This article examines how Le Queux's writings about Russia both reflected and shaped the construction of the country in the British imagination in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first part examines Le Queux's early novels, showing how his conviction that tsarist Russia posed a major threat to the security of the British Empire was reflected in his surprisingly positive treatment of the Russian revolutionary movement. The second part then examines how Le Queux's later writings on Russia reflected the changing nature of international politics following the outbreak of war in 1914. Russia's new-found status as Britain's ally in the First World War shaped the content of a number of books written by Le Queux in 1917–1918. These include Rasputin the Rascal Monk (1917) and The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia (1918), in which Le Queux claimed that Rasputin was a creature of the German government.
This article discusses the way in which the national celebration of peace, held in the summer of 1919, was manifested locally. It begins by pointing out that 1919 itself was a year of major tensions and political dangers, and that in some places the celebrations themselves saw scenes of violence and rioting. Although peace celebrations were intended as, and usually portrayed as, a focus for national and local unity and harmony, the reality was more complex and they could 'unmask conflicting perspectives and values in communities up and down Britain'. The bulk of the article looks at the experience of Lancashire, and Michael Hughes observes that it 'is striking, and in some ways surprising, that most disorders . occurred in such places as Luton and Coventry rather than in the older industrial settlements of the north of England' with their tradition of radical politics.Extensive use is made of newspaper reporting of the Armistice, its aftermath, and the peace celebrations themselves, with close attention to the often wide discrepancies between what the government was proposing and what was acceptable to local authorities in Lancashire. A particular source of disagreement was the question of expenditure, with some councils taking the initiative, setting up special committees to plan and manage events, and voting significant sums for the funding of celebrations, but others being condemned for not spending enough. There were arguments about whether the money would be better spent on, for example, demobilised and disabled soldiers, a conflict illustrated by a vocal and passionate disagreement in the borough of Haslingden.The article shows how the celebrations took different forms in different places – for example, whether there was a military parade or a war veterans' parade as the centrepiece – and how in some places, such as Manchester and Liverpool, the mood was notably subdued in comparison with the joy which had greeted the November armistice. In contrast, in Bacup, St Annes and Clitheroe, among others, there ...
