The thesis is focused on presentation and evaluation of the development of foreign policy of the Habsburg Monarchy during the Crimean War in years 1853/4-1856. Its traditional position between Russia and the Western powers and complicated complex of internal problems prevented Austria from being involved with either side of the conflict. The policy of neutrality, adopted by Prussia and the German Confederation during the war, on the other hand, could not ensure sufficient protection of the Austrian interests concerning the Eastern Question. For this reason, the Habsburg Monarchy decided for its own independent policy, based on escalating pressure on Russia and attempts at restricting the war aims of Great Britain and France to an acceptable limit, and thus achieve a peace treaty as soon as possible to prevent the extension of the war and a potential wave of revolutions. The main instrument of this policy was the menace of Austrian military action against Russia and on the other side maintaining of hope of the Western powers for this action. German policy of Austria concentrated on defending its position within the German Confederation and using of German allies for demonstrations directed against Russia, which, however, were not very effective due to the reluctunce of the German states. The...

This thesis examines martial race ideology in the British Army during the mid-nineteenth century. A “martial race” was a group of people that the British considered to excel in the art of warfare due to biological and cultural characteristics. This thesis examines perceived “martial” natures or lack thereof of the Highland Scots and the Irish during this era. Central to this analysis are the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 which provided opportunities for soldiers to display their “martial” qualities. The Crimean War was the first war where the daily newspapers covered every aspect of the war using correspondents, and it gave soldiers the chance to gain recognition through this medium. The Indian Mutiny represented a crisis for Britain, and it gave soldiers the opportunity to be recognized as “stabilizers of the empire.” However, despite their similarities, the Highland regiments became some of the most revered regiments while the Irish came to be seen as untrustworthy, leading many in the British government to initiate efforts to decrease the role that the Irish played in Britain’s conflicts. This reluctance was due to the turmoil that erupted as a result of the anti-Union Fenian Brotherhood in Ireland during the 1860s. The difficulty in stabilizing Ireland in the wake of Fenian terrorist attacks also exposed old prejudices of the Irish related to religion, race, and class. This was evidenced through parliamentary debates and British newspapers reporting on the crises.

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Conservative international thought in Victorian Britain is a prominent landmark in the landscape of international thought which has up to now gone unmapped. In illuminating this body of thought, the thesis addresses weaknesses present in three different historiographies. As the first detailed study of conservative international thought in Victorian Britain, the thesis rectifies a marked bias in Victorian intellectual history towards the study of liberal and radical thought. Furthermore, by analysing the political thought of major representatives of the conservative educated classes, this thesis provides context for the history of conservative high politics, thereby leading us to view these in a different light. Finally, this study, by providing a historically nuanced account of the evolution of major themes of international relations theory in mid-Victorian Britain, functions as a corrective to the self-history of the academic field of International Relations. The thesis makes its argument by analysing conservative contributions in periodicals, pamphlets, and newspapers to British public debates on international affairs, from the Crimean War (1854-56) until the Eastern Question crisis of 1876-80. The general claim of this thesis is that there existed a distinctly conservative perspective on the international sphere. The core elements of this conservative perspective were the primacy of statesmen in setting foreign policy; of interests, military force, and stature in determining the course of international politics; and of order and equilibrium as its normative content. Conservative authors used this constellation of ideas in the major debates of the mid-Victorian era on international affairs, both as a means to make sense of events, and as a counterpoint to liberal narratives - with which Victorian international thought is all too often identified. In recovering the international political thought of Victorian conservatives, this thesis illuminates an important but neglected aspect of how international relations were understood and conceptualised in mid-Victorian Britain.

В работе произведена попытка изучить Крымскую войну 1853-1856 годов с точек зрения противоборствующих сторон и рассмотреть ситуации, которые оставили след в культуре и массовом сознании населения Англии, Франции, Италии и России. Изучено как восприятие этой войны во всех указанных странах развивалось с 1853 года по 2006. / In my work I tried to study how the Crimean war of 1853-1856 is seen in participating countries and find out situations, that left marks in the culture and mass consciousness of people of England, France, Italy and Russia. Also in this work I studied how the perception of this war changed from 1853 to 2006.

The use of temporary, prefabricated buildings in Britain during the twentieth century arose from wartime need to provide better, and perhaps more importantly, portable shelter for troops and equipment. This thesis provides the first comprehensive list of hut designs for the First and Second World Wars. The full lists and descriptions of each hut are given in the appendices. These lists, 20 types for the First World War and 52 from the Second World War, show the huge range and scope of the huts used and is the major contribution of this thesis. The concentration here is on generic types. Some huts were designed as one-offs and there is no possible way to catalogue these. This thesis has focused instead on those designs or industrially-produced types, which were meant to be produced en-masse as generic solutions to the problem: the sort of hut that might justifiably be given a name (such as a ‘Tarran’, a ‘Seco’, etc.). This thesis provides essential information enabling historians to be able to identify these types. It uses primary and secondary sources to trace the development of these huts and the effect that wartime shortages had on their design. Beginning with the earliest examples of temporary military building, it then focuses on the huts of the First and Second World Wars followed by a study of huts grouped in chapters by material. This research shows that the wartime period pushed industry to make giant leaps forward with construction methods and materials in just a few short years, where otherwise it may have taken decades. This thesis aims to provide the first overview of this process and to enable future researchers to identify and understand the development of these important wartime structures, many of which survive to this day.