The decline of the Liberal party in the heart of England: the Liberals in Leicestershire, 1914–24 by Gavin J. Freeman
This article uses the county of Leicestershire to examine the decline of the Liberal party from the outbreak of the First World War to the debacle of 1924, when they were reduced to forty M.P.s. It argues that while the crisis of December 1916 was the beginning of the split within the party, this was not inevitably permanent. It was the ‘Coupon’ election of 1918 that widened the division and brought about a political realignment which changed the electoral landscape. The article shows that at the crucial formative period of the greatly enlarged electorate, Liberalism was divided at the grass-roots, enabling the success of the Conservative and Labour parties.
The end of the ‘dual possession’ of Sakhalin as multilateral diplomacy, 1867–73 by Takahiro Yamamoto
This article revisits the history of Russo-Japanese ‘dual possession’ of Sakhalin in the late nineteenth century from a multilateral perspective. Using unpublished sources from Japanese and British archives, and benefiting from recent research on Russian materials, it argues that Russia’s attempt at the exclusive control of Sakhalin was aimed primarily at keeping out the Americans and the British, not the Japanese. It also reveals that Japanese and British officers in the region falsely believed that Russia was preparing the occupation of Hokkaido. The findings challenge the existing historiography, which has treated the island’s history solely in the context of Russo-Japanese relations.