hope and trust in the Balkans.52 Trendafil Martinski, president of the central committee of the Bulgarian Union for Physical Education and Sports, for his part declared that the Balkan Games were deeply rooted in the hearts of the Balkan peninsula’s peoples and that it was no accident that they were initiated in this southern corner of Europe, the location of the ancient Olympic Games. He added that both the pre-war and post-war Balkan Games set an example to other peoples; they were founded despite national conflicts, territorial claims and financial disputes and in the face of grave economic difficulties. It was his opinion that the Balkan Games were a symbol of cooperation in sport.53 Trpe Jakovlevski, representative of the Yugoslav Federation for Physical Education, pointed out that the Balkan Games had brought together athletes from six countries with different cultures, languages, economic and social systems, all determined to promote friendship, peace and collaboration. He was certain that his compatriots felt justifiably proud of the progress made in Balkan sport as signified by the games.54 One of those who responded to the emotion of the occasion was General Marin Dragnea, chairman of the Romanian Olympic Committee, who described the Balkan Games as source of inter-Balkan cooperation, adding that collaboration between the Balkan peoples in the areas of trade, culture and sport was a matter of great concern to Romania.55 Finally, Yuksel Cakmur, the Turkish Minister for Youth and Sport, expressed his firm belief that the athletes involved in the games opened up channels of communication, stimulating the Balkan peoples to live peacefully in a world without violent juxtapositions and intransigent policies. He repeated what Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,


president of the Turkish Republic, said to the Balkan representatives at the Second Balkan Conference in Constantinople in 1931. Kemal, speaking of the prospects for establishing a Balkan confederation, pointed out that whether or not unity in the Balkans was accomplished by means of mutual respect, political cooperation and fertile collaboration in the areas of economy, culture and education, it was not to be doubted that the rapprochement and reconciliation between the Balkan nations would be recognized by civilized humanity as a meritorious, stimulating achievement. ‘The athletic language is a language common to all’, Yusel Cakmur declared, ‘and both athletes and spectators share the same feelings. Such mutual feelings create and promote emotional unity, which supports and strengthens peoples’ will to smooth difficulties away and push disagreements aside.’56 The expressions of approval, goodwill and support delivered by these men, of course, were expected of the occasion and glossed over savage periods of vicious warfare and political oppression in which there was a marked lack of cooperation, rapprochement and reconciliation in the Balkans, and recent events there have given rise to fresh depression. Realism is as crucial to survival as optimism. Nevertheless, there was more than an element of truth in their sanguine comments. There were beneficial consequences arising out of the Balkan Games—a measure of increased harmony, goodwill and cooperation. As such, the games were an attempted antidote to military, diplomatic and political ‘war’— perhaps hopelessly idealistic yet meritorious in the attempt and to a degree in achievement. Whatever the weaknesses of the human species, its propensity for violence, its capacity for endless confrontation, antidotes should be sought and attempted. The Balkan Games furnish one relatively unknown attempt. CONCLUSION The 1920s was a period of national disputes, political tension and economic recession in the Balkans. In such unfavourable circumstances, the development and promotion of sport was beyond the various governments’ concern and their financial potential. Nonetheless, the Balkan sports delegates in Amsterdam in 1928, acting on a Greek initiative, seriously considered the creation of the Balkan Games. The response, however, was mixed—both enthusiasm and circumspection. Enthusiasm came initially from the belief that the new institution would promote Balkan sport, which at the time was considerably inferior to European sport in general. Circumspection was inspired by the huge expenses an international athletic meeting involved.


Reservations were finally overcome due to the Greek initiative in staging the ‘Pre-Balkaniad’ in Athens in 1929. The pre-war Balkan Games were officially initiated in 1930, launched by Greece, and flourished until the end of the 1930s and the tragedy of the Second World War. After a 13-year interruption, the games resumed in 1953 and are still taking place. They became the most important annual athletic event in the Balkans. In the final analysis, they were organized essentially with the purpose of bringing the countries together, not with the purpose of promoting national prestige in the eyes of the international community or of any one regional nation. The mere fact that the games brought athletes, sports delegates, journalists, government representatives and diplomats from six individualistic and wary countries together for years in an amiable atmosphere marked a definite step forward, providing the Balkan nations with at least the opportunity to establish sporting, cultural and political links in a meritorious effort to avoid war—indeed, to find an antidote to war. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Profound thanks are extended to Professor J.A.Mangan for editorial assistance with both textual and analytical aspects of this chapter. NOTES 1. J.A.Mangan, ‘Prologue’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Sport in Europe: Politics, Class, Gender (The European Sports History Review, 1) (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999), p. vii. 2. Pavlos Manitakes, 100 Chronia Neoellinikou Athlitismou 1830–1930 [A Hundred Years of Modern Greek Athleticism 1830–1930] (hereafter A Hundred Years) (Athens: The Hellenic Olympic Committee, 1962), pp. 627– 9. 3. B.Houlihan, The Government and Politics of Sport (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 8. 4. B.Houlihan, Sport, Policy and Politics: A Comparative Analysis (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 2. Referring to the Goodwill Games and to Ted Turner, sponsor of the games, Houlihan writes that Turner’s ownership of one of America’s major television broadcasting companies was an additional reason for the promotion of the Goodwill Games. 5. Houlihan, The Government and Politics of Sport, p. 8. 6. P.Pipinelis, Historia tes Exoterikis Politikis tes Hellados 1923–1941 [History of Greek Foreign Policy 1923–1941] (hereafter Greek Foreign Policy) (Athens: M.Saliverou SA, 1948), p. 19. 7. Manitakes, A Hundred Years, pp. 525–7.


8. ‘Greece, Yugoslavia, and Salonica’, in Arnold Toynbee (ed.), Survey of International Affairs 1926 (hereafter Survey of 1926) (London: Humphrey Milford, 1928), pp. 165–6. 9. A.Tounta-Fergade, Hellino-Voulgarikes Mionotites: Protokolo Politi-Kalfof 1924–1925 [Greco-Bulgarian Minorities: Polites-Kalfof Protocol 1924– 1925] (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1986), pp. 77–81. 10. Survey of 1926, pp. 166–7. 11. Pipinelis, Greek Foreign Policy, pp. 29–30. 12. ‘Greece, Yugoslavia and Salonica’, in Arnold Toynbee (ed.), Survey of International Affairs 1928 (hereafter Survey of 1928) (London: Humphrey Milford, 1929), pp. 183–7. 13. Ibid., p. 183. 14. Ibid., p. 184. 15. B.Jelavich, History of the Balkans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Vol. 1, p. 37. 16. D.Pentzopoulos, The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and its Impact upon Greece (Paris: Mouton & Co, 1962), p. 60. 17. J.Barros, The League of Nations and the Great Powers: The Greek-Bulgarian Incident, 1925 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 1–115. 18. Historia tou Hellinikou Ethnous [History of the Greek Nation] (hereafter History) (Athens: Athens Publishing Company, 1978), Vol. 15, p. 344. 19. For a complete English text of the treaty, see Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Turkey No. 1 (1923), Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, 1922–1923, Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace (London, 1923), pp. 817–27. 20. History, pp. 286, 344. 21. A.Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations 1918–1974 (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1983), pp. 159–60. 22. History, p. 347. 23. Ibid., p. 345. 24. Constantinos Svolopoulos, ‘To Hellinoroumaniko Symphonon tes 21 Martiou 1928’ [The Greco-Romanian Treaty of 21 March 1928] (hereafter The Greco-Romanian Treaty), Macedonica, XIV(1974), 154–5. 25. Ibid., 156–60. 26. History, p. 287. 27. Ibid., pp. 288–9. 28. See ‘Peninta Chronia Prin [50 Years Ago]’, in Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association (ed.), 50 Chronia Balkanikon Agonon [50 Years of the Balkan Games] (hereafter 50 Years) (Athens: Cactos, 1979), p. 5. 29. Manitakes, A Hundred Years, p. 442. 30. Ibid., pp. 458, 460–61. 31. Pavlos Makrides, ‘Balkanikoi Agones’ [The Balkan Games], Megali Egyclopaedia tou Athletismou [Great Encyclopaedia of Athleticism] (Athens: T.Drakopoulou, 1961), p. 303. 32. Ibid., pp. 304, 570, 589. 33. Manitakes, A Hundred Years, pp. 303, 591–2. 34. Ibid.


35. ‘The First Day of the Balkan Games’, Makedonica Nea [Macedonian News], 23 Sept. 1929, p. 4. 36. ‘The Balkan Games’, He Ephimeres ton Balkanion [The Newspaper of the Balkans], 22 Sept. 1929, p. 3. 37. Manitakes, A Hundred Years, p. 627. 38. ‘The Turks and the Balkan Games’, He Ephimeres ton Balkanion, 23 Sept. 1929, p. 4. 39. ‘Compliments on the Balkan Games’, Makedonica Nea, 27 Sept. 1929, p. 2. 40. ‘Opening of the First Balkan Games’, Tachydromos tes Voreiou Hellados [Northern Greek Messenger], 22 Sept. 1929, p. 3. 41. ‘The First Day of the Balkan Games’, Tachydromos tes Voreiou Hellados, 5 Oct. 1930, p. 5. 42. ‘The Telegram of Mustafa Kemal’, Tachydromos tes Voreiou Hellados, 10 Oct. 1930, p. 3. 43. ‘Triumphant Opening of the Balkan Games’, Tachydromos tes Voreiou Hellados, 6 Oct. 1930, p. 1. 44. ‘The Second Balkan Games’, Macedonia, 5 Oct. 1931, p. 6. 45. ‘Balkan Games 1931’, 50 Years, p. 35. 46. Ivan Baltancief, ‘The Balkaniad of Sofia’, Macedonia, 21 Sept. 1931, p. 6. 47. ‘Balkan Games 1932–1935’, 50 Years, pp. 36–50. 48. Ibid., p. 53. 49. Ibid., pp. 55–9. 50. Ibid., p. 62. 51. Ibid., pp. 64–70. 52. Adrian Paulen, ‘The Balkan Games’, 50 Years, p. 6. 53. Trendafil Martinski, ‘The Contribution of the Balkan Games to Friendship and Peace in the Balkan Peninsula’, 50 Years, p. 8. 54. Trpe Jakovlevski, ‘The Inspirational Founders of the Balkan Games’, 50 Years, p. 10. 55. Marin Dragnea, ‘Balkan Games. An Example of Friendship’, 50 Years, p. 13. 56. Yuksel Cakmur, ‘The Balkan Games will Pave the Way for our Peoples’, 50 Years, p. 14.

8 Children into Soldiers: Sport and Fascist Italy ROBERTA VESCOVI

Fascism from the beginning had a primary aim, that of moulding the country’s youth according to Fascist ideals. Under the influence of a ‘dynamic activism’ borrowed from Marinetti’s futurist movement,1 Fascism entrusted the physical and political education of Italians largely to sport. The Fascists took control of physical education in the schools, a subject that had previously received little attention.2 In 1923, the newly elected minister Giovanni Gentile reformed the whole school structure, reconciling it with the new ideology, and entrusted the physical education of the young to a specially constituted organization, the ENEF (Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica—National Physical Education Board). However, the ENEF was unable to carry out its task satisfactorily due to a lack of sports equipment and premises, of money and of physical education teachers; so in 1927 responsibility for physical education was handed over to the ONB (Opera Nazionale Balilla—National Balilla Movement). It devoted itself to shaping the new generations, enrolling young people from six to 18 years old, whether or not they were at school; then in 1937, it delegated the task to the GIL (Gioventù Italiana del Littorio—Fascist Youth). Political control over the life of the male citizen did not cease when he reached the age of 18, because university students were gathered into the GUF (Gruppi Universitari Fascisti—Fascist University Groups), while other young men awaiting their military service joined the FGC (Fasci Giovanili di Combattimenti—Fascist Youth Combat Groups) or the MVSN (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale—Voluntary Militia for National Security). Moreover sports fans, who were enrolled as members of the various associations, were subjected to the CONI (Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano—Italian Olympic Committee), which in its turn, had been at the service of the PNF (Partito Nazionale Fascista—National Fascist Party) since 1926. Workers, for their part, were under the control of the OND (Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro—National After-Work Institute) and from birth children

170 CHILDREN INTO SOLDIERS: SPORT AND FASCIST ITALY

were looked after by the ONMI (Opera Nazionale Maternità e Infanzia —National Maternity and Child Welfare Institute). Over everyone and everything ruled the omnipotent Duce. The totalitarian Fascist regime had the merit of recognizing the ‘extreme social importance of the young’.3 New generations were the future of the nation and investing in them, it was believed, was a simple and sure way to strengthen and perpetuate Fascist ideology. Shaping the ‘New Italians’ from their birth4 was vital. Children are malleable. As Augusto Turati, Secretary of the PNF, stated: ‘Childhood is the time when we absorb, assimilate, suffer and enjoy everything.’5 This study analyses the connection between Fascism and sport in the education and militarization of the new generations during the 20 years of Fascism. The eugenic, pedagogical, nationalistic and military aims of the physical education of the young are considered as part of a single political and cultural plan. The means of achieving the aims of this particular ethical, physical, political, military and cultural policy were the Fascist youth organizations. THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE RACE From the early years of the regime onwards, one of the indispensable aims of the great and powerful future it planned was the care and improvement of the nation’s physical health. This was made clear by Mussolini himself in his ‘Ascension Day’ speech on 26 May 1927: It has been stated in the past that the state should not concern itself with the nation’s health. But this is a theory which leads to suicide. It is evident that in a well-ordered state, the care of the people’s health must be a priority; therefore we must seriously watch over the destiny of our race, and care for it, beginning with maternal and infant welfare.6 The regime’s programmes included a wide and varied range of measures meant to reduce premature death in general, and illnesses in particular; support for maternity and childhood; and the physical education of youth with the aim of strengthening the Italian race. These measures were important because they brought about a decrease in the mortality rate and an increase in the population.7 Promoting the improvement of the new generation’s physical health was considered a crucial goal which could not be neglected by the regime and its political bodies.8 Of course, the aim of the care and


attention given to young people, as brutally expressed by the Duce himself, was to obtain ‘eight million bayonets’.9 Basic to this ambition were the programmes that were carried out by the ONMI, which was responsible for the welfare of mother and child. These were established by Law 2277 of 10 December 1925. The ONMI was the second of the regime’s three important state-controlled institutions that had eugenic and indoctrination ends (the others were the OND, established in 1924 and the ONB established in 1926).10 The ONMI, as indeed the state itself, had ‘social’ rather than ‘individual’ aims. Its ultimate responsibility was not so much the care and the improvement of the individual as that of the race, the society and the nation.11 Fascism rejected ‘the uncontrollable sovereignty of the individual’12 in favour of a totalitarian state that developed and improved the potential of the individual only for corporate utilitarian ends. To this end, the ONB had a major role in the welfare policies of the regime. As well as being concerned with the physical and political education of new generations, it was responsible for hygiene, health and preventive medicine in collaboration with the ONMI. Its work included regular medical check-ups for the members, free distribution of medicines, hospital and clinic admissions, the organization of seaside holiday camps and sun therapy.13 The regime was interested in the health of the young for one allembracing reason—the strengthening of the so-called ‘Italian Race’. The declared aim of Fascist social assistance was ‘the formation of generations which were to be strong and healthy, both physically and morally, through the protection and assistance of mothers and children, physical education and the moral education of young people’.14 This aim embraced both men and women. As far as men were concerned, they were required to develop the physical and moral qualities of ‘virility’ by means of a healthy physically active life which would make them into good ‘comrades’ ready to sacrifice themselves for the Fascist creed. Women, for their part, needed a healthy body in order to give birth to healthy children and the moral strength to breed true Fascists of the future. For Fascism, then, physical education and sport were to contribute decisively to the improvement of both the physical and moral condition of future generations. Fascist physical education abandoned past conventional approaches and embraced so-called ‘rational and scientific’ and moral political approaches. It became a means of fostering in young people in particular and in Italians in general, the cult of obedience, duty and faith in the sublime ideals of Fascism.15 Educational, corrective and formative gymnastics, therefore, together


with sport, were considered highly significant because, besides promoting the physical development of the young, they contributed to their becoming accustomed to obedience, discipline and order.16 In short, Fascist support for the young was not simply aimed at their physical improvement through the most up-to-date treatment and activities. Above all, it was aimed at realizing a much more crucial goal, that of the political indoctrination of young minds through a complete immersion in the regimented life demanded by the regime. THE TRAINING OF FASCIST YOUTH From the 1920s onwards, military training was organized in great detail. In fact, one of the regime’s objectives was to create an ‘armed nation’17 in which the roles of the citizen and soldier were inseparable. Thus the state concerned itself in a most meticulous fashion with the pre-military training of young Italians. This training was an early innovation. During the years 1919–22, many youth groups were active, including the Fascist Student Advance Guards, known later as the Fascist Youth Advance Guards and, for children, the Balilla. Throughout the period 1914–25, the organization of youth was directly controlled by the Fascist party.18 In 1926, the ONB was established (Law 2247, 3 April 1926). It was not only intended to be an answer to the need to centralize, consolidate and expand youth organizations by including them within the framework of the state’s legal system; it represented an important aspect of the penetration of state by the Fascists—an essential element of the totalitarian strategy of Fascism. The aim of the ONB was ‘the physical and moral assistance and education of the young’.19 An objective expressed forcefully in the words of the Duce himself: ‘Our duty has to be education and teaching. These children must be educated in our religious beliefs but we need to integrate this education, we need to give these children a sense of “virility”, of power, of conquest, above all we need to inspire them with our beliefs and awake in them our hopes.’20 The technical and disciplinary rules of the ONB specified both the characteristics and the competence of the organization: the education of the young should ‘make them worthy of the new Italian way of life’,21 and inspire them with ‘a feeling for discipline and military education’.22 The ONB’s sphere of responsibility covered pre-military physical training; spiritual, religious, and cultural education; professional and technical training; politics and hygiene indoctrination.23


The multiplicity of the ONB’s educational activities24 were all intended to mould the character and the will of children and adolescents through a variety of activities which could be grouped into three categories:25 ‘activities that were to be integrated into the school curriculum or into cultural training; military preparation; sports and gymnastics.’26 These constituted a Fascist moral education aimed at forming the future model citizen: men and women possessing pure Fascist spirits, ideologically pure fathers and mothers, soldiers and child-bearers of the future ‘Italian Race’. The ONB was not under the control of the PNF (Partito Nazionale Fascista—the National Fascist Party) but directly under Mussolini, and it enjoyed considerable political and managerial autonomy owing to its autocratic, powerful and influential head, Renato Ricci, who did not tolerate consultative systems.27 Although its foundation the ONB had aimed to assist ‘children of both sexes’ (Article 2—Law 2247, 3 April 1926), in fact it only admitted girls in 1929.28 Children belonged to the ONB from the age of six to 18 years old, divided into Balilla and Piccole Italiane (six to 13 years old), and Avanguardisti and Giovani Italiane (14 to 18 years old). The divisions were organized on a military basis, and formed around groupings of ‘threes’. The first group was the ‘squad’, made up of 11 young people and a squad-leader; three squads formed a manipolo or platoon, and three of these formed a centuria (i.e. a body of 100). Three centurie became a ‘cohort’, and finally a ‘legion’ was formed from three cohorts. The various divisions were organized by the officers of the MVSN (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale— Voluntary Militia for National Security).29 Immediately after the setting up of the ONB, the existence of youth organizations outside the control of the regime raised recruitment and political problems that were directly and immediately confronted. The ONB maintained that it alone was responsible for the physical education of the future generations (six- to 18-year-olds) throughout the country. In order to safeguard this monopoly, a decree was issued in 1927 that stated: ‘To ensure that the aims stated in the law that founded the ONB are achieved, the setting-up of any organization, even of a provisional nature, that claims to promote the physical, moral or spiritual education or professional training of the young is hereby forbidden, unless these organizations are set up under the auspices of the ONB.’30 All the Catholic, Socialist, and Communist sporting organizations were disbanded, and even the sports federations of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), which had been under the control


of the Fascist Party since 1926, could no longer promote sporting activities for the under-18s. All this was a hard, indeed fatal, blow for the earlier sports clubs and societies. Besides the sports clubs and societies, the school was the main source of recruitment for the ONB, and for this reason the ONB constantly tried to enter schools. A decisive step in that direction was the transfer to the ONB of all the activities previously undertaken by the ENEF, which had been established in 1923 by the then education minister, Giovanni Gentile, to be responsible for physical education in secondary schools. But since the regime was also anxious to enter and control the primary school, the only part of the educational system that involved working-class children, Ricci made sure that the ONB promoted and managed physical education in the state primary schools as well, as this was a crucial ‘terrain’ for propaganda and proselytism. The plan received the full approval of the Fascist government with Law 2341 (20 November 1927): the ONB took over the activities of the dissolved ENEF, and was also put in charge of ‘physical education in the state primary schools’.31 One of the criticisms the Fascists levelled at the education minister was that he had hitherto neglected physical education as an essential means of developing personal courage and military skills. The slogan adopted by Mussolini, ‘books and muskets, perfect Fascist’, obviously meant that, just as in Ancient Rome, the education of the young had to include not only the usual studies and subjects but also gymnastics and military training, which taught the students to ‘live dangerously’. Physical education and military training, which respectively imply athletic dedication to physical fitness and the discipline of arms, acquired an ‘eugenic’ legitimacy. The saying mens sana in corpore sano — ‘sound mind in healthy body’—was applied to the education of the young. The starting point was the training of the body, because a vigorous body became synonymous with a virile spirit. Young people were trained to become the soldiers of the future by means of exercises adapted to their age and situation, which aroused their aggression and instilled in them an ‘imperialist’ Fascist ideology:32 ‘No discipline is better able than physical education to train and develop the body and thus to invigorate the powers of concentration.’33 In addition, it was argued that physical education was able to sharpen and strengthen the will to develop firm self-control, and to shape the character of new generations according to Fascist beliefs.34 In essence, physical education and sport were to be the means of instilling blind obedience towards the state in the Italian people, in order ‘to cultivate the body, to uplift the spirit to the sublimes ideals of


Fascism’.35 And the education of the people was to be achieved, above all, through the education of children,36 by accustoming them to living outside the family and following an almost military style of life37 in the ONB. The young had to adapt to an iron discipline which had nothing in common with that of the schools and the family, and finally they had to adapt to the difficulties of living with their peers.38 The process of socialization was facilitated, and this standard of discipline was obtained, through organized team games and squad precision marching and drilling.39 As soon as children enrolled in the ONB, they lost their individuality: they dressed alike, behaved alike and even often thought alike.40 The uniforms they had to wear accentuated the military aspect of their life in an organization replete with calculated repetitiveness, strict discipline and compelling ritualism.41 Children were members of squads, and the morale and discipline of the squad during marches and sports clearly demonstrated both the essence and success of the rigid ideology to which they submitted.42 The result was an educational model embracing active and passive learning.43 The Roman salute, military-style reunions and assemblies, the remembrance of the war dead, the raising and lowering of the flag— all were carefully calibrated militaristic aspects of a inflexible system, which was also present in fascist propaganda sessions and choral singing.44 This model, in which the disciplinary and educational aspects were considered to be far more important than the recreational ones, had to be maintained at all costs. Eventually and logically, this moral and physical education was extended to girls, inculcating in many an awareness and acceptance of the Fascist ideology, which expected them to be obedient daughters, loving sisters and exemplary mothers. Their mission was not to become virile and disciplined soldiers of the battlefield but soldiers of the birth bed, bearing the soldiers of the future, strong in mind and body, ready to give their lives for the homeland.45 Within the ONB their education was strictly separated from that of the boys to avoid any possible accusations of promiscuity or amorality; their offices, their meeting places, and the times of the assemblies were kept separate from those of the boys.46 Sports and gymnastics organized by the ONB were crowned by displays and events that aimed at showing the high level of discipline and athletic preparation achieved by the young of both sexes and the extreme efficiency of the organization. This physical education was invaluable for pre-military training. Its displays and events became celebrations and parades through which the regime could show off the ‘military might’ the nation was acquiring.


As mentioned earlier, the system was concerned that the new generations should absorb the fundamental virtues of health, obedience and discipline.47 These virtues were frequently stressed in publications aimed at the young,48 particularly in those of the ONB such as the various ‘decalogues’ (i.e. sets of fundamental rules) of the Balilla and Avanguardista. But the young were to internalize these virtues through the experience of adhering to the rigid authoritarian structure that was part and parcel of the ONB’s military regulations and that was manifest in its pyramidal structure. The youth camps were explicit symbols of the military organization and spirit of the ONB. Of life in these camps, it was said that ‘The sentry is the clear symbol of the greatest human achievement, viz. the sense of duty. The Avanguardista squad-leader at his guard post is the shining example of unselfishness, sacrificing himself for the lives of others: this is living obedience and discipline!’49 It was also stated that ‘Discipline is the sun of armies…. Therefore obey the commander of your platoon faithfully; he is the faithful representative of his superiors’ orders and as such cannot be in the wrong.’50 Another passage concerning the training of the Balilla stated: And thus little by little the sense of trust, of obedience, is selfimposed, is created in the children through the precision of their movements, the punctuality of meetings and the rapid execution of orders; the best of them then become squad-leaders, that is commanders of their peers, and this command is seen not as a form of arrogance, but as an opportunity to exercise responsibility. This responsibility is entrusted to the youngster as a prize for his speedy and eager obedience.51 Military discipline encompassed various complementary values: a strong sense of duty, complete self sacrifice, a blind faith in the hierarchy. Gymnastics and sport, on the other hand, were considered by the ONB to be educational activities,52 ideal for developing willingness and competitiveness, self-control and decisiveness, a taste for danger and a distaste for the easy life and personal confidence.53 There was overlap: ‘Eurhythmic development of the mind and body, where strength and beauty are found in perfect harmony, must be attained by instilling in the young the will, the spirit of sacrifice, absolute discipline, control of one’s movements, of one’s speech, and even of one’s breathing.’54 In short, physical activities carried on within the ONB were clearly related to pre-military training and to the ‘warrior education’ demanded.55 In other words, the ONB was entrusted by the


Fascists with the task of exercising extensive control over the young so as to achieve the ideological conformity that would consolidate and conserve a militaristic regime.56 As already noted, the ONB steadily extended its sphere of activity and increasingly intervened in public and social life. In this way values and norms of behaviour were imposed on all aspects of daily life, and they were reinforced by ever-increasing communal experiences, controlled by a strong and authoritarian hierarchy. In other words, the pressure exerted by the ONB by way of organizing group experiences, which ensured that the young translated values into behaviour, was unrelenting. This, in turn, reinforced the credibility and the acceptability of the values themselves.57 The rationale was crystal-clear. Behaviour transmitted by means of an all-embracing system of social control, was to create the ‘New Italian’, essential for the realization of the ‘new way of life’ in which Fascism wanted to root its political and institutional transformations.58 It should now be clear that this ambition was to be pursued through a strongly politicized educational system. Fascist theory explicitly stresses the political nature of the educational process. Fascist education was based, therefore, on the idea of an ethical-totalitarian state, on the identification of Fascism with the state and on the claim that the Fascist Party was the sole educator. Thus theory legitimized and informed a centralized educational system.59 Mussolini himself, when he defined the nature of Fascist education, often spoke of ‘that totalitarian preparation and education of the Italian which the Fascist Revolution considers to be one of the fundamental and preliminary tasks of the state, and indeed it is the basic one’.60 And again: ‘Fascist education is moral, physical, social and military: it aims to create a harmoniously complete man, that is a Fascist, as we desire.’61 However, the social control exercised by the ONB did not aim to create, at the level of the masses, a simple attitude of passive acceptance of Fascism. Instead it wanted to build an active consensus which would be turned into a concrete and enthusiastic willingness to realize the policies of the regime. This explains the repeated stress on a group of values and norms that came together in a style of behaviour which could be called ‘activism’. In all the publications of the ONB, there was an insistence on tenacious effort, joyful industriousness, readiness for action, strong will and a keen yearning to strive:62 children ‘have to preserve a wakeful spirit, a desire for battle, a longing to march forward without ceasing. And thus Fascism stimulates children and adolescents to action.’63 Consequently in the school camps it was reported that ‘there is the severity of an austere life, and the smile that


follows an arduous task well done in a myriad of ways. Above all there reigns the splendour of high ideals, an enthusiastic dream.’64 Not even during leisure time was effort and commitment to slacken: at the DUX camp (for young Fascist Avanguardisti) ‘The Avanguardista during his hours of relaxation was not be distracted and was to continue with his preparations for contests. He was to value his free time and use it to improve his culture avoiding useless and dangerous distractions.’65 Mussolini maintained that this active voluntarism and the taste for adventure and danger were to be the way of life of the Fascist ‘New Italian’.66 The ideals set before the young during their pre-military training proposed a way of life which was smoothly controlled by the regime. As already noted, a strongly militarized structure was presented as a particularly suitable means of instilling a sense of hierarchical discipline into the young, together with the will to make sacrifices. This allowed for the mostly successful mobilization of the individual towards objectives set by the Fascist rulers. IMPERIAL EDUCATION From the early 1930s, enrolment in the ONB, originally spontaneous and voluntary, came to be automatic and obligatory in order to realize the totalitarian education of the young. In October 1930, the FGC (Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento—Young Combat Groups) were set up to ensure that this was realized. The FGC enrolled the young between the ages of 18 and 21, before they were eligible to join the Fascist Party as such.67 The original idea of the ONB—mass education through physical activity—was initially sufficient for Fascist aims in the 1920s, but by the 1930s it was no longer enough. Sport was now to be aimed at producing champions, super-heroes who could be shown off in public, and be used as propaganda abroad as symbols of a strong nation in good health and worthy of respect.68 Ricci’s vision, which was opposed to choosing champions from among the young until the age of 18 (because in his view this would have resulted in moral, psychological and physiological damage), was no longer fashionable.69 Consequently, in 1933 the Medal for Athletic Valour was created, and Mussolini himself handed out the awards.70 The idea of champions, encouraged by the regime, led to sport being confirmed as a spectacle. The masses, who were not athletes, were simply spectators who admired the prowess and exploits of champions and in


the process momentarily forgot their own personal problems. Sport became the opium of the masses. Sporting spectacles became a means of mass cohesion. By the middle of the 1930s, sporting events became one of the most important means of obtaining consensus in the Fascist state.71 Because of his rigid view of sport as essentially a means of education, Ricci was now a hindrance. Therefore the ONB was dissolved and ‘Decree 1839, 27 October 1937’ (which became Law 2566, 23 December 1937) established, under the auspices of the Fascist Party, the GIL, an all-embracing and totalitarian organization uniting all the youth of the regime and involving the amalgamation of the ONB and the FGC. A single unequivocal political organization for the control of the young was thus created. The GIL embraced both boys and girls from the ages of six to 21, dividing them into Figli della Lupa (Children of the She-Wolf) until they were eight years old; Balilla and Piccole Italiane (Balilla and Young Italian Girls) aged eight to 14; Avanguardisti and Giovani Italiane (Advance Guards and Girls) aged 14 to 18; Giovani Fascisti and Giovani Fasciste (Young Fascist Boys and Girls) aged 18 to 21.72 The GIL had the following objectives: Political and military preparation; character formation; physical and moral improvement of the race; military-style training and preparation for the armed forces; the organization of physical education in the schools; the endorsement of sport; assistance for and the education of war orphans; driving instruction and an understanding of motor cars; the establishment of courses, schools, boarding schools, colleges and academies.73 Of all the activities carried out by the GIL, the most significant was that aimed at the political preparation of the young. Close collaboration with the schools, therefore, was obviously necessary. A ‘school charter’ now made attendance at school and participation in the GIL compulsory.74 To arouse interest among the young in the most outstanding problems regarding their political and moral formation, the GIL organized ‘youth meetings’, discussions on Fascist culture and cultural Ludi Juveniles (Youth Cultural Performances): the latter carried out reviews of the cultural knowledge of the young, explored their attitudes, stimulated their interest in the most fascinating aspects of national life and publicized the qualities of outstanding young people.75


The essential element in the young Fascists’ training, and the fundamental task of the GIL, remained military preparation. The GIL dedicated a branch of its vast activity to this end. Pre-military preparation for the army, navy or air force aimed to provide young people, who were subject to military service, with physical and mental military training in order to furnish the armed forces with recruits. Thus every year, the GIL provided strong contingents of young recruits to the services.76 This pre-military instruction included general training, which was the same for all, and then a specialized training for those recruits who seemed intellectually, physically and technically suited to become specialists, e.g. machine gunners, engineers, skiers, signalmen, radio operators, photographers, drivers and so on. Sport completed this real pre-military training, providing forms of physical training essential to produce the kind of youth able to meet the needs of war.77 To the Fascists, education was of necessity complementary to the military and spiritual training of the young: a harmonious development of both physical and intellectual ability was indispensable to future generations. According to the principles stated in the fourth Schools Charter Declaration: Physical Education carried out in the schools by the GIL complies with and favours, proceeding by degrees, the natural process of growth and that of physical and mental development. The technique of exercise aims to achieve a harmony of development, worthwhile training, moral elevation, self-confidence, and a highly developed sense of discipline and duty.78 As already made clear, training in sport was closely connected with military training and physical education. The GIL took particular care over this, partly because of the important role sport played in the life of the nation and partly because it was seen as an essential element of education itself. A competitive attitude to sport, as a necessary introduction to methodical military preparation, was the result of the GIL’s single-minded approach to sport. Training that involved the masses obviously meant the careful selection of the most promising athletes and sportsmen who, the moment they showed exceptional promise, went on to take part in sporting events at a national level.79 Thus the GIL became the initial point of selection and recruitment for national athletes. When children reached the age of 14, they started their real training under the most rigorous control to prevent any excess of zeal from actually causing physical harm.80 The local and provincial championships were the first tests of the youngsters’ mettle


and prepared them for national trials. The most important events in this respect were the Youth Games (Ludi Juveniles dello Sport), which were held every year and which ended with the ‘Great Youth Awards’, honours that indicated complete preparation in the field of athletics (track and field events).81 The ultimate stage of this intense preparation was the national championships held in the various regions of Italy.82 To achieve its sporting objectives, the GIL undertook to: 1. educate and train managers and graduates; 2. organize recreational, educational and sports camps; 3. organize military-style camps for the training of graduates; 4. set up centres for professional training (to prepare young people for work), and prepare teachers and trainers, as well as provide meeting centres for the young; 5. organize summer camps and schools in healthy localities; 6. organize centres for specialization and training; build housing for GIL members, together with army barracks, gyms, and sports fields; 7. organize educational and training holidays, excursions and cruises; 8. take responsibility for propaganda in the press, theatre, cinema and radio.83 Achille Starace, secretary of the PNF, president of CONI and, subsequently, the commander general of the GIL, gave CONI an important role with respect to all youth organizations. The most gifted young people enrolled in the GIL were urged to enrol in the sports associations.84 Sport provided the medium par excellence for the regime to present itself as ordered and efficient, and to offer to the world an image of a strong and disciplined people undaunted in the face of adversity and ready for the ultimate struggle: ‘Sport is closely connected to the military preparation of a people; and the stricter the discipline imparted in the sporting events, the easier the eventual military training.’85 Mussolini understood the importance of sport early on, and he entrusted to his faithful followers the task of controlling all sporting events directly through the party.86 In its endorsement of sport, Fascism, of course, was actually carrying out two classic totalitarian aims: firstly, to strengthen the Italian male by giving him a military education and, secondly, to show the world that Fascism had rendered the nation strong and that every victory on the sports field was the result of the regime’s policies. To this end, the Littoriali dello Sport (Lictors of Sport), the DUX camps and the Agonali—military athletic contests—


were set up. They involved all pupils in Italian schools. In school holidays, seaside and mountain camps were organized to put the students in contact with nature and to prepare them for future combat.87 As mentioned earlier, the GIL took over the tasks and duties that had originally been entrusted to the ONB, and gave them a more military stamp. Its educational responsibilities continued until the young started military service. To promote a distinctive fighting spirit that was to characterize the young Fascist, ritualistic propaganda events such as parades, drills, manoeuvres, sports events, pre-military instruction, summer cruises and camps were part and parcel of the GIL’s responsibilities. These raised the morale of the young, gave them selfconfidence and strengthened their bodies.88 All sports activities were carried out under the watchful eye of the regime, and indeed the Duce in person, who held himself up as a model for any and every undertaking. Indeed, the National Exhibition of Sport, held at Milan in May 1934, celebrated Mussolini’s athletic prowess: He loves to test himself in all kinds of virile sport and above all in those which instil in the nervous system the ability to overcome the enemy forces of stagnation and inertia. [a love] evident from his every action and word, worthy of one who is the supporter of the young, of the Nation, the Educator of the national conscience, the Leader, the Duce of the armed nation.89 The Duce had himself photographed driving cars and motorcycles, at the helm of motor boats and flying planes. With equal aplomb, he tried his hand at swimming and at target shooting. He held the first membership card of the Italian Hunters’ Club, and wanted to turn skiing into a sport for the masses:90 ‘The constant presence of Mussolini as a performer, as a spectator, as the distributor of awards, gave widely publicized official notice (as much space was dedicated by the press to sporting events) that sport was a question of the utmost national interest.’91 Every sporting victory was a victory for Fascism itself, and for this reason athletes were heralded as heroes to admire and as models to be imitated. The ‘new man’, the result of Fascism, had to express above all, a ‘will to be the best’, a ‘warrior instinct’, and a ‘fighting temperament’. Many sports were used to this end, but some were considered more ‘Fascist’ than others. The place of honour went to target shooting. In the new imperial atmosphere, this sport accustomed the young to the rifle, taught them to shoot straight and pressed the whole nation into


militarism.92 The ‘orders’ prepared by the secretary of the PNF emphasized the importance of target shooting. They urged practice ‘not only in order to increase familiarity with arms, which a warrior and imperial Italy considered to be more than a sport, but also to help in choosing the best marksmen’.93 Propaganda was insistent on target shooting. There were reminders that the Fascist laws made it obligatory to practise on Sundays to prepare for local contests. As well as rifles, the citizens needed to learn how to handle pistols and carbines so as to attain ‘that precise and speedy efficiency, that ability to shoot straight that, for the citizens of a warrior nation—which the Italians of Mussolini have shown themselves to be—has the double significance of overcoming any obstacle and rapidly fulfilling appointed aims’.94 To sum up, Italian sport became Fascist sport. the regime carefully classified various activities to indicate which sports were more Fascist than others. After target shooting, clay pigeon shooting, hunting, fencing, swimming, canoeing, sailing, mountaineering and motor sports —axiomatically all sports that helped train the participants for military life —were given equal merit. Next in importance, athletics and gymnastics were seen as preparatory martial training for the new generations.95 In time, the tens of thousands of young people who took part in set marches and drills, demonstrated their skills in gymnastic displays and sports competitions and were the focus of the regime’s propaganda campaigns were to be iconic symbols and tangible evidence of the values, skills and commitment that the educational practices of Fascism sought to promote in order to shape both the civil and the military existence of the ‘New Italian’ of the future in the Fascist image. Step by step, as the imperialistic policy of the regime was defined, introduced and realized, this ‘New Italian’ came to be seen increasingly as the ‘soldier or soldier-bearing citizen’. CONCLUSION This contribution has analysed the motives and strategies of the Italian Fascist Party to ‘fascistize’ or transform the new generations into athletic warriors, ready to fight and to die for Fascist ideals, or mothers of warriors ready to bear children for the battlefield. Sport was central to these purposes. The relationship between the Fascist state and sport is starkly clear from the words of one president of CONI, Lando Ferretti: ‘A regime of young people…created by the will and by the genius of a man who is the powerful and dynamic personification of our times cannot but


propose the transformation of educational policy so as to base it on sport and the achievement of “virility”.’96 Sport, here a generic term that embraces physical education, had firstly eugenic and preventive health aims, and secondly promoted ‘virile’ qualities, both physical and mental. Sport embraced militaristic nationalism: ‘The cult of physical strength becomes increasingly linked to that of the homeland, and wherever the idea of redemption, of national redemption arises, so does love for physical exercise.’97 Thus child, adolescent and young adult, within both schools and society, was obliged to be involved in sport in some capacity or other. Within the framework of the management of youth organizations, policies involving sport in schools and society were implemented by the regime. The spread of sport allowed Fascism to permeate society in a peaceful manner in the short term and to ensure, in the longer term, the persistence of Fascism itself. By means of the inflexible, close and scrupulous organization of the young in numerous Fascist bodies, which were predominantly to do with sport, the regime attempted to win the hearts and minds of the majority and neutralize and dominate a minority resistant to its ideology. For the most part, Fascism had an eager and willing captive audience among the young. Fascism was skilled at turning the young into its most faithful allies. They were pleased with prizes, awards and public recognition; their individualism was crushed by the creation of rigid hierarchical organizations; their sense of security was heightened by corporate action; their vanity was flattered by frequent gymnastic, marching and sporting events where they were acclaimed by enthusiastic crowds. In a sentence, in school and in society the party was in control. It turned children into future soldiers or the mothers of future soldiers. Thus sport became a form of political education for the masses for pedagogic, hygienic, military and chauvinistic reasons; but above all, in order to ensure the perpetuation of Fascism itself. Mussolini needed to create from the young a new nation that was truly Fascist, and that would guarantee ideological continuity. Thus the youth organizations had political aims and were directly controlled by Mussolini himself and his political creation, the Fascist Party. In this way, Mussolini sought nothing less than the political socialization of the future ‘new Italian’—militaristic in attitude and action. His aim was ‘children soldiers’. To this end, in his Italy, everything and everybody had to be of the state and for the state; nothing and no one could be outside the state, least of all against the state.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I should like to express my most appreciative thanks to Professor J.A.Mangan for his invaluable assistance in the preparation of this chapter. NOTES 1 . On existing links between the movement and futurism, see G.Brunamonti, ‘Il movimento aggressivo molla del Futurismo’, Lo Sport Italiano, 1(1982), 40–43. 2 . On physical education in the schools, see M.Di Donato, Storia dell’educazione fisica e sportiva. Indirizzi fondamentali (Roma: Studium, 1984). For details on the organization of sport and free time in the fascist period (ENEF, ONB, GUF, FGC, MVSN, CONI, OND), see L.Ferretti, Il libro dello Sport (Roma: Libreria del Littotio, 1928); P.Ferrara, L’Italia in palestra. Storia documenti e immagini della ginnastica dal 1833 al 1973 (Roma: La Meridiana, 1992). 3 . A.Lo Monaco, La protezione della maternità e dell’infanzia (Roma: Istituto Nazionale Fascista di Cultura, 1934), p. 7. 4 . On the New Italian, see L.Ferretti, Esempi ed insegnamenti per l’Italiano Nuovo (Roma: Libreria del Littorio, 1930). 5 . Bollettino Quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, I, 5, 2, 15 July 1927. 6 . F.Fraddosio, Il Regime per la razza (Roma: Tuminelli, 1941), p. 7. 7 . Lo Monaco, La protezione della maternità, p. 5; A.Della Cioppa, La difesa della stirpe nelle opere del Fascismo (Napoli: SIEM, 1930), p. 35; S.Fabbri, L’assistenza della maternità e dell’infanzia in Italia (Napoli: Chiuzzi, 1933), pp. 19–20, 22. 8 . ONB (ed.), L’Opera Nazionale Balilla (Roma: ONB, 1928), pp. 43–5; P.Caporilli, L’educazione giovanile nello Stato Fascista (Roma: Sapientia, 1930), pp. 136–8; P.Caporilli, Il Fascismo e i Giovani (Roma: Ardita, 1936), pp. 117–19. 9 . V.De Grazia, Le donne nel Regime Fascista (Venezia: Marsilio, 1993), pp. 158, 160. 10 . Lo Monaco, La protezione della maternità, p. 5; Della Cioppa, La difesa della stirpe, p. 45; Fabbri, L’assistenza della maternità, pp. 19–20, 22. 11 . Fabbri, L’assistenza della maternità, pp. 22–3. 12 . Della Cioppa, La difesa della stirpe, p. 25. 13 . For a comprehensive description of the welfare activities of the ONB, see D.S.Piccoli, ‘Le organizzazioni giovanili in Italia’, Assistenza Fascista, I, 1–2 (Oct.–Jan. 1935), 66–70. 14 . Lo Monaco, La protezione della maternità, p. 7. 15 . S.Avagina, Per l’assistenza alle colonie elioterapiche (Fassano: PNF, 1935), pp. 16–20; E. Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla e l’educazione dei fanciulli (Portici: Bellavista, 1937), pp. 33–4; Caporilli, L’educazione, pp. 111–13; Caporilli, Il Fascismo e i Giovani, pp. 97–9.


16 . ONB (ed.), Metodo per l’educazione fisica dei fanciulli (Roma: Tip. del Littorio, 1939); Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla, pp. 21–33; Avagina, Per l’assistenza, p. 21. 17 . On the myth of the ‘armed nation’, see G.Rochat, L’esercito italiano da Vittorio Veneto a Mussolini 1919–1925 (Bari: Laterza, 1967); G.E.Levi, La nazione armata e il tiro ridotto (Roma: ONB, 1928); G.Kellerman, L’educazione fascista e la nazione armata (Livorno: ONB, 1928); M. Rinaldi, La preparazione militare della gioventi ai fini della potenza guerriera (Roma: ONB, 1936). 18 . For the detailed organization of Fascist Youth, see Ferretti, Il libro dello Sport; Ferrara, L’Italia in palestra. 19 . Law 2247, 3 April 1926: ‘Istituzione dell’Opera Nazionale “Balilla” per l’assistenza e l’educazione fisica e morale della gioventù’, Gazzetta Ufficiale, 11 Jan. 1927 (hereafter Law 2247); ONB (ed.), Estratto delle noeme legislative e regolamenti dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla per l’assistenza e l’educazione fisica della gioventù (Arezzo: Sintatti, 1927) (hereafter: ONB, Estratto delle norme); MI (ed.), Opera Nazionale Balilla per l’assistenza e l’educazione fisica e morale della gioventù—Norme legislative e regolamenti (Roma: ONB, 1927) (hereafter MI, Opera Nazionale Balilla); ONB (ed.), Norme e programmi dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla (Vicenza: Tip. Vicentina 1930) (hereafter: ONB, Norme e programmi); ONB (ed.), Leggi Regolamenti Decreti (Brescia: La Scuola, 1931) (hereafter: ONB, Leggi Regolamenti); Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla. 20 . G.B.Marziali, I Giovani di Mussolini (Palermo: Trimarchi, 1935), p. 16. 21 . Caporilli, L’educazione, p. 231. 22 . Campagnuolo, L‘Opera Balilla, p. 61. 23 . Law 2247; ONB, Estratto delle norme; MI, Opera Nazionale Balilla; ONB, Norme e programmi; ONB, Leggi Regolamenti. 24 . Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla. 25 . R.De Puppi, La funzione educativa del’Opera Nazionale Balilla (Udine: Tip.Friulana, 1929); Caporilli, l’educazione; Caporilli, Il Fascismo; Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla; Marziali, I Giovani di Mussolini. 26 . De Puppi, La funzione educativa, p. 10. 27 . On the political slips of Renato Ricci and the history of the ONB, see S.Setta, Renato Ricci (Bologna: Patron, 1986); C.Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla e l’educazione fascista (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1984); N.Zapponi, ‘Il partito della gioventù. Le organizzazioni giovanili fasciste 1926–1943’, Storia contemporanea, Oct. 1982, 569–633; R.Scarpa, Eravamo tutti Balilla (Roma: La Meridiana, 1984). On the organization of consensus by the ONB from an anthropological point of view, see P.Bartoli, C.Pasquini-Romizi and R.Romizi, L’organizzazione del consenso nel regime fascista: l’Opera Nazionale Balilla come istituzione di controllo sociale (Perugia: University of Perugia Press, 1983). 28 . Ibid. 29 . MI, Opera Nazionale Balilla, pp. 38–40, 50. 30 . ONB, Leggi Regolamenti; ONB, Estratto delle norme; ONB, Norme e programmi. 31 . Ibid.


32 . A.Punzi, Il fondamento dottrinale dell’educazione secondo la concezione fascista (Gioia del Colle: Tarsia, 1935), pp. 93–6; R. Isidori-Frasca,…e il Duce le volle sportive (Bologna: Patron, 1983), pp. 37–44; Ferrara, pp. 213– 16. 33 . Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla, p. 29. 34 . Ibid., pp. 29–33; Punzi, Il fondamento dottrinale, pp. 96–101. 35 . Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla, p. 34. 36 . Ibid., p. 59. 37 . Caporilli, Il Fascismo, pp. 109–16; ONB, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, pp. 81–90. 38 . Punzi, Il fondamento dottrinale, pp. 103–11; De Puppi, La funzione educativa, pp. 20–31. 39 . Caporilli, L’educazione, p. 115; Campagnuolo, L’Opera Balilla, pp. 31–42; ONB, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, pp. 99–101. 40 . F.Monterisi, ‘Le colonie marine e montane’, Quaderni Italiani, Vth ser. (Roma: IRCE, 1943), pp. 39–42; F Fabbroni, Tempo libero infantile e colonie di vacaza (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1971), pp. 97–117; G.C.Jocteau, Ai monti e al mare. Cento anni di colonie per l’infanzia (Torino: Enaudi, 1965), pp. 65–9. 41 . Ibid. 42 . Jocteau, pp. 69–70. 43 . Ibid. 44 . Monterisi, ‘Le colonie’; Caporilli, L’educazione; Caporilli, Il Fascismo. 45 . Caporilli, Il Fascismo, pp. 173–8; Caporilli, L’educazione, pp. 155–9; Di Castanzo, Pa te Piccolá Italiana (Milano, 1937); ONB, La Caposquadra Piccola Italiana (Roma: ONB, 1934). 46 . Caporilli, Il Fascismo, pp. 174–5, 177–8; Caporilli, L’educazione, pp. 156– 7, 159–60; De Grazia, Le donne nel Regime Fascista, pp. 218–19. 47 . B.Mussolini, ‘Dottrina del Fascismo’, in Scritti e Discorsi dal 1932 al 1933 (Milano: Tip. del Littorio, 1934), pp. 67–96. 48 . F.Jovine, ‘Libertà e Disciplina’, La Scuola Fascista, V, 20 (Feb. 1929); R.Ricci, ‘Libro e Mischetto. Dalla generazione della Guerra a quella del Fascismo’, Associazione Nazionale Volontari di Guerra, il Decennale per l’Anniversario della Vittoria (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1929), 319–28; A.Domenighini and F.Jovine, Il manuale del Balilla e dell’Avanguardista (Roma: Libreria del Littorio, 1929) (hereafter Domenighini and Jovine, Manuale); Il libro del Fascista (Roma: Mondadori, 1943); A.Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini. Alla scuola dell’Opera Balilla (Palermo: Trimarchi, 1935); E.Crescimbeni, Fiamme bianche (Terni: ONB, 1935). 49 . Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini, p. 28. 50 . Ibid., p. 89. 51 . A.Nasti, ‘Calendario Politico’, Educazione Fascista, VII(July 1932), 585. 52 . The overall function of physical education and sport was judged to be so important that the development of the practice of sport by the masses came to be considered as the initial phase of cultural reform: ‘Cultura e Sport nella rivoluzione fascista’, Critica Fascista, XII, 2(15 Jan. 1934), 21–3. 53 . L.Collini, ‘Le organizzazioni giovanili’, in La civiltà fascista illustrata nella dottrina e nelle opere (Torino: UTET, 1928); V.Vezzari, ‘I caposaldi


54 55 56 57

58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

dell’educazione fascista’, Gerarchia, XIV, 3 (March 1934), 221–6; C.Toscano, L’educazione dei Balilla e delle Piccole Italiane (Messina: Tip.D’Amico, 1935), pp. 11–12. Different opinions about competitive sport existed in the Fascist hierarchy. In fact, it was under discussion as to whether it was more important for the regime to form strong men who could resist fatigue and stress, or whether it was more important to train athletes who could bring prestige to the regime: E.R.Tannenbaum, L’esperienza fascista. Cultura e societ ‡ in Italia dal 1922 al 1945 (Milano: Mursia, 1974). On the ability of individual and team sports to strengthen different aspects of personality and character, see L.Ferretti, ‘Il metodo sportivo nell’educazione fascista’, Gerarchia, VIII, 5(April 1928), 304–7. . C.Foà, ‘Le basi fisiologiche dell’educazione ginnico-sportiva’, Gerarchia, VIII, 5(May 1928), 386–92. . G.Scalise, ‘L’addestramento sportivo e l’educazione guerriera’, I Commentari dell’Azione Fascista, I, 3(1 March 1934), 4–6. . A.Nasti, ‘Problemi del secondo decennio’, Critica Fascista, XI, 4(15 Feb. 1933); Caporilli, L’educazione. . Awareness of the function of social control as realized by the ONB also emerges from Fascist publications: see Piccoli, Le organizzazioni giovanili’, 66–70. . Vezzani, ‘I caposaldi dell’educazione fascista’, 211–16. . Theories of this kind are to be found in numerous sources of the period: L.Grassi, ‘La giovinezza e il Fascismo. Parole ai giovani’, Educazione Fascista, 3(March 1928), 161–9; C. Bevione, ‘Chiesa, Stato ed educazione giovanile’, Gerarchia, VIII, 4(April 1928), 263–7; Jovine, ‘Libertà e Disciplina’, 7; E.Codignola, ‘Dieci anni di educazione fascista’, Critica Fascista, XI, 5(1 March 1933), 98–100; A.Sacchetto, L’Opera Balilla e la pedagogia virile del tempo mussoliniano (Padova: ONB, 1930); N.Padellaro, ‘Esiste una pedagogia fascista?’, Politica sociale, IV, 4(1932), 727–32; G.Marchello, La morale eroica del Fascismo (Torino: UTET, 1934), pp. 131–5; on the role of the Fascist party in the field of education, see T.Tomasi, Idealismo e Fascismo nella scuola italiana (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1969). . B.Mussolini, ‘Il valore della Leva Fascista’, in Scritti e discorsi dal 1927 al 1928 (Milano: Hoepli, 1934), pp. 155–6. . B.Mussolini, ‘Educazione Fascista’, Educazione Fascista, V, 1(1927), 7. . Jovine, ‘Libertà e Disciplina’; Domenighini and Jovine, Il manuale. . Collini, ‘Le organizzazioni giovanili’, 597. . Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini, p. 25. . Disposizioni per il IV Campo Dux, Bollettino dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, IV, 21(1 Sept. 1932), 4. . B.Mussolini, ‘Intransigenza assoluta’, in Scritti e discorsi dal 1925 al 1926 (Milano: Hoepli, 1934). . For further information on the establishment and the function of the Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento (Fascist Youth Combat groups), there are many interesting publications of the period: ‘I giovani nel partito’, Critica Fascista, VIII, 20(15 Oct. 1930), 381–3; U.Guglielmotti, ‘Conquiste ideali del Regime. Fasci giovanili e ferma decennale’, Politica sociale, II, 8–10 (Aug.–Oct. 1930), 875–8; ‘I fasci dei giovani’, Educazione Fascista, IX, 1(Jan. 1931), 56–


68

69

70 71

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90

7; ‘Il primo annuale dei Fasci Giovanili’, Educazione Fascista, IX, 10(Oct. 1931), 991–2; S.Valitutti, ‘Il III annuale dei Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento’, Educazione Fascista, XI(Nov. 1933), 991–3. . On the beginning of professional sport and sport as a spectacle, see F.Fabrizio, Sport e Fascismo. La politica sportiva del regime 1924–1926 (Rimini/Firenze: Guaraldi, 1976); Ghirelli, ‘Agonismo’, in Enciclopedia Enaudi (Torino: Enaudi, 1977); P.Milza, ‘Il football italiano una storia lunga un secolo’, Italia Contemporanea, 183(June 1991), 245–55. . Renato Ricci was totally against the idea of creating champions and the exploitation of the physical talents of the young. His ideas were shared by a leading figure in the world of physical education, Eugenio Ferrauto, who considered physical education to be hygienic, ethical and character-building, but not a race for medals and records. Among Ferrauto’s works, see L’educazione fisica nell’educazione giovaile fascista (Torino: UTET, 1939); L’educazione fisica, biblioteca dell’educatore (Milano: Hoepli, 1942); ‘L’educazione fisica’, in Dalla Riforma Gentile alla Carta della scuola (Firenze: Mursia, 1941). . L.Ferretti, ‘Il Fascismo e l’educazione sportiva della nazione’, in La civiltà fascista (Torino: ONB, 1928). . On the creation of consensus by means of the ‘sport-spectacle’ events in the Fascist period, see P.Cannistraro, La fabbrica del consenso, Fascismo e mass media (Roma/Bari: Laterza, 1975); M. Argentieri, L’occhio del Regime (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1979); Fabrizio, Sport e Fascismo; Milza, ‘Il football italiano’. . Rdl. 1839, 27 Oct. 1937; PNF, ‘Gioventù Italiana del Littorio’, in La gioventù nella legislazione fascista (Roma: PNF, 1939). . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Fabrizio, Sport e Fascismo. . CONI, Cronache radiofoniche dello sport (Roma: IRCE, 1935–36), p. 3. . Fabrizio, Sport e Fascismo. . Ibid. . Marziali, I Giovani di Mussolini, pp. 121–2; L. Gatti, ‘I nostri giovani’, Problemi della Gioventù, 13–14(May 1942), 503–4; G.Rossi, ‘Dei giovani e dell’obbedienza’, Problemi della Gioventù, 4–5(April–May 1942), 213–15; G.De Matteis, ‘Il tempo dei giovani’, Problemi della Gioventù, 5–6–7(March– April–May 1942), 216–19. . CONI, Cronache radiofoniche dello sport (Roma: IRCE, 1937–38), p. 129. . Ibid, p. 22.


91 92 93 94 95 96 97

. Fabrizio, Sport e Fascismo. . Ibid. . CONI, Cronache (1937–38), p. 136. . Ibid., p. 137. . F.Fabrizio, Storia dello sport in Italia (Firenze: Guaraldi, 1977). . Ferretti, ‘Il Fascismo e l’educazione’, 609. . Commissione per lo studio di un progetto relativo all’ordinamento dell’educazione fisica e della preparazione militare del paese, relazione e proposte (Roma, 1926), p. 8.

9 Confronting George Orwell: Philip NoelBaker on International Sport, Particularly the Olympic Movement, as Peacemaker PETER J.BECK

Hiroshima remains central to any twentieth-century history of war and peace, given its status as the target for the first atom bomb in August 1945. Today, the University of Hiroshima houses a sculpture honouring Lord Philip Noel-Baker (1889–1982) as a ‘Man of Sport— Man of Peace’ (Figure 9.1).1 He is shown breasting the tape surrounded by the five Olympic rings. The sculpture’s title captures the essence of Noel-Baker’s vision of international sport, most notably the Olympic movement, as a major force for world peace. It commemorates also the award of the 1959 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to international peace in a divided world subjected increasingly to the threat of nuclear holocaust. For Noel-Baker, politics and sport, particularly disarmament, the United Nations and Olympism, were all part of the same equation; thus, speaking in 1963 as President of UNESCO’s International Council of Sport and Physical Education (ICSPE), he asserted that ‘in the nuclear age, sport is man’s best hope’.2 Don Anthony has proved prominent in marking Noel-Baker’s contribution to world peace and sport, and particularly the influence exerted by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympiad, upon his thinking: ‘Philip was the foremost disciple of Coubertin in Britain…. Many of us first heard of Olympism from his lips and his writings…. He defended the Olympic ideal against all comers. Those who attacked Olympism were “chauvinists” who could not bear the thought of universal peace.’3 Constancy of belief and a strong sense of commitment, fostered in part by his Quaker background, were key character traits. Reportedly, just prior to his death, Noel-Baker confessed that ‘I have said the same thing again and again since 1912’.4 For many, his enduring commitment to internationalism, whether in the sphere of politics or sport, represented a strength acknowledged by the Nobel Peace Prize. For others, he was ‘an unusually starry-eyed idealist’, whose refusal to discard or compromise his ideals in an imperfect world represented a


FIGURE 9.1 Noel-Baker’s ‘Man of Sport, Man of Peace’ sculpture at the University of Hiroshima, Japan (photo reproduced by permission of Photographic Services, International Olympic Committee)

serious weakness.5 For example, Kenneth Younger, who served for a time as his Parliamentary Private Secretary, claimed that Noel-Baker’s intellectualism resulted in an inadequate grasp of international realities, including an ability ‘to convince himself of practically anything’: ‘There is something unreal about his whole personality and process of thought.’6 Inevitably, his views clashed with those espousing a more pragmatic approach and finding it difficult—to quote de Coubertin’s biographer—‘to understand how on earth someone came to the extraordinary idea that a group of people running round in short pants every four years had something to do with international understanding’.7 Nevertheless, Noel-Baker’s views gained visibility and credibility through the manner in which he straddled the academic, political and sporting worlds. A former Olympic competitor, official and spectator—he watched the 1908 London Olympics, competed in the 1912 Olympics, won a silver medal in the 1920 Olympics, captained the British track team at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, served as deputy high commissioner at the 1928 Olympics and was appointed Commandant of the 1952 British Olympic team—Noel-Baker remained

PHILIP NOEL-BAKER AND INTERNATIONAL SPORT 193

active in British sport through his work for such bodies as the British Olympic Association (BOA) or the Achilles Club (chairman, 1930–36; president, 1946–79). In 1960 he became the first president of ICSPE. Following brief periods in the 1920s working for the League of Nations secretariat and in academia—between 1924 and 1929 he was Cassell Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics —Noel-Baker entered Parliament in 1929, representing the Labour Party (MP 1929–31, 1936–70). Subsequently, he held ministerial office in both Winston Churchill’s wartime coalition (parliamentary secretary of state at the Ministry of War Transport, 1942–45) and Clement Attlee’s post—1945 Labour governments (minister of state at the Foreign Office, 1945–46; Secretary of State for Air, 1946–47; Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 1947–50; Minister of Fuel and Power, 1950–51). It was not until the 1960s that British governments recognized sport as a subject warranting a ministerial post, but in many respects Attlee treated Noel-Baker as his government’s de facto minister of sport. THE 1945 DYNAMO MOSKVA TOUR In November 1945 Dynamo Moskva undertook the first ever official tour of Britain by a Soviet football team.8 Undefeated in four games— victories over Arsenal (4–3) and Cardiff (10–1) were complemented by draws against both Chelsea (3–3) and Glasgow Rangers (2–2)—the Soviet visitors played before over a quarter of a million spectators. Large-scale media and public attention in sport typified what was to prove a feature of post-war British society, although the novelty value of the ‘mystery’ Soviet team, alongside the fact that many Britons viewed the Dynamo team as representing a valued wartime ally, should not be discounted. The Soviet Union had yet to become perceived as a Cold War rival. On 4 December 1945 the Lord Mayor of London entertained Soviet players and officials, together with Gousev, the Soviet ambassador, at the Mansion House to mark the end of the tour. Noel-Baker, then minister of state at the Foreign Office, represented the British government, and employed the occasion to express pleasure about Dynamo’s visit as well as to hope that the recently completed tour would provide a foundation for ‘not only close working relations between governments but friendship between the nations themselves’.9 His speech, though capable of being dismissed as merely the usual type of official courtesy statement made upon such occasions, was in fact a sincere expression of his personal belief in the cooperative potential of


international sport. Ten days later, Tribune, a weekly left-wing journal, published George Orwell’s article entitled ‘The Sporting Spirit’, which offered a radically different view of both the tour and international sport.10 Certainly, his infamous ‘war minus the shooting’ comment in an article entitled ‘The Sporting Spirit’ proved the most quoted reaction to Dynamo’s visit. INTERNATIONAL SPORT AS ‘WAR MINUS THE SHOOTING’ The tour, Orwell alleged, had done little to improve Anglo-Soviet understanding: ‘sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will, and that if such a visit as this had any effect at all on Anglo-Soviet relations, it could only be to make them slightly worse than before’. Orwell, whose article might have been more appropriately entitled ‘The Unsporting Spirit’, gave a very different interpretation of events to that already offered by Noel-Baker. Whereas the latter’s Mansion House speech glossed over the embittered controversies surrounding, say, Dynamo’s fixtures and team composition as well as the unpleasant incidents characterizing most matches, Orwell placed these problems centre-stage in an article referring also to the 1936 Berlin Olympics in order to extend his attack to the Olympic movement: ‘International sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred…. You play to win…and…at the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare’ affecting the attitudes of players, spectators and nations. Orwell, who claimed merely ‘to say publicly what many thinking people were saying privately before the Dynamos ever arrived’, saw the close of the tour as offering an opportunity to attack people—he mentioned no names—‘blah-blahing about the clean, healthy rivalry of the football field and the great part played by the Olympic Games in bringing the nations together’: ‘I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield.’ Unsurprisingly, he concluded by urging that no British team undertook a return visit to the Soviet Union: ‘There are quite enough real causes of trouble already, and we need not add to them by encouraging young men to kick each other on the shins amid the roars of infuriated spectators.’ The Tribune article proved a rare sporting intervention for Orwell, who had hitherto exhibited little interest in such matters in spite of exposure to ‘muscular Christianity and all that’ at his public school.


Nevertheless, Eton School, as suggested by his 1919 ‘Wall Game’ poem, exposed young Orwell to ‘an afternoon of mud, and blood, and rain’, fists and bad language.11 Otherwise, sport figured only rarely in his thoughts and work, most notably in ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1936). Here, Orwell’s memories of playing football in Burma (now called Myanmar) during the 1920s focused upon the animosity existing between British and Burmese players as well as upon the impact of rough play upon spectators: ‘A nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter.’12 Nor had Orwell attended any of Dynamo’s games. As a result, ‘The Sporting Spirit’ was based largely upon his reading of match reports in newspapers and accounts provided by informants present at Dynamo’s matches versus Arsenal and Rangers.13 In turn, these contemporary accounts were viewed within the context of Orwell’s own preconceived attitudes about both international sport and the Soviet Union; for example, Animal Farm (1945), his recently published novel, provided already a critical framework for viewing the Soviet Union. In essence, Orwell’s negative commentary confronted those articulating a positive view of the international politics of sport. Orwell acknowledged also the controversial nature of this linkage, as evidenced by the manner in which his article sparked off a mini-debate conducted by readers on Tribune’s letters page. The first published reaction, submitted by E.S.Fayers, soon got to the point by accusing Orwell of writing ‘bilge’, and particularly of displaying ‘intellectual contempt’ for those playing or watching the national game: ‘Let me assure George that football does not consist of two young men kicking one another’s shins. Nor do the knocks and bruises of a hard game rouse passions of hatred or a vicious desire to atomise some distant fellow-creature.’14 One week later, another reader echoed Fayers’s critique by focusing upon Orwell’s limited experience of sport and consequent dependence upon unreliable ‘second-hand information’ about Dynamo Moskva’s tour.15 Furthermore, he feared that Orwell’s musings on the subject might harm Anglo-Soviet relations: ‘International sports…are a potential source of vast streams of good-will, provided they are not polluted by ill-informed outpourings of politicians and intellectuals.’ A fortnight later, Tribune restored the balance by publishing two letters supportive of Orwell. For T.M.Brown, psychology and sociology furnished ‘quite a lot of evidence’ establishing that sport promoted competitive, patriotic and aggressive attitudes.16 Likewise, a Scottish reader, deploring the absence of sporting spirit exhibited during Dynamo’s recent tour (as well as in Celtic-Rangers games), wrote in


praise of Orwell’s commentary about those ‘trying to move a leather enclosed sphere of air between two posts’ more times than their opponents.17 Orwell rarely responded to correspondence prompted by his regular Tribune articles. ‘The Sporting Spirit’ was no exception. Instead, Fayers was allowed to draw the debate to a close in a manner qualifying to some extent the force of his initial attack, which was prompted, he claimed, more by a desire to defend players and spectators than to confront Orwell.18 Orwell mentioned no names when criticizing those ‘blah-blahing’ sport’s beneficial impacts, but Noel-Baker, who had been to the fore in Britain in using speeches and writings for this purpose, was undoubtedly one person in his sights. Noel-Baker’s extensive collection of private papers, housed at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University, includes correspondence and press cuttings relating to Dynamo’s tour, but it remains unclear whether he actually read Orwell’s Tribune article. Neither Tribune nor the Orwell archive, located at University College, London, offer evidence of an exchange of correspondence between them about the article, even if Tribune’s status as a Labour Party publication rendered it highly probable that NoelBaker, a minister in a Labour government, would be a regular reader. Furthermore, his reaction would have been fairly predictable, given both his publications track record and the sentiments expressed at the recent Mansion House reception. More importantly, ministerial office during and after the Second World War had given Noel-Baker an opportunity to give substance to his ideas; thus, he was one of the moving forces, if not the moving force on the government side, responsible for bringing about the very tour attacked by Orwell.19 Like most contemporaries, Orwell was probably unaware of this behind-thescenes role but, in so far as Dynamo’s tour resulted from his efforts, Orwell’s article can be seen as launching a direct attack upon NoelBaker’s thinking about the politics of international sport in general and British sporting relations with the Soviet Union in particular. NOEL-BAKER ON INTERNATIONAL SPORT AS PEACEMAKER By 1945, when Dynamo Moskva toured Britain, Noel-Baker had already developed clear views about international sport. For over three decades he had used publications and speeches to take his message to a wide range of audiences as well as to counter those pushing an alternative opinion before Orwell. An enduring preoccupation concerned his efforts to expose what he saw as the British media’s


negative approach towards the Olympic movement—their apparent focus on bad news and reluctance to give credit for positive achievements. In fact, a critical newspaper report about the 1912 Olympics led Noel-Baker to undertake one of his initial media excursions in order to dismiss reports of friction between British and American competitors and officials as little more than ‘pure invention’ for the sake of a ‘silly newspaper quarrel’ pursued by journalists ignorant of Olympic matters.20 The Stockholm Olympics, far from causing ill will, exerted an extremely positive impact on international relationships. Sportsmanship, friendship and camaraderie, not conflict, were to the fore: ‘I don’t think a single competitor came away from Stockholm without a warm corner in his heart for Sweden and a strong respect and liking for the people against whom he ran.’21 Noel-Baker sought to turn the attack to his advantage: I don’t want to attach an absurd importance to athletics, but, seriously, it seems to me that international contests do provide a sort of international rivalry that is sane and healthy and desirable …. Is it so fantastic to believe that the provision of a sane intercourse and a sane rivalry of nations will help in breaking up the absurd fabric of ‘routine thinking’ on which the present system of international relations rests?22 Despite Noel-Baker’s exhortations, British media coverage of the Olympics held between the wars frequently assumed a negative character, as demonstrated in 1924 when The Times, having reported a series of incidents (e.g. fencing, rugby) and crowd problems, used a leading article, entitled ‘No More Olympic Games’, to assert that the Olympic movement had failed the ‘first real test under the new order’: Miscellaneous turbulence, shameful disorder, storms of abuse, free fights, and the drowning of National Anthems of friendly nations by shouting and booing, are not conducive to an atmosphere of Olympic calm…. The peace of the world is too precious to justify any risk—however wild the idea may seem—of its being sacrificed on the altar of international sport.23 Noel-Baker, who captained the British track team at the 1924 Paris Olympics, saw things very differently. Times readers, among others, would have been surprised by his assertion that ‘during this week in Paris, there has been no single incident that even the most malevolent of critics could magnify or distort’: ‘These games have shown once and


for all that the Olympic atmosphere and Olympic traditions promote not ill will, but friendship, not international friction, but mutual respect and admiration.’24 For Noel-Baker, the event was newsworthy, but principally because of several record-breaking performances. Any problems, he observed, were merely the product of the usual press distortions and exaggerations. Nor did things improve. The Fascist and Nazi governments in Italy and Germany were not alone in exploiting international sport, including the Olympics, for selfish national interests rather than the cause of international cooperation. Indeed, Noel-Baker, concerned about the dangerous threat posed by Hitler’s Germany to the Olympic movement, participated in the abortive campaign for a British boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.25 But the event went ahead in a manner that prompted Winston Churchill’s claim that ‘sport, when it enters the international field in Olympic Games and other contests between countries, may breed ill-will rather than draw the nations closer together’.26 Thus, Orwell was following a pre-existing strand of British thought mapped out by Churchill and The Times, among others. However, Noel-Baker’s thinking about international sport, albeit given greater definition and urgency by the perceived need to respond to such critiques, largely reflected more positive factors inspired by his fundamental Quaker and pacifist beliefs as well as by de Coubertin’s Olympic vision of bringing peoples and nations together in friendly competition. As a result, Noel-Baker emerged as one of Britain’s more articulate advocates of the global-peace-through-international-sport view; indeed, Allen Guttmann describes him as ‘the foremost British symbol of the idealist-athlete’.27 According to his biographer, NoelBaker believed that ‘sport as part of culture, inseparable from democracy, would bring out the best in the individual and enlist cooperative talents harmoniously. Faith in the sportsman as peacemaker was to sustain him until the end of his long life’.28 Participation in the 1912 Olympics transformed Noel-Baker’s thinking: ‘We went to Stockholm as British athletes. We came home Olympians, disciples of the leader, Coubertin, with a new vision which I never lost.’29 As he recalled later in life, ‘we saw national differences merged into the greater unity of a common fellowship among sporting men and women of many lands’.30 Within this context, Noel-Baker interpreted the 1920 Antwerp Olympics as helping to ‘reknit’ international relations after the bitter divisions during the First World War.31 Likewise, he pointed to the 3, 000 competitors from 44 countries participating in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics: ‘Who can doubt that such a movement as this for


the promotion of International Sport, under the best possible conditions, is a movement that may do much for the promotion of that good understanding among the nations upon which peace depends?’32 Significantly, given Orwell’s subsequent critique of spectators as well as of players, Noel-Baker identified also the way in which British sporting crowds were imbued with the sporting spirit. For example, in 1926 the spontaneous applause of spectators for German athletes—they were participating for the first time since the First World War in the Amateur Athletics Association’s championships held at London— encouraged him to interpret the episode as part of the ‘work of international reconciliation’ healing the wounds of war: ‘That spirit passes from the runners to the crowds, from the crowds to the nations whom they represent.’33 NOEL-BAKER AND SOVIET SPORT During the inter-war years, Noel-Baker frequently expressed regret about the ostracism of Soviet sport.34 Prior to the Second World War, Soviet involvement in international sport was limited in terms of frequency, countries involved and type of contact. Non-membership of international sporting bodies, like FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and the IOC (International Olympic Committee), reflected the Soviet government’s difficult relationship with other states in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and consequent isolation from the world of international sport. Instead, Soviet sport operated largely within the framework of Communist internationalism, as evidenced by the Workers’ Olympics and the occasional exchange visits conducted with teams representing left-wing organizations such as the British Workers’ Sports Association.35 However, during the Second World War Britain and the Soviet Union put behind them their lengthy chequered relationship, and came together with the USA to defeat Hitler’s Germany. But growing strains within the wartime alliance and rival versions of the post-war world meant that, by 1945, British hopes for close and enduring post-war Anglo-Soviet collaboration proved increasingly problematic.36 Conflicting American, British, French and Soviet answers to questions about the future of Germany and Poland, among other issues, led eventually to a world divided by the Cold War. However, the international situation remained relatively fluid in November 1945 when the Dynamo Moskva team landed at Croydon Airport. The tour’s exact origins are difficult to date precisely, but during 1944–45 negotiations, involving principally the British government, the Soviet


embassy in London and the Football Association (FA), discussed a fixture played at club or national level for Mrs Churchill’s ‘Aid to Russia Fund’. More definite discussions began in January 1945, when Stanley Rous (FA Secretary) contacted Noel-Baker for political support in progressing the project. Already their exchanges about post-war developments had acknowledged the ‘immense importance’ of international sport in helping to preserve international cooperation, including the need to ‘bring in the Russians’.37 Noel-Baker gave Rous’s initiative a warm welcome. For him, it offered an opportunity for helping to pull together the post-war world, and particularly to avoid replicating what he regarded as the unfortunate post-1917 political and sporting ostracism of the Soviet Union. In 1945, Noel-Baker, albeit only a junior minister at the Ministry of War Transport, possessed greater political influence and contacts than during the inter-war period, and hence was now better able to give effect to his beliefs by pressing action on ministerial colleagues and using his departmental responsibilities to facilitate arrangements (e.g. transport) and high-level contacts with the Soviet authorities. Supportive responses from the Soviet embassy led Noel-Baker to approach Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, to push a project whose benefits were adjudged to extend beyond the football pitch, given the ‘passionate interest’ displayed by Russians, especially youth, in sport: ‘I am convinced that international sport should be a very important way of breaking down their isolation. Nothing could start the thing so well as a soccer international of the kind which Rous proposes.’38 Sport was presented as a sphere of activity whose impact would extend beyond the governing elite to reach the man in the Moscow street. The Foreign Office welcomed Noel-Baker’s proposal because of the ‘political desirability of broadening our contacts with the Soviet Union’ and the perceived role of sport in imparting greater substance to the Anglo-Soviet relationship.39 Even so, departmental officials were under no illusions about the likely political impact, for ‘it will take much more than a football match to break down the real barriers which the Soviet Govt. firmly believe in’.40 In any case, international sport had always proved problematic for the Foreign Office. Rightly or wrongly, the departmental memory about international sport and the Olympics was dominated by enduring images of ‘much international ill-feeling’ and discord.41 Like Orwell, officials in the Foreign Office treated international sport as a potential problem rather than a policy opportunity. Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, accepted Noel-Baker’s reasoning about the desirability of an Anglo-Soviet football fixture, but


expressed reservations about the prudence of progressing the project pending the end of the war.42 Noel-Baker acquiesced, but believed that ‘for the future, this is a really important matter’. As a result, the FA’s invitation to Moscow was not despatched until 13 April 1945.43 Then, the lack of a rapid Soviet response—somewhat optimistically, Rous had requested a reply within one week—meant that the project drifted until the end of October 1945, when the Soviet authorities not only accepted the invitation but also announced that the Dynamo team would arrive within days. As a result, the tour was handicapped from the start by the inevitable post-war dislocation as well as by the logistical and other problems consequent upon the lack of any advance preparations. Nor was the situation helped by the extensive demands specified by the Soviet authorities regarding visas, fixtures, team selection, refereeing and meal arrangements. Meanwhile, a change of government had occurred in Britain—and a switch of jobs for Noel-Baker. The new Labour government, though annoyed by Soviet delays and hustling, toned down its irritation, while welcoming a real opportunity to promote closer bilateral relations on a broad front. Whether or not the acceptance of the British invitation marked a new course in Soviet policy remained uncertain at the time, when the tour was interpreted variously as a by-product of wartime cooperation, a mutual effort to consolidate what was becoming an increasingly difficult relationship, an additional unwelcome source of potential tension or the spearhead of a post-war Soviet sporting assault launched against the West for politico-ideological purposes. If nothing else, the episode apprised Britons of the fact that sport represented—to quote Frank Roberts, a member of British embassy in Moscow in 1945 —‘an important feature of Soviet life’ as well as a potential instrument of propaganda identified as capable of establishing the superiority of the Soviet system.44 Dynamo’s visit did provide a meaningful post-war Anglo-Soviet link, but the unsporting character of most matches, like enduring controversies about accommodation, refereeing standards, and team selection, meant that the tour left a sour legacy, as articulated by Orwell’s article. Neither the Foreign Office nor the FA felt inclined to repeat the experience in a hurry. However, government ministers, most notably Noel-Baker, adopted a rather different conclusion, as evidenced by his hopes of Soviet participation in the 1948 London Olympics.


NOEL-BAKER AND THE 1948 LONDON OLYMPICS In the event, the 1948 London Olympics coincided with a serious EastWest crisis over Berlin. Inevitably, the games, viewed within the Cold War context, raised yet again long-standing debates about whether international sport, including the Olympic movement, represented a force for international peace or conflict. The absence of comment there on by George Orwell was probably more the consequence of his serious illness and remoteness from London than of a change of view about either international sport or the Soviet Union.45 Orwell, who was suffering from tuberculosis, left hospital in East Kilbride to convalesce on the Isle of Jura only days before the games opened. By contrast, NoelBaker performed an active and influential role before, during and after the Olympics. Throughout the period, he exploited both his ministerial status and the occasion to present his views to a wider audience. More significantly, at one stage his beliefs were channelled to a national audience through a BBC broadcast given by the prime minister himself. In 1946 an extremely positive response, delivered personally to the BOA by Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary, prepared the way for a successful British bid to host the games.46 Nor should the personal enthusiasm of Noel-Baker, Bevin’s minister of state, be overlooked; indeed, he minuted that ‘there is an important Foreign Office interest in the Olympic Games, in more ways than one’.47 But officials in the Foreign Office, influenced by memories of previous Olympiads, remained less certain, and reaffirmed departmental misgivings about the potential of such ‘deplorable’ affairs for international misunderstanding.48 In the event, the ministerial emphasis upon the politico-economic benefits of hosting the games took precedence when the matter came before the Cabinet. Attlee, the Prime Minister, gave Noel-Baker special ministerial responsibility for the 1948 Olympics, since ‘the Government is anxious to maintain our national prestige in sport’.49 In turn, Noel-Baker, albeit remaining true to his fundamental beliefs about international sport, framed his arguments to fit contemporary politico-economic priorities, particularly as questions were raised repeatedly in the media about the wisdom of going ahead with the Olympics during a period of continuing post-war dislocation: My own view is clearly that it is now in the national interest that they should [go ahead]: if we can organise well, as I hope we can,


I think we shall gain both in prestige and in foreign exchange. If, on the other hand, we were to cancel them, I feel sure that there might be a considerable blow to general confidence in our recovery.50 He warned Attlee that the event, if badly managed, even worse postponed, was capable of harming the ‘national reputation’. Thus Noel-Baker advised the government to stand firm against ‘foolish’ press criticism about holding the Olympics in ‘crisis-crushed’ Britain, for cancellation would be interpreted as ‘a great blow to British prestige’.51 Moreover, cancellation would strike a severe blow to his hopes of reviving the Olympic movement following the long hiatus caused by the Second World War; but such arguments were kept in the background since they would have exerted less impact upon his ministerial colleagues than those relating to, say, national prestige. Nor did the difflculties consequent upon the 1945 Dynamo Moskva tour prompt either Bevin or Noel-Baker to rule out Soviet participation. On the contrary, in July 1946 their initial conversations with BOA representatives touched on this question in the light of both the Soviet Union’s non-membership of the IOC and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), among other sports bodies, and its alleged infringements of amateurism at a time when the IOC applied a strict definition thereof.52 Noel-Baker, seeing an opportunity to build upon the Dynamo tour, believed that Soviet entry to the Olympics would represent ‘a starting point for new thinking about international relations among the peoples of the world’.53 Monitoring Soviet developments closely, he remained optimistic, but, despite joining FIFA and the IAAF, the Soviet Union stayed outside the IOC, and merely sent a team of observers, not competitors, to the London Olympics. In addition, Noel-Baker was asked by the Prime Minister to provide a draft text for his radio broadcast welcoming competitors to the first Olympiad to be held in London since 1908.54 Despite editorial amendments, Attlee’s broadcast script basically reflected Noel-Baker’s Olympic vision: It is indeed astonishing how in these years since the Games were held last in London, sports and games known only in a few countries have been taken up with enthusiasm by so many nations. Sport today is truly international and a common love of sport creates a bond of friendship between men and women separated by distance and by the lack of a common language. It over-steps all frontiers.55


In reality, the absence of the Soviet Union, in conjunction with that of Germany and Japan because of the IOC’s post-war ban upon the entry of ex-enemy countries, exposed the hollowness of a message that was further undermined by the impact of the Berlin crisis upon East-West relations. But Noel-Baker was undeterred. On the contrary, he took pleasure in the fact that the 1948 Olympiad marked the resumption of the Olympic movement as a force for peace at a time when the international situation looked increasingly problematic. For this reason, even before the games started, Noel-Baker wrote to Sir William Haley, the BBC Director-General, urging that he should be asked to make a broadcast about the event’s broader significance.56 He was remarkably frank in apprising Haley of his reasons. The forthcoming Olympiad, Noel-Baker argued, was far more than a mere sporting festival. Rather it represented a ‘very big political event in the life of the world’. NoelBaker confessed that his basic aim was to identify the event’s ‘true lesson’ for radio listeners, and particularly to counter the ‘utterly false’ claims that the Olympic movement was a force for instability and misunderstanding, as argued in Lord Lytton’s ‘idiotic letter’ published recently in the Manchester Guardian. Despite the somewhat partisan nature of his motives, the BBC agreed to his request. As a result, soon after the Olympics finished, Noel-Baker, introduced as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and a former Olympian charged by the Prime Minister with responsibility for Olympic matters, delivered a 15-minute talk reviewing the 1948 Olympics in retrospect.57 Like most contemporary commentators, NoelBaker believed that the London Olympics had proved ‘a magnificent success’ for both Britain and the Olympic movement.58 Despite the inevitable post-war problems, the number of competitors (4,099) and countries (59) present exceeded the figures for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But his BBC broadcast was used mainly to reiterate the fundamental principles of his thinking—that is, the enduring influence of de Coubertin’s Olympic vision, the way in which the London games revived the Olympic movement after a lengthy break and the specific relevance of the Olympics’ cooperative potential in a divided world. Publications and speeches served a similar purpose.59 For example, in October 1948, Noel-Baker, glossing over Cold War problems, addressed the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR): The Olympic Games have shown that international sport can be a tremendous factor in bringing understanding between nations and in creating links of friendship between young men and young women.’60 By contrast, the episode exerted minimal impact upon the mind-sets of officials within the Foreign Office, who, like Harold Caccia, the deputy


under-secretary of state and a former Oxford rugby blue, followed Orwell in believing that such sporting events ‘often do more harm than good’.61 CONCLUSION In his 1945 Tribune article Orwell predicted that ‘no doubt the controversy will continue to echo for years in the footnotes of history books’.62 Indeed, far from being relegated to the footnotes, the enduring controversies surrounding Orwell’s views have often occupied the main text, given the way in which—to quote Christopher Chataway, another British Olympian turned politician—‘Orwell’s savage summary of international sport as “war minus the shooting” has frequently been employed as not only a general descriptor but also a reference point for discussion’.63 The reality is that—to quote Alan Tomlinson —‘large-scale international sports were trapped, from their beginnings, in a major tension. They represented an attractive cosmopolitanism and a meeting-ground between cultures. But equally they were always a forum for the assertion of particular national strengths.’64 As was the case in 1945, when Orwell published his infamous Tribune article, no consensus exists today regarding the precise nature of the links, if any, between international sport and international relations. Sportsmen and women might see themselves as engaged in purely sporting activities, but frequently they were, and still are, viewed by governments, the media and public opinion as playing, scoring, running, jumping or throwing for their respective countries or ideological bloc in terms of projecting values, strengths and weaknesses.65 The Labour Party’s loss of power in 1951 left Noel-Baker in opposition, but he still played an active and influential role in British sport through involvement with a wide range of sports bodies (such as the BOA and CCPR) as well as the 1952 British Olympic team. During 1951–52 he was prominent in setting up the Parliamentary Sports Committee, which offered another instrument through which to enhance sport’s political visibility as well as to press his views upon policy-makers and the media. Significantly, in December 1954 NoelBaker persuaded Roger Bannister, the world’s first sub-four minute miler, to join Chris Brasher, one of his pacemakers, to address committee members about sport, international relations and the Soviet Union: ‘Few members of the House of Commons have any idea how much of the world you get to know in this way, how many foreigners, and what a good spirit there is’.66 In this vein, Noel-Baker claimed that at Helsinki in 1952, when the Soviet Union entered the Olympics for


the first time, ‘the Olympic spirit has triumphed over difficulties which some people thought would be extremely grave’.67 Whereas he welcomed more frequent East-West sporting contacts as easing Cold War tensions through ‘athletics co-existence’, many commentators interpreted the Olympic movement as merely another superpower Cold War battlefield.68 Orwell died in 1950, but his view of sport lived on. Indeed, the Cold War dimension boosted support for an Orwellian approach. For example, during the mid-1950s Viscount Templewood, though paralleling Noel-Baker in terms of spanning both the political and sporting worlds, drew very different conclusions: ‘Judged by some recent experiences, international sport does not necessarily improve international relations.’69 At the close of the 1950s, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize gave international recognition to Noel-Baker’s lifetime work for global peace, disarmament and international organization. On 10 December 1959, Gunnar John, the chair of the Nobel Committee, introduced NoelBaker as the Peace Prize winner for 1959: I do not think it an exaggeration to say that he has had some share in practically all the work that has been carried out to promote international understanding in its widest sense and this is true of him both as a private individual and as a representative of his country … Throughout the years, despite disappointments and setbacks, Philip John Noel-Baker has never admitted defeat, but has looked steadfastly to the future, toward a new and better world.70 Sport was glossed over in the prize citation, but was fully covered in the Nobel Committee’s biography of Noel-Baker. Significantly, a few weeks earlier, when the New York Times first announced the Nobel award, he had been described as ‘An Athletic Pacifist’.71 Moreover, Noel-Baker had recently reiterated his belief in sport’s contribution to international peace in a letter sent to Alex Natan, editor of Stadion: I believe that international sporting events have made, and always will make, a great contribution to international goodwill and understanding…. I have always found the Olympic movement, and other international sporting events, a most powerful factor in helping to break political and social barriers between the young men and women of the world.72


Even during his final decade, when well into his eighties, Noel-Baker continued to live up to the Nobel Peace prize citation by looking steadfastly towards a ‘new and better world’. Despite recent wellpublicized setbacks to the Olympic movement—Black Power salutes at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics were followed at Munich in 1972 by the terrorist attack on the Israeli team—Noel-Baker still proclaimed his admiration of de Coubertin’s ideas alongside his amazement how people could think of attacking or undermining Olympism: ‘After sixty years of politics, I think the Olympic movement the most important with which I have had personally anything to do—and perhaps the best hope for the future of the world.’73 Noel-Baker continued to view international sport as one way of softening, even overriding, international rivalries by providing a meaningful point of contact at all levels of society: ‘These games have shown once and for all that the Olympic atmosphere and Olympic traditions promote not ill will, but friendship, not international friction, but mutual respect and admiration.’74 Orwell-type attacks served merely to reinforce, not to transform, his thinking.75 Nor was he prepared to admit that twentiethcentury Olympic realities fell short of de Coubertin’s ideals. In December 1954, that is two days after Roger Bannister addressed the Parliamentary Sports Committee, Noel-Baker reaffirmed the enduring nature of his ideas in a BBC radio broadcast entitled ‘International Sporting Exchanges’.76 Looking back on the ‘immense advance’ of the Olympic movement, he raised a question central to this essay. Noel-Baker’s view, albeit a partial and rather idealistic one, provides an appropriate concluding quotation for this study, especially as the reference to the 1948 London Olympics reflected the pride felt by someone responsible for the successful staging of that event: But has all this international sport done good or harm to the cause of world peace and friendship? Doesn’t national prestige get mixed up with national rivalry, and lead to quarrels and disputes? I answer with an emphatic ‘No’…. The great movement of international sport sweeps forward, and creates a tide of international good feeling that is fast encircling the globe. If the politicians could manage world affairs as well as the athletes, the men and women who lead and govern our international games, the very thought of war would quickly disappear. I have never forgotten how the peoples of the world welcomed the Olympic Games of 1948…. I think they felt they were turning from the nightmare memories of the war, to the happier, cleaner, nobler things of peace.


NOTES 1 . For photographs of the sculpture, see Don Anthony, ‘The Unique Olympian Nobel Laureate for Peace—Philip Noel-Baker’, Olympic Review, XXVII, 36 (2000–1), 24; Don Anthony (ed.), Man of Sport, Man of Peace: Collected Speeches and Essays of Philip Noel-Baker, Olympic Statesman, 1889–1982 (London: Sports Editions, 1991), pp. 80–81. Also see http:// www.olympic.org/ioc/e/news/review/pdfs/anthony_e.pdf. 2 . Anthony, Man of Sport, Man of Peace, p. 89; Churchill Archives Centre, University of Cambridge (hereafter CAC), ICSPE Seminar, Munich, 29–31 May 1963, p. 3, Lord Noel-Baker Papers (hereafter NBKR) 6/50. The NoelBaker papers are quoted by kind permission of the Hon. Francis Noel-Baker. 3 . Anthony, ‘Unique Olympian Nobel Laureate’, 23; Anthony, Man of Sport, Man of Peace, pp. 108–10; J.Lucas, ‘The Consummate Olympian: Philipp [sic] Noel-Baker’, International Journal of Physical Education, 29 (1992), 33– 4. 4 . Don Anthony, ‘Philip Noel-Baker, 1889–1982’, Olympic Review, XXV, 5 (1995), 46–7. 5 . Derek Birley, Playing the Game: Sport and British Society, 1910–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 30. 6 . David J.Whittaker, Fighter for Peace: Philip Noel-Baker 1889–1982 (York: William Sessions, 1989), pp. xi, 189, 204. 7 . John J.MacAloon, This Great Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modern Olympic Games (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. xi–xii. 8 . Ronald Kowalski and Dilwyn Porter, ‘Political Football: Moscow Dynamo in Britain, 1945’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 14(1997), 100–21; Jim Phillips, ‘Football and British-Soviet Relations: The Moscow Dynamo and Moscow Spartak tours of 1945 and 1954’, The Historian, 51 (1996), 20–23; David Downing, Passovotchka: Moscow Dynamo in Britain, 1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 1999). These publications, though strong on press sources, ignored British government archives and Lord Noel-Baker’s papers. But note Peter Beck, ‘Anglo-Soviet Relations 1930–54: The British Government and the Footballing Dimension’, in Sport and Politics: Proceedings of 6th ISHPES Congress, Budapest, 1999 (Budapest: Semmelweis University, 2002), pp. 89–95. 9 . The Times, 5 Dec. 1945. 10 . George Orwell, ‘The Sporting Spirit’, Tribune, 468(14 Dec. 1945), 10–11. 11 . George Orwell, ‘Wall Game’, in Peter Davison (ed.), The Complete Works of George Orwell, Vol. 10: A Kind of Compulsion, 1903–1936 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1998), p. 56. ‘George Orwell’ was a pseudonym for Eric Blair. 12 . George Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant’, in Davison (ed.), Complete Works of George Orwell, Vol. 10, p. 501. 13 . Davison, who watched the Rangers-Dynamo game, confirms Orwell’s views: Peter Davison (ed.), The Complete Works of George Orwell, Vol. 17: I


14 15 16 17 18 19

20

21

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33

34 35

Belong to the Left, 1945 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1998), p. 446. See also Daily Herald, 29 Nov. 1945. . Letter, E.S.Fayers, Harrow, Tribune, 470(28 Dec. 1945), 11. . Letter, J.A.Mills, Reading, Tribune, 471(4 Jan. 1946), 12. . Letter, T.M.Brown, London, SW20, Tribune, 473(18 Jan. 1946), 12. . Letter, ‘J.M.’, Scotland, Tribune, 473(18 Jan. 1946), 12. . Letter, Fayers, Tribune, 474(25 Jan. 1946), 12. . CAC, P.Noel-Baker to Karavaev, Soviet Embassy, 26 Jan. 1945, Stanley Rous, secretary of Football Association, to Noel-Baker, 22 Feb. 1945, NBKR 6/3/1. . Philip J.Baker, ‘Olympiad and Liars’, The Outlook, 19 Oct. 1912, 355–6, 359 (CAC, NBKR 6/22/1). Noel-Baker described himself as Philip J.Baker until 1922: Whittaker, Fighter for Peace, p. viii. . Baker, Olympiad and Liars, 359; Philip Baker, ‘The Olympic Games’, The Empire Review, May 1924, 560–61 (CAC, NBKR 6/22/1); Lord Noel-Baker, ‘Stockholm, 1912’, in Lord Killanin and John Rodda (eds.), Olympic Games (London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1979), pp. 62–71. . Baker, ‘Olympiad and Liars’, 359–60. . The Times, 22 July 1924; Peter J.Beck, ‘Politics and the Olympics: the Lesson of 1924’, History Today, 30(July 1980), 7–9. . Philip Noel-Baker, ‘Olympic Games—a Retrospect’, The Independent, 113 (30 Aug. 1924), 129–30 (NBKR 6/22/1); CAC, Noel-Baker to J.Rodda, 31 July 1974, NBKR 6/37/1. . CAC, Noel-Baker to Douglas Lowe, 4 Jan. 1931, NBKR 6/15/4; Noel-Baker to L.Montefiore, 30 Nov. 1935, NBKR 6/54/2. . Winston Churchill, ‘Sport is a Stimulant in our Workaday World’, News of the World, 4 Sept. 1938. . Allen Guttmann, The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 40. . Whittaker, Fighter for Peace, p. 12. . Noel-Baker, ‘Stockholm, 1912’, pp. 62–3; CAC, Noel-Baker to Rodda, 14 May 1974, NBKR 6/37/1. . CAC, Noel-Baker to A.Bushnell, New York, n.d. (7 Feb. 1951), NBKR 6/13/ 2. . Ibid.; Noel-Baker to Rodda, 29 July 1974, NBKR 6/37/1; Lord Noel-Baker, ‘Antwerp, 1920’, in Killanin and Rodda, Olympic Games, pp. 73–9. . P.Noel-Baker, ‘Olympic Games Memories’, Midland Daily Telegraph, 18 Aug. 1928 (CAC, NBKR 6/22/1); Lord Noel-Baker, ‘Amsterdam, 1928’, in Killanin and Rodda, Olympic Games, pp. 87–95. . P.J.Noel-Baker, ‘International Sport and International Good Understanding’, British Olympic Journal, Autumn 1926, 46–7 (CAC, NBKR 6/22/1). . Peter J.Beck, Scoring for Britain: International Football and International Politics, 1900–1939 (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999), p. 142. . James Riordan, ‘Worker Sport Within a Worker State: the Soviet Union’, in A.Krüger and J. Riordan (eds.), The Story of Worker Sport (Leeds: Human Kinetics, 1996), pp. 60–64.


36 . Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), minute, A.Eden, 24 May 1945, FO371/47854/N6038; minute, T.Brimelow, 17 Oct. 1945, FO371/47857/ N13812. Foreign Office (FO) and Prime Minister’s Dept. (PREM) documents are located at the Public Record Office, Kew, London. 37 . CAC, Noel-Baker to Burghley, 26 March 1943, NBKR 6/3/1; PRO, Rous to Noel-Baker, 22 Feb. 1945, Noel-Baker to Eden, 28 Feb. 1945, FO371/47853/ N2510. 38 . CAC, Noel-Baker to Eden, 23 Feb. 1945, Noel-Baker to Rous, 23 Feb. 1945, NBKR 6/3/1. 39 . PRO, minute, J.Hill, 7 March 1945, Eden to Noel-Baker, 12 March 1945, FO371/47583/N2510; minute, J.Galsworthy, 28 Sept. 1945, FO371/47857/ N13541; Wright Millar, Ministry of Information, to Pumphrey, 5 Oct. 1945, FO371/47856/N13179. 40 . PRO, minute, C.Warner, 7 March 1945, FO371/47583/N2510. 41 . PRO, minute, R.Sperling, 11 March 1914, FO371/1988/10779; Beck, Scoring for Britain, pp. 122–5, 153, 225–9; Martin Polley, “‘No Business of ours”? The Foreign Office and the Olympic Games, 1896–1914’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 13(1996), 103–11. 42 . PRO, Eden to Noel-Baker, 12 March 1945, FO371/47583/N2510. 43 . PRO, Foreign Office to British Embassy, Moscow, 20 April 1945, FO371/ 47853/N3289. 44 . Frank Roberts, Dealing with Dictators: The Destruction and Revival of Europe, 1930–70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991), p. 103; Information Report: Sport behind the Iron Curtain (London: Foreign Office, 1955), pp. 20–21. 45 . In 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four indicated the continuity of his thinking about the Soviet Union. 46 . PRO, E.Bevin to Viscount Portal, 15 Jan. 1946, FO371/54785/W454. 47 . PRO, minutes, Noel-Baker, 2 July 1946, 17 July 1946, FO371/54785/ W6689. 48 . PRO, minute, A.Dunn, 20 Aug. 1946, FO371/54785/W7942. 49 . CAC, Noel-Baker to H.Gaitskell, 4 Nov. 1947, NBKR 6/2/1. 50 . PRO, minutes, Noel-Baker and Attlee, 22 April 1947, PREM8/897. 51 . Sunday Dispatch, 31 Aug. 1947; Evening Standard, 2 Sept. 1947; CAC, Noel-Baker to Morrison, Sept. 1947, NBKR 6/6/1. 52 . CAC, Noel-Baker to Burghley, 27 July 1946, NBKR 6/7/2. 53 . Ibid; PRO, minute, C.Rae, 10 Aug. 1948, FO370/1595/L4739. 54 . Modern Papers Room, Bodleian Library, Oxford University (hereafter BL), minute, C.Attlee, 7 July 1948, MS Attlee 72 f. 154; P.Llewellyn-Davies, Commonwealth Relations Office, to P. Beards, 17 July 1948, MS Attlee, fols. 193–6. The Attlee Papers (MS Attlee) are located at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. 55 . BL, Attlee, BBC Radio, 28 July 1948, MS Attlee 72, f. 251. 56 . CAC, Noel-Baker to Sir W.Haley, BBC, 30 June 1948, NBKR 6/6/2. 57 . CAC, Noel-Baker, ‘The Olympic Games in Retrospect’, BBC Radio, 17 Aug. 1948, NBKR 6/7/1. 58 . CAC, Noel-Baker to W.Laurie, 25 Sept. 1948, NBKR 6/6/1; ‘Olympic Triumph’, Sunday Times, 1 Aug. 1948; Harold Abrahams, ‘Britain Also


59

60 61 62 63

64

65

66 67 68 69

70

71 72 73 74 75 76

Ran’, The Spectator, 20 Aug. 1948; W.D. Clark, ‘Olympiad XIV’, New Statesman, 21 Aug. 1948. . Philip Noel-Baker, ‘XIVth. Olympiad’, UN World, 1(Oct. 1948), 19–22; Philip Noel-Baker, ‘The Olympic Games in Retrospect’, World Sports, 14 (Aug. 1948), 9–10; Anthony, Man of Sport, Man of Peace, pp. 60–63. . Yorkshire Post, 2 Oct. 1948; News Chronicle, 2 Oct. 1948. . PRO, minute, H.Caccia, 12 Jan. 1949, FO924/708B/LC4404. . Orwell, ‘The Sporting Spirit’, 11. . Christopher Chataway, ‘An Olympian Appraises the Olympics’, New York Times Magazine, 4 Oct. 1959, 50. See Jon Garland and Michael Rowe, ‘War Minus the Shooting? Jingoism, the English Press and Euro 96’, Scarman Centre Crime, Order and Policing Series: Occasional Paper No. 7 (Leicester: Scarman Centre, Leicester University, 1997). . Alan Tomlinson, ‘Going Global: The FIFA Story’, in A.Tomlinson and G.Whannel (eds.), Off the Ball: The Football World Cup (London: Pluto Press, 1986), p. 83. . See a forthcoming study: Peter Beck, ‘“The Most Effective Means of Communication in the Modern World”: Sport and National Prestige in the Modern World’, in Roger Levermore and Adrian Budd (eds.), Sport and International Relations: An Emerging Relationship (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, forthcoming). . CAC, Noel-Baker to R.Bannister, 11 Dec. 1954, 1 Jan. 1955, NBKR 6/9/1. In fact, the committee included members from both Houses of Parliament. . ‘Lessons of Helsinki: “Russians friendly”—Noel-Baker’, Russia Today, Sept. 1952, p. 2. . CAC, Noel-Baker to Sydney Elliott, 25 Aug. 1954, NBKR 6/12/1. . Viscount Templewood, ‘Making Wimbledon Policy’, The Observer, 26 June 1955. Templewood (formerly Samuel Hoare), who was involved with lawn tennis and table tennis, had been Foreign Secretary between 1935 and 1936. . Gunnar John, Nobel Peace Prize Presentation, 10 Dec. 1959 (emphasis added), online at Nobel Museum website: http://www.nobel.se/peace/ laureates/1959/index.html. The site has detailed biographical details of prizewinners, including Noel-Baker. . ‘An Athletic Pacifist’, New York Times, 6 Nov. 1959. . CAC, Noel-Baker to A.Natan, n.d. (Nov. 1959), NBKR 6/10/3. . CAC, Noel-Baker to M.Winbolt-Lewis, 30 April 1974, NBKR 6/37/2; NoelBaker to Rodda, 31 July 1974, NBKR 6/37/1. . Baker, ‘The Olympic Games—a Retrospect’, 129. . Noel-Baker, ‘Stockholm, 1912’, pp. 62–3; Noel-Baker to Rodda, 14 May 1974, NBKR 6/37/1. . CAC, BBC Radio, ‘International Sporting Exchanges’, 15 Dec. 1954, NBKR 6/12/1.

10 Compromise and Confrontation: Danish Sport under the Swastika HANS BONDE

On 9 April 1940 Denmark was invaded and occupied.1 Thus began one of the strangest occupations in modern history. Unlike other Germanoccupied peoples such as the Dutch, the Belgians and the Norwegians, the Danes were subjected to a ‘peace occupation’ which made it possible to a great extent to go on as if nothing had happened. The most absurd expression of this situation was that in March 1943 parliamentary elections were held in Denmark. Many of the institutions of society could continue almost as before, which was just what the Danish politicians’ cooperation policy intended; it meant not least that the parliamentary system which they themselves admired and shared was as far as possible preserved intact. Was Denmark in a war situation? Not according to the German propaganda minister Goebbels, who rubbed salt in the wound of occupation by claiming on 9 March 1941 in a conservative newspaper that Denmark did not belong among the occupied countries, but had entered into an agreement with Germany.2 In the sardonic words of the ultra-pragmatic Danish former foreign and prime minister Erik Scavenius, who was lambasted for it after the war, if the Danes were at war it was a good thing the Germans hadn’t realized it! This chapter will consider the cooperation policy as a realistic acknowledgement of the enforced nature of the collaboration. This is based on an appreciation of the fact that a weak military country like Denmark refrained from risking many human lives, the bombing of Danish cities and the unrelenting, consistent persecution of the Danish Jews, at a time when Nazism had not yet shown the skull beneath the skin, for example, in the disgusting form of the Endlösung to ‘the Jewish question’. On the other hand, it is clear that, viewed with hindsight, it certainly cannot add to Danish self-esteem that Denmark probably contributed more than ten per cent of Germany’s food requirements


during the war and sent workers to Germany, and that there was official encouragement to enlist in the German war machine. One area of civil society had already been granted high political priority by the Nazi authorities in the occupied countries was sport. For instance, in Norway a Department for Sport and Labour Service headed by a sports führer was introduced. Thus, in embryonic form, athletics became a symbol of the dilemma of the occupation period. In Mein Kampf, Hitler had argued against bourgeois society’s cultivation of the intellect and for a much higher priority for sport and athletics, including gymnastics, in the schools.3 Hitler’s most important instrument in the creation of the Third Reich was a comprehensive system for educating the ‘new human being’ in all spheres of life. The body was political and it belonged to the state. The cultivation of sport and gymnastics, especially in youth, was thus not a voluntary matter; it was a response to the demand for idealistic self-sacrifice—for the young men, in the final analysis, for the gift of one’s body and the sacrifice of one’s life for the nation.4 From the outset, the Nazis were aware that the path to control over the populations of the occupied countries went through the unformed spirits of the young, and this path very much involved the control of their bodies, and the associated sports rallies where occupiers and occupied could join in peaceful competition. European research on the German occupation works with two fundamental approaches: a distinction between an attentiste line whose aim was to win time through a wait-and-see attitude and an ‘activist’ line, that is a policy of actively participating with Nazi Germany, which attempted through constructive collaboration to achieve as high a degree of national sovereignty as possible in the circumstances. Denmark illustrates both approaches. From the first moments of occupation, the large city-based Danish sports confederation Dansk Idræts-Forbund (DIF) was subjected to intense pressure from the occupying power.5 The German occupying forces were interested in getting German sporting relations with the Danes up and running immediately after 9 April 1940. Time and time again the highest German political authority in Denmark, the ambassador Von Renthe-Fink, exerted pressure on the top leadership of Danish sport to get them to resume relations with Germany. With friendly sporting events between the Danes and their occupiers, Von Renthe-Fink could demonstrate that this was a harmonious occupation, with the emphasis on peace. Furthermore, the Danish Foreign Ministry wanted no strain on the cooperation with the Germans because of sport. It was important in its view that it was non-confrontational.

214 DANISH SPORT UNDER THE SWASTIKA

For the DIF the object, therefore, was to avoid provoking the occupying power, but at the same time to avoid direct German interference in Danish sport. At first the DIF succeeded in using delaying tactics. A planned boxing match against Germany three days after the occupation took place was thus cancelled at the urging of the DIF chairman. Immediately afterwards, the DIF also decided to end cooperation with all belligerent nations in the pious hope that it could be content with cultivating sporting relations with Sweden. After intervention from the Danish Foreign Ministry, the wording of the decision was changed on the 17 April 1940 to one where all sporting relations with countries abroad were to stop. Just a few days after this, ambassador Von Renthe-Fink appeared in person at the Danish Foreign Ministry to complain about the decision. This was the beginning of continuous pressure from Von Renthe-Fink to get sporting relations between Denmark and Germany moving. But the DIF chairman, General Castenskiold, stood firm on his decision. However, initiatives were also being taken at the local level to bring about encounters between Danish and German teams. Local German groups were dissatisfied with the obstacles that were being put in the way of such events. It turned out, however, that Castenskiold saw no problem in such local events or in unofficial matches without the grand external framework of formal endorsed ‘pomp and circumstance’ and large crowds of spectators that official international matches attracted. Von Renthe-Fink worked relentlessly to get the prohibition rescinded, for example by working on the Danish Foreign Minister P. Munch. A solution was agreed: the DIF was to try to arrange a match first against a neutral nation like Sweden, after which it would be less politically controversial to play against Germany. In July 1940, the ultra-pragmatic Erik Scavenius had become Danish Foreign Minister, and now it could be expected that the Danish Foreign Ministry would give even more support to a normalization of sporting life in the existing circumstances. In August, the DIF in fact rescinded the prohibition—a decision that by all indications was positively received by the Danish sports authorities, who wanted to keep Danish sport and its economic bloodstream flowing, and by a Danish sports public that was clearly impressed by the German sportsmen and sportswomen, not least after their victorious achievements at the Olympics in Berlin in 1936. In the autumn of 1940 the rescinding of the prohibition mainly applied to sporting events with Germany and Sweden, but also to those with German-occupied Norway, where the resistance to the occupying power had resulted in a general rejection of all sporting relations, and


also to matches with Finland which, alongside Germany, was at war with the Soviet Union. In all, the result was nine official international sports matches against Germany during the occupation. After 1941 sporting relations with the Germans, apart from a few boxing matches in 1942, died out. This was because disturbances had begun to occur at Danish-German matches. There was tension, for example, at a football match in the Sports Park in Copenhagen on 5 July 1941, when the Austrian team Admira was playing against a Copenhagen eleven. The Austrian football players gave the Heil Hitler salute, and this provoked a number of spectators. This episode was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The Germans used the incident as an opportunity to get rid of Danish Minister of Justice Harald Petersen because they wanted more control over Danish jurisdiction. They succeeded in doing so just a few days after the match. Fearing that sport would become a flashpoint, the DIF drastically toned down its relations with the Germans, something with which the Germans logically enough showed considerable understanding. There was not much propaganda mileage in it when matches against German teams became a channel for the acting-out of anti-German feeling. Gradually, as the war progressed, the Germans became more and more oriented towards the war effort, and it was not popular in Germany that increasingly weakened German teams began to lose heavily to teams from occupied or neutral countries. All in all, immediately after 9 April, the DIF proved reasonably staunch in its assertion of the traditional apolitical status of sport in the face of the German occupation. But in time, the wish to preserve Danish sport as it had been prior to occupation as much as possible became crucial to the resumption of sporting relations with Germany. In this decision the DIF was also strongly encouraged by the Danish Foreign Ministry and pressured by German diplomats. It remains an open question, however, as to what extent the sporting leaders ‘actively’—that is without being urged by the Germans—took the initiative in arranging matches. The DIF’s attitude was far from heroic, but it was a logical consequence of the cooperation policy to avoid provoking the Germans and to keep Danish organizations as much as possible in Danish hands. The DIF’s strategy of not mixing politics and sport constituted a blinkered compromise, which meant that initially in the occupation situation the Germans enjoyed considerable propaganda advantages at the end of 1940 and in 1941 due to indigenous action from above in this small conflict-shy country, but that eventually Danish-German interaction was gradually restricted by action from below in the form


of Danish sports spectators’ increasingly challenging behaviour towards the occupying power. ACTIVISM, ACTIVISTS AND NIELS BUKH The proposal by the world-famous and ultimately notorious radical of the right, the Danish gymnastics teacher Niels Bukh, for a ‘Danish Youth League’ is an example of a strongly ‘activist’ attempt to accommodate the Germans without being pressured to do so.6 It was a voluntary action essentially born of admiration. Bukh and his gymnastics teams were representatives of the rural Denmark, where his gymnastics had their origins. Danish agriculture was a strong cultural and economic force in the inter-war years and represented the independent organization of sport and athletics in the form of several federations. Gymnastics in particular was a rural sporting preoccupation. Niels Bukh had made it famous, not least through his many overseas tours to the East, North America, South America and South Africa. Bukh’s gymnastics is an illustration of how strong a role sport can play in the culture of the nation. With him, gymnastics and nationalism became fused. Gymnastics became a form of patriotic expression. It was thus a man with considerable national weight and an international reputation as a sports pedagogue who made his entry on the political scene in 1940, and this gave potential support for his ambitions for a reorganization of Danish youth culture; thus he was in a position to exert a dangerous pro-German influence that was denied the small Danish Nazi party. During the first years of the occupation, Bukh was visited at his gymnastics school by the whole top political and military German leadership in Denmark. He became part of the Nazi propaganda effort in Germany. His legitimization of the occupation, thanks to his open praise of the Nazi Weltanschauung, was an asset to the fascist propaganda machine. Bukh was named as ‘minister for youth’ in a secret ‘list of ministers’ which the German press attaché Gustav Meissner drew up for the German ambassador Von Renthe-Fink on 13 September 1940. Bukh was clearly persona grata to the Nazi leadership. The reactions to Bukh’s right-wing attitudes and initiatives are a textbook example of the complex responses of different groups in Danish society to the occupation. The fact that Bukh, despite his extreme political attitudes, was still able to win support well into the early occupation shows how much acceptance there was for radical


conservative views in parts of Danish society. For some time after 9 April, individuals could still be considered both strongly nationalistic and strongly anti-democratic. Thus Bukh was able to participate in the Alsang7 community sing-songs with its rallies in Copenhagen until as late as March 1943, when for the last time he paid his membership fee to the German Nazi propaganda organization Nordische Gesellschaft. To the present-day observer, it seems logical that Germany’s occupation of Denmark made it necessary for the Danes to rally to Danish democracy. But at the time the German invasion on 9 April 1940 could well have been seen—not least by those on the extreme right —as the definitive death blow to an ailing democratic ideal. In this view, not only had the democracies been unable throughout the 1930s to exhibit the consensus, national pride and economic stability of the fascist dictatorships in Germany and Italy; they also allowed themselves in cowardly fashion to be overrun when the final test of strength came. In this situation, the only solid protection for Danish sovereignty might seem to be a unity and organizational efficiency that could match what the fascist dictatorships could offer. Bukh’s proposal for a youth league and its positive reception by right-wing opinion can be seen as an example of a wholly logical anti-democratic response to the German occupation, given the political circumstances of the time. Unsurprisingly, therefore, at a meeting in Copenhagen on 15 August 1940 the leaders of two rural youth federations decided to approach Bukh with the idea of a national youth league. The two chairmen now passed the initiative to Bukh, who on 19 August 1940 arranged a meeting with all the rural youth leaders. P.J.Skriver, the chairman of the liberally-oriented Danish gymnastics associations, at first refused, despite Bukh’s persistent urging, to attend the meeting. However, Skriver decided in the end to attend after receiving a telephone call from his fellow member of the Radical-Liberal party, Minister of Education Jørgen Jørgensen, who said, according to Skriver, that it was absolutely necessary that Skriver attended the meeting, and that Skriver joined them. Bukh now said, again according to Skriver, that the Germans had told him that ‘the Danes were a pure Aryan people, and that in the new Europe the Danes would therefore be able to drive in a luxury car—or a wagon’.8 Skriver answered that he preferred ‘the wagon, for it was probably the Danish vehicle’, and he asked Bukh whether it was ‘the Germans who had suggested that Danish youth work should be standardized’? Bukh now gave the youth leaders an account of his proposal for a Danish youth league. Skriver objected that the planned league would


deal with areas with which ‘the homes and the schools had already dealt’, to which Bukh replied: ‘If we don’t act now, the Germans will do it.’9 Bukh then described his intention of creating a Danish youth work monopoly. He was convinced that ‘the leadership of our state will understand the appropriateness of this league being Denmark’s only state-approved and state-supported one—at least in the countryside’.10 Bukh proposed that a Danish youth league ‘might become an element in a’Nordic Youth League’,11 which seems remarkable, given that Norway was also occupied and under direct Nazi control. Beside the approximately 130,000 members of the four youth federations, Bukh wanted in the longer term to integrate the DIF, the workers’ sports organizations and the Social Democrat Children’s Corps. A more remarkable feature was the clarification that Bukh really wanted to integrate very broad sections of youth work in Denmark, something that presumably astounded Skriver. Bukh would like to have the league include ‘the various political youth groups which will probably now want to join in a unified youth movement in Denmark’.12 This proposal even included the Communist and Social Democratic youth organizations. Bukh, in effect, had proposed a streamlining of already highly developed political youth work in Denmark into an organization with a number of ‘branches of work’ and with a clearly military bent, including shooting and cross-country sports. As regards the military inspiration for the proposal, Bukh may have been inspired by his friend the German Reichsportsführer Von Tschammer und Osten’s introduction of Wehr sport in German sports associations. Considering the totalitarian nature of the proposal, it is paradoxical that the plan in fact did mention the implementation of democratic voting principles. However, it is impossible at this distance of time to know whether these principles were added by Bukh as a tactical concession in the face of the chairmen’s, and in particular Skriver’s, criticisms of his proposal. After the meeting with Bukh, Minister of Education Jørgen Jørgensen issued a warning about Bukh’s initiative to the ‘Council of Elders’, the circle of Grundtvigian13 folk high school figures who were behind the plans for a ‘Danish Youth Union’ (Dansk Ungdomssamvirke). Their alternative was an attempt to organize Danish youth with the aim of avoiding Nazification. Jørgen Jørgensen was afraid that there might be others behind Niels Bukh—the Germans or the big right-radical commercial figures,14 who were in general ironically called ‘the country’s best men’ and who were also laying plans for a right-wing authoritarian political revolution.


The initiators of the Danish Youth Union now published the plans for their still not fully conceived organization. Poul Hjermind, whom the Social Democratic party newspaper called ‘the chairman of Dansk Ungdomssamvirke’,15 was quoted to the effect that ‘youth itself has long practised the idea proposed here’. In the days that followed, a call to arms from Dansk Ungdomssamvirke was reported on the front pages of the Social Democratic newspaper, and any thought of dissolving the existing organizations was rejected. Dissolution was contrasted with Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, which ‘does not hold up the uniform goose-step as the great ideal’.16 In the liberal press, which was sympathetic to the rural-liberal party Venstre, too, there was support for dissociation from Bukh’s plans. The conservative press, on the other hand, was not minded simply to drop Bukh. The biggest conservative daily, Berlingske Tidende, argued for Bukh’s ideas, for he was ‘associated by his name and reputation… with the physical and spiritual education of Danish youth’. The newspaper continued: ‘A personality like his, which combines dynamism with organizational talent and a decided feeling for Danish popular ideas, is one of those it seems natural to name when Danish youth is seeking a leader.’17 As late as November, another conservative newspaper, Nationaltidende, interpreted Dansk Ungdomssamvirke as an initiative from youth itself that could in fact be realized within Bukh’s project. The election of Hal Koch as chairman of Dansk Ungdomssamvirke in late 1940 made any notion of the integration of Dansk Ungdomssamvirke within the plans for Bukh’s youth league impossible. Koch became the crucial factor in the organization’s interpretation of the national struggle as a political struggle for democracy, a view he expressed for the first time in November 1940. He warned— presumably referring to Bukh— that if Dansk Ungdomssamvirke ‘contributed to a de-politicization of youth, while at the same time one increased national feeling and stimulated the sporting spirit, then Dansk Ungdomssamvirke would contribute directly to a Nazification of Danish youth’.18 With this statement the link between democracy and national feeling had been put on the agenda in earnest. However, Bukh did not abandon his ideas for a youth league. Around New Year 1941 he launched a modified version of his proposal, and now he established contact with Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, which on 13 July 1941 held a gala meeting for 5, 000–6,000 people in the large arena at Bukh’s Gymnastics High School. Bukh had presumably hoped that the joint rally was the cue for a more formalized collaboration with Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, but


this never happened. The result was that he was clearly in an aggressive mood at the beginning of 1942 when he expressed to the pupils of his school that he had wholly abandoned the possibility of coming to any understanding with his rival. Bukh now conjured up a German threat to Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, a threat that his own youth league could apparently defuse: ‘When the associations wholly or partly joined Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, the appearance of the will to unity was saved. Of course there are also others who can rally them in matching order, but our king would prefer that we [i.e. the Danes] do it ourselves.’19 By the winter of 1942 Bukh was expressing great optimism about his plans. This optimism was hardly inspired by Danish backing, since Dansk Ungdomssamvirke had now quite clearly consolidated itself. In an interview he talked about his plans for a new formation in Danish youth work. Perhaps the optimism was due to the fact that the Danish Government, after German pressure, had found a new prime minister, Erik Scavenius, in November 1942. All in all, Bukh’s ambition was to form a national youth league with a state-guaranteed monopoly of all Danish youth work, including political work, and with training in military skills and ‘patriotism’ and with Bukh as leader and perhaps even as ‘minister for youth’. If this had been realized, it would not have been without risks for Danish democracy, not least in the light of Bukh’s Germanophilia and his wish for Denmark to survive in a European Nazi bloc after a German victory. The fact that the original initiative for Bukh’s youth league was taken by two leaders of rural gymnastics federations must be viewed in the light of the overwhelming German victories in the first period of the occupation. Strong European states such as Holland and not least France with its ‘unconquerable’ Maginot Line had fallen like dominoes to the advancing German Wehrmacht, and everything pointed to a German victory within the foreseeable future. All the indications were that in this situation it was opportune, even for people who in no way shared Bukh’s views, to use the right-wing extremist Bukh as a shield to ensure as much autonomy as possible for Danish youth work—for example in the event that a streamlining of Danish society were to be imposed from above, as later happened in Norway. If the plan for a youth league failed, it was in the first place because democratic resistance was too strong and in the second place because the Germans did not install a satellite regime in Denmark; but in the third place it was also because Bukh’s overall feeling for tactics broke down in faceto-face negotiations. Bukh was quite simply dealing with a Nordic


cultural tradition for sporting autonomy which he probably never quite understood, given his own experience of total power in his own gymnastics high school. Both the conservative-oriented Danish Shooting, Gymnastics and Athletics Association (DDSG&I) and the liberal Danish Youth Association (DDU) were active in their support in the initial phases of Bukh’s attempt to create a Danish youth league. By contrast, from the outset the liberal Danish Gymnastics Association (DDG) was against, and actively opposed, Bukh’s initiative. DDSG&I, however, did not join the democratically-oriented Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, but maintained its sympathy with Bukh’s unification ideas. On the other hand, DDU and DDG did join. The Boy Scouts too remained aloof, since they thought that their target group, children, did not fit under the auspices of Dansk Ungdomssamvirke. Nor did the cities’ sporting and athletics organization, the DIF, join Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, probably because Dansk Ungdomssamvirke seemed too political in its struggle for democracy and the DIF had always tried to keep the organization free of politics. But at the more local level there was some support—for example from the Women’s Sports Federation, with over 2000 members in 1943, and from the Danish Team Handball Federation. The rural gymnastics and youth associations, despite their strongly nationalist rhetoric, were thus far from forming a spearhead in the front against the occupying powers. It could hardly be expected that DDSG&I, as a shooting organization, would turn its guns on the occupying forces, nor that they could prevent the occupying forces from getting their hands on their weapons, but DDSG&I was not even willing to sign the protest against the persecutions of the Jews in October 1943, as for example the Danish YMCA and YWCA and many other organizations and institutions did. How realistic were the rural Danish sports leaders’ notions of being able to administer sports for themselves if they turned the organizations in a right-wing totalitarian direction? One of the bodies that could well have exercised crucial influence on the development of the occupied countries after a German victory was the Nazi terror organization the Schutzstaffel (SS), undoubtedly the biggest criminal syndicate in the twentieth century, responsible for the organization of the mass murder of the Jews. Joachim von Ribbentrop’s appointment as Foreign Minister in 1938 marked the growing influence of this organization on the foreign service. The German commandant in Denmark and leading ‘geopolitical’ thinker in the SS, Werner Best, believed that if the Germans kept rubbing the Danes up the right way they would gradually be inspired by the Nazi world view, discover their


volksorganisch distinctiveness and finally allow themselves to be integrated voluntarily into the greater Germanic Reich.20 Thinking counterfactually, the possibility cannot be excluded that this strategy would have succeeded in the long term if Germany had continued with its triumphant progress and won the war, for example if it had refrained from launching Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union —although the meaning of the word ‘voluntarily’ in all probability would then have to be stretched unreasonably. But the vision of Best’s superior, the undisputed leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, was not volksorganisch but fundamentally PanGermanic. True, Himmler was profoundly fascinated by the heathen Germanic-Nordic Middle Ages and the SS’s iconographic universe and male aesthetic was strongly influenced, apart from the death’s-head symbol, by Nordic rune symbolism. The actual SS symbol for example was two identical Old Norse ‘sig-runes’ side by side as a symbol of victory, and the use of the swastika itself was inspired by the symbol of Thor. But Himmler had no intention of allowing the slightest degree of Nordic independence. Hitler too seems to have had a certain idea of a North-East European League which would include the Scandinavian countries. Here one can give the imagination free rein to the idea of a Denmark as a Gau Nordmark with folk costumes, popular gymnastics, Bournonville ballet, Carl Nielsen music, H.C.Andersen fairytales, Grundtvig’s hymns, folk dance (rather than jazz), its own postage stamps, together with a protectorate football team and—perhaps as a feather in its cap—the preservation of the Danish monarchy with its roots back in the ‘Germanic’ Viking and chivalric age: Denmark as a greater Germanic regional museum. It should however be emphasized that Denmark’s role as an ‘advertising poster’ for the German attempt to present a human face to the rest of the world probably made it the occupied country that had the best chance of retaining the remnants of independence in a reorganized Europe—but of course at the discretion of the Führer. If the Germans had won the war—or at least achieved a separate peace with control over Continental Europe—there would have been a greater likelihood that the Danish Nazis could have shaped a new Danish sports policy. There were plans for this among the Danish Nazis. The sketches for this were drawn up in January 1941. The plans had clear similarities to the attempts of the Norwegian Nazis, Nasjonal Samling, to reorganize sport on the basis of the Führer principle. In Denmark, under a minister of health, a named ‘national sports leader’ was to be appointed with five named ‘heads of departments’ under him. Three of these, including a well-known name in cycling,


contributed reports in the areas to be covered by their departments. Since the Germans never installed a Quisling regime in Denmark, the plan never saw the light of day.21 CONCLUSION To understand the special nature of the reaction pattern of Danish sport during the occupation, parallels can be drawn with Norwegian sport, which was subjected to a much harsher occupation policy.22 A sports Führer was appointed and an attempt was made to organize the whole of Norwegian sport according to the Führer principle. Norwegian sporting leaders reacted by calling for a ‘sports strike’, which was broadly observed throughout the occupation. On the whole Norwegian sport’s reaction to the Nazification attempt set an example for the other organizations the Germans later tried to Nazify. Many people engaged in sport ‘illegally’ in the forests, the mountains and peripheral areas. And sport became an important source of recruitment to Milorg, the military branch of the resistance struggle. In Denmark, on the other hand, everyday sporting life continued more or less as usual with a respectable influx of members to the organizations, but coloured by the playing-down of international relations and limited practically by the rationing of fuel which during the harsh winters led to unheated sports halls all over the country. Danes often feel unheroic in comparison with the heroic Norwegians, but in fact many Norwegian sports leaders said and did regrettable things as long as they still hoped for a ‘soft occupation’ like that in Denmark. Southern Norwegian people, for example, continued their hobbies while there were still hostilities in northern Norway.23 And the leader of the big Norwegian workers’ sports confederation argued in a letter to the top German political leader in Norway, Joseph Terboven, that workers’ sport had many organizational similarities to the Nazis’ concept of sport—in the hope, of course, of survival in a German-dominated Norway.24 In other words there are certain indications that the Norwegians would have buckled under if they had been offered the chance of an occupation with a velvet glove. Whether the Danes, on the other hand, would have put up the same kind of resistance as the Norwegians in the event of a harsh occupation policy is impossible to say. After the war the Danes were left with a more or less intact sports apparatus, and were also able to beat Norway 4–2 in an international football match in the Sports Park in Copenhagen in August 1945. The Danes on the whole also escaped the exhausting, divisive purge of


people that the Norwegians carried out, for example among the people who had cultivated sport ‘legally’ during the occupation. However, the Danish Youth Association (DDU) did carry out a certain amount of purging in their own ranks, whereas the Danish Sports Confederation, the DIF, hastened to look to the future. On the other hand, Danish sport was left with the not particularly flattering fact that at the beginning of the occupation the established Danish sports world had given the Germans a great propaganda bonus through Danish-German sporting relations. And after the liberation, the new Danish ruralliberal government under Knud Kristensen worked to manoeuvre the pride of the Danish rural culture, Niels Bukh, through the reefs of the ‘judicial purge’. But that is another story. In the final analysis what the sports community of Denmark reveals —as a case study of a nation under military occupation—is, among other things, a set of individual and collective responses that varied according to ideological conviction; sober judgements regarding the best prospects for survival; personal pursuit of power; responses to varying degrees of threat and intimidation; and certainly admiration of the seeming security of totalitarian success. Denmark under the swastika reveals, therefore, the complexity of the relationship between sport, militarism and anti-militarism. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I should like to thank professor J.A.Mangan for his assistance with the initial draft of this chapter. NOTES 1 . For the best new introduction to the Danish history of the German occupation, see H. Kirchhoff, Samarbejde og modstand under besœttelsen (Odense: Odense University Press, 2001). 2 . Nationaltidende, 9, 3(1941). 3 . A.Hitler, Min kamp (Copenhagen/Oslo: H.Hagerups Forlag, 1934), II, pp. 44–51. 4 . See J.A.Mangan (ed.), Shaping the Superman: Fascist Body as Political Icon —Aryan Fascism (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), passim. 5 . For the following analysis of the history of DIF under the German occupation, see S. Rasmussen, ‘Dansk Idræts Forbund og forholdet til Tyskland 1940–45’, Idrtœtshistorisk Årbog, I(1985), 109–24. 6 . For an analysis of Niels Bukh’s plan for a Danish Youth League, see H.Bonde, Niels Bukh-En politisk-ideologisk biografi, Vol. II (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2001), pp. 493–540.


7 . Alsang was community singing in large rallies asserting the Danish national spirit in the face of the German occupation. 8 . Police investigation of Niels Bukh, 1945/46, Landsarkivet i Odense, Svendborg Politimester, 1945, opklarede F-sager, 620, interrogation of P.J.Skriver. 9 . Op. cit., interrogation of Niels Bukh. 10 . Ibid. 11 . Bukh’s proposal for a Danish Youth Leage is in Årsskrift for Gymnastikhøjskolen (Ollerup: Gymnastikhøjskolen, 1940), pp. 101ff. 12 . Ibid. 13 . The common denominator in, and the main source of inspiration for the Danish farmers’ movement was the Danish poet and pastor N.F.S.Grundtvig (1783–1872), who argued against the ‘dead and weary’ knowledge of the Danish school system and tried to revive the mythological heritage of Scandinavia. 14 . The Danish tradition of the ‘folk high school’ (folkehøjskole) is intended to allow young people to meet at colleges in the countryside where the aim is not to take degrees but to develop oneself in a spirit of community with other young people. 15 . Socialdemokraten, 2, 9(1940). 16 . Socialdemokraten, 3, 9 and 4, 9(1940). 17 . Nationaltidende, 3, 11 and Berlingske Tidende, 4, 9(1940), see H.Nissen and H.Poulsen, På Dansk Friheds Grund (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1963), pp. 99ff. 18 . O.Jvf.Korsgaard, Kampen om kroppen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1982), p. 265. 19 . Årsskrift for Gymnastikhøjskolen (Ollerup: Gymnastikhøjskolen, 1941), p. 93. 20 . U.Herbert, Best, Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft, 1903–89 (Bonn: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1996), pp. 290ff. 21 . L.Riemann Hansen, Tyskernes forgœves forsøg på førergreb (Copenhagen: Dansk Idrætsfbrbund, 1996), passim. 22 . See F.Olstad and S.Tønnesson, Norsk Idretts historie, Vol. 2 (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1986), pp. 18–85. 23 . Ibid. 24 . Ibid.

11 Cold War Diplomats in Tracksuits: The Fräuleinwunder of East German Sport GERTRUD PFISTER

In the confrontation of the political systems of East and West, sport played a major role from the 1950s onwards. Sport was an instrument of politics, a weapon deployed in the ‘cold war’ with huge success by East Germany, the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). And a decisive contribution to the country’s sporting success was made by women athletes. According to GDR politicians and sports officials, the great sporting achievements of East Germany’s women athletes were to be attributed to the benefits of women’s emancipation in a socialist state. And this was the message that the country’s women athletes were hoped to convey as ‘diplomats in tracksuits’. The fact that women played their roles on the stage of international sport so outstandingly is reflected, among other things, in the medals tables of the Olympic Games. However, the reasons behind the Fräuleinwunder (‘the miracle of the misses’) are not as easily explained as politicians and functionaries would have it. Does sporting achievement really have anything to do with emancipation and socialism? This essay is concerned with the reciprocal influences and the interdependencies that existed between the social system, the gender relations and the structures and practice of sport in East Germany. It is not possible, within this framework, to go into changes that took place in the different phases of the history of both the GDR and GDR sport. After the Second World War and the disbandment of the sports organizations of the National Socialist Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (National Federation of Physical Exercises), including its clubs, sport in the Soviet ‘zone of occupation’ underwent complete reorganization. The phase of searching for new models and structures—based on Soviet examples—was completed with the founding in 1957 of the East German sports federation Deutscher Turn-und Sportbund (DTSB) and from that point onwards a steady growth of centralization, concentration, planning and control was observable in GDR sport. As levels of achievement in international sports and—as a consequence—

EAST GERMANY’S FRÄULEINWUNDER 227

the pressure on athletes to perform well increased, so too did the efficacy of the measures and methods designed to improve performance.1 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS: GENDER AS INSTITUTION, IDENTITY AND ENACTMENT The reconstruction of the gender order which prevailed in the GDR requires a theoretical foundation. Here, gender is to be understood, in accordance with Lorber’s definition, as a ‘process of social construction, a system of social stratification, and an institution that structures every aspect of our lives because of its embeddedness in the family, the workplace, and the state as well as in sexuality, language and culture’.2 Thus gender always has an individual aspect as well as an institutional aspect. Gender is, on the one hand, a key category by means of which societies constitute their social order. Here, structures of thinking and judging and, generally, the social reconstruction of reality are based on the assumption of the duality of gender, which corresponds, moreover, to our occidental manner of thinking in terms of binary opposites.3 Moreover, social institutions and structures, including gender relations, are closely bound up with the organization of work, which in industrial societies is characterized by the gender-specific division of labour, above all by the separation of unpaid housework (assigned to and appropriated by women) from gainful employment.4 Individuals assume the roles and adopt the rules, the images and ‘scripts’ of this gender duality in lifelong processes of socialization. In their interaction with the social and physical environment, girls and boys as well as men and women develop identities in and through ‘cultural practices’. At the same time, however, they take up the ‘gendered’ social reality and represent the symbolic order of gender duality, thus reinforcing it.5 Gender, therefore, not only has various dimensions but must also be understood as a lifelong process accompanied by ambivalences and contradictions. Lorber emphasizes that gender is not something we are or we have but something we perform, we produce and we do: ‘Gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and it is the texture and order of that social life…it depends on everybody constantly doing gender.’6 The realization that gender is a social construction is currently permeating everyday general knowledge. Judith Butler’s provocative hypothesis that gender duality is a product of discourse and is continuously re-produced in people’s minds ‘from the way a society


imagines femininity and masculinity’ is not only to be read in feminist literature but has also been featured in magazines such as Spiegel and Geo.7 Sport has always been an important stage on which to present gender, and doing sport has always involved ‘doing gender’. In sport, gender differences are never disputed and differences in performance appear to be obvious evidence of the ‘natural’ hierarchy of the sexes. What is overlooked here, though, is that in sport—just as in everyday life-features and actions as well as body forms and images of movement are perceived through the lens of gender duality and interpreted differently by men and women. The definitions and social contracts that constitute sport are social constructions in exactly the same way as the associations and judgements that are connected with sports activities. This means that not only gender identities and the enactment of gender but also the gender order, which is deeply rooted in society, have an influence on the development of sports as well as on individual involvement in sport.8 A gender-based ‘sports culture’ is influenced not only by the pictures shown in the media but also by the way sportsmen and sportswomen enact their gender identities, or ‘do gender’. Messner describes American football as a producer of masculinity in the following terms: Football, based as it is on the most extreme possibilities of the male body…is clearly a world apart from women, who are relegated to the role of cheerleaders/sex objects on the sidelines… in contrast to the bare and vulnerable bodies of the cheerleaders, the armoured bodies of the football players are elevated to mythical status and as such, give testimony to the undeniable ‘fact’ that here is at least one place where men are clearly superior to women.9 Sport is also a social field, however, in which gender is not only produced but can also be decoded, deconstructed and changed. Physicality as well as the practices of sport and individual performance in sport, for example the top-level performances of women athletes, might cause men and women to discuss gender arrangements and even change them.10 In the question of how ‘doing gender’ functions in sport, one must distinguish between the institutional and the individual planes. As mentioned above, sport is on the one hand a field of ‘selfsocialization through cultural practice’ in which different identities, images and views of femininity/masculinity are developed and


reinforced, for example those of women football players or those of women gymnasts.11 On the other hand, sport is also an institution which at the same time constantly conveys gender images with fascinating and powerful pictures. The question arises at this point whether these theoretical reflections can be used to describe and explain the gender arrangements in socialist systems in general and in East Germany in particular. GENDER HIERARCHY IN THE GDR The Gender-Specific Division of Labour In discussing the situation of women in East Germany,12 the subject that is always raised first is the high percentage of women who went out to work. In the 1980s, 91 per cent of all women of working age were employed outside the home; 87 per cent of these had gained vocational qualifications.13 The integration of women into the labour market was looked upon as proof of women’s emancipation. As in Western societies, however, a closer examination of the East German work sector reveals vertical and horizontal segregation. This is reflected in, among other things, the differences in pay (women earned 25–30 per cent less than men) and the relatively small percentage of women in managerial positions. Just to take one example: among university professors the proportion of women was very similar to that of West Germany at approximately five per cent.14 And, in spite of attempts to raise the number of women in technical occupations, Lemke noted in 1988 that with the introduction of new technologies in the GDR ‘problems of policy with regard to equal opportunities at work have intensifled’.15 The military apparatus, a large and important employment sector, was completely inaccessible to women. On the other hand, the proportion of women employed in the education sector amounted to 75 per cent and in healthcare as much as 85 per cent.16 While the number of women in ‘male occupations’ was relatively high, even so, in comparison with Western countries, men hardly ever ‘strayed’ into women’s occupational spheres—and, in view of the GDR’s policy of strict control, this was attributable to the will of the political leadership just as much as to any private decisions on the part of individual men. On the basis of the available data, both Diemer and Nickel come to the conclusion that ‘women were systematically barred from men’s occupations and vice versa’.17 Thus in East Germany, too, in spite of official statements to the contrary, a horizontal and vertical


segregation existed in employment structures, along with a hierarchy dependent upon gender. The gender-specific division of labour was further cemented by the responsibility of women for the home and the family, a role which was taken for granted by both sexes alike.18 In the period of German reunification 90 per cent of all East German women were mothers and 30 per cent of these mothers had sole responsibility for their children.19 Besides being official doctrine, the fact that going out to work was reconcilable with looking after the family was not just a view that was widely held, an inner conviction even, but also common practice.20 Here, however, state supervision of children played a key role: in 1989, 80 per cent of all children under three, 95 per cent of three- to six-yearolds and 81 per cent of infant schoolchildren were looked after in crèches or other forms of day nursery.21 In addition numerous familysupport measures were introduced, ranging from reduced working hours for mothers to so-called ‘housework days’, which enabled women with children to take up employment.22 In politics, too, positions of responsibility and influence were dependent on gender. In the 1980s, up to 50 per cent of those active in voluntary work at the grassroots, for example in trade unions, were women. By contrast, the percentage of women members of administrative bodies like the Central Committee of the ruling party, the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands), and the Staatsrat (Council of State) or among secretaries at the regional and district levels ranged from a mere seven per cent to 25 per cent. At the highest level of the state hierarchy, the secretariat of the Central Committee or the Presiding Committee of the Council of Ministers, men were largely among themselves.23 Gender Equality from a Woman’s Perspective Several biographical texts as well as studies based on interviews are now available that reveal numerous examples of discrimination alongside many positive aspects of women’s lives in East Germany.24 Both the women and the men interviewed voiced the opinion that women had had ‘equal rights’. A women’s movement along the lines of the West German model was vehemently rejected. Those interviewed described the disadvantages that women faced as an individual problem. ‘As a women I had equal rights in the sense that I could do any work I wanted. I was entitled to do any work, but then of course, on the other hand, there was this double burden.’25 Not infrequently, women—and many men, too— revealed a positive attitude towards traditional


gender roles and ideals. For many of those interviewed, for example, it was ‘taken for granted’ that mothers should take care of the children. According to Dölling, the state’s claim to have solved the ‘women’s question’ led to the fact that the gender order was not an issue requiring any critical reflection.26 It is not surprising, therefore, that in the interviews carried out by Diemer there is only one single mention of the irreconcilability between socially imposed emancipation and women’s life circumstances: Because that’s not what I call emancipation—taking the children to the day nursery at six in the morning, in a hurry and already stressed, because it’s taken at least an hour to get the ‘little dears’ ready…and then rushing to work…and the whole procedure starts again in the evening, only the other way round. And on top of all this having to queue for bread or rolls…or for the children’s shoes and so on and so forth…. And because trying to get higher at work had its limits for women…the whole management was full of men.27 Gender as an Institution: Patterns of Explanation The question arises as to whether the theory of the social order outlined at the beginning, especially the assumptions concerning the causes and effects of a gender-segregated labour market, can be applied to the GDR’s system of a planned economy and to its ideology of gender equality. After an intensive investigation into this problem, Gottschall concluded that ‘with the further evaluation of key data from women’s research well-founded hypotheses [can be formulated] to explain the patriarchal character of state socialist societies. Central to this hypothesis is the assumption that planned economies are dependent on generative-reproductive services to ensure their survival.’28 Every society is dependent upon children being born, raised and taken care of; and in the GDR, too, it was women who took on this responsibility without being paid for the work involved. State supervision of their children may have been able to relieve mothers’ burden, but it could not remove it. Hildegard Maria Nickel identified three dimensions of the genderspecific division of labour and responsibilities in the GDR: 1. women’s status in employment outside the home and the horizontal and vertical differentiations existing there;


2. women’s responsibilities in the family and the appropriation/ internalization of these as a result of socialization; and 3. the reproduction of gender in everyday actions (‘doing gender’).29 Moreover, in East Germany, too, the supply- and demand-side mechanisms of the labour ‘market’ complemented each other, i.e. the expectations and the qualifications of female employees on the one hand and the expectations and demands of the employers on the other led to a vicious circle. To put it simply, because of their ‘gendered’ socialization, women complied with society’s expectations: they took care of the children and family, and were less career-oriented than men —not least because no great financial improvement was to be expected from it. Since women took over the responsibility for children, they were stigmatized as unreliable employees, and thus tended to be given menial jobs in which they could easily be replaced if necessary. The conditions of women’s work and women’s lives on the one hand and the mechanisms of labour in industrial nation-states on the other led (and still lead) to a gender-specific horizontal and vertical segregation of the labour force with women at the margins and at the lower end of the hierarchies.30 One of the men interviewed by Diemer described this mechanism of stigmatization and discrimination quite explicitly. He explained that the dominance of men in leading positions was due to women’s ‘deviating’ biographies: The five years when a woman brings up two children after their birth are missing in the career ladder—even if the kiddies are in the crèche. In these years a women just doesn’t have the time to sit in the library till half past five in the evening…when the crèche closes at five.31 Dölling (1990) emphasized that the construction of a socialist personality was based on the normal male biography and ignored housewives as being non-existent. Women in the GDR, according to Dölling, fulfilled all the traditional female duties without being ‘rewarded’ for their work. On the contrary, housework was not looked upon as being ‘real’ work; it was ignored and women were expected at the same time to take over ‘male’ responsibilities on top of it. This was not only gainful employment, but in addition social and political commitment.32 The measures introduced to attempt to reconcile housework with employment outside the home aimed at social equality and were ‘officially’ intended for everyone, but they benefited women.


In this way, the intended benefits turned out to be disadvantageous to women and even increased discrimination: they relieved men of the burden of fulfilling family duties, thus covering over the existing gender hierarchy and reproducing the traditional gender roles.33 Gender duality, furthermore, clearly moulded people’s opinions and attitudes in the GDR. Whoever did not fit into this traditional pattern of dual gender remained invisible, and homosexuality, for example, was taboo.34 To sum up, it can be affirmed that the ideals and roles of men and women in East Germany differed in many respects from the images, presentation and arrangements of gender prevalent in the West. Nevertheless, in the GDR, too, there is evidence of a hierarchical gender order. The reasons for the gender arrangement typical of the GDR are to be sought in the symbolically conveyed concept of gender duality and its influence on everyday thinking as well as in the genderspecific division of labour. In the GDR, too, the production and reproduction of society functioned solely because women took over the housework with no financial reward and above all because they were also responsible for bringing up the children. What role, then, did sport play in gender relations and what influence did the gender order have on the system and the practice of sport in general and on top-level sport in particular? THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SPORT IN THE GDR AND ITS SPORT SYSTEM For many years West German sports officials persisted in the ideology that sport was by nature ‘apolitical’, an area dominated by notions of voluntary participation, amateurism and fair play, and one which should be kept free of political influence and intervention. By contrast, East German officials had, from the very beginning, ascribed to sport not only a social but also a political role. In the course of the cold war and the confrontation between the systems, sport was given a key political role to play, in particular with the aim of undermining West Germany’s claim to be the sole representative of the German nation and, at the same time, of promoting the integration of the GDR into international bodies. Further, it was hoped that the way to gain international recognition could be prepared on the sports field and that, in general, sport might increase the country’s influence in the politics of sports as well as world politics. Even after the GDR had become one of the world’s leading sports nations in the 1970s, political recognition abroad and the wish to present the system in a good light


and demonstrate the superiority of socialism continued to be decisive factors in the promotion of sport. At home, too, it was hoped that sporting victories and the popularity of the country’s athletes would help to strengthen people’s identification with the system. Indeed, Günter Erbach, from 1974 to 1989 State Secretary for Physical Culture and Sport, commented after German reunification: ‘The social function of competitive sport, particularly top-level competitive sport, was seen as a means of strengthening and presenting the political system of socialism and the state through the highest levels of sporting achievement.’35 Sport was shaped by the policies of the ‘state party’, the SED: ‘Physical culture and sport are firmly embedded in the structure of the developed socialist society. Their development takes place within the overall framework of SED policy as well as in the framework of a sports policy specially designed for this field.’36 The organization of the East German sport system reflected the distribution of power in society as a whole. The founding of the GDR in 1949 set in motion a policy of consolidating the state, manifested in, among other things, the resolution of the SED’s second party conference in 1952 on building up socialism. In concrete terms this meant the reinforcement and centralization of the organs of government, which—like the economy and the mass organizations— were controlled by the SED in accordance with the principle of ‘democratic centralism’.37 Characteristics of ‘democratic socialism’ were the election of leading figures with, at the same time, the ‘devolution of will from the top downwards’ together with clear-cut directives as well as regular reporting and controlling. Niese characterizes ‘democratic centralism’ as a ‘principle spanning the whole of society, a hierarchy of the elements of the political system—with the SED at the pinnacle’.38 This also holds true for the domain of sport. The key figures, institutions and organizations of sport as well as the practices connected with sport were all oriented towards the abovementioned political objectives and subordinated to the political will of the SED. As Figures 11.1 and 11.2 show, responsibility and control lay in the hands of SED committees and the state apparatus as well as the umbrella organization of East German sport, the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation (Deutscher Turn-und Sportbund—DTSB). Accordingly, the objectives of competitive sport were laid down by the politburo of the SED’s Central Committee (ZK der SED). At the level of state administration the body responsible for sport, and also for sport sciences, was the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sport (Staatliche Komitee für Körperkultur und Sport beim Ministerrat der DDR), founded in 1952 and replaced in 1970 by the State Secretariat


for Physical Culture and Sport (Staatssekretariat für Körperkultur und Sport). The centralized supervision and management of sport, as analysed by Baur, Spitzer and Telschow on the basis of systems theory, made a substantial contribution to the success of top-level sport since, although the subsystem of sport was divided up into different specialized areas, it was at the same time embedded and functional in the overall system as a result of counter-differentiation processes as well as central control.39 Therefore, sources of friction that were to be found in the West German sport system (where, for example, conflicts between sports training and schoolwork had to individually solved) did not exist in the GDR. On the other hand, concealed behind the seemingly monolithic structure of sport were numerous complex disputes and power struggles. Responsibility for recreational and leisure sports as well as competitions, training and practice at the ‘sport for all’ level lay in the hands of the DTSB and its affiliated organizations.40 Sporting activities were provided and organized by Sportgemeinschaften (sports associations) which were affiliated to companies, businesses, educational facilities or state institutions. The links of these Sportgemeinschaften to their companies or funding bodies gave them access to a great many resources with regard to both equipment and staff. The traditional club system, which had undergone reorganization in West Germany, was not revived in the GDR and the founding of workers’ sports clubs was even forbidden. The organization of top-level sports is dealt with below. Within the context of this discussion the question arises as to the effects this system had on women, on their sporting performance and on their lives. WOMEN IN TOP-LEVEL SPORTS The great success of East German women athletes seems to disprove the hypothesis that gender arrangements had become established in sport, too. But is it really true—as repeatedly claimed not only in the literature but also by the women we interviewed—that gender played no role whatever in sport? Do the achievements of these athletes truly reflect ‘gender equality’ in the GDR? Are they really an expression of the ‘socialist personality’ and attributable to the social system which existed in East Germany?

Source: Karlheinz Gieseler, ‘Das Leitungs? und Leistungs? System der Körperkultur in der DDR’, Sportwissenschaft XIII (1983), 120.

THE TOP LEVEL SPORT SYSTEM OF THE DDR

FIGURE 11.1



FIGURE 11.2 THE GERMAN GYMNASTIC AND SPORT FEDERATION (DTSB der DDR)

Source: Karlheinz Gieseler, ‘Das Leitungs- und Leitstungs-System der Körperkultur in der DDR’, Sportwissenschaft XIII (1983), 12.


The Achievements of East German Women Athletes It was the superlative achievements of particularly its women athletes that gave East Germany its prestige as a sporting nation of world class and contributed to its international recognition. From 1953 to 1982, for example, approximately 40 per cent of all world championship and European championship titles that were won for the GDR were won by women, although the number of championships open to women was small in relation.41 A breakdown of the lists of competitors at the Olympic Games since 1956 according to gender and nation reveals that the proportion of female athletes in the GDR’s delegation in the whole period was considerably higher than the average figure and also higher than the proportion of women in the West German team. Further, the East German women were much more successful than those from West Germany: In 1988, although women were represented in 160 teams, only 28 countries (18 per cent) won any women’s medals and 79 per cent of the medals were won by seven countries: five eastern bloc countries, the USA and West Germany; 23 per cent alone were won by women of the German Democratic Republic.42 Moreover, the medal lists of the nine Olympic summer games between 1956 and 1988 show that, if one takes into account that the Olympic regime of events is limited for women and that therefore the number of female athletes in the GDR delegation was lower than the number of men, East German women were consistently more successful than East German men. In 1980, for example, the 36.4 per cent of the GDR’s delegation who were women won 49 per cent of the country’s medals.43 Indeed, in certain sports women athletes from the GDR set new standards, for instance in swimming as well as in several track-and-field disciplines. In the mid-1980s, for example, East German women held the world records in the 100, 200 and 400 metres running events. Marita Koch’s incredible record time of 47.60 for the 400 metres, set in 1985, is still valid today. East German women athletes thoroughly discredited the myth of the ‘weaker sex’. At least as far as sporting achievement and success is concerned, women in the GDR seem to have been more than ‘equal’. The question that must be asked, however, is whether this ‘emancipation’ covered all areas of top-level sport and


whether it had any effect on other areas of sport and/or other social spheres. THE CAUSES AND THE CONDITIONS OF THE GDR’S SPORTING SUCCESS The Competitive Sports System The causes of the success of East German sport are to be attributed primarily to the favourable conditions that existed for sport in socialism. The reasons given today by former East German sports functionaries such as Günter Erbach, former State Secretary for Physical Culture and Sport, are the following: • recognizing, selecting and supporting talented young people; • laying scientific foundations for training; planning and accompanying training with scientific measures; and scientifically based progress in the development of apparatus; • the systematic education and continuous training of coaches and the encouragement and support of young generations of sport scientists; • providing medical and psychological care (according to Erbach the aim of this was to maintain health, prevent damage, take preventive measures and restore athletes to health quickly after injuries);44 • linkage of athletic training and doing sport with education or vocational training; • providing the necessary materials, especially with regard to sports facilities and apparatus; • central and uniform management of the whole process including logistics; • motivating the athletes through socialist patriotism and internationalism.45 The most important of these factors, listed by East German functionaries and academics, were the system of identifying and selecting talent, the systematic and expensive backing given to young generations of athletes and the unproblematic combining of sport and education or work.46 The 1950s and 1960s saw the development of an effective system of seeking and promoting young talent which was based, among other things, on an extensive system of competitions and which was perfected in the 1970s. The most effective instruments of selection from 1965


onwards were the Spartakiaden, competitions for children in many types of sport. Thousands upon thousands of children competed in the Spartakiaden at school, county, regional and, ultimately, at national level, at which the very best athletes then competed against each other.47 From 1973–74 onwards, series of tests were carried out annually in the first and third school years and 25,000–30,000 children were selected to undergo a course in various sports at a training centre over a period of (usually) three years.48 After a lengthy and complicated process of selection, the most talented of these children, around 10,000 in number, were admitted to the second level of athletic training coupled with state support (2. Förderstufe) and were generally sent to attend one of the children’s and youth sport schools (Kinder- und Jugendsportschulen—KJS).49 The success of the training centres and in particular the KJS schools was due, firstly, to their distribution over the entire country (in the 1980s there were roughly 1,700 training centres); secondly, to the careful attention that was given to the children by over 10,000 professional and voluntary coaches and trainers;50 and, finally and most importantly, to the close cooperation that existed with the ‘normal’ schools at which the initial selection process took place. The KJS schools allowed their pupils a ‘two-track’ orientation, guaranteeing that a sporting career was reconcilable with school education. In this way, conflict was avoided between the two divergent systems of education and sport by adapting the organization of the school timetable to the requirements of athletic training. A number of measures, ranging from extra tuition to the so-called ‘stretching’ of the curriculum (i.e. extending the time spent at school), enabled the pupils of these schools to obtain normal school-leaving qualifications, as a rule the Abitur, which allows German pupils to go on to university study. Thus it was possible to have both a career in sport and a career outside sport.51 Furthermore, in vocational training, university study or even later at work, sport could be given priority without having to abandon one’s career aims. The highest level of athletic training (3. Förderstufe) took place in sports clubs, which in the GDR were not sports clubs in the traditional sense but training centres with excellent resources with regard to both staff and apparatus—considering GDR standards in other areas. They provided ideal conditions for the cadres of top-level sports, and were centrally controlled and funded by the state.52 In these clubs outstanding sportsmen and women underwent training following an extensive selection and testing process. They were divided into three categories of performance and assigned to either an educational


institution or a state employer. The employer was obliged to grant sports club members leave of absence for training and competitions. At the lowest performance level, occasional leave of absence was granted; and at the intermediate performance level, athletes were granted leave of absence for up to 16 hours per week. The members of the national ‘cadre’ were freed from all other occupational/professional commitments Of key importance in their training were the ‘planning and control’ procedures, i.e. precise plans concerning the athletes’ expected future performance (aimed at Olympic success) as well as the comparison of actual performance with ‘targeted’ performance. In cases where athletes failed to meet expected ‘targets’ of performance, a diagnosis of the causes was made and strategies were implemented to bring improvement.53 At the end of each ‘planning cycle’, i.e. after each Olympic Games, a ‘balance sheet’ was drawn up that always included an analysis and an evaluation. This system of selecting and promoting young talent was also recognized by West German sport scientists as being one of the main reasons for the sporting success of the GDR. In addition to these they pointed to further causes of East Germany’s ‘sporting miracle’ which Erbach and others with ‘inside knowledge’ of the system had either failed to mention or at least failed to emphasize.54 These include: • the enormous resources of both staff and money that were invested;55 • the significance that financial security/remuneration had for the athletes as well as their excellent career prospects; • the system of material and non-material incentives (e.g. privileges that were mostly unattainable for ‘normal’ citizens, such as travelling abroad, cars and honours and awards); • centralized governance and control that made possible the coordination and cooperation of the subsystems, e.g. sport and education; and • doping. West German researchers also drew attention to the fact that sport was the only subsystem in East Germany in which there was consistent orientation to performance and also a system of selection and sanctions which was predominantly performance-related, whereas in other areas, e.g. the universities, ‘political correctness’ was given the highest priority. All in all, emphasis was laid on the great significance of centralization and the efficiency and complexity of the system of top-level sports.56


Moreover, in West German discourse on the GDR’s sport system before and after German reunification it was pointed out that a high price—both literally and figuratively—had to be paid for these sporting successes.57 The negative sides of the system, e.g. with regard to the KJS schools, were for example the great burdens that training brought with it, early specialization and ‘de-selection’ when standards of performance were not met. The effects that this had on the children and adolescents affected has never been systematically studied. From the reports of individual cases, however, one may assume that cases exist in which children and adolescents suffered traumatic experiences.58 Girls and Women in the Elite Sports System Whether—and, if so, to what extent—the same opportunities existed for girls as they did for boys in the GDR’s elite sports system and whether in the training centres and KJS schools gender roles were instilled and appropriated are questions that have yet to be investigated. In both the sources and the literature, reference is made merely to children and adolescents, and no differentiation of gender is made either in procedures or rules. There is one exception to this, however: in the process of spotting and selecting talented young athletes for admission to training centres or KJS schools, different criteria were applied to boys and girls with regard to physical attributes and standards of performance.59 Nor was there any mention of the fact that girls were never coached in ‘male’ sports such as football or that boys were never coached in ‘female’ sports such as rhythmic gymnastics, since this was something that was completely taken for granted. On the other hand, major differences between the sexes were to be found in the admission of boys and girls to basic training (the first stage of state support). In 1985, for example, about 10,000 boys but only 5,000 girls were taken into consideration.60 This had to do with the difference in the number of men’s and women’s Olympic disciplines, since even in the 1970s women were only allowed to take part in less than a quarter of all Olympic events.61 Thus in the first level of athletic training (1. Förderstufe), i.e. in the training centres, over twice the number of boys underwent coaching (i.e. almost 46,000 boys and around 21,000 girls in 1986). This ratio of boys to girls continued into the 2. Förderstufe, in which, for example in 1986, roughly 6,000 boys and 3,000 girls attended a KJS school.62 What effects this dominance of boys at the sport schools (at least in numbers) had; how the boys and girls coped with school, training and contests; how they got along with each other as well as with their male and female teachers, coaches and supervisors;


and, in general, how they coped with the demands made of them and with everyday life are issues that require a separate study. REASONS FOR THE FRÄULEINWUNDER IN GDR SPORTS Here, however, the question arises as to why the GDR sport system was evidently more effective in women’s sports than in men’s sports— why it was above all women who reacted to it with an extraordinary increase in performance and thus with outstanding sporting success. As already mentioned, in East Germany this question was mostly answered stereotypically by pointing to the equality of the sexes and the excellent conditions which the socialist system offered. In his book Women and Sport Kurt Märker, a doctor, asserted, for example, that the numbers of women competitors and their successes at the Olympic Games were proof enough of the ‘effect produced by the promotion and support of sport as an integral part of the education and training system in socialism, based as it is on equality correctly understood’.63 Activity in some kind of sport was considered a part of the all-round socialist personality as well as being both a prerequisite and a result of emancipation. In her article on the ‘causes and background of the successful development of women’s competitive sports in the GDR’, Gummel asserted: Here, our top sportswomen have benefited from the fact that to an ever increasing extent our socialist society provides the conditions and the prerequisites which enable women to make full use of their equal rights and to fulfil their duties in their work, in social life and the life of the family as well as in sport.64 As has been repeatedly shown in this essay, however, there was always a great discrepancy between ideology and reality. The causes of the Fräuleinwunder in East German sport are as manifold as they are multifaceted. Moreover, they are closely interwoven with the great political significance attached to sport. For sport, one of the consequences of the cold war was that the socialist countries discarded the myth of the ‘weaker sex’ and the traditional ideals of femininity. Standards were raised, along with the degree of difficulty in training and contests; training sessions were intensified to the limits of the athletes’ endurance and in this way socialist countries, the GDR in particular, took the lead in women’s sports relatively quickly. This can be clearly seen, for example, in the controversy over


women’s gymnastics in the 1950s. The performances of Soviet women gymnasts in 1952 and the degrees of difficulty they mastered led to a revolution in the sport, which the sportswomen of East Germany helped to spread. In other sports, too, the intensity, scope, pressure and forms of training—in men’s and women’s sports alike—were primarily or even exclusively oriented towards criteria of effectiveness. Even if gender differences are taken into account, girls’ performance levels were lower than those of boys. Therefore it was possible to achieve a greater rate of increase in performance among women than among men. And because women’s sport played rather a marginal role in Western countries, female athletes from the GDR encountered weaker opponents than themselves and so had a great advantage in competitions. The eminent sports doctor Israel, for example, commented: With the perfecting of training methods (for both sexes) the rate of development among women is roughly twice as high as it is among men in the majority of precisely measurable results. This tendency, which continues, attests to the objectively lower initial levels of performance and to the hitherto unused physical reserves of the women 65 Looking back, Manfred Ewald, for many years the president of the DTSB, confirms the importance attached to intensifying the pressure of training in women’s sport. In the 1960s, in order to outperform the USA in swimming, the scope of training was extended, the exercises became more difficult (among other things through the use of artificial currents) and, above all, the amount of weight training, both general and specific, was increased. These measures made it possible for the women swimmers to defeat their American opponents in various disciplines. In this connection Ewald affirms: ‘The increase in weight training definitely led to a greater development of muscles.’66 Successfully performing on the stage of top-level sports was far more important than any consideration of ideals of femininity which still may have existed. A further worldwide development that was seized upon and given special emphasis in the GDR in order to swell its ‘harvest’ of medals was bringing forward an athlete’s peak of achievement to an increasingly earlier age. This applies solely to girls and in particular to sports requiring a high degree of coordination like gymnastics on apparatus, rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating and springboard diving, disciplines in which the basic motor skills are taught when children are


old enough to go to school and peak performance is reached as early as 14 years of age.67 The child gymnasts of the Soviet Union and Romania, who dominated the gymnastics events of the 1970s and 1980s, served the GDR as models, while opposition to ‘children’s competitive sport’ was growing in Western countries. Indeed, the West German Gymnastics Federation (Deutscher Turnerbund) worked hard in international sports bodies—at first in vain—to have age limits raised.68 By contrast, East Germany did all it could to exploit this trend. Since being capable of the highest achievement in sport requires eight or nine years of intensive training, the girls, who had already been selected at pre-school age, had to begin training in the above sports at the age of six. For this reason it was decided in 1977 to admit girls to the KJS schools in the third class rather than the fifth, as was previously the case. (Boys were not admitted until the fourth class.69) Thus, beginning systematic training at an early age (for girls even earlier than for boys) was a component of the GDR sport system70 which contributed to the Fräuleinwunder of East Germany on the stage of world-class competitive sports—not least because in many other countries children’s competitive sports were taboo.71 ‘THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO SWIM, NOT SING…’ — THE DOPING ISSUE And, last but not least, women’s sport in the GDR was so successful because a number of ‘manipulations’ had a much greater effect on the female body than they did on the male body. I cannot, here, go into the controversy over doping and its causes and effects. Neither can I deal with the borderline between permissible and prohibited manipulations, or the medical, ethical and practical problems arising from doping. I would simply like to point out that doping was (and is) a general problem related to sport as a whole and played a role not only in East Germany—as was frequently suggested in the media. Characteristic of the GDR was the huge importance it attached to sporting success for the state and all the people and institutions involved, from the athletes and coaches to the DTSB. What could be more expedient than resorting to ‘supportive measures’ —or ‘UM’ (unterstützende Mittel) in GDR sports terminology—when all other means had been exhausted? In contrast to Western countries, what was characteristic of the GDR was the systematic and state-controlled nature of the doping, partly without the knowledge of the athletes themselves.72 According to Spitzer, an authority on the subject, what


happened in the 1970s and 1980s might be described as the ‘conspiratorial and compulsory practice of state-imposed doping’.73 However, the first signs of the medical manipulation of performance are to be found much earlier. The way to ‘compulsory doping’ was paved by the use of hormonal contraceptives on women as a means of increasing performance. This method of influencing performance was put into practice as early as 1964 at the Olympic Games. In the years that followed, an increasing number of female athletes showed visible signs of anabolic steroid misuse—which was constantly played down, however, by both coaches and sports officials. ‘They are supposed to swim, not sing’ was how a GDR coach reacted when a journalist commented on the mountainous muscles and deep voice of Kornelia Ender. Ender went on to win four gold medals and one silver medal in swimming at the Montreal games.74 The consequences of doping were (and still are), among other things, the absence of menstruation, voice change, increased libido and what might generally be called ‘masculinization’. In the meantime, former GDR sports officials and doctors have in many cases been tried and sentenced for prescribing anabolic steroids to athletes. And, in the meantime, too, some of the women affected have started to go onto the offensive, making the consequences of doping both visible and public, seeking the payment of damages and demanding the punishment of the perpetrators.75 Although no exact figures are available (and probably never will be), it is likely that female athletes refused the ‘supportive measures’ much more often than men. This assumption is supported by the fact that the effects of these ‘measures’ on women athletes’ bodies and health were much more direct and much more serious than on men’s. The usual reaction of coaches and sports officials to a female athlete’s refusal to take drugs was ‘de-selection’; however among successful athletes persuasion was tried, but pressure was also exerted. The accusations of ‘masculinization’ were countered, among other things, by demonstrating on other occasions the women athletes’ femininity. IN PLACE OF A SUMMARY: BETWEEN IDEALS OF FEMININITY AND SPORTING SUCCESS— GENDER ARRANGEMENTS IN TOP-LEVEL SPORT As shown in detail above, women’s top-level sports were promoted irrespective of either prejudices towards women or feminine ideals. On the other hand, the list of sports promoted by the state and ruling party displayed a distinctly gender-based pattern. Accordingly, women were


excluded from many sports like weightlifting, boxing or ski-jumping, and a great number of sports ranging from football to cycle racing remained more or less male preserves, even in the GDR. Although in the 1970s, for example, women’s football established itself as an international competitive sport, it was not promoted by the state. Indeed, in many respects obstacles were put in its way and, right until German reunification women could only play football as a recreational sport.76 In judo, too, women unquestionably ‘played second fiddle’. Documents circulated at the executive meetings of the East German Judo Federation demonstrate that GDR representatives in international bodies blocked the inclusion of women’s judo in international sports competitions. By contrast, rhythmic gymnastics, a women’s sport in which men were completely excluded, were among the sports which received special support from the state. The disparity between ideal promotion and the funding available led in 1969 to the DTSB’s decision to concentrate all resources on sports likely to earn medals for the country. If costs and benefits were taken into consideration, for example, individual sports were doubtless more ‘costeffective’ than team games, in which many players could only win a single medal. Sports were thus divided into different categories, and only those disciplines in the category ‘Sport I’ were promoted at the international level. Only 11 of the altogether 18 ‘Sport I’ sports were open to women competitors, and all women’s team sports with the exception of volleyball were excluded from ‘intensive promotion’. (In later years, however, women’s handball was re-included in the category of ‘Sport I disciplines’.77) While the IOC and international federations wished to enlarge the list of women’s events in the 1980s, the leading East German sports officials endeavoured—on account of the economic crisis—to keep the number of Olympic disciplines as small as possible. At the same time this meant, in effect, blocking the internationalization of further women’s sports. A traditional gender order is conveyed even in sports that were open to both sexes because the contents differ considerably depending on whether they are played by men or by women. In women’s artistic gymnastics, for instance, both the exercises and the apparatus are different from those of men’s gymnastics. And in figure skating, a classic example of the disciplines in which East Germany excelled, gender is presented—sometimes in exaggerated fashion—by both men and women in single competitions but especially in pairs skating.78 It must be borne in mind in this connection that the admission of men and/or women to a sport is regulated by the international federations responsible for the sport concerned and that the exercises,


rules and presentations are to a large extent prescribed by the same federations. Infringing upon the conventions of gender duality (women figure skaters appearing in trousers, for example) would have jeopardized the country’s chances of success—and success was vital in order to be able to demonstrate the superiority of the socialist system. As demonstrated above by the example of judo (as well as by the many other sports which were gradually made accessible to women), there were indeed ways and means of achieving access to sports and contests for women, too; but, at the same time, it was necessary to take into account the high costs of international elite sports. Each additional women’s Olympic discipline would have required financial resources that had already been earmarked for other social spheres or for other (male) sports. This was also one of the reasons why in East Germany the traditional gender roles were not only never called into question in sport but were even publicly encouraged. Opposition never surfaced because gender arrangements in sport were congruent with gender relations in the society as a whole. Moreover, ‘normalizing’ and ‘naturalizing’ processes prevented reflections and discussions on gender differences and gender hierarchies, thus contributing to the reinforcement of the gender order. In summary it can be said that in East Germany the selection and support of talented young athletes as well as the methods and conditions of their training were subject to strictly defined criteria based on effectiveness and oriented to sporting success, which had immense political significance.79 The criticisms raised by Western countries in the 1960s and 1970s about the effects of top-level sports on girls and women and their fears of physical and mental harm that elite sport might inflict upon the ‘weaker sex’ either did not exist in East Germany or at any rate did not have any influence on decision-making. This ‘lead’ given to East German women athletes in the area of state support and training undoubtedly contributed to their being considerably more successful in the international sports arena than their fellow countrymen. Their success had to be embellished, however, by demonstrations of femininity and, above all, it was necessary to counter accusations of ‘masculinization’. Ilona Slupianek, Olympic gold medal winner in the shot put, commented on the contradiction between the requirements of sport and female attractiveness as follows: I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t go to the hairdresser’s or to the beautician. How I look is important to me. I may not have the figure of a model but I keep control over my body. There’s got to


be lots of brawn behind a shot put if you want it to go 22 metres. But I couldn’t stand an ounce of fat on me—or being unshapely. The days are gone when women shot putters were fat. I think my generation of women athletes looks quite presentable. At least, I have enough self-assurance to think so for myself, and I would certainly hate not to be able to wear the same clothes or have the same hairstyles or wear the same make-up as other young women.80 Ruth Fuchs, the well-known javelin thrower, remembers that smart appearance was expected of the women athletes in particular. Hence she had sent a petition to leading sports officials, asking them to consent to new, fashionable outfits for the sportswomen.81 In such sports as apparatus gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics or figure skating, in which performance is judged with regard not only to technique but also to presentation, importance was also attached to the demonstration of femininity. Therefore, the girls were trained to smile even while executing the most difficult of figures. Men, by contrast, were allowed to (or even had to) present a suitably concentrated expression for the exercise they were performing. Reconciling elite sport with being a woman was also propagated by East Germany’s mass media. Thus, in the sports reporting which was systematically analysed as part of a project which I headed, there was no glorification of femininity and female attractiveness, as is the case in Western media. However, as already pointed out above, the ‘masculinization’ of the body did indeed become a problem at the individual level. This is revealed in autobiographical texts by former competitive sportswomen in which it is becomes clear that, even in the GDR, there were relatively strict ideals of beauty and femininity. In sports reporting as well as in specialist literature on sport, topics such as relationships with a partner and motherhood are described as being largely unproblematic and, on the whole, satisfying: ‘A large number of our best sportswomen are happily married and have fulfilled their wish of having children.’82 The fact that women were able to combine their duties at work, in society, in sport and in the home was in keeping with the prevailing understanding of gender equality in the GDR. This seems to be confirmed by the biographies of many top sportswomen, including even the most famous. They were not only ‘diplomats in tracksuits’ but, as idols, they also served as role models: they were expected to embody the socialist ideal of womanhood and prove that political commitment; sporting success and motherhood/femininity were all entirely compatible.


NOTES 1 . This contribution is based on a research project funded by the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft. The research team, which I headed, analysed literature published in the GDR, the material of the relevant organizations and bodies, i.e. the DTSB (Deutscher Turnund Sportbund) of the GDR, the State Secretariat for Physical Culture and Sport as well as the Politbüro (the policy-making body of the Communist Party in the GDR). Added to these are studies carried out in children’s and youth sport schools, in GDR sports associations (Sportgemeinschaften) and sports training centres as well as analyses of the contents of the sports reports of selected newspapers. Further, interviews were carried out with GDR sportswomen and also with women who were not active in sport. 2 . Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 5; see also Ulrich Beck, Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986); Ulrich Beck, Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus. Antworten auf Globalisierung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997); Therese Wobbe and Gesa Lindemann (eds.), Denkachsen. Zur theoretischen und institutionellen Rede vom Geschlecht (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994); Andrea Maihofer, Geschlecht als Existenzweise. Macht, Moral, Recht und Geschlechterdifferenz (Frankfurt am Main: Helmer, 1995); Stefan Hirschauer, ‘Wie sind Frauen, wie sind Manner. Zweigeschlechtlichkeit als Wissenssytem’, in C.Eifert et al. (eds.), Was sind Frauen? Was sind Männer? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im historischen Wandel (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1996), pp. 240–57. 3 . Carol Hagemann-White, Sozialisation. Weiblich—Männlich? (Opladen: Leske+Budrich, 1984); Carol Hagemann-White, ‘Die Konstrukteure des Geschlechts auf frischer Tat ertappen? Methodische Konsequenzen einer theoretischen Einsicht’, Feministische Studien, XI, 2(1993), 68–78; Carol Hagemann-White, ‘Wie (un)gesund ist Weiblichkeit?’, Zeitschrift für Frauenforschung, XII(1994), 20–28; see also Robert W.Connell, Gender and Power. Society: The Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge: Polity/Blackwell, 1991); Gertrud Lehnert, Wenn Frauen Männerkleider tragen. Geschlecht und Maskerade in Literatur und Geschichte (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997). 4 . Regina Becker-Schmitt, ‘Von Jungen, die keine Mädchen und von Mädchen, die gerne Jungen sein wollten’, in R.Becker-Schmidt and G.-A.Knapp (eds.), Das Geschlechterverhältnis als Gegenstand der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt/M. and New York: Campus, 1995), pp. 220–47; Karin Gottschall, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse und Arbeitsmarktsegregation’, in Becker-Schmidt and Knapp, Das Geschlechterverhältnis als Gegenstand der Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 125–63; Ulrike Teubner, ‘Das Fiktionale der Geschlechterdifferenz’, in A.Wetterer (ed.), Die soziale Konstruktion von Geschlechterdifferenzen in Professionalisierungsprozessen (Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 1995), pp. 88–99.


5 . Helga Bilden, ‘Geschlechtsspezifische Sozialisation’, in Klaus Hurrelmann and Dieter Ulich (eds.), Neues Handbuch der Sozialisationsforschung (Weinheim: Belz Verlag, 1991), pp. 279–301; Regina Becker-Schmidt, ‘Geschlechterverhältnis, Technologieentwicklung und androzentrische Ideologieproduktion’, in N.Beckenbach and W.van Treeck (eds.), Umbrüche gesellschaftlicher Arbeit (Göttingen: Schwartz, 1994), pp. 527–38. 6 . Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender, p. 13; Hirschauer, ‘Wie sind Frauen’, p. 247 also ascribes an important role to the ‘everyday representation of the social reality of the two genders through the body and its performing activities’. According to him it is the visualization of the social reality of the genders and the representation of gender that cements the concept of dual gender in our system of knowledge at both individual and institutional levels, thus causing it to become reality. See also Seyla Benhabib et al., Der Streit um Differenz. Feminismus und Postmoderne in der Gegenwart (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993). 7 . Geo Wissen, 26(2000), p. 43; Spiegel, 40(2000), pp. 252–3. 8 . Few studies have so far been carried out on ‘doing gender’ in sport. See especially Gabriele Klein, ‘Theoretische Prämissen einer Geschlechterforschung in der Sportwissenschaft’, in Ulrike Henkel and Sabine Kröner (eds.), Und sie bewegt sich doch! Sportwissenschaftlische Frauenforschung, Bilanz und Perspektiven (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1997), pp. 103–25; Ilse Hartmann-Tews and Bettina Rulofs, ‘Entwicklung und Perspektiven der Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung im Sport’, Kölner Forum, 1(1998), 3–13. 9 . Quoted in Jim McKay, Managing Gender (New York: State University Press, 1997), p. 22. 10 . Ann Hall, Feminism and Sporting Bodies (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1996). 11 . Gertrud Pfister, Sport im Lebenszusammenhang von Frauen. Ausgewählte Themen (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1999). 12 . The following observations, in which gender relationships in the GDR can only be outlined briefly, are based on statistical material as well as on research studies and evaluations undertaken almost exclusively by social scientists from the former GDR. 13 . Marlies Hempel (ed.), Verschieden und doch gleich. Schule und Geschlechterverhältnisse in Ost und West (Bad Heilbrunn: Jul. Klinkhardt, 1995), p. 65; Susanne Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR. Strukturelle, kulturelle und subjektive Dimensionen der Geschlechterpolarisierung (Opladen: Leske+Budrich, 1994). On the situation of women in the GDR, see also Gisela Helwig and Hildegard Maria Nickel (eds.), Frauen in Deutschland 1945–1992 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 1993); Heike Trappe, Emanzipatin oder Zwang? Frauen in der DDR zwischen Beruf, Familie und Sozialpolitik (Berlin: Akad. Verlag, 1995). On women in the labour market see Sabine Gensior (ed.), Vergeselhchaftung und Frauenerwerbsarbeit. Ost-West-Vergleiche (Berlin: Sigma, 1995). On women’s everyday lives, see Angelika Griebner and Scarlett Kleint, Starke Frauen Kommen aus dem Osten (Berlin: Argon, 1995); Ulrike Helwerth and Gislinde Schwarz, Von Muttis und Emanzen. Feministinnen in Ost- und


14

15 16

17 18

19

20 21 22

23

24

25 26

27 28 29 30

Westdeutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995); Gerda Szepansky, Die stille Emanzipation. Frauen in der DDR (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995). . Gertrud Pfister, ‘30 Jahre Frauenstudium in der DDR—eine Bilanz’, in Anne Schlüter (ed.), Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen? Zur Geschichte des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1992), pp. 255–81. . Quoted in Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, p. 125. . See ibid., p. 21 on the percentage of women employees in different sectors of industry (1952–89). On the percentages of men and women employed in educational professions, see Hempel, Verschieden und doch gleich. . Nickel, quoted in Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, p. 19. . In the opinions of all those interviewed, responsibility for the children lay ‘of course’ with the mothers. See, for example, Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, p. 302. . Hildegard-Maria Nickel, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse und Sozialisationserfahrungen im DDR Alltag’, in Frank Deppe et al. (eds.), Eckpunkte moderner Kapitalismuskritik (Hamburg: VSA, 1991), pp. 149– 65. . Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, pp. 44ff. . Nickel, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse’, p. 155. . In the 1970s and 1980s the following measures were introduced: the number of child care facilities was increased; working hours were reduced for mothers (although still on full pay) depending on the number of children they had; financial support in childbirth; interest-free loans for young married couples; financial support for mothers who studied; paid leave of absence from work for mothers to look after sick children; and paid holidays depending on the number of children; see Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, pp. 44ff. . See, for example, Gerd Meyer, ,Frauen in den Machthierarchien der DDR oder Der lange Weg zur Parität. Empirische Befunde 1971–1985’, Deutschland Archiv, IXX(1986), 294–311; Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR. . Cf. Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, pp. 268ff; Irene Dölling, Adelheid Kuhlmey-Oehlert and Gabriela Seibt (eds.), Unsere Haut. Tagebücher von Frauen aus dem Herbst 1990 (Berlin: Dietz, 1992); Griebner and Kleint, Starke Frauen; Helwerth and Schwarz, Von Muttis und Emanzen; Szepansky, Die Stille Emanzipation. . Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, p. 275. . Irene Dölling, ‘Über den Patriarchalismus in staatssozialistischen Gesellschaften und die Geschlechtsfrage im Gesellschaftlichen Umbruch’, in Wolfgang Zapf (ed.), Die Modernisierung moderner Gesellschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1991), p. 408. . Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, p. 51. . Gottschall, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse und Arbeitsmarktsegregation’. . Nickel, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse’. . Ursula Sillge, ‘“Wenn Du kein Kind hättest, würde ich denken, Du bist eine Lesbe!” Zur Situation lesbischer Frauen in der DDR vor und nach der


31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40

41 42

43 44 45

46

47

“Wende”’, in Uli Streib (ed.), Von nun an nannten sie sich Mütter. Lesben und Kinder (Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1991), p. 145. . Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR, p. 188. . Dölling, ‘Über den Patriarchalismus’. . Ibid.; Nickel, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse’. . Sillge, ‘Wenn Du kein Kind hättest’. . Günter Erbach, ‘Über Ideologie und Politik in der Entwicklung des DDRLeistungssports’, Beiträge zur Sportgeschichte 2(1996), 77. . Quoted in Jürgen Baur, Giselher Spitzer and Stephan Telschow, ‘Der DDRSport als Gesellschaftliches Teilsystem’, Sportwissenschaft, 27, 4(1997), 371. . On the historical development of the GDR, see Hermann Weber, Die DDR. 1945–1990 (München: Oldenbourg, 3rd Edn. 2000). . Lars Holger Niese, Sport im Wandel (Frankfurt/M. Lang, 1997), p. 102; Zu den Prinzipien der Sportführung vgl. u.a.Klaus Hennig, ‘Breitensportliche Kampagnen und Konstrukte’, in J. Hinsching (ed.), Alltagssport in der DDR (Aachen: Meyer & Meyer, 1998), p. 54. Werner Rossade, Sport und Kultur in der DDR (München: Tuduv, 1987), p. 213. . Baur, Spitzer and Telschow, ‘Der DDR-Sport’, 369–90. . See, among others, Hinsching, Alltagssport in der DDR; Jochen Hinsching (ed.), Breitensport in Ostdeutschland. Reflexion und Transformation (Hamburg: Czwalina, 2000), pp. 119–31. . Statistisches Jahrbuch der DDR (Berlin/Ost: Staatsverlag, 1983), p. 321. . Mary A.Boutilier and Lucinda San Giovanni, ‘Ideology, Public Policy and Female Olympic Achievement—a Cross-National Analysis of the Seoul Olympic Games’, in F.Landry, M. Landry and M.Yerlès (eds.), Sport… The Third Millennium (Sainte-Foy: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1991), p. 401; see also Erich Kamper and Bill Mallon, Who’s Who der Olympischen Spiele 1896–1992 (Kassel: AGON Sportverlag, 1992). . Kamper and Mallon, Who’s Who. . Erbach, ‘Über Ideologie und Politik’, 74–93. . Manfred Ewald, Ich war der Sport (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1994); Eichler, quoted in Sebastian Drost, ‘Endphase des DDR-Sports’, Beiträge zur Sportgeschichte (1998), Heft 6, 61–73. See also Karsten Schumann, ‘Zur Entwicklung des DDR-Leistungssports’, in Sport und Gesellschaft (ed.), Geschichte des DDR-Sports. Protokollband 1. 50. Jahrestag der Gründung des Deutschen Sportausschusses (Berlin: Spotless, 1998), pp. 71–6; Thomas Fetzer, ‘Der Spitzensport der DDR in den 70er und 80er Jahren. Gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz’ (unpublished master’s thesis, Free University Berlin, 1999). . For the following comments on the sport system, cf. Lorenz Völker, ‘Planung und Leitung des DDR-Leistungssports im Bezirk Halle (1980–1984)—eine Fallstudie’ (unpublished master’s thesis, Free University Berlin, 1998); Baur, Spitzer and Telschow, ‘Der DDR-Sport’; Grit Hartmann (ed.), Goldkinder— Die DDR im Spiegel ihres Spitzensports (Leipzig: Forum Verlag, 1997); Jochen Teichler and Klaus Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR in den 80er Jahren und im Prozess der Wende (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1999). . Hartmann, Goldkinder, p. 110.


48 . An excellent way of monitoring and testing children was provided by the children’s and youth Spartakiaden, held from 1965 onwards (Rudi Stemmler, ‘Kennziffern der physischen Entwicklung der jungen Generation in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der DHfK 3/4(1967), 85. In 1975 guidelines were drawn up for talent-spotting, the ‘standardized method of evaluation and selection for the training centres and training bases of the DTSB of the GDR’ (ESA); see also Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 114–15; Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR. 49 . On children’s and youth sport schools (KJS schools), see, for example, Wolfgang Helfritsch and Ulrich Becker, Dokumentationsstudie pädagogische KJS-Forschung (Köln: Strauß, 1993); Völker, ‘Planung und Leitung des DDRLeistungssports’; Fetzer, ‘Der Spitzensport der DDR’, p. 59. 50 . In the Halle district, for example, around 150 full-time coaches and around 500 exercise supervisors worked at 17 district training centres, 135 training centres and 40 training bases in the ‘first stage of state support’; cf Völker, ‘Planung und Leitung des DDR-Leistungssports’, p. 77; see also Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR. 51 . On the work of the training centres and on the children’s and youth sport schools, see Hartmann, Goldkinder; see also Helfritsch and Becker, Dokumentationsstudie, which contains an overview of the educational research of the sport schools. See also the curricula and training schedules reproduced in Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 122ff. 52 . See, for example, Völker, ‘Planung und Leitung des DDR-Leistungssports’; Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR. 53 . Baur, Spitzer and Telschow, ‘Der DDR-Sport’, p. 382, attribute the success of East German sportsmen and women to a combination of ‘commitment in fulfilling the “plan”; ritualized collaboration; and sublegal acts’. Decisive were the resolutions on elite sports passed by the Politbüro of the Central Committee of the SED (the state party), which were put into effect from DTSB level, to federation level, to individual training schedules. 54 . Cf. especially the summary in Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR, pp. 595ff. 55 . Ibid., pp. 88ff. According to this, 70–80 per cent of the financial and staff resources of the DTSB were reserved for top-level sports. 56 . Baur, Spitzer and Telschow, ‘Der DDR-Sport’. 57 . Teichler, in Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR, suggests a figure of 800 million East German marks for the elite sports budget. 58 . See, for example, Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 125–6. 59 . Cf. ibid., p. 115. 60 . Cf. ibid., p. 117. 61 . Gertrud Pfister,. ‘Women and the Olympic Games’, in B.Drinkwater (ed.), Women in Sport (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 13. 62 . Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR, p. 118. 63 . Kurt Märker, Frau und Sport aus sportmedizinischer Sicht (Leipzig: Barth, 1983), p. 16.


64 . Margitta Gummel, ‘Ursachen und Zusammenhänge für die erfolgreiche Entwicklung des Frauenleistungssports der DDR’, Theorie und Praxis der Körperkultur, XXX(1981), 35. 65 . Siegfried Israel and Ulrich Pahlke, ‘Zur Problematik geschlechtsspezifischer Leistungsvoraussetzungen’, Körpererziehung, XXXI(1981), 314. 66 . Ewald, Ich war der Sport, p. 126. 67 . It is not possible here to go into the causes and effects of top performance in childhood. 68 . Swantje Scharenberg, ‘Kunstturnen der Mädchen—Probleme und Initiativen im DTB’, in G.Pfister (ed.), Frauen und Leistungssport (Hamburg: Czwalina, 2002), pp. 91–101. 69 . The age of admission depended on the type of sport. Children selected for figure skating attended a sport school from the first class (Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR, p. 140). 70 . In other socialist countries, too, the beginning of training at an early age was typical. Some of the Western countries tried to fight this, but had to adapt to international regulations. 71 . See also the articles in Reinhard Daugs, Eike Emrich and Christoph Igel (eds.), Kinder und Jugendliche im Leistungssport (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1998). 72 . See also the documents in Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR, pp. 595ff. 73 . Using a wide variety of sources, Spitzer has drawn up a ‘historical overview of conspiratorial practice’: Giselher Spitzer, Doping in der DDR. Ein historischer Überblick zu einer konspirativen Praxis. Genese— Verantwortung—Gefahren (Köln: Strauß, 1998). See also Teichler and Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR. See also Brigitte Berendonk, Doping. Von der Forschung zum Betrug (Reinbek/Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1992); Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke, ‘Mit Virilisierung von Mädchen und Frauen zum Erfolg’, in Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 166–88. 74 . Hartmann, Goldkinder, p. 221; Klaus-Heinrich Bette and Uwe Schimank, Doping im Hochleistungssport. Anpassung durch Abweichung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995). 75 . See, for example, Ines Geipel, Die verlorenen Spiele. Journal eines DopingProzesses (Berlin: Transit, 2001). 76 . Cf.Gertrud Pfister, ‘Frauen-Sport-Politik in der DDR—das Beispiel Judo’, in K.Szikora et al., Sport and Politics: Sixth Congress of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport (Budapest: Semmelweis University, 2002), pp. 360–71. 77 . Parts of this resolution are reproduced in Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 75ff. 78 . On ‘doing gender’ in figure skating, see Gertrud Pfister: ‘Doing gender—die Inszenierung des Geschlechts im Eiskunstlauf und im Kunstturnen’, in Johan R.Norberg (ed.), Studier i Idrott, Historia och Samhälle. Tillägnade Professor Jan Lindroth på hans 60-årsdag 23. Februari 2000 (Stockholm: HLS Förlag, 2000), pp. 170–200. 79 . The aim was not, however, success at all costs. The political reliability of athletes was a precondition of state support. Children and adolescents from whom for whatever reasons conformity with the system was not to be


expected had no chance of getting into top-level East German sports, even if they were judged to have excellent athletic perspectives. Nor were children with close (‘First degree’) relatives in the West admitted to sport schools; see, for example, Giselher Spitzer, ‘Gläserne Sportler. Nachwuchssport als Sicherheitsrisiko’, in Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 127–32. 80 . Olympiakämpfer erzählen von Höhepunkten und Alltäglichem (Berlin: Sportverlag, 1983), p. 128. 81 . Klaus Ullrich and Ruth Fuchs, Lorbeerkranz und Trauerflor. Aufstieg und ‘Untergang’ des Sportwunders DDR (Berlin: Dietz, 1990), p. 44. 82 . Heidi Bierstedt and Margitta Gummel, ‘Sportliche Betätigung und Emanzipation der Frau’, Theorie und Praxis der Körperkultur XXV(1976), 846.

12 Fitness ‘Wars’: Purpose and Politics in Communist State-Building VASSIL GIRGINOV

The sport-military nexus has been well covered from historical, sociological, anthropological and other perspectives. Each perspective offers unique insights into the relationship between sport, militarism and war. One of the original contributions in the field, which uses a combined approach, is J.A.Mangan’s study of sport in Victorian and Edwardian periods and its contribution to the building of the British Empire. This is an evolving relationship, and as Jon Garland has recently observed, ‘whereas Mangan illustrated the way in which warfare was infused with sporting imagery in previous eras, popular cultural representations of sport in more recent times have relied heavily on militaristic rhetoric’.1 Thus, sport can be seen to instigate the rhetoric of war and vice-versa. The reasons will be explored below. In ‘The Sporting Spirit’,2 George Orwell coined the phrase that sport is ‘war minus shooting’. Since then, this metaphor has gained currency and sports literature is replete with ‘sports wars’ headings—such as ‘FIFA’s World Cup Wars’, ‘IOC declares war on ambush marketing at the Olympic Games’ or ‘Global war against doping in sport’. As with sport, modern warfare rhetoric has also changed and incorporated an association never encountered before. This is what Michael Mann called ‘spectator sport militarism’,3 drawing a parallel between the nature of modern war and the Olympic Games as being extensively shaped by the media. An interesting facet of this spectator sport militarism is the fitness link between military and media institutions. For example, American journalists were required to pass the US military fitness test in order to travel with US troops in the Persian Gulf. Orwell, however, was referring to professional sport, which constitutes only one part of sporting practice. There are various studies of the East-West sporting rivalry during the cold war that emphasize the use of international sport for gaining an ideological advantage for capitalist or Communist systems. There is, however, a paucity of


investigations that look at the internal logic and mechanisms that underpinned and sustained the involvement of the European Communist states in a domestic battle—the war for fitness. This contribution sets out to address a long-standing void in the literature, the use of organized competition for physical fitness as a social and political mechanism for mobilizing society in building a Communist state. It is argued that this centrally promoted process triggered several ‘wars’, reflecting fundamental tensions at three different levels of society: between state power and the interests of social groups; between the state’s economic capacity and the goal of mass fitness; and between people’s attitudes and patterns of participation. Despite the Communist state’s ideological and coercive powers, the project for mass fitness never materialized. This was partly because physical fitness was not portrayed as a desirable ideal to which people should aspire, but rather as a duty and achieved through competition. As the ideological, political and organizational pressures continued to mount, gradually the striving for fitness resulted in a series of conflicts, which could be described generally as an incongruity between a hypothesized reality and what was practically achievable. More specifically a war for the fittest, with different intensity and effect, emerged between state and social groups, various institutions involved, city councils, and grass-roots collectives such as sport clubs, schools and factories. The first section of this essay analyses the nature of the Communist state as an organizable whole in terms of its interests, power and representations and their effect on shaping the fitness project. The second section discusses competition as a chief social mechanism for achieving fitness for everyone. The third section looks at the project for physical fitness using Bulgaria as a case in point, as well as wider comparisons with other Eastern and Western societies. Finally, the fourth section examines some of the implications of this project in the form of several domestic wars. POWER, INTERESTS AND REPRESENTATIONS IN A TOTALITARIAN STATE The former Communist states of Eastern Europe are often uncritically referred to as totalitarian. From an analytical point of view this is not very useful, as cultural, political and economic differences in the theory and practice of Communism in those eight states outnumbered the similarities. As M.Rush comments,

FITNESS ‘WARS’ AND COMMUNIST STATE-BUILDING 259

the term ‘totalitarian’ clearly implies an absolute rather than a relative state of affairs, but for analytical purposes this is a disadvantage, since not only can it be argued that no society has ever been totalitarian in the absolute sense, but it means that a given society must be classified as totalitarian or not…applied therefore as a tendency rather than an absolute, totalitarianism is a more useful analytical tool.4 At the level of definition, two types have been advanced—the phenomenological (Z.Zhelev,5 Bulgarian president 1990–97; Friedrich6) and the essentialist (Lefort7), as both types of definition emphasize the supremacy of the political dimension in the societypolitics relationship. Accounting for the two approaches, Rush suggested a short definition of totalitarianism which helps to grasp its nature: ‘a social system involving the political control of and intervention in all aspects of public and private life’.8 This analysis, therefore, will use the term totalitarian to imply a tendency towards a uniform state conception of fitness and a system of competition for its implementation on a mass scale. A distinguishing feature of the constitution of totalitarianism is the achievement of a full closure between the state and civil society, which is based on the denial of the very principle which distinguishes them. As Claude Lefort put it, ‘it is the very principle of a distinction between what belongs to the order of power, to the order of law and to the order of knowledge which is negated’.9 Furthermore, the denial of the signs of division between state and society is linked intrinsically to the abolition of the signs of internal social division. What is rejected is the social heterogeneity of society, the existence of a variety of modes of life, behaviour and opinion, in so far as they contradict the image of a society in harmony with itself. These two moments of the totalitarian project, according to Lefort, ‘imply a de-differentiation of the agencies that govern the constitution of a political society’.10 The outcome of their imposition is the creation of a society with increased homogeneity and concern with the problems of its organization. In such a society, to quote Lefort again, the state alone appears to all and represents itself to itself as the sole instituting principle, as the great actor that possesses the means of social transformation and the knowledge of all things. It is the emergence of this ‘point of view of the state’—of a state potentially at the centre of power and knowledge—that makes possible the formidable expansion of bureaucracies, whose


members may cultivate their own interests and derive as much power and advantage as possible from it, on the alleged basis of their sovereign distance from those who are administrated.11 In a monumental work on The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt argued that ‘masses are not held together by a consciousness of common interest and they lack the specific class articulateness which is expressed in determined, limited and obtainable goals’.12 The argument here is that these people cannot be integrated into any organization based on common interest, such as political parties, professional bodies or trade unions. Contrary to the typical political-party approach based on the promise of exchange—‘vote us into power and we will serve you’ —the totalitarian movement offered in a unique way of bringing people onto the political scene. Unlike democracy or any other state form, a totalitarian regime creates a whole class of rulers. Claus Offe’s useful distinction between ‘class organizations’ and ‘policy-takers’13 helps to better understand this process. The former include those organized groups that play a key role in shaping an economy through their role in the market, and that seek to influence the state to help the market positions of their members. ‘Policy-takers’ on the other hand, are those collectives shaped not by the market, but by the state, and are responsible for implementation within the framework given by the state. Thus, the totalitarian state assumes a decisive role in shaping interests and behaviours. In the Soviet Union, Gorbachev14 himself has said that this bureaucratic class numbered 18 million. In Bulgaria, by 1989 this group in the field of sport was proportionally very substantial as well, having reached in excess of 4,000 professional sport policy-makers (this did not include technical and pedagogical staff). As this ruling class did not have a choice, its historical mission was to be in and to maintain power, and the organization of a nationwide competition for fitness was a breeding ground for that. When it seized power in 1944, the membership of the Bulgarian Communist Party amounted to only 15, 000, but 40 years later it reached 1 million members (every fourth working person; plus compulsory membership for all nine- to 19-yearolds in the Youth Communist League), recruited mostly from the industrial and agricultural masses. To explain the difference between a capitalist and a totalitarian state we have to examine the form of its representation. We do that by identifying the key representations which make up the ideological matrix of the totalitarian state system. Lefort discerned four such key


forms of representation: the People-as-One image, the organization, the social-historical creation, and that of society’s transparency to itself.15 The People-as-One image is an ideological construct based on the belief that in a Communist society there can be no internal division, no other division than that between inside and outside. Consequently, combined with the image of the Power-as-One it projects the proletariat as identical with the people and the party, the party with the leadership, and the leadership with an ultimate figure. There are two important strategic implications behind this notion: first, that the power is concentrated in an individual who embodies the unity and the will of the people, and can be represented by a great other—the ultimate figure of that power (the ‘Egocrat’ in Solzhenitsyn’s term); and, second, that the image can be affirmed if what is different from it is defined as alien or enemy. The totalitarian project can successfully accomplish the process of asserting people’s identity only if at the same time it points out the enemy. This process of double identification (with the people and the enemy) is best captured by the metaphor of the body. As the integrity of the body depends on the elimination of its parasites, so the pursuit of the enemy (in the form of regular ideological, organizational or ethnic purges) is seen as a form of necessary social prevention of ‘infection’. The People-as-One image is informative in that it reveals the social basis of support for a totalitarian (or fitness) project. It can be viewed as similar to Jessop’s ‘One Nation’ capitalist hegemonic project where the support of the entire population is mobilized through material concessions and symbolic rewards.16 The two images differ, due to the use of moral and physical coercion on the part of the totalitarian state. The strategic outcome of the first ideological representation is a justification for the introduction of Body Politics—establishing through a supreme body (the party) unity in every sphere of public life, including physical fitness and the performance criteria associated with it. This leads logically to the second form of ideological representation— the organization. The novelty of the totalitarian project is in its attitude to the entire society as a vast organization comprising a network of microorganizations. This new society is simultaneously organized and organizable. It is organized in the sense that every individual or collective member’s position and function is predetermined and exists within this organization. It is organizable—because it is perceived as an amorphous matter which lends itself to the intervention of the constantly working organizer, the builder of Communism. Effective organization also becomes the supreme criterion for gauging the action


and knowledge of the leader. As the next section reveals, fitness was deemed important by the state; thus its attainment was a duty of every citizen. As a result, political and sports leaders at all levels were entrusted with the responsibility of organizing its attainment. The next form of representation which complements the image of the organization is social-historical creation. It derives from the myth of social raw material offered to the power of the organizer, the creator of an already known future. The ideal builder of Communism, who was going to rule the world, was supposed to be physically fit. The last representation—society’s transparency to itself—rests on an irrational viewpoint of power possessing the total knowledge of reality which aspires to be society’s knowledge of itself. It developed as result of the merger between state and society, and bears clear implications for the practices of the organizer. Since he possesses the knowledge and the skills to organize society’s affairs, and his performance is assessed by the results of the organization, the most adequate framework for exhibiting this power appears to be the omnipresent mythical plan. The plan (or as it was always referred to, the ‘state plan’) represented the capacity of society to exhibit itself to itself, and following Marx’s prophecy of the inevitable victory of Communism worldwide, involved an ever-increasing spiral of organizational outcomes aiming to prove society’s progression. The effectiveness of Communist organization in the field of fitness was ‘demonstrated’ by the reports of sports organizations, which always claimed an ever-increasing trend of more participants, fitness-badge holders and competitions. Eventually, in 1983, after more that 30 years of continuous progress, fitness quotas for every collective were included in the state plan. What follows for the politics of fitness from the analysis of the totalitarian state and its forms of representation is a new and unprecedented approach to power based, as Arendt argued, on ‘supreme disregard for immediate consequences rather than ruthlessness; rootlessness and neglect of national interests rather than nationalism; contempt for utilitarian motives rather than unconsidered pursuit of self-interest; “idealism”, i.e., their unwavering faith in a ideological fictitious world, rather than lust for power’.17 Subsequently, this led to the introduction of the concept of Body Politics, comprising a uniform state strategy (based on the general interest as defined by the state) for the whole fitness movement, practical approaches for its implementation (a nationwide competition) and the ultimate criteria for its assessment (plan quotas). Arendt’s analysis described the power of the totalitarian state: ‘Power, as conceived by totalitarianism, lies exclusively in the force


produced through organization.’18 Most of all, it is social power representing society itself qua conscious. As the dividing-line between state and society disappears, so does the dividing-line between political power and administrative power, resulting in the state apparatus losing its independence from the Communist Party and its leadership. Another important implication of this process is that it blurs the boundaries of different state and sport bureaucracies by not fixing their prerogatives. The multiplication and duplication of administrative offices with party offices destroys all sense of responsibilities and competence. Thus the basis of bureaucratic power is not found in private property; it is not of a material kind. Instead, it is generated collectively and derived from the state-party power which possesses all the means of production. Furthermore, political power extends through the functionaries of the party and its coercive forces in every sphere of bureaucracy, but the status of individuals and institutions is never secure, whatever the reason—regular purges, reorganizations or ‘supreme considerations’. This is what makes totalitarianism politically possible—destroying any guarantee of competence in every sphere of the bureaucracy, including sport. Thus, all strategic decisions in the Communist period in Eastern Europe concerning the conceptual and practical policy orientations of sport and fitness were formulated by the state (i.e. the Communist Party) and given to sports organizations nationwide for implementation. Political intervention pervaded even the technical sphere of sport, the level of event organization and coaching. In totalitarianism the merging of the state and society, the identification of power and society, party and the state, and power and the position of the leader stems from the same necessity. (Totalitarianism is not dead—only European Communist totalitarianism.) By contrast with a democratic capitalist society, where power appears as an empty place, is not fixed by law or linked to a body, and is impossible to appropriate even by those who exercise public authority, in a Communist totalitarian state this logic is reversed, and power is materialized in an organ—a body capable of concentrating in itself all the forces of society. This explains why sports leaders in Communist Eastern Europe were acutely conscious about how important was the delivery of this imaginable fitness. They had a blessing to exercise their authority over various groups in instilling fitness, and many were prepared to do whatever it took to demonstrate their allegiance to the party ideal and the plan. L.Weiss and J.Hobson’s study on States and Economic Development19 helps us to understand the significance of the concept of dimensions of state power. Their study advanced the notion of the state’s


despotic and infrastructural power based on the difference between its penetrative and extracting capacity. They identified three key dimensions of state power: ‘penetrative’, which entails the ability of a state to reach into and directly interact with the population; ‘extractive’, referring to the ability of the state to extract resources from society; and ‘negotiated’, which in today’s societies is manifested in the capacity for coordinating the industrial economy and involves strategic institutionalized forms of collaboration between political and industrial actors. According to this classification, totalitarian regimes fall into the category of despotic (weak) states, as they can only generate low to moderate penetrative and extractive power. Perhaps to explain this seeming contradiction of the omnipotent totalitarian state, it is worth recalling a popular aphorism from totalitarian times: ‘They [the state] are lying to us for they are paying, and we are lying to them for we are working.’ Weiss and Hobson conclude that state strength increases with the effective embedding of autonomy, whereas state weakness ensues from despotic abrasion against society. This is the irony of state strength: the more autonomous a state is, the more isolated it is from social groups, with a low amount of economic and social energy created. Conversely, the more embedded a state’s autonomy through supportive social linkages, the more economic and social energy can be generated.20 In summary, the totalitarian state in Eastern Europe offered unprecedented powers to the Communist organizers of fitness. It gave them the concept, the target, the mechanism and the criteria for measuring the effectiveness of their organizational efforts. However, as this analysis demonstrates, the totalitarian state displayed complete disregard for individual interests; it was not in a position to penetrate and to extract power from its citizens and constrained sports managers’ competence and ability to decide independently. Sports managers’ efforts were further impeded by the lack of control over essential components such as human and material resources. These contradictions gave rise to a whole host of tensions which, in the field of fitness, resulted in various ‘wars’. Before we attend to these ‘wars’, it is instructive to examine the chief mechanism for attaining totalitarian visions of fitness: the competition.


THE DRIVE FOR FITNESS The drive for fitness on a competitive basis is rooted in the early ideas of Communism and can be found in the writings of Marx and Lenin. Marx, for example, emphasized the socially determinate character of human life and rejected the idealist philosophies promoting the notion of society as an abstract spirit or national will. He argued that ‘in socialism, free time becomes a period of full value development of the person only when it impacts on their labour productivity’.21 As sport and physical fitness in particular are practised predominantly in one’s leisure time, it follows that, according to Marx, they should bring in some utility in the form of productive labour. As the next section evidences, the fitness concept was clearly charged with this responsibility. Lenin, for his part, took Marx’s vision to a new plane. Labour in Communism was a duty to all citizens and everyone had a job. In How to Organize Competition, Lenin spelled out the importance of competition for the new state: Far from extinguishing competition, socialism, on the contrary, for the first time creates the opportunity for employing it on a really wide and on a really mass scale, for actually drawing the majority of working people into a field of labour in which they can display their abilities, develop the capacities, and reveal those talents, so abundant among the people whom capitalism crushed, suppressed and strangled in thousands and millions. Now that a socialist government is in power our task is to organize competition.22 What is more, Lenin also suggested two essential functions of competition—the ability to identify the enemy (the parasites) and to eliminate them. As he asserted, the rich and the rogues are two sides of the same coin, they are two principal categories of parasites which capitalism fostered; they are principal enemies of socialism;…they must be ruthlessly punished for the slightest violation of the laws and regulations of socialist society. Any display of weakness, hesitation or sentimentality in this respect would be an immense crime against socialism. In order to render these parasites harmless to socialist society we must organize the accounting and control of the amount of work done and the production and distribution by the


entire people…we must rouse among them—and organize on a national scale—competition in the sphere of organizational achievement.23 The implications for the fitness contest are clear. Once it had been decided under East European Communism that the pursuit of fitness was a state matter, people and organizers were urged to pursue it, in schools, sport clubs, universities and factories. Moreover, fitness norms were supposed to be covered only in a formal competition under strict regulations. Those who failed to comply with the official line were considered to have been lacking ‘Communist consciousness’ and had to deal with the harsh consequences that followed such a qualification. Lenin’s ideas were further developed during the Stalinist period. The foundation of Stalinist sport, as John Hoberman has commented, is the promotion of competition as a socially useful way of life. The official turn towards sport ‘productivity’ came in 1936, when the party ratified ‘a shift of emphasis from purely physical culture to physical culture with competitive sport as a means of politically socializing the population to the new prevailing norms, with emphasis on the utilitarian, ‘applied’ functions in preparing people for labour and defence…. The Stalinist athlete may be seen as a sportive analogue to the Stakhanovite worker of the mid-1930s, the heroic record-breaker who vastly overfulfilled the production quota to ‘build socialism’.24 In Eastern Europe by way of example, Bulgarian Communist leaders were quick to employ the rhetoric and the practices of their Soviet comrades, and to introduce them in the field of sport. The first party decision of 1949 did precisely that. It introduced the concept of ‘command competition’ which obliged all political committees, public, trade and voluntary organizations to take part in a nationwide competition for the ‘best sports work’.25 It may be argued that there is nothing wrong with competition, since it is a prominent feature of sport. However, the competition for ‘the best sports work’ was not about sport as such, but rather the work done by different sports administrations. The needs and satisfactions derived by people from participation never became an issue in national fitness policy. The rhetoric adopted at the beginning of the 1950s represents, exactly, the belief that, like the production field, sport should also be placed in a measurable framework and its progress directed by administrative decisions.


This was a period characterized by the ‘quantification’ of mass fitness according to ‘planned criteria’. This policy resulted in the creation of a working ethos aimed at satisfying the plan’s indicators. Furthermore, between 1958 and 1989 the strategy for sport adopted by the Bulgarian Union for Physical Culture and Sport (BSFS) was based on the concept of Spartakiad—a four-year cycle of formal competition, embracing all sporting events at local, regional and national level. This nationwide system of competition, as Haralampiev and Bankov have pointed out, involved three interrelated levels—state agencies, public organizations and collectives.26 In addition, there was a written managerial technology for implementing the system.27 A solid scientific grounding has always been used to justify various conceptions of sport, which in the mid-1960s were influenced by the ‘systems approach’. In contrast to the restricted geographical application of the MarxistLeninist theory, the systems school was an accepted conceptual tool worldwide. Systems theory has been interpreted in fitness management as proof of the need for centralization and unified direction. This approach provides a vision of sport as a system, comprised of different interconnected elements in hierarchical order. It holds that once a goal is established nationally, then it can easily be multiplied using ‘systems’ machinery. The following example illustrates the point. In 1962, the head of the state and of the Communist Party, Todor Zhivkov, told the newly appointed sports leaders of the BSFS that the party was not pleased with the tempo of development of physical culture, which he compared with that of a turtle. Moreover, he stated, ‘we, the members of the Politburo, have gained the courage to say in front of you: if we are moving at the pace at which our physical culture is developing at the moment, we could also achieve the norms of the GTO fitness complex.’28 This mixture of diplomatic and humorous language is very symptomatic also of two of the characteristics of the totalitarian state described above. First, it makes it clear that there is one supreme authority, the party, which decides on how the drive for fitness is fulfilled. Second, it destroys the sports leaders’ sense of competence and certainty because it implies that it is the party that possesses the ultimate knowledge of what is good for society and how it is to be achieved. But it was also this kind of language sports leaders feared most, as usually it was an indication that certain of them were about to be replaced. Ironically, the party leaders never identified themselves with the project for mass fitness nor did they ever set an example in that respect.


After the Olympic Games in Munich 1972, in a meeting with Bulgarian athletes, Todor Zhivkov confessed that he also had a fitness routine but people did not know about it. ‘And how could they?’ he said. ‘Imagine what would some people think when they see me exercise. They would say “Our state and the party must be pretty bad, Todor Zhivkov is jogging”.’29 This way of thinking was symptomatic of the ‘double standards’ of fitness—the discrepancy between words and deeds. Fitness, however, was high on all party and sports programme agendas and consistent efforts were made to ensure society support and involvement in this project. The next section details the evolution of the fitness concept and its utilitarian character. THE AIM OF TOTALITARIAN STATE: EVERYONE SHOULD BE PHYSICALLY FIT I argue that images and ideas of human activity in Western societies—along with attitudes to the shape, smell, and the look of the human body—are distinctly social and cultural products grounded in relations of power. The definition and promotion of good activity, good health, the good body, and the good life have always been (and continue to be) a matter of negotiations and struggle between powerful and less powerful social groups, often with markedly different understandings of how life should be lived.30 This statement from Richard Gruneau’s analysis of the politics and ideology of active living helps others to compare and contrast the notion of power as expressed in the field of fitness in totalitarian and non-totalitarian societies. Borrowing from Foucault, Gruneau contends that historically active living has been used by the West as a state-building activity, and there has been ‘increasing concern over the production of “ideal citizens”— or at least docile ones—and corresponding degrees of bodily discipline and health’.31 The similarity between totalitarian and non-totalitarian conceptions of active living (an essential element of which is fitness) lies in what for Foucault was a consequence of modernity, measured largely by a marked shift in the understanding of relations between the individual body and the body politic. More specifically, these relations concerned the emergence of the need to defend the integrity of the social body, and the replacement of the old forms of punishment with new ones of individual and group discipline. The difference from the


totalitarian notion of active living as described below is in state-society relations and the strategies for its implementation. The first Communist concept of physical fitness was introduced in Bulgaria in 1949 under the name Gotov za trud i otbrana (GTO, ‘Ready for Labour and Defence’),32 borrowing directly from the Soviet fitness complex GTO (Gotov k trudu i oborone—Ready for Labour and Defence). Ironically, this was the second attempt to implement the concept in Bulgaria, following the efforts of the monarcho-fascist regime to introduce it early in 1937. The ideological justification, of course, was different. Similar to the Soviet complex, it was not aimed at achieving targets in one particular sport, rather an all-round ability in a number of sports and knowledge of the rudiments of hygiene, first-aid and civil defence. One fundamental purpose behind a concern for corporal and general physical fitness is adequacy in military confrontation. Thus, it is not enough to build a totalitarian society; it must survive. And survival in war is as fundamental as survival in peace. Concern for general physical fitness is a form of militarism is thus a form of miitarism defined as a concern with the military adequacy of the whole society in preparation for confrontation in war. TABLE 12.1 THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF FITNESS IN BULGARIA, 1949–89

* Children aged 3 to 6 years were introduced to a modified fitness programme, which included six tests administered twice a year. All 4,823 child-care centres and 345,000 children were involved in a nationwide competition for fitness.

The Soviet GTO, as Jim Riordan has observed, as well as longer-term aims spelt out in the slogan above, was intended to achieve two immediate aims. ‘One was to extend the scope of sports participation, give everyone something to aim for,…and the second aim was to


establish a mass base from which potential “stars” could be drawn.’33 The Bulgarian fitness concept was no different, as it set out to achieve the same objectives. Table 12.1 shows the evolution of the fitness concept during the Communist period in Bulgaria. Four main conclusions can be drawn from this table. First, that the concept of fitness was highly utilitarian in character. It sought to develop certain desirable qualities in all citizens such as readiness for productive labour and defence through a multi-sports test. This was the basic principle on which the utility was built. Second, in line with the ever-increasing power of Communist organizers, and the belief that everyone should be fit, the scope of the concept was expanded from adolescents to encompass children as young as three years of age, and then to the whole working population. Third, the status of the fitness concept was also altered from a state minimum for physical education in one particular group to an essential element of the state plan by a Council of Ministers’ decision in 1983.34 The military element has always been a core constituent of the concept of fitness. However, it gradually lost its prominence as the name of the fitness complex suggests—shifting from a clearly military oriented activity, ‘Ready for Labour and Defence’ (GTO), to an all-round sporting test, ‘SM [Spozten Mnogoboy] Rodina [country]’, and eventually to a national set of fitness tests, ‘National Fitness Complex Rodina’ (NFC). Fourthly, the chief mechanism for achieving fitness for everyone was a nationwide competition. This involved not only sports establishments, but virtually all segments of society, including schools, universities, factories, educational authorities, trade unions and party committees, all brought together in a mass movement for ‘achieving the norms of the NFC Rodina’. Specific rules and regulations for monitoring the competition and a reward system for the best collective achievers were also established at all levels. The fitness norms for various groups were designed by groups of experts, and based on large-scale representative surveys. As a state-building activity, all three versions of the national fitness complex were given responsibility for forging and promoting four key interrelated processes pertinent to the Communist project: 1. Fitness as means for a channeled self-development. The 1949 version of GTO did not see fitness as a means of personal development, but rather as a duty to the state. Although the subsequent modifications adding to the development of courage, skills and love for one’s own country gradually allowed selfachievement and self-actualization to be introduced, the last edition


of the fitness complex, the NFC Rodina of 1983, further reinforced the original line that fitness was a duty. All fitness-badge holders were obliged to participate actively in the life of their collectives, to work voluntarily and to practise regularly to improve their results. 2. Fitness as a form of group identification. As already made clear, the totalitarian state never portrayed fitness as an individual pursuit. Rather, it was seen as a community obligation and necessity, and so it was to be pursued as part of a collective effort. The fitness badge was awarded to individuals, but their achievements were not celebrated and persons were not named. A nationwide movement was organized to promote collective identification with the club, class, school, town or region. 3. Fitness as a form of social mobilization. This third process was closely related to group identification. The group effort of various teams and organizations was deemed crucial for the success of the fitness movement. As the fitness complex was always introduced by a decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party or by a Council of Ministers’ decree, all governmental and voluntary organizations and the media were ordered to put in place action plans and measures to ensure the achievement of the targets set by the party-state. In response, the youth organizations, the sports and the tourists’ unions, the trade unions and the ministries of education and defence had to develop both joint and individual strategies for mobilizing their members in a mass fitness movement. 4. Finally, there was the fourth process which saw Fitness as a form of allegiance to party visions. This was an important ideological dimension of fitness, which aimed at asserting three key tenets of the totalitarian state: that everyone knew they had a responsibility (though blurred) in promoting fitness; that the party-state possessed the ultimate knowledge about what fitness is and how it should be instilled; and that a mass movement and regular checks served as constant reminders of the right direction and for loyalty to the party’s visions. This concept of fitness is different from that advocated by Gruneau, and the American notion of fitness in particular as described by Harvey Green.35 The difference is further reinforced by Donald Mrozek’s observation that from the 1930s ‘Americans showed a new attitude toward both play and sport, seeing these realms as sources of personal pleasure and fulfilment that needed little, if any, external social justification’.36


These four processes nurtured an environment which was characterized by a competitive ethos based on the notion of identification with a ‘state project’. Those who opted not to work hard or for their own projects were considered to be ‘against us’. Administrators from various institutions found themselves engulfed in a struggle for prestige and privileges. Although the most outstanding fitness achievement of a collective never received even a small share of the glamour and benefits awarded to a medal winner from an international sports tournament, being recognized as deliverer of fitness plan quotas improved leaders’ chances of promotion and more tangible resources for their organizations. Because the fitness competition was inscribed in a closed and centralized system of rules and control, which largely discounted the motivation of individuals, general fitness reports and the work of administrations became pivotal for the existence of the system. This in turn triggered a number of domestic ‘wars’ for privileges, which are discussed in the next section. THE FITNESS WAR: LIVING IN A FANTASY WORLD ‘Bulgaria must achieve in 25 years what other peoples have achieved in centuries.’37 This ambition of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov (1947–49), a hero of the Nazis’ Leipzig Reichstag trial in 1933, served as a guideline and justification in the pursuit of mass fitness. The political, economic and organizational framework for achieving this task was the omnipresent state plan, as an epitome of the supreme knowledge possessed by the party-state and the Communist organizer. Everything in the economy and society was subject to planning and approval from the top. The logic of the plan presupposed the setting of an ever-increasing spiral of measurable outputs and their over-fulfilment (mere fulfilment was not good enough), in which fitness was judged by the number of participants and badge-holders. Gradually, a network of sport clubs, responsible for organizing fitness competitions in schools, factories and residential neighbourhoods, also emerged. A clarification is needed here. The interpretation of the term ‘sports club’ will be rather conditional, as until 1989 three terms describing grass-roots bodies—councils, societies and clubs—were used interchangeably. Moreover, for 45 years no serious analysis appeared in the domestic sociological and organizational literature concerning the nature of these establishments, and administrative statistics have never been a reliable source.


The key ‘productive units’ of the national sports domain, however, were not the clubs but the sports societies (DFS) established locally. As Table 12.2 reveals, changes in the number of DFSs was a well-regulated process, exhibiting two complementary tendencies: the reduction in numbers of local clubs and centralization. In addition, after 1970 all DFSs were categorized into five groups according to a number of social and organizational factors. Those in group 1 and some in group 2 were assigned to produce elite athletes, whereas the rest (groups 2–5) were given the role of nurseries—to identify and select talent and provide initial training. By 1981 there were 19 DFSs in category 1, based in 12 of 237 towns nationwide, and more than half of the districts (16 out of 28) had no top teams or athletes. These two structural tendencies were also indicative of the sports system’s priorities and effectiveness, in which fitness was given a secondary place. TABLE 12.2 BULGARIAN SPORTS AND FITNESS ‘PRODUCTION UNITS’ AND MEMBERS BETWEEN 1958 AND 1988

Source: BSFS 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th congress reports.38–43

Formal membership in sports organizations was supposed to be both individual and collective. As clubs were not grounded on people’s real interests, individual membership quickly turned into a fiction. This issue for the first and only time was acknowledged in the BSFS’s founding congress report in 1958, stating that from the planned contribution of 800,000-leva individual and 950,000-leva collective membership fees, only 70,000 leva (9 per cent) and 617,000 leva (65 per cent) were collected respectively.44 The concept of collective membership fees needs a little elaboration. This was, in fact, a transfer from municipalities and the social-cultural activity funds of factories and institutions, which had been provided by the state, to the central sport governing body’s budget on a per-head basis. Thus this mechanism of transfer provided yet another positive correlation between fitness statistics and the allocation of funds. With the ideological, political and organizational preconditions in place, the ‘fitness conquest’ gained momentum. Sports administrations responsible for the success of the fitness project were quick to produce some impressive figures. Table 12.3 shows the number of fitness-badge


holders over selected years. It has to be noted, however, that despite a short period, between 1984 and 1989, when a more rigid and centrally computerized national system for monitoring the fitness of the population was introduced, fitness statistics should be interpreted with caution. Nonetheless, behind aggregate figures were the ambitions of thousands of local sports establishments striving for the best fitness results, as a good fitness report equated to moral and material rewards. TABLE 12.3 NUMBER OF FITNESS-BADGE-HOLDERS DURING COMMUNIST PERIOD

Source: BSFS 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th congress reports; Bankov.45

The competition between various establishments was not sufficient to instigate and to sustain fitness ‘wars’ at various levels. It was simultaneously grounded and critically hindered by three main incongruities. The first incongruity was between the task for mass fitness and the state’s available economic resources. Bulgaria’s economic growth was a statistical fiction, as it did not affect the people’s standard of living. In 1980 the country was ranked third in Europe and fifth in the world by the annual growth of industrial production, first in production of fork-lift trucks and cigarettes.46 These otherwise impressive statistics had very little if any bearing on the standard of living, as in 1976 the per capita expenditure on sports equipment and apparatus were 3.12 leva, and in 1981 4.03 leva (the cost of a pair of plimsolls).47 In addition to this, the fact is that the Communist economy ended its industrialization in 1989 with foreign debts of $10.5 billion, equal to 65 per cent ($16.3 billion) of the country’s annual exports,48 or $1,000 per head—an average annual salary. The BSFS’s fourth congress clearly addressed the discrepancy between ideals set to be achieved in fitness and the reality. In 1971, of 5,353 schools in the country with 1,500,000 pupils, only 850 (16 per cent) had a gym; in 1977 the figure was 23 per cent. The existing standards of provision of indoor space envisaged that each pupil should have between six and eight square metres, while the actual situation was 0. 11 square metres. Factories experienced the same problem. Nearly 70 per cent of the total of 6,000 factories had no sports facilities at all. Perhaps the most disturbing situation of all was in the newly built residential areas. It was reported that massive residential complexes


with some 15,000–20,000 inhabitants did not have a single square metre of space for sport.49 Despite the state’s apparent lack of economic capacity to make adequate provision, the ambition of mass fitness was not dropped and was pursued with even greater administrative zeal. Fantasy and hypocrisy went hand in hand. As the head of state, T.Zhivkov, admitted in 1980 to a selected circle of sport administrators and athletes, ‘we might not have the right resources to provide for sport for all, but we can always find some 40–50 million leva for our top athletes’.50 The second incongruity was between the inability of the totalitarian state to interact directly and to extract power from its citizens on one hand, and the process of formation of group interests and identities on the other. The state project for mass industrialization in fact represented a structural-creative process which inevitably evoked the transformation of the basic principles for structuring the society. The core of the socialist status order, as Duhomir Minev argued, was a ‘system of social rights, widely deployed but on a low level. A central axis of this system is the proverbial “right of labour”, but (and this is remarkable) transformed into a “duty of all socialist citizens”.’51 Civil rights were very limited, which prevented an independent third sector from developing in sport. The above process represented an essential step towards eliminating the demarcation between state and society and the merger into a Peopleas-One image. More essentially, it also had an important bearing on defining group interests as a precondition for forming strategies. As G. Dimitrov et al.52 have suggested, in order to prevent the forming of groups with consistent homogeneous statuses which could have provided them with clear consciousness about their place in the social hierarchy, the Communist Party used different ideological and economic mechanisms: labelling the working class the ‘vanguard’ of society with the mission of establishing a proletarian dictatorship; giving various sectors of the economy priorities and privileges; or poorly remunerating the highly prestigious labour of the intelligentsia. Professors’ salaries, for example, were never anywhere near those of bus drivers.53 In the words of Dimitrov and his colleagues, the dichotomy ‘social diversification-group identification’ (or at least consciousness of private interest) is extremely important from the point of view of forming civil society…. Sociologists have sufficient evidence suggesting that while the first process was


taking place, the second was at its starting point and was actively impeded by the ruling party.54 This comment helps us comprehend the transformation of the social base of sport and its structure and participation. As Communist society did not encourage individual exhibitionism, the pursuit of fitness was portrayed predominantly as a collective matter, which presupposed group identification and common interests. However, when most sport clubs and their membership were fictitious this was not easily achievable. This state of affairs leads to the third incongruity, which reflects the gap between people’s attitudes toward fitness and their real actions for achieving it. Data from sociological surveys show that more people wished to take part in sport and be fit than actually did. In 1989 the ‘wish/actually do’ ratio among school pupils was 92:46 per cent, among university students 75:28 per cent and employees 47:23 per cent. The picture was similar in 1991, with a 65:34 ratio for pupils, 70:39 for university students and for employees 63:27.55 Evidence from national sports governing bodies suggests that the percentage of the physically active population remained low. In 1971 only 16–17 per cent of pupils, some four per cent of workers and 1.4 per cent of people living in villages were practising some sport on a regular basis, and nearly 80 per cent of students failed the minimum fitness norms.56 Despite the BSFS’s sixth congress in 1982 painting a more optimistic picture, an alarming tendency persisted: more than 30 per cent of pupils, 70 per cent of workers and 90 per cent of villagers were not physically active and were failing to meet fitness norms.57 Totalitarian propaganda based on the belief that fitness for everyone was achievable and that it was within the reach of the organizer played down these three incongruities. This nurtured an environment dominated by fictions about the powerful state, mass enthusiasm for fitness and the impressive capabilities of the Communist organizer and his resources. The implications for the mass fitness project were four ‘wars’. The first level of the fitness ‘war’ involved the state versus society. The party-state and the class of sport ‘policy-takers’ continued tirelessly to produce visions and targets for fitness despite evidence of their inadequacy. This resulted in an atmosphere of hypocrisy where a little general criticism (the preferred expression was ‘we are still far from …’ in terms of everyone concerned, as opposed to the concrete ‘the executive Board failed…’) was considered healthy, but was always underpinned by a heavy dose of optimism about the future. People felt


confused and afraid to name things by their real names, thus continuing their tacit support for the status quo. There was a second ‘war’. The competitive striving for fitness also prompted animosity among cities. Sports-administrative clientelism developed on a large scale. It was particularly acute in the field of hosting regional and national fitness competitions and in resource allocations. It was a public secret that host teams were favoured and usually were among the winners. As there was no transparent bidding process with clear criteria for selection, decisions about granting the right to organize a fitness competition were taken by key sport and party officials. Cities vied for the privilege to host an event but behind the scenes informal ‘trading’ and an exchange of favours were taking place. The third fitness ‘war’ involved various institutions at the national level and their local branches. For more than 30 years, the party had assigned a voluntary sports governing body, the BSFS, the responsibility for delivering the mass fitness project. This task was clearly beyond its capacity, and the BSFS became involved in subtle but bitter institutional battles with the youth organization DKMS, the trade unions and the Ministry of Education. The main issue was to ease its burden by urging the party-state to assign equal responsibilities to these organizations, which were dealing with the same contingents of people. In an attempt to address the issue, the Council of Ministers produced several decrees: number 36 of 1972,58 ensuring standard annual state aid for sport for every member of any school or working establishment; number 63 of 1980,59 for improving the economic management of sport organizations; and number 3 of 1983, establishing an updated version of the NFC Rodina.60 However, in reality these measures blurred further the collective responsibility for fitness by delegating rights to other institutions, while still holding the BSFS accountable for the outcome of the fitness project. Perhaps the most overt and uncompromising of all struggles was the fourth fitness ‘war’ between collectives. The system of mass competition envisaged that all schools, universities and working establishments should participate in a four round competition—at grass-roots (within the school or the factory), local, regional and national levels. As winning points and rankings were the main indicators for meeting the plan’s targets, school and factory managers, sports administrators and athletes became involved in various unethical practices. Faking the identification papers of students and workers and cheating event protocols were the most common occurrences. It was a common practice during competition to see team leaders and coaches on


intelligence-gathering missions taking pictures and making inquiries about athletes’ backgrounds. These efforts were necessary to expose eventual cheats, as semi-professional athletes were easily transformed into students or factory workers. Subsequently, managers banned athletes from talking to strangers and expected everyone’s cooperation in covering up the fraud. Regular scandals and embarrassments tarnished the reputation of collectives and the fitness competition. THE FITNESS WAR: A CONCLUSION During the Communist period in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries, the project for mass fitness was presented as a state-building activity to ensure the successful survival of society. In line with the notion of the Communist society as both organizable and organized, mass fitness became charged with contributing to forming group identities, mobilizing mass support for party policy and serving as a testing ground for members’ allegiance to society’s aspirations. Originally, mass fitness was directly associated with the military and industry-fitness for war and productivity—but gradually it has evolved to incorporate such wider social objectives as collective political allegiance and corporate uniformity of identity. The chief social mechanism for achieving general fitness was nationwide mass competition. Members and various groups of society were urged to participate in and contribute to this effort. Competition also served two other functions, as a means of identifying those who opposed the fitness project and for their elimination. Successful collective efforts were rewarded and fitness reports became more important for party leaders and sports administrators than individual satisfaction derived from participating. The project for mass fitness, however, failed. Regional and national reports provided ample evidence to substantiate this conclusion. Cyril Georgiev stated that in 1985 the fitness test was cleared by 55 per cent of the pupils in the Kyustendil region, but that generally ‘the physical fitness of students was decreasing significantly with age’.61 Similarly, analysing the national fitness results between 1983 and 1989, Peter Bankov commented that despite some improvements, ‘the average fitness scores of the population of 169.5 points for the period 1985– 1988 was relatively low and far from the “average” score of 200 points’.62 In addition, he asserted that the fitness complex failed to become a main form of physical activity and concluded that ‘the interest of the population in organized practice towards meeting the fitness norms was negligible’.63


Three main factors were responsible for the failure of the fitness project. Firstly, there was the incongruity between the ambitions of the state’s project and the economic resources available to sustain it. For example, in 1966 the third congress of the BSFS set a target that by 1970 all school leavers should hold the fitness badge, while the same document acknowledged that in the whole region of Smolyan only two of 276 schools had a gym.64 Ambitions, however, persisted, and in 1984 the BSFS dismissed the right of sports associations to set their own fitness targets as ‘unrealistically low’ and imposed a national norm of 50 per cent of the population to become fitness-badge-holders.65 It materialized on paper and in bureaucracies. Secondly, despite its almost unchallenged control over society and the life of its citizens, the totalitarian state was a weak state incapable of extracting power from the population. Fitness was promoted as a collective pursuit, but the process for forming group identities and interests was largely hindered by the nature of the totalitarian state. It saw ultimate power and knowledge concentrated in a single body and not dispersed among various uncontrolled groups. The analysis confirmed the conclusions made by Hannah Arendt about the totalitarian state’s unprecedented approach to power based on a supreme disregard of self-interest, idealism and an unwavering faith in the force produced through organization. Among the arguments in favour of this approach were some ridiculous claims for the power of the Communist athlete, as one of the ideologists of Bulgarian sport, S.Sotirov, tried to convince his readership in 1972. He argued that of 371 Olympians, 22 members of the Communist Party were responsible for 41 per cent of the medals won by Bulgarian athletes, while the remaining 349 athletes shared between them only 28 per cent of the medals.66 Thirdly, as people were not cultural dupes, they could distinguish between Communist rhetoric and reality. The fact that fitness was not encouraged as a personal pursuit, but that group interest was systematically politically distorted, had an impact on people’s perceptions of fitness and their own patterns of participation. As a posttotalitarian survey by A.Stoychev and S.Tzonev revealed in 1995, students and workers did not favour the utilitarian rationale behind fitness. Only 12.6 per cent believed that physical activity could improve their work productivity; virtually none of those interviewed considered fitness as a contributor to the country’s defence, but between 17 and 22. 5 per cent (depending on age) were prepared to participate in activities on a pay-as-you-play basis.67


Finally, as part of the project for Communist state-building, the concept of mass fitness was affected by the incongruities encountered in the wider society. These triggered a number of ‘fitness wars’ which involved the state and society, various institutions charged with responsibility for fitness, cities and a vast number of collectives in schools and working establishments. However, it would be oversimplistic to claim that the fitness project was a complete failure. It certainly was not, as thousands of youngsters were given the opportunity to learn new skills and to develop personally. Nonetheless, the discrepancy between the totalitarian state’s ideals and reality, and the ‘fitness wars’ themselves, created an environment dominated by hypocrisy and false enthusiasm. Furthermore, they gradually diminished the meaning of fitness for the individual and certainly did not stimulate people’s free participation. Arguably, the damage inflicted by these ‘wars’ on society’s perception of, and participation in, mass fitness during the totalitarian period in Eastern European countries was equally harmful as that produced by the East-West rivalry in international sport. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Thanks are extended to Professor J.A.Mangan for editorial assistance with this contribution. NOTES 1 . J.Garland, ‘War Minus Shooting’, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 23, 1 (1999), 80. 2 . George Orwell, ‘The Sporting Spirit’, Tribune, 468(14 Dec. 1945), 10–11, reprinted in George Orwell, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 4: In Front of Your Nose, 1945–1950 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), pp. 61–4. 3 . M.Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 4 . M.Rush, Politics and Society: An Introduction to Political Sociology (London: Prentice Hall, 1992), pp. 77–8. 5 . Zh.Zhelev, Fascism [The Totalitarian State] (Sofia: BZNS Publishers, 1990). 6 . C.Frederich and Z.Brzezinsky, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951). 7 . C.Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986). 8 . Rush, Politics and Society, p. 72. 9 . Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society, p. 280.


10 . Ibid., p. 286. 11 . Ibid., p. 280. 12 . Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harvest/HBJ, 1973) p. 311. 13 . Claus Offe, cited in D.Ost, ‘The Politics of Interest in Post-Communist Europe’, Theory and Society 22, 4(1993), 459. 14 . Quoted in V.Bukovsky, ‘Totalitarianism in Crisis: Is There a Smooth Transition to Democracy?’, in P.Ellen (ed.), Totalitarianism at the Crossroads (London: Social Philosophy and Policy Centre and Transaction Publishers, 1990), p. 14. 15 . Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society, pp. 286–9. 16 . B.Jessop, State Theory—Putting Capitalist Sates in their Place (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), pp. 211–12. 17 . Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 417. 18 . Ibid., p. 418. 19 . L.Weiss and J.Hobson, States and Economic Development (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). 20 . Ibid., pp. 7–8. 21 . K.Marx and F.Engels, Socinenya [Collected Works], Vol. 46 (Moscow: Partizdat, 2nd Edn. 1966), p. 221. 22 . V.Lenin, A Great Beginning. How to Organize Competition? (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 40 (emphasis in original). 23 . Ibid., p. 46. 24 . J.Hoberman, Sport and Political Ideology (London: Heinemann, 1984), pp. 191–2. 25 . Reshenie na CC na BCP za sastojanieto na physiceskata kultura i sporta i zadacite na partiata v tazi oblast [A Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party about the State of Physical Culture and Sport and the Tasks of the Party in this Field] (Sofia: Fizkultura, 1950), pp. 48–53. 26 . D.Haralampiev and P.Bankov, Physical Education and Sport in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (Sofia: Sofia Press, 1983), p. 19. 27 . BSFS, Metodicesko ukazanie za vnedrjavane na sistemata za sportnosastezatelna dejnost v oblastta na masovia sport v NR Balgaria [Methodical Guidelines for the Implementation of the System for Sport Competition in the Field of Mass Sport in Bulgaria] (Sofia: BSFS, 1986). 28 . T.Zhivkov, Za Fiziceskata Cultura i Sporta [On Physical Culture and Sport] (Sofia Partizdat, 1987), p. 39. For more on GTO see below. 29 . Ibid., p. 157. 30 . R.Gruneau, ‘The Politics and Ideology of Active Living in Historical Perspective’, in J.Curtis and S.Russell (eds.), Physical Activity in Human Experience (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1997), p. 192. 31 . Ibid., p. 215. 32 . A.Vasev (ed.), Obshtestveno znacenie, zadaci i organizacia na fizkulturnoto dvizenie v Balgara [Public Significance, Objectives and Organization of the Sports Movement in Bulgaria] (Sofia: Medicina i Fizkultura, 1949), pp. 22–7. 33 . J.Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 128–9.


34 . Council of Ministers, Decree 3, 25/02/1983: Basic Requirements, Principles and Organization for the Implementation of the National Fitness Complex ‘Rodina’ (Sofia, 1983). 35 . H.Green, Fit for America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986). 36 . D.Mrozek, ‘Sport in American Life’, in Kathryn Grover (ed.), Fitness in American Culture (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), p. 18. 37 . G.Dimitrov, Dimitrovskiat Sauz na Narodnata Mladez i Fizkulturnoto Dvizenie [The Dimitrov Youth Union and the Sports Movement] (Sofia: Narodna Mladez, 1950). 38 . BSFS, Founding Congress (Sofia: Medicina i Fizkultura: Sofia, 1958). 39 . BSFS, Otcet na CS na BSFS II Kongres [Sofia BSFS 2nd Congress Report, 1962]. 40 . BSFS, Otcet na CS na BSFS III Kongres [Sofia BSFS 3rd Congress Report, 1966]. 41 . BSFS, Otcet na CS BSFS IV Kongres [Sofia BSFS 4th Congress Report, 1972]. 42 . BSFS, Otcet na CS BSFCS V Kongres [Sofia BSFS 5th Congress Report, 1977]. 43 . BSFS, Shesti Kongress na BSFS [Sofia BSFS 6th Congress, Report, 1982]. 44 . BSFS, Founding Congress, p. 77. 45 . P.Bankov, ‘Analiz na vnedrjavaneto na NFK Rodina’ [An analysis of the implementation of NFC Rodina], Vaprosi na Fiziceskata Kultura, 6(1990), 2– 7. 46 . I.Tzvetkov, Balgaria i Europa prez 1939 i 1989—statisticeski godishnici [Bulgaria and Europe during 1939 and 1989—Statistical Comparisons] (Sofia: Christo Botev, 1994), p. 54. 47 . BSFS, Statistical Yearbook (Sofia: BSFS, 1982), p. 226. 48 . Tzvetkov, Balgaria i Europa, pp. 47–8. 49 . Ibid., 41, p. 42. 50 . Quoted in V.Girginov, ‘Capitalist Philosophy and Communist Practice: The Transformation of Eastern European Sport and the International Olympic Committee’, Culture, Sport, Society, 1, 1(May 1998), 125. 51 . D.Minev, ‘Prehodat—Iluzii i realnosti’ [The Transition—Illusions and Reality], in K. Bachijska (ed.), Prehodat v Balgaria prez pogleda na socialnite nauki [The Transition in Bulgaria Through the Lenses of Social Sciences] (Sofia: Prof. M.Drinov, 1997), p. 74. 52 . G.Dimitrov, P.Kabakchieva and Zh.Kjosev, Russia i Balgaria: Visjashta demokracia [Russia and Bulgaria: Pending Democracy] (Sofia: Lik, 1997), pp. 45–52. 53 . See ‘The Working Youth’, unpublished sociological survey (Sofia: CSS, 1983). 54 . Dimitrov, Kabakchieva and Kjosev, Russia i Balgaria, 52, p. 47. 55 . S.Tzonev and P.Bankov, ‘Sociologiceski problemi pri vnedrjavaneto na programi za sport’ [Sociological Aspects of the Implementation of Sports Programmes], proceedings from an international conference (Sofia: BSFS, 1989).


56 . BSFS, Otcet na CS BSFS IV Kongres [Sofia BSFS 4th Congress Report, 1972], pp. 33–5. 57 . BSFS, Shesti Kongress na BSFS [Sofia BSFS 6th Congress, Report, 1982], p. 19. 58 . Council of Ministers, Decree 36: On Financing Leisure and Cultural Activities (Sofia, 1972). 59 . Council of Ministers, Decree 63: On Improving the Management of Sport and Tourist Organizations on the Basis of an Economic Approach (Sofia, 1980). 60 . Council of Ministers, Decree 3, 1983, p. 34. 61 . K.Georgiev, ‘Roljata i mjastoto na sarevnovanieto po NFK Rodina v cjalostnata deinost na okraznite organizacii na BSFS, BPS, DKMS i MNP po izpalnenie na postanovlenie No3 na Ministerskia Savet’ [The Work of the Regional Sports, Youth, Trade Union and Educational Organizations for the Implementation of the Council of Ministers’ Decree No.3], in P.Bankov (ed.), Nacionalno Saveshtanie po NFK Rodina [National Conference on NFC Rodina] (Sofia: Ofsettrafic, 1985), p. 30. 62 . Bankov, ‘Analiz na vnedrjavaneto na NFK Rodina’, p. 4. 63 . Ibid., p. 6. 64 . BSFS, Otcet na CS na BSFS III Kongres [Sofia BSFS 3rd Congress Report, 1966], p. 20. 65 . K.Dushkov, ‘Planirane na NFK Rodina’, [Planning of NFC Rodina], in Nacionalen Seminar po NFK ‘Rodina’ [National Seminar on NFC Rodina] (Sofia: BSFS, 1984), p. 37. 66 . S.Sotirov, Balgarskata komunisticeska partia i fiziceskata kultura i sportat [Bulgarian Communist Party and Physical Culture and Sport] (Sofia: Medicina i Fizkultura, 1986), pp. 56–7. 67 . A.Stoychev and S.Tzonev, ‘Obshtestvenite subekti i sporta za vsichki’ [Public subjects and Sport for All], Sport & Nauka, 6(1995), 28–36.

Epilogue: Many Mansions and Many Architectural Styles J.A.MANGAN

Europe, it has been observed, ‘has been formed by war’;1 it has been further observed that to state that ‘Europe invented warfare and that warfare was its principal bequest to the rest of humanity would be an exaggeration but not a large one’.2 Certainly the first statement contains more than a grain of truth. Similarly the statement that sport and war have been tightly linked in European history also contains more than the proverbial grain of truth. This close and continuing relationship between sport and war should not be hidden behind the pious platitudes of officials, administrators and functionaries of regional and global sports organizations uttered at the reception of another international sports event at which they appear yet again in the majority to clasp each other hands with shining eyes and express their delight at the healing balm of modern sport. As was cuttingly observed not too long ago, one reality of the sports world is that ‘Arab terrorists kidnapped and killed Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. The Mexican government shot and killed students protesting at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Honduras and El Salvador have gone to war over the outcome of soccer games.’3 This is not the whole story but it is part of the story. Perhaps sport is an antidote to war, but the jury is out. Throughout European history sport has prepared men, as Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons bears witness, for war.4 On this matter, the jury is not out. Classical Greek games included martial sports—useful preparations for war in a world that saw city-states destroyed, men put to the sword and women and children taken into slavery. Rome used sport as a brutal adjunct of imperial wars. Medieval jousts were preparation for often unchivalric battle. Renaissance Italy had its games of ponte and pligna to bring foot soldiers up to scratch. Later, the Turnen movement was a means of ensuring readiness for patriotic struggle. Late Victorian Britain prepared its middle-class schoolboys on games fields for ‘civilizing’

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warfare throughout its empire. Prussia used sport to harden its efficient officer class. Fascism gave sport a high priority as means of making cold ideological warriors. All this is well known—and the pragmatic relationship between sport and war has flourished beyond Europe.5 But that is not our concern here. To return to Europe, the recently published and oddly unbalanced Education and Warfare in Europe by David Coulby and Crispin Jones gives only passing parsimonious mention to the strong association between education, sport and war in recent European history. In one chapter entitled ‘The Celebration of Patriotic Death: The Teaching of Literature’, the authors overlook virtually all the recent scholarship on the literature of the relationship between sport, war and sacrificial warriorhood in Britain’s New Imperialist era. Furthermore, they demonstrate a regrettable lack of understanding of the emotional impact of Sir Henry Newbolt on the middle-class militarism of late Victorian and Edwardian England, while all the other versifiers of the period who linked games field and battlefield, both men and women, are simply ignored.6 In another chapter, entitled ‘Knowledge and Warfare’, Coulby and Jones examine curricular components that are particularly involved in the processes that implicitly or sometimes explicitly support state and sometimes personal violence.7 However, despite asserting that schools and universities are major institutions through which ‘the link between culture and warfare is mediated’,8 precious little of the recent British and other historical evidence now available, is considered. The components in the chapter ‘Knowledge and Warfare’ are listed as language policies, history and cultural studies, religious education, scientific research and development programmes, military training and training in conformity. Sport in educational establishments is not mentioned in its own right as a component. It is an inexcusable omission. At the same time wholly inadequate space is given to ‘physical education and sports’ and their relationship to war under the heading ‘military training’.9 An even more extraordinary failure to explore adequately the relationship between European sport and war is to be found in Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture 1850–2000 by Michael Paris.10 In his introduction he gets as far as to quote G.A.Henty: ‘What do the natives care for our learning? It is our pluck and fighting powers that have made us their masters’,11 but he fails to investigate properly the perceived, and widely made, period association between the literature of the public-school playing fields and imperial battlefields in popular culture and its extensive impact on middle-class


militarism. Happily he demonstrates a better understanding of the role of the martial prose of Sir Henry Newbolt than Coulby and Jones. That is not too difficult. However, he gives the scantiest attention to Newbolt’s martial verse, which was a significant element of middleclass popular literature in the era of the New Imperialism. This verse illuminates a middle-class mind-set prior to, as well as during, at least the early moments of the First World War. Paris, incidentally, completely overlooks Newbolt’s The Thin Red Line, published in 1915, which includes his ‘A Letter to a Schoolboy’ which contains these words: ‘I have written to you…a book about soldiers…all of them were boys, and they took war as boys take their games, with a mixture of fun and deadly earnest.’12 Newbolt was a part, and an influential part, of a popular cultural movement which created a period ‘rhetoric of jingoistic conceit in poetry, prose and picture’. However, he was merely ‘one of many high priests of a cult which constructed, interpreted and sustained a [militaristic] myth’.13 Paris also fails to mention, let alone consider, the martial patriotic verse of Alfred Austin, Conan Doyle and Robert Bridges, to name merely a handful of the numerous martial versifiers of pre-First World War popular culture, while later excessively romantic women versifiers such as Katharine Tynan and fiercely jingoistic women versifiers such as Jessie Pope are simply overlooked.14 Paris’s omission is an inexplicable missed analytical opportunity. Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons attempts a fuller, and more adequate exploration of the association between sport, war and culture and hopefully goes some way to make up for such shortcomings. A final word—or two. To borrow and adapt an argument from Jay Winter and his colleagues, the study of war and sport in the form of a triple consideration of militarism, sport and anti-militarism constitutes an analytical landscape of ‘many mansions and many architectural styles’.15 It is worth remembering that, as R.J.Samuelson has remarked: ‘History is not an exam question. It’s chaotic, contradictory and immensely complicated’,16 while Gertrude Himmelfarb has warned of ‘the messy unpredictable, contradictory, transitory, yet ineluctable facts of history’.17 Too often mess is the quiddity of history. The intention in Militarism, Sport, Europe is to reflect at least some of this ‘mess’—unpredictable, contradictory, transitory—not to indulge in a preoccupation with conceptual neatness. To paraphrase Himmelfarb at her sardonic best, some inflexible commentators are simply not to be deterred by the kind of evidence that gives pause to the ‘pedestrian’ historian18—for them, callow neatness of conceptualization is all. They

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should be resisted. They are incapable of acknowledging, it seems, the existence of a range of perspectives, connected and disconnected. Any tendency to press for a ‘spurious’ coherence in what are ‘incoherent’ analytical ‘architectural styles’ should be rejected. It can be the equivalent of pointing to a square and claiming brashly that it is a circle! To recognize and record disconnection as well as connection and to appreciate that approaches can be, and where relevant should be, diverse and disassociated, calls for a sensible subtlety of mind. Intellectual agility is required. Heed, too, should be taken of Sarah J.Purcell’s reflection that paying attention to moments of discontinuity can offer insight into the forming of national identity, a process which is always far from smooth. The wider applicability of the comment needs to be appreciated.19 It makes good sense, when required, to eschew any Procrustean pursuit of coherence. The emphasis should be ideographic not reificatory. When inappropriately pursued, a preoccupation with coherence can reveal an inability to cope with fragmented and disassociated reality.20 This is put well in the introduction to Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, edited by Richard Rorty, J.B.Schneewind and Quentin Skinner, in their discussion of the implausibility of any book entitled ‘The Intellectual History of Europe’: The thought that descriptions of political discourse in twelfthcentury France, metaphysics in nineteenth-century Germany, and painting in fifteenth-century Urbino might some day flow together to create the seamless tapestry which would be our ideal Intellectual History of Europe is an elevating one. But it is the idea of a book written by no human hand.21 In studies of the relationship between sport and war there is a need for a multiplicity of analytical viewpoints—similar, divergent, oppositional, complementary. What this does is provide a sense of European sport in relation to militarism and anti-militarism as a complex congeries of circumstances. As in the case of Winter, Parker and Habeck and their admirably subtle The Great War and the Twentieth Century, the hope is that Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons is a step in that direction. NOTES 1 . See David Coulby and Crispin Jones, Education and Warfare in Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), p. 2.


2 . Ibid., p. 36. 3 . Andrew Strenk, ‘What Price Victory? The World of International Sports and Politics’, The Annual of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1979, p. 129. 4 . See J.A.Mangan (ed.), Making European Masculinities: Sport, Europe, Gender (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), passim. 5 . See, for example, J.A.Mangan (ed.), Superman Supreme: Fascist Body as Political Icon—Global Fascism (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), passim. 6 . See Coulby and Jones, Education and Warfare in Europe, p. 70. For a discussion of Newbolt in this context, and for a discussion of others who aided him in his militaristic proselytism, see J.A.Mangan, ‘Moralists, Metaphysicians and Mythologists: The “Signifiers” of a Victorian Subculture’, in Susan J.Bandy (ed.), Coroebus Triumphs: The Alliance of Sport and the Arts (San Diego, CA: University of San Diego Press, 1988), pp. 141– 62. See also J.A.Mangan, ‘Gamesfield and Battlefield: A Romantic Alliance in Verse and the Creation of Militaristic Masculinity’, in J.Nauright and T.Chandler (eds.), Making Men (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 141–57. 7 . Coulby and Jones, Education and Warfare in Europe, p. 36. 8 . Ibid., pp. 40–41. 9 . Ibid., p. 49. 10 . Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture 1850–2000 (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2000). Warrior Nation is a wellwritten and interesting book. It is regrettable that it deals with late Victorian and Edwardian militarism and its association with public-school games fields so perfunctorily. This detracts from its value. 11 . Ibid., ‘Introduction’. 12 . See J.A.Mangan, ‘Duty into Death: English Masculinity and Militarism in the Age of the New Imperialism’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Tribal Identities: Nationalism, Europe, Sport (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 10–38. 13 . See J.A.Mangan, ‘Muscular, Militaristic and Manly: The British MiddleClass Hero as Moral Messenger’, in Richard Holt, J.A.Mangan and Pierre Lanfranchi (eds.), European Heroes: Myth, Identity and Sport (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), p. 44. For a consideration of the perspective of a period popular culture, see pages 28–47. 14 . For an introduction to these women, and other women versifiers of the First World War, see J. A.Mangan, “‘Golden Boys” of Playing Field and Battlefield: Celebrating Heroes—“Lost” Middle-Class Women Versifiers of the Great War’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Reformers, Sport, Modernizers: Middle Class Revolutionaries (European Sports History Review, 4) (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 134–61. 15 . Jay Winter, Geoffrey Parker and Mary R.Habeck, The Great War and the Twentieth Century (London: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 9. 16 . Robert J.Samuelson, ‘Responses to Fukuyama’, The National Interest, 56 (Summer 1999), 40.

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17 . Gertrude Himmelfarb, ‘Responses to Fukuyama’, The National Interest, 56 (Summer 1999), 37. 18 . Ibid., 38. 19 . Sarah J.Purcell, ‘War, Memory and National Identity in the Twentieth Century’, National Identities, 2, 2(2000), 193. 20 . From time to time academic explorers experience ‘armchair-commentators’ trying too hard, who search erroneously for an analytical landscape the explorers had the good sense to appreciate did not exist. A current preoccupation is with conceptual ‘coherence’ when the reality is conceptual ‘incoherence’. Such confident ‘counsels of imperfection’ can expose a tendency to inflexible simplification rather than flexible subtlety. For a revealing illustration of this approach, see the review by D.Russell of J.A.Mangan and Fan Hong, Freeing the Female Body: Inspirational Icons (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2001) in Women’s History Journal, 3(2002), 140–42, in which the reviewer requests a spurious thematic ‘coherence’ when the evidence illustrates the advantages of a multi-analyticalbased approach on studies of widely differing cultures, environments, experiences and responses to the female struggle for emancipation through sport. 21 . Richard Rorty, J.B.Schneewind and Quentin Skinner (eds.), Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 9.

Notes on Contributors

Peter J.Beck is Professor of International History at Kingston University. His recent publications include Scoring for Britain: International Football and International Politics, 1900–1939 (1999) and ‘Britain, Image-Building and the World Game: Sport’s Potential as British Cultural Propaganda’, in A.Chong and J.Valencic (eds.), The Image, the State and International Relations (2001). Studies in press include ‘Leisure and Sport in Britain, 1900–1939’, in C.Wrigley (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Early Twentieth Century Britain, 1900– 1939. Hans Bonde, who has a D.Phil. and Ph.D. in history, is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Institute of Sport Sciences, and head of the Department of History and Social Sciences. Vassil Girginov is Senior Lecturer in Leisure and Sport Studies at Luton Business School, University of Luton. He holds master’s degrees in sport management from the National Sports Academy, Sofia, and in European Leisure Studies from the universities of Loughborough, Tilburg, Brussels and Bilbao, as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Loughborough. His research interests and publications (including three books) are in the field of the Olympic movement, sport management and policy analysis, and Eastern European sport. Orestis John Kustrin is Tutor for Latin Epigraphy at the Institute for Ancient History and Classical Antiquities, Graz, where he is working on a doctoral degree. His research is in the fields of Latin epigraphy and classical antiquity. Donald G.Kyle, Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Texas at Arlington, is an ancient historian specializing in the history of sport in antiquity. His publications include Athletics in Ancient Athens (1987) and Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (1998). John McClelland is Professor Emeritus of French at Victoria College, University of Toronto, and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Physical

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Education and Health. In addition to his work on early modern sport, his publications cover the fields of textual scholarship, literary criticism, the history of rhetoric and music and opera from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. Penelope Kissoudi has an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Greek and European history and is fellow of the Greek Historians’ Union. She teaches Greek history at the University of Thessaloniki and has written a number of papers and essays on sport and art. Her main research interest at present is in the area of sport and politics with particular reference to Greece and the Balkans in the inter-war period. She is studying at present for a further doctorate at the International Centre for Sport, Socialization, Society at the University of Strathclyde. Callum McKenzie is currently completing his doctorate on masculinity and hunting at Strathclyde University under the supervision of J.A.Mangan. J.A.Mangan is Director of the International Research Centre for Sport, Socialization and Society at De Montfort University (Bedford) and author and editor of many books. He is founder and General Editor of the Cass series Sport in the Global Society and founding and executive academic editor of the Cass journals The International Journal of the History of Sport; Culture, Sport, Society; Soccer and Society; and The European Sports History Review. Ali Melling is a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire. She has completed a Ph.D. on ladies’ football 1916–60, and her current interest is soccer and empowerment for young women from the Asian community. Hamad S.Ndee is a lecturer in the Department of Physical Education, Sport and Culture at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He has a doctorate from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He has particular interest in sport, culture and politics in Africa, and his recent publications include ‘Sport, Culture and Society from an African Perspective: A Study in Historical Revisionism’ and ‘Sport in Africa: Western Influences, British Middle-Class Educationalists and the Diffusion of Adapted Athleticism in Tanzania’, both in The International Journal of the History of Sport. He is currently undertaking research on ‘Sport, Africa and Society: Nationalism, Modernization and Globalization’, in particular on the King’s African Rifles (KAR) and soccer in Tanzania and netball and politics in Tanzania. Gertrud Pfister received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Regensburg in 1976 and a Ph.D. in sociology from Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 1980. She was Professor of Sports History at the Free


University in Berlin between 1981 and 2001; since 2001 she has been a professor at the Institute of Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of Copenhagen. Her main research interest is gender and sport. Roberta Vescovi teaches the history of physical education and sport at the University of Urbino, Faculty of Motor Sciences. She took two university degrees, in foreign languages and history. She is a member of ISHPES (International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport) and of CESH (European Committee for the History of Sport in Europe), to which she has contributed articles on health, physical education and sport in Fascist Italy.

Abstracts

From the Battlefield to the Arena: Gladiators, Militarism and the Roman Republic Donald G.Kyle This essay focuses on the early development of gladiatorial combats and their cultural significance at Rome under the Republic. After noting possible predecessors (e.g. in Etruria, Campania), it concentrates on how staged militaristic duels became particularly Roman entertainments. Historically, the symbolism of gladiators cannot be separated from the military and political contexts of the Middle and Late Republic. Gladiators were introduced at Rome in 264, perhaps as a novelty, but they became understood in Roman terms after the Battle of Cannae in 216; and they became more appreciated, however ambivalently, under the Republic until they were fully institutionalized by Augustus. Lasting Legacy? Spartan Life as a Germanic Educational Ideal: Karl Otfried Müller and Die Dorier Orestis Kustrin and J.A.Mangan In 1824, Karl Otfried Müller (1797–1840) had singled out in his Die Dorier (The Dorians) the many virtues of the Spartans, which encapsulated for him the highest human ideals. For Müller the Spartans possessed a high degree of honour, freedom and patriotism. Physical education had a central position in Müller’s work. It played an important part in the creation of Spartan virtues. The Dorians, of course, had many ‘Prussian’ views on the role of the subject in the state. For this reason in particular they became attractive to the Germans. By the 1930s, Die Dorier was removed from its original

294 ABSTRACTS

context to serve right-wing political assumptions and militaristic objectives rather than to revive interest in Müller’s idealism. Ball Games, from the Roman Gentleman to the Renaissance Warrior John McClelland Ancient Roman ball sports were mostly associated with the upper classes and gradually stopped being practised after the end of the empire. New ball games developed in the twelfth century, both as rough country games and as more genteel monastic sports. By the later thirteenth century these new sports had become popular among the aristocracy and the upper bourgeoisie. The Renaissance’s desire to rationalize natural phenomena and human endeavours led to the codification of ball games and to efforts to justify them as socially valuable. Beyond their medical, psychological and moral contribution, it was argued that in practical terms ball games resembled warfare and thus could be used to train both officers and soldiers. Military Drill—Rather more than ‘Brief and Basic’: English Elementary Schools and English Militarism J.A.Mangan and Hamad S.Ndee It has been argued somewhat naively that in the years before the First World War drill in the English elementary school was ‘brief, basic’, and served to provide merely a little rudimentary exercise. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Drill figured prominently in the English elementary education in the years before the First World War; its arrangements could be complicated and it served a number of purposes. Furthermore it generated much debate, even fierce controversy, and in the opinion of some at the time was an important, even crucial, aspect of the education of the elementary schoolboy. ‘Pig Sticking is the Greatest Fun’: Martial Conditioning on the Hunting Fields of Empire J.A.Mangan and Callum McKenzie Hunting in various forms was an activity that shaped the construction, expectations and manifestations of martial middle class masculinity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hunting by the officer class, it was believed, developed, encouraged and sustained chivalric values which ensured courage, control and confidence.


Hunting by the ‘warrior’ was seen as useful to the survival of the empire. Wartime Opportunities: ‘Ladies’ Football and the First World War Factories Ali Melling This essay examines the development of women’s soccer as a mass sporting phenomenon during the First World War and the implications these events held for the development of the sport until the 1960s. During the First World War, ladies’ football was adopted by female munitions workers and encouraged by the Government as a form of healthy rational recreation that supported the reordering of gender roles necessary for tough and dangerous munition work. However, the game was always under patriarchal jurisdiction and the women players were never in a position to take control of the sport for themselves. After the war women players were expected to hand the game back over to the men returning from the war, leaving only a hard core of teams behind. The patriarchal system set up to facilitate the sport during the war was to direct the nature of the game until the 1960s, when the ‘ladies’ became ‘women’ and began to take a tentative control of the sport for themselves. Antidote to War: The Balkan Games Penelope Kissoudi Territorial claims, war indemnities disputes and conflicts between the states of the Balkan Peninsula characterized the inter-war period. In 1928, on the occasion of the Olympic Games and following a Greek initiative, sports delegates from the Balkan states met in Amsterdam to discuss the prospect of establishing a new athletic institution, the Balkan Games. The foundation of the games resulted from the speedy growth of European sport and the unsatisfactory performance of the Balkan athletes at national and international level. More importantly, the new institution was considered an outcome of the idealistic desire to bring together the Balkan peoples in non-violent confrontation to avoid the violent confrontation of war.

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Children into Soldiers: Sport and Fascist Italy Roberta Vescovi The totalitarian Fascist regime had the merit of recognizing the ‘extreme social importance of the young’. New generations were the future of the nation and investing in them was a simple and sure means of strengthening and perpetuating Fascist ideology. This contribution analyses the connection between Fascism and sport in the education and militarization of the new generations as a part of a single political and cultural plan. The spread of physical education and sport allowed Fascism to permeate society in a peaceful manner in the short term, and to attempt to guarantee, in the long term, the persistence of Fascism itself. By means of the rigid and detailed organization of the young in numerous Fascist bodies, which were predominantly to do with sport activities, the regime turned youngsters into its most faithful allies. Confronting George Orwell: Philip Noel-Baker on International Sport, Particularly the Olympic Movement, as Peacemaker Peter J.Beck George Orwell’s infamous ‘war minus the shooting’ phrase was far more than a comment about the 1945 Dynamo Moskva football tour of Britain. In fact, his statement was directed principally at people such as Philip Noel-Baker (1889–1982), who presented international sport, including the Olympic movement, in idealistic terms as a force for world peace. Throughout his life, Noel-Baker, an Olympian, politician, academic and Nobel Peace Prize winner, upheld de Coubertin’s ideas. Promoting the Olympic movement as an instrument for securing a better world, Noel-Baker confronted those adopting an Orwellian approach to international sport. Compromise and Confrontation: Danish Sport under the Swastika Hans Bonde This contribution deals with the response of the Danish sports community to the German occupation. Immediately after the German invasion, the urban sports movement proved reasonably staunch in asserting the traditional apolitical status of sport in the face of German pressure. However, gradually the wish to maintain the range


and quality of Danish sport became crucial to a resumption of sporting relations with Germany, which gave the occupying power considerable propaganda advantages through Danish-German international sporting events. Several rural gymnastics associations were active in the initial phases of the world-famous Danish gymnastics leader Niels Bukh’s reactionary attempts to create a Danish Youth League. However, there was opposition to fraternizing on football fields and other sports locations. The Danish response to fascist militarism was complexcompromise and confrontation. Cold War Diplomats in Tracksuits: The Fräuleinwunder of East German Sport Gertrud Pfister The German Democratic Republic (GDR) presented itself and was perceived from the outside as a politically important, economically successful and highly effective country. This image of the GDR was shaped especially by its success in the sports arena, but also by its claim to have achieved gender equality. This essay describes the specific situation of female athletes and discusses the reasons for the high performance level of East German women. It is assumed that the adoption of men’s training practices by women, irrespective of ideals of femininity, and doping played an important role. Thus on one hand female athletes in the GDR transgressed the gender boundaries but on the other hand successful sportswomen were also expected to behave in a feminine way. For example, they were often represented as attractive women and happy mothers. In prioritizing success insport the GDR concentrated resources on a few Olympic sports and marginalized activities such as soccer and judo, but the women involved struggled for support and acceptance. In this way GDR officials, despite outwardly promoting gender equality, did not fight to include women in male sport. On the contrary, they did what they could to hinder the development of international sporting competitions for women. Fitness ‘Wars’: Purpose and Politics in Communist State-Building Vassil Girginov Studies of East-West sport during the Cold War have been preoccupied with the military exploitation of elite sport by both Communism and capitalism. Fitness has been seen as essentially military competence, but how its attainment was organized in totalitarian societies has been

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rarely addressed. This contribution investigates the use of organized competition to achieve physical fitness as a political mechanism for mobilizing society in the building of the Communist state. Physical fitness was not portrayed as an ideal to which people should aspire but rather as a duty achieved through competition. This produced fundamental incongruities at three different levels of society: between state power and social interests; between state economic capacity and ambitions for mass fitness; and between people’s attitudes and patterns of participation. These incongruities provoked tensions which triggered several ‘wars’ involving state and social groups, cities, institutions and collectives.

Select Bibliography

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Lasting Legacy? Spartan Life as a Germanic Educational Ideal: Karl Otfried Müller and Die Dorier Orestis Kustrin and J.A.Mangan W.M.Calder III and R.Schlesier (eds.), Zwischen Rationalismus und Romantik. Karl Otfried Müller und die antike Kultur (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1998). H.Döhl, ‘Karl Otfried Müllers Reise nach Italien und Griechenland 1839/40’, Göttinger Universitätsschriften, seria A, 14(1989), 51–77. E.Kern (ed.), Aus dem amtlichen und wissenschaftlichen Briefwechsel von C.O. Müller, ausgewählte Stücke mit Erläuterungen (Göttingen, 1936). E.R.Lange, ‘Rezension von K.O.Müller, Die Dorier’, Jenaische Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung, III(1824), 241–331. Fr.Lücke, Erinnerungen an Karl Otfr. Müller (Göttingen, 1841). K.O.Müller, Geschichten Hellenischer Stämme und Städte. Zweiter und Dritter Band: Die Dorier (Breslau: Fr.Schneidewin, 1824), Zweite Ausgabe 2 Bände

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Ball Games, from the Roman Gentleman to the Renaissance Warrior John McClelland Sidonius Apollinaris, Poems and Letters, trans. W.B.Anderson, 2 Vols. (London: Heinemann, Loeb Classical Library, 1936 and 1965). Govanni Bardi, Discorso sopra il giuoco del calcio fiorentino (Florence: Giunti, 1580); complete text modernized in Carlo Bascetta (ed.), Sport e giuochi, 2 Vols. (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1978), Vol. 1, pp. 131–62. Horst Bredekamp, Florentiner Fussball, die Renaissance der Spiele (Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 1993); also exists in French and Italian translations. N.B.Crowther, ‘The Ancient Greek Game of Episkyros’, Stadion, 23 (1997), 1–15. H.Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History (London and Washington: Leicester University Press, 1997). Francis P.Magoun, History of Football from the Beginnings to 1871 (BochumLangendreer: Heinrich Poppinghaus, 1938; repr. New York: Johnson, 1966). Jean-Michel Mehl, Le jeu au royaume de France du XIIIe audé but du XVIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1990). Stephen G.Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991); contains translations of Galen’s Exercise with the Small Ball and Pollux on episcyros. Antonio Scaino, Trattato del giuoco della palla (Venice: Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1555); excerpt in Bascetta (ed.), Sport e giuochi, Vol. 2, pp. 271–323; Treatise on the Game of Ball, trans. P.A.Negretti (London: Racquetier Productions, 1984). J.-P Thuillier, Le sport dans la Rome antique (Paris: Errance, 1996).

Military Drill—Rather more than ‘Brief and Basic’: English Elementary Schools and English Militarism J.A.Mangan and Hamad S.Ndee Anne Bloomfield, ‘Drill and Dance as Symbols of Imperialism’, in J.A. Mangan (ed.), Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990).


J.M.Goldstrom, Education: Elementary Education 1780–1900 (Newton Abbott: David and Charles, 1972). R.Holt, ‘Contrasting Nationalisms: Sport, Militarism and the Unitary State in Britain and France before 1914’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Tribal Identities: Sport, Nationalism, Identity (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996). P.Mclntosh, Physical Education in England since 1800 (London: Bell and Hyman, 1968). J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000). J.A.Mangan and C.Hickey, ‘English Elementary Education Revisited and Revised: Drill and Athleticism in Tandem’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Sport in Europe: Politics, Class, Gender (The European Sports History Review, 1) (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999). H.S.Ndee, ‘Sport, Culture and Society from an African Perspective: A Study in Historical Revisionism’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2001). A.Penn, Targeting Schools: Drill, Militarism and Imperialism (London: Woburn Press, 1999). G.Sutherland, ‘Elementary Education in the Nineteenth Century’, Historical Association of London (1971).

‘Pig Sticking is the Greatest Fun’: Martial Conditioning on the Hunting Fields of Empire J.A.Mangan and Callum McKenzie D.Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). Major-General A.E.Wardrop, Days and Nights with Indian Big-Game (London: Macmillan, 1923). H.Compton, ‘Pig-sticking’, in F.G.Aflalo (ed.), The Sports of the World, 2 Vols, Special Edn. (London: Cassell, 1902). R.Baden-Powell, Pig-Sticking (London: Harrison & Sons, 1889). R.C.Bristow, Memories of the British Raj: A Soldier in India (London: Johnson, 1974). N.Lytton, The English Country Gentleman (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1925). Younghusband, The Queen’s Commission (London: John Murray, 1891). J.Newall, Scottish Moors and Indian Jungles (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1889). F.C.Kempson, The Trinity Foot Beagles (Cambridge: Edward Arnold, 1912). F.C.Selous, Travel and Adventure in South East Africa (London: R Ward, 1893).


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Antidote to War: The Balkan Games Penelope Kissoudi A.Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations 1918– 1974 (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1983). Ivan Baltancief, ‘The Balkaniad of Sofia’, Macedonia, 27 Sept. 1931. J.Barros, The League of Nations and the Great Powers: The Greek-Bulgarian Incident, 1925 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). ‘Compliments on the Balkan Games’, Makedonica Nea [Macedonian News], 27 Sept. 1929. Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Turkey No.1 (1923), Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, 1922–1923, Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace (London, 1923). ‘Greece, Yugoslavia, and Salonica’, in Arnold Toynbee (ed.), Survey of International Affairs 1926 (London: Humphrey Milford, 1928). ‘Greece, Yugoslavia and Salonica’, in Arnold Toynbee (ed.), Survey of International Affairs 1928 (London: Humphrey Milford, 1929). Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association (ed.), 50 Chronia Balkanikon Agonon [50 Years of Balkan Games] (Athens: Cactos, 1979). Historia tou Hellinikou Ethnous [History of the Greek Nation] (Athens: Athens Publishing Company, 1978). B.Houlihan, The Government and Politics of Sport (London: Routledge, 1991). B.Houlihan, Sport, Policy and Politics: A Comparative Analysis (London: Routledge, 1997). B.Jelavich, History of the Balkans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Pavlos Makrides, ‘Balkanikoi Agones’ [The Balkan Games], Megali Egyclopaedia tou Athletismou [Great Encyclopaedia of Athleticism] (Athens: T.Drakopoulou, 1961). J.A.Mangan, ‘Prologue’, in J.A.Mangan (ed.), Sport in Europe: Politics, Class, Gender (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999).


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Children into Soldiers: Sport and Fascist Italy Roberta Vescovi M.Argentieri, L’occhio del Regime (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1979). P.Bartoli, C.Pasquini-Romizi and R.Romizi, L’organizzazione del consenso nel regime fascista: L’Opera Nazionale Balilla come istituzione di controllo sociale (Perugia: University of Perugia Press, 1983). C.Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla e l’educazione fascista (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1984). Michele Di Donato, Storia dell’educazione fisica e sportiva. Indirizzi fondamentali (Roma: Studium, 1984). F.Fabrizio, Sport e Fascismo. La politica sportiva del Regime 1924–1926 (Rimini/ Firenze: Guaraldi, 1976). Patrizia Ferrara, L’Italia in palestra. Storia documenti e immagini della ginnastica dal 1833 al 1973 (Roma: La Meridiana, 1992). Rossella Isidori-Frasca,…e il Duce le volle sportive (Bologna: Patron, 1983). R.Scarpa, Eravamo tutti Balilla (Roma: La Meridiana, 1984). S.Setta, Renato Ricci (Bologna: Patron, 1986). E.R.Tannenbaum, L’esperienza fascista. Cultura e società in Italia dal 1922 al 1945 (Milano: Mursia, 1974).

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Cold War Diplomats in Tracksuits: The Fräuleinwunder of East German Sport Gertrud Pfister Jürgen Baur, Giselher Spitzer and Stephan Telschow, ‘Der DDR-Sport als Gesellschaftliches Teilsystem’, Sportwissenschaft, 27, 4 (1997), 369–90. Ulrich Beck, Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986). Ulrich Beck, Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus. Antworten auf Globalisierung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997). Regina Becker-Schmitt, ‘Von Jungen, die keine Mädchen und von Mädchen, die gerne Jungen sein wollten’, in R.Becker-Schmitt and G.-A.Knapp (eds.), Das Geschlechterverhältnis als Gegenstand der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 1995), pp. 220–47. Regina Becker-Schmidt, ‘Geschlechterverhältnis, Technologieentwicklung und androzentrische Ideologieproduktion’, in N.Beckenbach and W.van Treeck (eds.), Umbrüche gesellschaftlicher Arbeit (Göttingen: Schwartz, 1994), pp. 527–38. Regine Becker-Schmidt and Gudrun-Axeli Knapp (eds.), Das Geschlechterverhältnis als Gegenstand der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1995). Seyla Benhabib et al., Der Streit um Differenz. Feminismus und Postmoderne in der Gegenwart (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993). Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke, ‘Mit Virilisierung von Mädchen und Frauen zum Erfolg’, in G.Hartmann (ed.), Goldkinder. Die DDR im Spiegel ihres Spitzensport (Leipzig: Forum Verlag, 1997), pp. 166–88. Brigitte Berendonk, Doping. Von der Forschung zum Betrug (Reinbek/Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1992). Klaus-Heinrich Bette and Uwe Schimank, Doping im Hochleistungssport. Anpassung durch Abweichung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995). Heidi Bierstedt and Margitta Gummel, ‘Sportliche Betätigung und Emanzipation der Frau’, Theorie und Praxis der Körperkultur, 25 (1976), 844–7. Helga Bilden, ‘Geschlechtsspezifische Sozialisation’, in Klaus Hurrelmann and Dieter Ulich (eds.), Neues Handbuch der Sozialisationsforschung (Weinheim: Belz Verlag, 1991), pp. 279–301. Klaus-Peter Brinkhoff, Sport und Sozialisation im Jugendalter (Weinheim: Juventa Verlag, 1998). Mary A.Boutilier and Lucinda San Giovanni, ‘ldeology, Public Policy and Female Olympic Achievement—A Cross-National Analysis of the Seoul Olympic Games’, in F.Landry, M.Landry and M.Yerlès (eds.), Sport… The Third Millennium (Sainte-Foy: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1991), pp. 397–409. Robert W.Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge: Polity/Blackwell, 1991). Reinhard Daugs, Eike Emrich and Christoph Igel (eds.), Kinder und Jugendliche im Leistungssport (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1998).


Susanne Diemer, Patriarchalismus in der DDR. Strukturelle, Kulturelle und Subjektive Dimensionen der Geschlechterpolarisierung (Opladen: Leske +Budrich, 1994). Angelika Diezinger et al., Erfahrung mit Methode. Wege Sozialwissenschaftlicher Frauenforschung (Freiburg: Kore, 1994). Irene Dölling, Adelheid Kuhlmey-Oehlert and Gabriela Seibt (eds.), Unsere Haut. Tagebücher von Frauen aus dem Herbst 1990 (Berlin: Dietz, 1992). Irene Dölling, ‘Über den Patriarchalismus in Staatssozialistischen Gesellschaften und die Geschlechtsfrage im Gesellschaftlichen Umbruch’, in Wolfgang Zapf (ed.), Die Modernisierung Moderner Gesellschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1991), pp. 407–17. Sebastian Drost, ‘Endphase des DDR-Sports’, Beiträge zur Sportgeschichte (1998), Heft 6, 61–73. Günter Erbach, ‘Über Ideologie und Politik in der Entwicklung des DDRLeistungssports’, Beiträge zur Sportgeschichte, 2(1996), 74–93. Manfred Ewald, Ich war der Sport (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1994). Thomas Fetzer, ‘Der Spitzensport der DDR in den 70er und 80er Jahren. Gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz’ (unpublished master’s thesis, Free University Berlin, 1999). Sabine Gensior, ‘Gesellschaft im Umbruch und das Problem des Theoretischen Abstands’, in Niels Beckenbach and Werner van Treeck (eds.), Umbrüche Gesellschaftlicher Arbeit (Göttingen: O. Schwartz, 1994), pp. 557–70. Sabine Gensior (ed.), Vergesellschaftung und Frauenerwerbsarbeit. Ost-WestVergleiche (Berlin: Sigma, 1995). Ines Geipel, Die verlorenen Spiele. Journal eines Doping-Prozesses (Berlin: Transit, 2001). Karin Gottschall, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse und Arbeitsmarktsegregation’, in Regina Becker-Schmidt and Gudrun-Axeli Knapp (eds.), Das Geschlechterverhältnis als Gegenstand der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1995), pp. 125–63. Angelika Griebner and Scarlett Kleint, Starke Frauen Kommen aus dem Osten (Berlin: Argon, 1995). Margitta Gummel, ‘Sportliche Tätigkeit und Emanzipation der Frau’, Theorie und Praxis der Körperkultur, 24, 11 (1975), 963–5. Margitta Gummel, ‘Ursachen und Zusammenhänge für die erfolgreiche Entwicklung des Frauenleistungssports der DDR’, Theorie und Praxis der Körperkultur, XXX(1981), 34–6. Carol Hagemann-White, Wie (un)gesund ist Weiblichkeit?’, Zeitschrift für Frauenforschung, XII(1994), 20–28. Carol Hagemann-White, ‘Die Konstrukteure des Geschlechts auf Frischer Tat Ertappen? Methodische Konsequenzen einer theoretischen Einsicht’, Feministische Studien, 11, 2(1993), 68–78. Carol Hagemann-White, Sozialisation. Weiblich—Männlich? (Opladen: Leske +Budrich, 1984). Ann Hall, Feminism and Sporting Bodies (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1996). Grit Hartmann (ed.), Goldkinder—Die DDR im Spiegel ihres Spitzensports (Leipzig: Forum Verlag, 1997).


Ilse Hartmann-Tews and Bettina Rulofs, ‘Entwicklung und Perspektiven der Frauenund Geschlechterforschung im Sport’, Kölner Forum, 1 (1998), 3–13. Wolfgang Helfritsch and Ulrich Becker, Dokumentationsstudie Pädagogische KJSForschung (Köln: Strauß, 1993). Ulrike Helwerth and Gislinde Schwarz, Von Muttis und Emanzen. Feministinnen in Ost- und Westdeutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995). Gisela Helwig, Frau und Familie in Beiden Deutschen Staaten (Köln: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1982). Gisela Helwig and Hildegard Maria Nickel (eds.), Frauen in Deutschland 1945– 1992 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 1993). Marlies Hempel (ed.), Verschieden und doch Gleich. Schule und Geschlechterverhältnisse in Ost und West (Bad Heilbrunn: Jul. Klinkhardt, 1995). Klaus Hennig, ‘Breitensportliche Kampagnen und Konstrukte’, in J. Hinsching (ed.), Alltagssport in der DDR (Aachen: Meyer & Meyer, 1998), pp. 87–96. Andrea Hilgers, Geschlechterstereotype und Unterricht. Zur Verbesserung der Chancengleichheit von Mädchen und Jungen in der Schule (Weinheim: Juventa Verlag, 1994). Jochen Hinsching (ed.), Alltagssport in der DDR (Aachen: Meyer und Meyer, 1998). Jochen Hinsching (ed.), Breitensport in Ostdeutschland. Reflexion und Transformation (Hamburg: Czwalina, 2000), pp. 119–31. Stefan Hirschauer, ‘Wie sind Frauen, wie sind Männer. Zweigeschlechtlichkeit als Wissenssytem’, in C.Eifert et al (eds.), Was sind Frauen? Was sind Männer? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im historischen Wandel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996), pp. 240–57. Klaus Hurrelmann, Lebensphase Jugend. Eine Einführung in die Sozialwissenschaftliche Jugendforschung (Weinheim: Juventa Verlag, 1994). Siegfried Israel and Ulrich Pahlke, ‘Zur Problematik geschlechts-spezifischer Leistungsvoraussetzungen’, Körpererziehung, XXXI (1981), 312–18. Erich Kamper and Bill Mallon, Who’s Who der Olympischen Spiele 1896–1992 (Kassel: AGON Sportverlag, 1992). Marita Kampshoff, Jugend—Schule—Identität. 12- und 16jährige Schülerinnen und Schüler im Vergleich (Bielefeld: Kleine, 1996). Gabriele Klein, ‘Theoretische Prämissen einer Geschlechterforschung in der Sportwissenschaft’, in Ulrike Henkel and Sabine Kröner (eds.), Und Sie Bewegt sich doch! Sportwissenschaftlische Frauenforschung, Bilanz und Perspektiven (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1997), pp. 103–25. Hilge Landweer and Mechtild Rumpf, ‘Einleitung: Kritik der Kategorie “Geschlecht”’, Feministische Studien, 11 (1993), 3–10. Gertrud Lehnert, Wenn Frauen Männerkleider tragen. Geschlecht und Maskerade in Literatur und Geschichte (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997). Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994). Andrea Maihofer, Geschlecht als Existenzweise. Macht, Moral, Recht und Geschlechterdifferenz (Frankfurt am Main: Helmer, 1995). Linda McDowell and Rosemary Pringle (eds.), Defining Women: Social Institutions and Gender Divisions (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994).


Jim McKay, Managing Gender (New York: State University Press, 1997). Gerd Meyer, Die DDR-Machtelite in der Ära Honecker (Tübingen: Francke, 1991). Kurt Märker, Frau und Sport aus Sportmedizinischer Sicht (Leipzig: Barth, 1983). Hildegard-Maria Nickel, ‘Geschlechterverhältnisse und Sozialisations-erfahrungen im DDR Alltag’, in Frank Deppe, Sabine Kebir et al, Eckpunkte Moderner Kapitalismuskritik (Hamburg: VSA, 1991), pp. 149–65. Lars Holger Niese, Sport im Wandel (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997). Olympiakämpfer Erzählen von Höhepunkten und Alltäglichem (Berlin: Sportverlag, 1983). Gertrud Pfister, ‘30 Jahre Frauenstudium in der DDR—eine Bilanz’, in Anne Schlüter (ed.), Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen? Zur Geschichte des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1992), pp. 255– 81. Gertrud Pfister, Sport im Lebenszusammenhang von Frauen. Ausgewählte Themen (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1999). Gertrud Pfister, ‘Vom Ausschluss zur Integration. Frauen und Olympische Spiele’, Sportpädagogik, 20, 4(1996), 5–10. Gertrud Pfister, ‘Frauensport und Sozialer Wandel—Fußball in der Bundesrepublik und in der DDR’, in Jürgen Buschmann and Gertrud Pfister (eds.), Sport und Sozialer Wandel. Proceedings of the ISHPES Congress 1998, Sunny Beach, Bulgaria (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2001). Gertrud Pfister, ‘Doing gender—die Inszenierung des Geschlechts im Eiskunstlauf und im Kunstturnen’, in Johan R.Norberg (ed.), Studier i Idrott, Historia och Samhälle. Tillägnade Professor Jan Lindroth på hans 60-årsdag 23. Februari 2000 (Stockholm: HLS Förlag, 2000), pp. 170–200. Gertrud Pfister, ‘Women and the Olympic Games’, in B.Drinkwater (ed.), Women in Sport (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 3–19. Werner Rossade, Sport und Kultur in der DDR (München: Tuduv, 1987). Swantje Scharenberg, ‘Kunstturnen der Mädchen—Probleme und Initiativen im DTB’, in G.Pfister (ed.), Frauen und Leistungssport (Hamburg: Czwalina, in print). Karsten Schumann, ‘Zur Entwicklung des DDR-Leistungssports’, in Sport und Gesellschaft (ed.), Geschichte des DDR-Sports. Protokollband 1. 50. Jahrestag der Gründung des Deutschen Sportausschusses (Berlin: Spotless, 1998), pp. 71– 6. Ursula Sillge, ‘“Wenn Du kein Kind Hättest, Würde ich Denken, Du Bist eine Lesbe!” Zur Situation Lesbischer Frauen in der DDR vor und nach der “Wende”’, in Uli Streib (ed.), Von nun an Nannten sie sich Mütter. Lesben und Kinder (Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1991), pp. 135–17. Giselher Spitzer, Doping in der DDR. Ein historischer Überblick zu einer konspirativen Praxis. Genese—Verantwortung—Gefahren (Köln: Strauß, 1998). Giselher Spitzer, ‘Gläserne Sportler. Nachwuchssport als Sicherheitsrisiko’, in Hartmann, Goldkinder, pp. 127–32. Rudi Stemmler, ‘Kennziffern der physischen Entwicklung der jungen Generation in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der DHfK, Heft 3/4(1967), 85.


Gerda Szepansky, Die Stille Emanzipation. Frauen in der DDR (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995). Jochen Teichler and Klaus Reinartz, Das Leistungssportsystem der DDR in den 80er Jahren und im Prozess der Wende (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1999). Ulrike Teubner, ‘Das Fiktionale der Geschlechterdifferenz’, in A.Wetterer (ed.), Die soziale Konstruktion von Geschlechterdifferenzen in Professionalisierungsprozessen (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1995), pp. 88– 99. Heike Trappe, Emanzipatin oder Zwang? Frauen in der DDR zwischen Beruf, Familie und Sozialpolitik (Berlin: Akad. Verlag, 1995). Klaus Ullrich and Ruth Fuchs, Lorbeerkranz und Trauerflor. Aufstieg und ‘Untergang des Sportwunders DDR (Berlin: Dietz, 1990). Lorenz Völker, ‘Planung und Leitung des DDR-Leistungssports im Bezirk Halle (1980–1984)—eine Fallstudie’ (unpublished master’s thesis, Free University Berlin, 1998). Hermann Weber, Die DDR. 1945–1990 (München: Oldenbourg, 3rd Edn. 2000). Therese Wobbe and Gesa Lindemann (eds.), Denkachsen. Zur theoretischen und institutionellen Rede vom Geschlecht (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994).

Fitness ‘Wars’: Purpose and Politics in Communist State-Building Vassil Girginov V.Girginov, ‘Bulgarian Sport Today: Is History Repeating Itself or Is Real Change Occurring?’, European Physical Education Review, 3, 1(1997), pp. 33–49. J.Riordan, ‘Sport in Capitalist and Socialist Countries: A Western Perspective’, in E.Dunning et al. (eds.), The Sports Process: A Comparative and Developmental Approach (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1993), pp. 245–65. N.Vitanova, Physical Training in Bulgaria’s Kindergardens (Sofia: Sofia Press, 1990). V.Girginov, ‘Trends in Sports in Bulgaria’, in T.Kamphorst and K.Roberts (eds.), Trends in Sports: A Multinational Perspective (AJ Voorthuizen: Giordano Bruno Culemborg, 1989), pp. 185–205. P.Bankov, Physical Education and Sport in Bulgaria (Sofia: Sofia Press, 1988). T.Martinski, Sports in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (Sofia: Sofia Press, 1984). BSFS, Materiali za Nacionalnia Fizkulturen Komplex ‘Rodina’ [Materials on the National Fitness Complex ‘Rodina’] (Sofia: BSFS, 1983).

Index

Adams, R.J.Q. 77 Albania Balkan Games 161 Balkan relations 151–50 Alderson, General E.A. 106, 107 Alfonso da Este 57 amphitheatres, origins of 17 anabolic steroids, East Germany 246 Anthony, Don 190 anti-militarism, definition 1–2 Arendt, Hannah 259, 278 Armstrong, Whitworth and Co, ladies’ football 122, 129, 131, 136–5 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 159 athletes, East German women 225, 237– 48 athleticism, in schools 87–7 Augustus 19 Baden-Powell, Robert S. 104 Baker, Samuel White 106 Balkan Games foundation of 152–54 history of 156–63 politics of 146–5 Pre-Balkaniad (1929) 156–6 Second World War 162 Balkans, politics of 147–50 ball games Middle Ages 50–55 Renaissance 52–61 Roman 46–50 warfare analogy 54, 56–61 Bankov, Peter 278 Bannister, Roger 205, 207

Bardi, Giovanni 59–61 Barton, C.A. 11 Basedow, Johann Bernhadt 72–2 Bergman, Martina 80 Best, Geoffrey 69 Best, Werner 221 Beusher, Frank 134 Bevin, Ernest 202 big-game hunting, as military training 100–102, 107 Bloomfield, Anne 76 Blunt, William Scawen 103 Boeckh, August 28, 30, 42 Boer War 114–13 British Empire, hunting 99–118 Broman, Allan 80–81 Bukh, Niels 215–19 Bulgaria Balkan Games 156–63 Communist Party 259–7, 266–4 fitness aims 268–75 foreign relations 147–50 sports societies (DFS) 272 Bulgarian Union for Physical Culture and Sport (BSFS) 266, 272–75 Butler, Judith 227 Cadet Corps 110 Caesar 19 Cakmur, Yuksel 164 calcio 58–60 Campanians, gladiator origins 13, 14 Campbell, Walter 102 Cannae, Battle of 15–16 Castenskiold, General 213

310

INDEX 311

Castiglione, Baldesar 57–8 Cecil, Edward, Lord 106 Chataway, Christopher 4, 204 Chesterton, Thomas 80–81 Christianity, and tennis 53 Cicero 12 classical civilization, as model for Germans 28–43 Clias, P.H. 73 Cold War, and sport 199, 205–3, 225, 257 Communism and fitness drive 256–4, 264–77 and totalitarianism 258–61 see also Soviet Union CONI (Italian Olympic Committee) 168, 173, 181 Coulby, David 284 Crespigny, Claude de 112–11 Cross Commission 81 Curtius, Ernst 33 Dallas, Dimitrios 152, 153 Danish Shooting, Gymnastics and Athletics Association (DDSG&I) 220– 18 Danish Youth Union (Dansk Ungdomssamvirke) 218–17 Dansk Idræts-Forbund (DIF) 212–12 de Coubertin, Pierre 190, 206–4 Denmark German occupation 211–21 gymnastics 215 Dick, Kerr’s Ladies football team 134, 136 Diemer, Susanne 230, 231 Dimitrov, Georgi 271, 274–3 diplomacy, and sport 144–3 Dobrin, M. 152 Dölling, Irene 230, 231–30 doping, East German athletes 245–4 Dorian ideals 28–9, 33–5, 41, 43 Doyle, John Andrew 110 Dragnea, Marin 164 drill displays 89–9 in elementary schools 68, 74–86

DTSB see German Gymnastics and Sports Federation Duby, Georges 48 Dynamo Moskva, tour of Britain (1945) 192–93, 199 East Germany (GDR) gender order 228–30 sport and politics 225–4, 232–35 women athletes 242–48 youth training 238–40 Eden, Anthony 199–7 education Fascist Italy 178–81 nineteenth-century England 66–72 Spartan ideals 35–43 see also physical education Education Act (1870) 67, 71 Egypt, Anglo-Egyptian hunting 102–1 elementary schools athleticism 87–7 military drill 74–86, 89–9 physical education 66–90 Elliot, Gilbert john 111–10 Elliot, Walter 102 Empire Day Movement 90 Ender, Kornelia 246 ENEF (National Physical Education Board, Italy) 168, 173 England, elementary schools 66–90 episkyros 46–8 Erbach, Günter 233, 238 Etruscans, gladiator origins 13 eugenics, Fascism 169–9 Ewald, Manfred 244 Fascism education 178–81 eugenics 169–9 military training 171–81 youth movements 168–82 Ferretti, Lando 183 FGC (Fascist Youth Combat Groups, Italy) 168, 178 First World War football 5 munitions workers’ football 122–37


fitness Communist aims 264–77 see also physical education Florus 16 football Middle Ages 51–2 women munitions workers 122–37 fox-hunting, as military training 105–5 Fräuleinwunder, East German athletes 225, 242–48 Fuchs, Ruth 249 Futrell, A. 10–11, 14 Galen, Claudius 48, 54, 56 Garland, Jon 256 gender order East Germany 228–30 in sporting competitions 246–8 theory of 226–6 Gentile, Giovanni 168, 173 Georgiev, Cyril 278 German Democratic Republic (GDR) see East Germany German Gymnastics and Sports Federation (DTSB) 226, 234–5, 247 Germany occupation of Denmark 211–21 physical education 39–41, 73, 76 Spartan ideals 28–43 see also East Germany GIL (Fascist Youth, Italy) 168, 178–9 Gillis, John 1, 69 Gillmeister, H. 54 girls gymnastics 80 see also women gladiators historical context 11–13 origins of 13–17 Roman Republic 9–21 and soldiers 17–18 status of 19–21 studies of 9–11 Glasfurd, A.I.R. 111 Goit, Pendro 161 Goldstrom, J.M. 70 Goodhart, Phillip 4

Goodwill Games 146 Gould, Jenny 123 Graves, A.P 86 Greece Balkan Games 153–63 foreign relations 147–50 Greeks, Ancient, German ideals 28–43 Green, Harvey 271 Grenfell, Francis 113, 115–14 Gruneau, Richard 268 GTO (Ready for Labour and Defence), Bulgaria 268–7 GUF (Fascist University Groups, Italy) 168 Gummel, Margitta 243 Guts Muths, Johann 37, 41, 73 Guttmann, Allen 197 gymnastics European traditions 72–3 Germany 39–41, 73, 76 occupied Denmark 215 Swedish 73–3, 80 Haig, Douglas 106–5 Haldane, Richard Burton 69 Haley, William 203 Hall, Herbert Byng 106 Hannibal 15–16 harpastum 46–8, 49 Harris, James 79 Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association (SEGAS) 152, 153–4, 157 Hen, Ytzakh 48 Henderson, Edward George 5 Herbert, J.F. 41 Hesketh-Pritchard, Major 115 Hickey, C. 84, 87–7 Hieover, Harry 106 Himmelfarb, Gertrude 28 Himmler, Heinrich 221–19 Historia Britonum 49 Hitler, Adolf 212, 222 Hjermind, Poul 218 Hoberman, John 265–3 Hobson, J. 263 Hobson, J.A. 80 Holland, E.G. 79

INDEX 313

Hopkins, K. 12 Horace 46–7 hunting, as military training 99–118 Iconomu, M. 152 India, British officer-hunters 102, 104, 108–7 International Olympic Committee (IOC) 203 Israel, Siegfried 244 Italy Fascism and sport 168–82 football origins 58–9 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig 37, 38–9, 41, 76 Jakovlevski, Trpe 164 Jayne, E.B. 122, 131, 133, 137 Jesuits, militaristic training 79 jeux de paume 52–3 Jones, Crispin 284 Jørgensen, Jørgen 217, 218 judo, women’s participation 247 Junkelmann, M. 17 Kinder- und Jugendsportschulen (KJS) 239–40 Koch, Marita 238 krypteia 38 Lausanne Treaty (1923) 150 Lefort, Paul 258–6 Lenin, V.I. 264–2 Lewis, Rob 130 Ling, Per Henry 73 Livy 14, 15–16 Locke, John 35 Loder-Symonds, F.C. 114 Löfving, Concordia 80 London School Board 80–81, 84–4 Lonsdale, Lord 115 Lorenz, Konrad 3–4 Lucas, Captain T. 113 Lücke, Friedrich 35, 36 ludus pilae 46, 49, 50–51, 52 lusus trigon 46, 47 Lycurgus 33, 34

Macedonia 147–6 MacLaren, Archibald 80, 82 Malcolm, Noel 6 male bonding, through hunting 113–12 Mangan, J.A. 84, 87–7, 144, 256 Manitakes, Pavlos 152 Mann, Michael 256 Märker, Kurt 243 Martinski, Trendafil 162–2 Marx, Karl 264 masculinity, and big-game hunting 100– 9 May, Jonathan 72 Mclntosh, Peter 71–72, 75–5 Meath, Lord 76 Mehl, Jean-Michel 53 Melgund, Lord 108 Messner, 227 Meysey-Thompson, R.F. 113 Middle Ages, ball games 50–55 militarism definition 1–2 Roman Republic 12 militarization 1–2 military training Fascism 171–81 through hunting 99–118 through sport 54, 283–2 through tennis 56–61 see also drill Milner, Alfred 68 Minev, Duhomir 274 Molinet, Jean 54 Momigliano, A. 43 monks, ball games 52–3 Morant, Robert 85 Morgan, R. 52–3 Mrozek, Donald 271 Müller, Karl Otfried 28–43 munera, Rome 14–15, 18–19, 47, 49 munitions factories First World War 122–37 ladies’ football 122 sporting activities 128–7 welfare supervisors 127–6 Murray, Gideon 110 Mussolini, Benito 169, 172, 177, 181– 80, 184


MVSN (Voluntary Militia for National Security, Italy) 168 National Education League 70 Nazis, in occupied Denmark 211–21 Newall, J.T. 108–7, 113 Newbolt, Henry 116, 284, 285 Newman, George 127 Nickel, Hildegard Maria 231 Niebuhr, B.G. 28, 42 Noel-Baker, Philip career of 192, 205 and George Orwell 195–3 and London Olympics (1948) 201– 204, 207 Nobel Peace Prize 190–8, 206 and Soviet sport 198–8 on sport for peace 190–8, 192–90, 196–5, 205–4 Norway, sport during occupation 222– 20 Offe, Claus 259 Olympic Games 1936 (Berlin) 197 1948 (London) 201–204, 207 1980 (Moscow) 146 East German athletes 237–6, 247 Olympic movement, peaceful aims 190, 196–5, 206–4 ONB (National Balilla Movement, Italy) 168, 170, 171–76 OND (National After-Work Institute, Italy) 169 ONMI (National Maternity and Child Welfare Institute, Italy) 169, 170 Orwell, George 193–93, 201, 204–2, 256 Oswell, William Cotton 109 Panathinaikon Stadium, Athens 156–7, 161–60 Pangalos, General 148 Panter-Downes, G.F. 128, 131 Paris, Michael 285 Parker, George 6 Paulen, Adrian 162 Penn, Alan 71

Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich 35, 37, 41 Phersu game 13 Philanthropium, Dessau 72–2 physical education Fascist Italy 171–75 Germany 39–41 nineteenth-century England 74–90 nineteenth-century Europe 72–3 see also fitness Pietism 31–2 pig-sticking 104, 113 Plass, P. 10 PNF (National Fascist Party, Italy) 169, 172 Poirier, Phillip P. 77 politics, and sport 144–3, 198–8 Pope, Jessie 285 Potter, D.S. 12 Prussia, physical education 41–3 public schools, male bonding 113–12 Punic Wars 14–15 Purcell, Sarah J. 286 racism, and hunting 116–15 Renaissance, tennis 56–61 Ricci, Renato 172, 178 Rice, William 108 rifle-shooting 110 Rigby, John 110 Rinopoulos, Michael 154, 153, 156 Riordan, Jim 269 Roberts, Frank 201 Roberts, Krisztina 124 Roman Empire ball games 46–9 Battle of Cannae 15–16 collapse of 48–9 gladiators 9–21 imperial expansion 18–19 militarism 12 soldiers and gladiators 17–18 Romania BalkanGames 156–63 Balkan relations 151 Romanticism 32 Ross, Edward 110 Ross, Horatio 110

INDEX 315

Roth, Mathias 73–3, 80 Rous, Stanley 199 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 35, 72 Rowntree, Seebohm 127, 129 Rugby School 99 Rush, M. 258 St.Clair, T.S. 108 St Francis Xavier’s College, Liverpool 79 St Helens Ladies AFC 132–31, 137 Samnites 14 Samuelson, R.J. 285 Scaino, Antonio 56–9, 61 Scavenius, Erik 211, 213, 219 Schlegel, Friedrich 33 Second World War, Balkan Games 162 SED (Sozialistiche Einheitspartei Deutschlands) 229, 233–5 Selous, Frederick Courtney 99 shikaries 102, 109 Simpson, James 70 Sipes, Richard 4 Skriver, P.J. 216–14 Slupianek, Ilona 248–7 Smith, N.E. 128 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 70 Society of Arts 77 Sotirov, S. 279 soule 51 Soviet Union relations with Britain 192–90 sport and politics 198–8 Spartacus 18 Spartans, and German identity 33–43 Spencer, Herbert 70–71 Spengler, Oswald 43 Spiess, Adolf 41–2 sport gender order 226–6 as military training 54, 283–2 political role 144–3, 198–8, 232–35 relationship with war 283–5 as war minus the shooting 193–93, 256 Springham, J.O. 76

SS, in Denmark 221 Stalinism 265–3 Starace, Achille 181 Steffens, H. 32, 42 Stigand, Chauncey 113, 116 Stokes, William 74 Stoychev, A. 279 Sutton Glass Works, ladies’ football 132, 134, 136 Swedish gymnastics 73–3, 80 Syllas, Nikos 161 systems theory, Bulgarian Communist Party 266–4 Tapp, William 5 Templewood, Viscount 205–3 tennis origins of 52–6 warfare analogy 53–5, 56–8 Terboven, Joseph 223 Tertullian 9–10, 11, 21 totalitarianism 258–61 training East German athletes 238–40 see also military training Trevelyan, Charles Edward 104 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 6–7 Trollope, Anthony 106 Turati, Augusto 169 Turkey Balkan Games 157–63 relations with Greece 149–9 Tynan, Katharine 285 Tzonev, S. 279 Venizelos, Eleftherios 157, 159 Von Renthe-Fink 212–10 von Ribbentrop, Joachim 221 Waldegrave, William F. 110 war, and sport 193–93, 256, 283–5 Wardrop, A.E. 100 Weiss, L. 263 Welch, K. 17 welfare supervisors, munitions factories 127–6 Whateley, Richard 70


Wiedemann, T. 10, 13, 19 Will, E. 43 Wilton, Earl of 106 Winckelmann, J.J. 33 Winter, Jay 285 women East Germany 225–48 femininity 248–8 munitions workers 122–37 see also girls Woolacott, A. 126, 127, 130, 133 YMCA, ladies’ football 134–4 Younger, Kenneth 191 Younghusband, George 105 youth movements, Fascist Italy 168–82 youth sport schools, East Germany see Kinderund Jugendsportschulen (KJS) Yugoslavia Balkan Games 156–63 foreign relations 147–6 YWCA, First World War 124–4 Zhivkov, Todor 267, 274

Militarism, Sport, Europe: War Without Weapons (The European Sports History Review, Volume 5)

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The War Weapons

The War Weapons

European Weapons and Armour

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Weapons of the Vietnam War

European Review of Social Psychology (Volume 12)

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Engineering of Sport 6: Volume 1: Developments for Sports

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