Um das Jahr 1890 gab es in Großbritannien keine Lehrstühle, Vorlesungen und keine Lehrveranstaltungen, die sich mit imperialer Geschichte, Geografie, Wirtschaftsgeschichte oder internationalen Beziehungen beschäftigten. Dies änderte sich im Laufe der nächsten drei Jahrzehnte. Diese Dissertation analysiert diese Entwicklung. Ich wollte verstehen, was diese Entwicklungen angeregt hat und wollte nachprüfen, wer hinter diesen Änderungen stand. Die wichtigste Erkenntnis ist, dass in allen vier Fällen die Begründer der Fachbereiche die wichtigsten Elemente der Weltanschauung teilten. Zuallererst, ohne Ausnahme, handelten sie, weil sie überzeugt waren, dass das Imperium sich in Richtung des Zusammenbruchs seiner Macht bewegte. Diese Arbeit argumentiert, dass diese Unsicherheit die Suche nach neuen Formen der Erkenntnis begünstigte. Was ist möglich zu bemerken ist, erstens, sorgten sich diese Pioniere in erster Linie um die Zukunft und handelten an späterer Stelle als wissenschaftliche Erneuerer. Zweitens führe ich aus, dass viele Pioniere der Fachbereichen in mehr als nur einer Disziplin agierten. Anders gesagt, die Schaffung von neuem Wissen war wichtiger als jeder besondere Fachbereich. Drittens verfolgten diese neuen Fachbereiche das Ziel praktisches Wissen zu erzeugen, das von Staatsmännern genutzt werden konnte. Zuletzt, weil die Schlussfolgerungen dieser neuen Fachbereiche eine große Reichweite benötigten, mussten ihre Pioniere ein großes Publikum erreichen. Als darauffolgende Konsequenz waren diese neuen Fachbereiche nicht innerhalb der Mauern der Universitäten verschlossen. Der Drang danach, weite Massen zu erreichen, war einer der Hauptgründe, warum es zu einer Institutionalisierung kam. In allen vier Fallbeispielen zeige ich, wie genau diese wahrnehmbaren Schwierigkeiten den zeitlichen und geographischen Umfang dieser neuen Fachbereiche vorbestimmt haben, ebenso wie ihre thematischen Vorlieben. / Around 1890 there were no university chairs, no lectures, and no courses dealing with imperial history, geography, economic history or international relations in Great Britain. Over the course of the next three decades this changed. This dissertation analyses this evolution. I attempted to understand what provoked these developments and I inquired who stood behind these changes. Most importantly, comparison points that in all four instances disciplinary innovators shared the key convictions. Above all, without exception, they acted because they were convinced that the Empire is heading towards the collapse of its powers. The argument of the thesis is that the uncertain future gave rise to the quest for the new kind of knowledge. What is possible to notice is, in the first place, that the pioneers firstly started to worry about the future, and only later acted as scientific innovators. In the second place, I point that many disciplinary pioneers were acting in more than a single discipline. In other words, the creation of a new kind of a knowledge was more important than any specific area of studies. Third, the new disciplines ought to produce practical knowledge that could be used by statesmen. Lastly, because conclusions of these new disciplines needed to be disseminated, the pioneers had to reach wide audiences. As a consequence of this, the new disciplines were not confined within walls of universities. This desire to reach the masses is the key reason why institutionalisation happened. In all four case studies I demonstrate how exactly these perceived problems predetermined the chronological and geographical scope of the new disciplines, together with their thematic predilections.

This thesis examines how the law dealt with international fugitives. It focuses on formal extradition and the cross-border abduction of wanted criminals by police officers and other state officials. Debates over extradition and abduction reflected important issues of state power and civil liberty, and were shaped by currents of thought circulating throughout the imperial, Atlantic, and common law worlds. Debates over extradition involved questioning the very basis of international law. They also raised difficult questions about civil liberties and human rights. Throughout this period escaped American slaves and other groups made claims for what we would now call refugee status, and argued that their surrender violated codes of law and ideas of justice that transcended the colonies and even the wider British Empire. Such claims sparked a decades-long debate in North America and Europe over how to codify refugee protections. Ultimately, Britain used its imperial power to force Canada to accept such safeguards. Yet even as the formal extradition system developed, an informal system of police abductions operated in the Canadian-American borderlands. This system defied formal law, but it also manifested sophisticated local ideas about community justice and transnational legal order. This thesis argues that extradition and abduction must be understood within three overlapping contexts. The first is the ethos of liberal transnationalism that permeated all levels of state officials in British North America/Canada. This view largely prioritised the erosion of domestic barriers to international cooperation over the protection of individual liberty. It was predicated in large part on the idea of a common North American civilization. The second context is Canada’s place in the British Empire. Extradition and abduction highlight both how British North America/Canada often expounded views on legal order radically different from Britain, but also that even after Confederation in 1867 the empire retained real power to shape Canadian policy. The final context is international law and international legal order. Both extradition and abduction were aspects of law on an international and transnational level. As a result, this thesis examines the processes of migration, adoption, and adaptation of international law.

This thesis examines how the law dealt with international fugitives. It focuses on formal extradition and the cross-border abduction of wanted criminals by police officers and other state officials. Debates over extradition and abduction reflected important issues of state power and civil liberty, and were shaped by currents of thought circulating throughout the imperial, Atlantic, and common law worlds. Debates over extradition involved questioning the very basis of international law. They also raised difficult questions about civil liberties and human rights. Throughout this period escaped American slaves and other groups made claims for what we would now call refugee status, and argued that their surrender violated codes of law and ideas of justice that transcended the colonies and even the wider British Empire. Such claims sparked a decades-long debate in North America and Europe over how to codify refugee protections. Ultimately, Britain used its imperial power to force Canada to accept such safeguards. Yet even as the formal extradition system developed, an informal system of police abductions operated in the Canadian-American borderlands. This system defied formal law, but it also manifested sophisticated local ideas about community justice and transnational legal order. This thesis argues that extradition and abduction must be understood within three overlapping contexts. The first is the ethos of liberal transnationalism that permeated all levels of state officials in British North America/Canada. This view largely prioritised the erosion of domestic barriers to international cooperation over the protection of individual liberty. It was predicated in large part on the idea of a common North American civilization. The second context is Canada’s place in the British Empire. Extradition and abduction highlight both how British North America/Canada often expounded views on legal order radically different from Britain, but also that even after Confederation in 1867 the empire retained real power to shape Canadian policy. The final context is international law and international legal order. Both extradition and abduction were aspects of law on an international and transnational level. As a result, this thesis examines the processes of migration, adoption, and adaptation of international law.

Cadet sans terre d’une famille paysanne des Hautes-Alpes, Martin Bertrand (1915-2008) échappe au séminaire en s’engageant dans la garde républicaine mobile qui le conduira à Casablanca, au Maroc, où il sera stationné dès 1941. Mobilisé en 1943 à la suite du débarquement des Alliés en Afrique du Nord, il est affecté à l’encadrement d’une unité coloniale marocaine. Avec « ses » tirailleurs, il participe à la campagne d’Italie, au débarquement en Provence, à la libération de l’Alsace et à l’occupation de l’Allemagne. Après avoir regagné le Maroc pour quelques années, son bataillon est déployé de 1949 à 1951 à Tourane, en Indochine, où l’administration coloniale française tente de reprendre le contrôle de la région. Durant chacune de ses longues absences, Martin Bertrand écrira quasi quotidiennement à son épouse, Hélène, originaire d’une famille de colons espagnols installés en Algérie. Par l’analyse de cette correspondance, ce mémoire de maîtrise propose d’intégrer l’expérience de Martin Bertrand, sous-officier d’un régiment colonial, au sein d’une histoire impériale plus large; celle d’une France qui mène ses troupes au front de ses dernières guerres coloniales et qui déstabilise, dans ce processus, l’ordre qui régit la fonction et la position de chaque soldat. Ainsi, en faisant parler les mots intimes de Martin Bertrand au prisme du contenu de sources plus officielles, telles que les rapports militaires sur le moral des hommes, ce mémoire rend compte à la fois de la complexité des hiérarchies sociales et raciales qui établissent les rapports entre les sous-officiers français et la troupe « indigène » tout autant qu’il explore les questionnements identitaires plus personnels d’un petit cadre. / Deprived of his land inheritance like many youngest-born of peasant descent, Martin Bertrand (1915-2008) eventually fled life as a seminarian in the French High-Alps by enlisting in the Mobile Guard and then being stationed in Casablanca, Morocco in 1941. Following the Anglo–American invasion of French North Africa, he was drafted in 1943 to lead a Moroccan colonial recruit unit. With “his” tirailleurs, he took part in the Italian campaign, the Provence landing, the liberation of Alsace, and the occupation of Germany. After the War, he returned to Morocco only to be deployed 3 years later with the same battalion to Tourane, Indochina where the French colonial administration attempted to retake control of the region. During each one of his long absences, Martin Bertrand wrote almost daily to his wife Hélène, descendent of Spanish settlers established in Algeria. By analyzing these letters, this master’s thesis proposes to integrate Martin Bertrand’s experiences, in his functions as a non-commissioned officer in a colonial regiment, into a broader imperial story where France led her armies through her last colonial wars and destabilized the colonial order under which each soldier was governed. Furthermore, this study compares Martin Bertrand’s private letters with more official sources like troop morale reports which allows for an analysis of the complex social and ethnic hierarchies between French non-commissioned officers and “indigenous” troops. At the same time, it explores the deeper questionings of a military intermediary’s self-identity.