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Managing Security
Threats along the EU’s
Eastern Flanks
Edited by
Rick Fawn
New Security Challenges

Series Editor
George Christou
University of Warwick
Coventry, UK
The last decade has demonstrated that threats to security vary greatly in
their causes and manifestations and that they invite interest and demand
responses from the social sciences, civil society, and a very broad policy
community. In the past, the avoidance of war was the primary objective,
but with the end of the Cold War the retention of military defence as the
centrepiece of international security agenda became untenable. There has
been, therefore, a significant shift in emphasis away from traditional
approaches to security to a new agenda that talks of the softer side of secu-
rity, in terms of human security, economic security, and environmental
security. The topical New Security Challenges series reflects this pressing
political and research agenda.

More information about this series at


http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14732
Rick Fawn
Editor

Managing Security
Threats along the
EU’s Eastern Flanks
Editor
Rick Fawn
School of International Relations
University of St Andrews
St Andrews, UK

New Security Challenges


ISBN 978-3-030-26936-4    ISBN 978-3-030-26937-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26937-1

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Acknowledgements

Funding for both a book workshop and a public discussion and dis-
semination event held in St Andrews was made possible through the
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN-ETN) of
the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation pro-
gramme, under grant agreement ‘CASPIAN—Around the Caspian: A
Doctoral Training for Future Experts in Development and Cooperation
with Focus on the Caspian Region’ (642709—CASPIAN—H2020-
MSCA-­ITN-2014). This funding also supported some of the individual
contributors, who make separate acknowledgement in their chapters.
One other contribution and longer-term insights and research oppor-
tunities were also gained through funding by the European Commission
under FP7-­PEOPLE-­2012-ITN TENSIONS (Grant agreement num-
ber: 316825).
The School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews
provided additional financial support for a book workshop, alongside a
public event. Input and assistance during those events were given by
contributors as well as from Iuliia Drobysh, Ahmed Fawaz, Matteo
Fumagalli, Elham Gharji, and Pengfei Hou; and Iuliia Drobysh kindly
assisted with last-minute referencing requests. As ever, these comments
are appreciated as much as the responsibilities continue to remain with
the authors.
Sarah Roughley provided the most helpful and understanding guidance
through the process, and we remain grateful also to the substantial and
thoughtful comments by external readers secured through Palgrave
Macmillan. Mary Fata affably and efficiently guided the typescript through

v
vi Acknowledgements

production. Our sincerest thanks also go to Vinodh Kumar for the very
helpful and patient finalisation of the book. Any errors remains with
the authors.

St Andrews, UK Rick Fawn

∗Editor’s Note: The UK was still part of the EU at time


of going to press.
Contents

1 The Price and Possibilities of Going East? The European


Union and Wider Europe, the European Neighbourhood
and the Eastern Partnership  3
Rick Fawn

2 Turning Points and Shifting Understandings of European


Security: The European Neighbourhood Policy’s
Development 31
Maria Raquel Freire and Licínia Simão

3 The Dilemmas of a Four-Headed Russian Eagle for the


EU: Russia as Conflict Instigator, Mediator, Saviour and
Perpetuator 53
Rick Fawn

4 The US and the New Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Belarus,


Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) Since 1991  69
Jason Bruder

5 The EU and Pan-European IOs and ‘Symbolic’ Successes


and Failures in the Protracted Conflicts in Moldova and
Georgia 99
Nina Lutterjohann

vii
viii Contents

6 Georgia as a Case Study of EU Influence, and How


Russia Accelerated EU-Russian relations131
Shu Uchida

7 Security Challenges in Ukraine After Euromaidan153


Andreas Marazis

8 Iraq and the Kurds: What Threats to European Stability?177


Samuel Doveri Vesterbye

9 In-Between Domestic Terrorism, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS, or


How Russia Sees Prospects of Security Cooperation with
the EU203
Elena Zhirukhina

10 The EU and Central Asia: The Nuances of an ‘Aided’


Partnership225
Karolina Kluczewska and Shairbek Dzhuraev

11 Reflections on How the EU Is Handling Threats to


Stability in Wider Europe253
Dominika Krois

Index265
Notes on Contributors

Jason Bruder was a senior staff member on the US Senate Foreign


Relations Committee and a US State Department official. He has been an
adjunct professor at Columbia and Georgetown Universities. At the
time of publication, he was finishing his PhD at the University of St
Andrews. He previously earned an MA from The Johns Hopkins
University, School of Advanced International Studies. His views are
his own and do not reflect those of his former affiliations.
Samuel Doveri Vesterbye is Managing Director at the European
Neighbourhood Council (ENC), where he works on EU foreign policy,
specialising in Turkey and the Middle East. He oversees ENC research
projects across the neighbourhood and Central Asia, including Academic
Council Members and regional strategy. His research primarily focuses on
accession and EU neighbourhood policy, including energy, migra-
tion, and customs union or trade. He has worked on EU projects
related to foreign affairs, strategic communication, and migration
since 2012 in cooperation with stakeholders and partners like the
European External Action Service, international universities, and
several European ministries of foreign affairs. Between 2010 and
2012 he was a journalist in Turkey and Belgium, covering foreign
affairs, energy, and the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree from
the University of St Andrews. He is fluent in English, Italian, Danish,
and French.
Shairbek Dzhuraev is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews.
He previously served as deputy director at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek,

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

and was dean of academic development at the American University of


Central Asia. Shairbek is a member of research networks of political scien-
tists working on post-Soviet Eurasia, including Central Asia Program at
George Washington University, the EU-Central Asia Monitoring
(EUCAM) and Crossroads Central Asia, a Bishkek-based research
network. Shairbek’s research interests include political regimes, inter-
national relations, and foreign policy making in Central Asia.
Rick Fawn is Professor of International Relations at the University of St
Andrews in the UK. Among a dozen previous books are International
Organizations and Internal Conditionality: Making Norms Matter
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He is completing a book for Georgetown
University Press entitled Visegrad and Central Europe: The Remaking of
a Region.
Maria Raquel Freire is researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES)
and Associate Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of
Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC). She holds a Jean
Monnet Chair. She is currently Head of the International Relations
Department and Director of the PhD Programme in International Politics
and Conflict Resolution. She is Visiting Professor in the Post-Graduate
Programme in International Relations, Federal University of Santa
Catarina, Brazil. Her research interests focus on peace studies, particularly
peacekeeping and peacebuilding, foreign policy, international secu-
rity, Russia, and the post-Soviet space.
Karolina Kluczewska is a post-doctoral research fellow at the research
centre CERAL, University of Paris 13 (France), and an associate research
fellow at the Tomsk State University (Russia) and University of St Andrews
(UK). She holds a PhD degree in International Relations from the
University of St Andrews. Karolina has both research and practical
experience in the development sector in Tajikistan, including collabo-
rations with civil society organisations, international organisations
and local research institutions. Her research interests include devel-
opment aid and localisation of global governance.
Dominika Krois serves currently as the coordinator for OSCE affairs in
the European External Action Service. Prior to this, she represented the
EU in the UN Office and other International Organisations in Vienna
(2011–2015) and served as vice president of the Conferences of the
Parties to the UN Crime and Corruption Conventions and UN expert on
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

corruption (2006–2011). Earlier in her career, she gained experience


with the EU integration process, legal affairs, and the bilateral diplo-
macy. Dr Krois is a lawyer, and has graduated from the Jagiellonian
University in Cracow; her doctoral thesis focused on international
criminal law.
Nina Lutterjohann was, in 2018–2019, Project Coordinator and
Research Fellow at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict
and Violence at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. She holds an MA
double degree of the Erasmus Mundus Programme Euroculture and BA
in European Studies from Maastricht University, and has completed a
PhD at the University of St Andrews. Among previous appointments was
for a Public Affairs Consultancy in Brussels and was Advisor on Climate
and Energy Policy for the International Political Dialogue of a
German foundation. She was also Research Assistant and Academic
Organiser for the MA Programme Euroculture after completing a
traineeship at the European Commission in the Directorate-General
External Relations, with projects on the Black Sea region, Caucasus/
ENP, South-East Europe, and the EU’s Barents Cooperation. She
worked at the think tank Club de Madrid and the Permanent
Delegation of Germany to UNESCO in Paris.
Andreas Marazis is the Head of Research for Eastern Europe and Central
Asia at the European Neighbourhood Council (ENC). His research is
concerned with the post-Soviet space, particularly sociopolitical develop-
ments in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Andreas Marazis is also
affiliated researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and associate
researcher for EUCAM. He holds an MLitt in Middle East, Caucasus,
and Central Asian Security Studies from the University of St Andrews
(Scotland, UK) and an MA in Black Sea Cultural Studies from the
International Hellenic University (Thessaloniki, Greece).
Licínia Simão is researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) and
Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Economics
of the University of Coimbra (FEUC). She is currently acting as staff
member at the Office of the Minister of National Defense. Her
research interests include foreign policy, international security,
European foreign policy, and the post-Soviet space. Her most recent
publication is The EU’s Neighbourhood Policy towards the South Caucasus:
Expanding the European Security Community (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Shu Uchida is a guest researcher at the Osaka School of International


Public Policy, Graduate School, Osaka University, Japan, and a visiting
associate professor, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia, November
2018–present. Previously affiliations include Visiting Fellowships at
the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard
University, USA, and at the Strategic Research Center, Tbilisi,
Georgia. He also served as Attaché at the Embassy of Japan in
Georgia. Tbilisi, Georgia in 2011–2013. He is a Marie Curie Fellow
the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra,
Portugal.
Elena Zhirukhina is a senior researcher at the Institute of International
Relations in Prague and a research associate at the University of St
Andrews. Her work focuses on international cooperation and state strate-
gies towards violent non-state actors and their various illicit activities,
micro dynamics of irregular conflicts, and Russia, the Caucasus, and
Central Asia. She is involved in data-focused research and design/
management of regional N-large datasets on political violence.
Previously, she taught at the Academy of Public Administration
under the president of the Republic of Kazakhstan and held a Marie
Curie Fellowship at the University of St Andrews.
List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 The spectrum of balancing between the West and Russia in 2017 92
Fig. 5.1 A typology of perceived relative success and failure
(Author’s model) 101
Fig. 5.2 Timeline of concluded and non-(concluded) agreements in the
Georgia-Abkhazia conflict (Author’s timeline) 108
Fig. 5.3 Timeline of concluded and non-(concluded) agreements in the
Moldova-Transnistria conflict (Author’s timeline) 109

xiii
List of Tables

Table 2.1 Components and dimensions of EU security actorness 33


Table 2.2 Mapping major steps in EU relations with EaP countries 41
Table 4.1 Issues in bilateral relationship, principal US constituencies,
factors in policy approach 90
Table 7.1 Minsk II: Points and state of implementation 159
Table 10.1 Key bilateral agreements governing relations of Central Asian
states with the EU 228

xv
Fig. 1 Map of European Union and Eastern Partnership countries, including the
United Kingdom at the time of finalisation of publication, prior to Brexit
CHAPTER 1

The Price and Possibilities of Going East?


The European Union and Wider Europe,
the European Neighbourhood
and the Eastern Partnership

Rick Fawn

It all began so well. The then European Community’s first enlargement


after the 1989 revolutions in socialist Eastern Europe was one seamlessly
coterminous with German unification: as the two Cold War-era Germanies
fused on 3 October 1990, so the European Community inched slightly
eastwards. European neutrals joined in 1995, and the admission of Austria,
and especially of Sweden and Finland, brought the European Union (EU)
into north-eastern Europe. Its borders then extended along Russia’s, at
that point still uncontroversially, by over 1300 kilometres.
Pressing demands from post-communist countries eventually led to the
2004 ‘big bang’ enlargement of 2004. Eight post-communist countries
entered the Union, along with Malta and Cyprus, in the Mediterranean.
Already then the EU’s borders had moved decidedly eastwards, encoun-
tering post-Soviet ones and making new policy challenges. Belarus, still
the political pariah of Europe, the only one of 47 European countries to

R. Fawn (*)
School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
e-mail: rick.fawn@st-andrews.ac.uk

© The Author(s) 2020 3


R. Fawn (ed.), Managing Security Threats along the EU’s Eastern
Flanks, New Security Challenges,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26937-1_1
4 R. FAWN

be outside of the Council of Europe, now bordered the EU on two sides,


through Lithuania and Poland. Ukraine, Europe’s second largest country
geographically, and with immense potential but with severely stunted
reforms and arguably a divided population, became immediately adjacent
to the EU through the Union’s new eastern frontiers of Poland, Slovakia
and Hungary.
The entry of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 further projected the EU,
this time in a south-eastern direction, into the Black Sea region, giving it
over 600 kilometres of coastline. The new frontiers obliged the EU to face
an impoverished and conflict-ridden Moldova, gave it additional borders
with Ukraine and had it facing across the Black Sea to Russia, Turkey
(already sharing frontiers with Greece) and Georgia. In physically moving
itself East, and despite its claims to enhanced prowess and attractiveness,
the EU engages a very different eastern flank now than it did when it was
still the European Community and from when it slowly embarked on even
the idea of enlargement in the early post–Cold War era. This book is about
those new challenges. Its concerns are threefold: about the EU; the mul-
tiplicity of actors and security issues along its eastern borders; and the
interactions between the EU and those neighbours. The book is also nec-
essarily about other actors that interact with the EU and the states and
conflicts in the EU’s eastern flanks: the United States and the Russian
Federation.
One immediate assumption of the EU that was upended in engaging
with its eastern flanks was that this region, especially the immediately adja-
cent post-Soviet states, would respond to the EU’s requests, encourage-
ments and expectations and would also do so uniformly. Not only did that
assumption not materialise, but the EU also now confronts very different
and differentiated challenges and threats from a region which it presumed
might willingly refashion itself in the EU’s image. Such thinking was not
fanciful but rooted in planning and resulted in the Eastern Partnership
(EaP). Presented to the EU’s General Affairs and External Relations
Council in Brussels on 26 May 2008 and launched on 7 May 2009 in
Prague, the EU believed that the EaP had to, and could, transform its new
immediate neighbours. Doing so would provide stability for both those
countries domestically and, in turn, for the EU.
More than a decade since the EaP’s launch, the outcome remains very
different than anticipated.1 To be sure, there are some successes, as the

Growing literature on the EU and the EaP includes: Dimitris Bouris and Tobias
1

Schumacher, The Revised European Neighbourhood Policy: Continuity and Change in EU


1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 5

volume recognises. However, the EU’s East generates more chaos and
catastrophe than could possibly be foreseen in 2009, which since
then include rejections of the EU, revolution, conflict stalemates, and
‘hybrid war’ and territorial annexations. This is a horrific agenda, not least
for an organisation largely predicated on peaceable aims and instruments.
Nevertheless, the EU needs more than ever to recognise and deploy the
values and the tools available to it for the security threats emanating from
and beyond its eastern borders. A key starting point involves not merely
identifying threats but reasserting and refocusing existing EU capacities
and suggesting new ones, to address threats and achieve greater stability.
This volume seeks to determine the nature of the security challenges to
the EU emanating from its eastern flank, to reassess EU capacities in light
of these challenges and to offer ways forward.
Although the EU faces various challenges, including internal ones,
those identified in the present book are unlikely to dissipate in coming
years, or even decades. To be sure, the unique fallout from the United
Kingdom’s Brexit from the EU, whatever form that eventually takes, will
change the shape of both unions.2 Issues within the EU will continue to
arise and surprise. Cognates to or successors of the Eurozone crisis, anti-
­EU sentiments among populist movements, divisions between north and
south, or east and west, within the Union remain likely.
Despite these internal challenges, the EU continues to see itself as a
global actor. Within that ambition the EU has particularly identified as a
central focus its Eastern Partnership with the six post-Soviet states of
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. In addition
to that, new, multifaceted and deeply challenging issues now emanate
from that region, and from other countries and phenomena integrally
linked to them, including Turkey, Russia, and post-Soviet Central Asia.
The external threats to the EU recognised in the volume thus present
fundamental security challenges and call for both the renewed application
of EU capacities and also for new ones. Although 2015 provoked crisis
within the EU over dealing with an influx at the historic highpoint of

Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); Licinia Simão, The EU’s
Neighbourhood Policy towards the South Caucasus (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018);
and Elena Korosteleva, The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours: Towards a More
Ambitious Partnership? (London: Routledge, 2012).
2
On the challenge of Brexit to the EU’s Global Strategy, see for example, Sven Biscop ‘All
or Nothing? The EU Global Strategy and Defence Policy after the Brexit’, Contemporary
Security Policy, 37:3 (2016), 431–445.
6 R. FAWN

1,322,800 asylum seekers,3 the prospects of other influxes remain, as does


potential societal disquiet and possibly new political tensions within the
EU over compulsory relocation quotas. That is but one dimension. In
attempting to secure its borders through delicate measures such as the six
very different post-Soviet states in the EaP, one of the EU’s most ambi-
tious foreign relations, it has ironically contributed to making some of its
frontiers not only less secure but also the scenes of open violence and
unilateral territorial rearrangement.
In short, Brussels faces, and will continue to face, multiple crises, or
even ‘poly-crises’.4 That may be the business of EU affairs. But the security
issues, and their geographic origins, addressed here are likely to either
endure even in their present forms, such as conflicts in post-Soviet
European states, or, even in the best circumstances, still provide lasting
challenges.
This chapter first establishes how the EU defined itself since 2016 as
being a global actor, the priorities it has assigned to itself, and how also
those proclaimed priorities provide a means to assess EU successes. The
chapter then explains different geographical terminologies that the EU
has adopted and, through that, offers a rationale for the countries and
regions covered in this volume. Finally, the chapter identifies the chal-
lenges that the EU faces in its East, and does through an explanation of
the choice and the interlinkages between the methods and the issues
that it uses.

The EU and Global Ambitions


In addition to its expansion east- and south-eastwards and its intensified
engagement with proximate post-Soviet states, the EU pronounced itself
to be a global actor. This heightened ambition coincided with, and in
some regards contributed to or even sparked, some of the crises in this
immediate neighbourhood, migrant flows across the Mediterranean not-
withstanding. The EU itself provides a statement both of its political aspi-
rations and of its capacities, through its indicatively entitled A Global
Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS),

3
Eurostat, Asylum statistics, available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics.
4
See for example, Richard Youngs, Europe Reset: New Directions for the EU (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2017).
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 7

launched in 2016. Evaluating the EUGS gives a self-declared framework


to identify and analyse the EU’s approach and capacity for dealing with
challenges to its east.
Within the EU’s global ambitions is dissemination of what it deems to
be constituent values that are also universal.5 Where the EC’s earlier trade
agreements and development cooperation were notably apolitical, after
1992 and the Treaty of Maastricht, democracy promotion was introduced
to all of its external endeavours.6 The promotion of this world view was
further brought into practical policy with the launch of the EUGS. At
almost the same time, in the preceding year, the EU reviewed its then six-­
year-­old key strategy towards the EaP, and these two important docu-
ments are almost inseparable. The principles, capabilities and priorities
that the EU uses to define itself as a global actor are perhaps no more
germane for its eastern flanks than anywhere else. They provide a self-­
declared framework of analysis for challenges and threats emanating from
the EU’s east.
The EUGS itself was a watershed for the EU, eliciting observer com-
ments such as ‘In terms of diplomacy, the new EUGS is an important
document at a significant moment in the EU’s history. It is not simply the
product of a standard bureaucratic exercise, but a reminder of the vast
range of activities in which the EU already actively engages’.7
The five priorities of the EU’s Global Strategy indicate the centrality of
the themes and regions that are addressed in this volume, some implicitly,
others explicitly. These are: ‘The Security of our [the European] Union’;
‘State and Societal Resilience’; ‘An Integrated Approach to Conflicts and
Crises’; ‘Cooperative Regional Orders’; and ‘Global Governance for the
21st Century’.8

5
Apart from literature on transforming accession or candidate countries, the literature on
EU conflict resolution capacities specifically is now considerable. Recent works include
Thomas Diez and Nathalie Tocci (eds), The EU, Promoting Regional Integration, and
Conflict Resolution (Palgrave, 2017).
6
An overview of the transformation of democracy promotion is given, for example, in
Sandra Lavenex and Frank Schimmelfennig, ‘EU Democracy Promotion in the
Neighbourhood: From Leverage to Governance?’, in Sandra Lavenex and Frank
Schimmelfennig (eds), Democracy Promotion in the EU’s Neighbourhood: From Leverage to
Governance? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), esp. pp. 1–2.
7
Mai’a K. Davis Cross, ‘The EU Global Strategy and Diplomacy’, Contemporary Security
Policy (Vol. 37, No. 3, 2016), p. 402.
8
These can be found on ‘Priorities of the EU Global Strategy’, available at: http://europa.
eu/globalstrategy/en/priorities-eu-global-strategy.
8 R. FAWN

While the first priority deals with security threats such as economic vol-
atility, climate change and energy insecurity, it also includes fighting ter-
rorism and hybrid threats. Meant more broadly than in that instance, the
EU’s definition of ‘hybrid threats’ can include Russian action in Ukraine;
hybrid threats nevertheless apply in that case and were defined as ‘conven-
tional and unconventional methods that can be used in a coordinated
manner by state and non-state actors while remaining below the threshold
of formally declared warfare. The objective is not only to cause direct
damage and exploit vulnerabilities, but also to destabilise societies and cre-
ate ambiguity to hinder decision-making’.9
The Strategy’s second priority, state and societal resilience, offers sup-
port to the EU’s Eastern and Southern state neighbours, to develop and
enhance domestic good governance and accountable institutions, and
support and engage with civil society. Geographically, the priority was also
defined as being from Central Asia in the East to Central Africa in the
South, and these themes remain of particular salience to post-Soviet poli-
ties. This dimension also includes post-conflict rehabilitation, in order to
make conflict-affected areas socio-economically stronger. The region, as
noted in the previous section, that we cover brings multiple conflicts in
Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and, indeed, also of the North Caucasus
within the Russian Federation.
In this second priority, the EU makes a significant claim of its capacities
for peacebuilding, declaring:

The EU engages in a practical and principled way in peacebuilding. Human


security is at the core of all our actions and wherever we can we act early to
prevent conflict and save precious human lives. We also stay engaged in the
aftermath of conflict to ensure that peace is deeply rooted in society.

Such engagement is far more advanced in the Western Balkans than in


the space of the Eastern Partnership.10 While doubts remain about inter-
ethnic harmony, as in Bosnia, or statehood itself remains contested, as
between Kosovo/a and Serbia, open conflict no longer exists and most

9
European Commission, ‘Security: EU strengthens response to hybrid threats’, Brussels,
6 April 2016, which is hyperlinked into the Global Strategy. Available at: http://europa.eu/
rapid/press-release_IP-16-1227_en.htm.
10
Recent case-based comparison is offered in Marek Neuman (ed.), Democracy Promotion
and the Normative Power Europe Framework: The European Union in South Eastern Europe,
Eastern Europe, and Central Asia (Springer, 2018).
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 9

polities have regularised, fully contested elections. By contrast, the EaP


countries rank at best as partially free to outright dictatorship, and five face
conflicts that, in addition to enormous human costs, involve unresolved
territorial issues. The EU’s status and authority are shown to be limited on
the ground; its rapid and innovative measure to agree and deploy its
Monitoring Mission to Georgia after the 2008 war, its impressively fast
establishment and fast deployment notwithstanding, remains barred by
Russia from entry to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.11
The ‘State and Societal Resilience’ priority sounds promising, and is
certainly relevant for the EU’s eastern flanks. Its third priority, ‘An
Integrated Approach to Conflicts and Crises’, sets up the EU to be assessed
as to how well it handles exactly those challenges of conflict and crisis.
The fourth priority, of ‘Cooperation Regional Authority’, would like-
wise be welcome and necessary for the EaP states, and also for countries
that interconnect with them, such as Turkey, Russia and post-Soviet
Central Asia. The promise, as the EUGS states, is as immense as it is
auspicious:

Regional governance makes it easier to manage security concerns, reap eco-


nomic gains, and project influence. This is the rationale for the EU’s own
peace and development. We work with regional organisations around the
world because we are stronger when we act together.

How the EU works with other regional organisations towards its east-
ern flank is an increasingly important dimension. While the EU, for exam-
ple, has supported the values and practices of the Council of Europe, and
of the 57 participating state Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE), it encounters resistance in those forums from Russia and
other post-Soviet states. The EU has intensified cooperation with the
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), to the point as of the 2016
NATO Warsaw Summit of being ‘unprecedented’,12 but faces increased
resistance to its values by Moscow-led regional cooperation initiatives. Far

11
For accounts of the EUMM, see Maria Raquel Freire and Lícinia Simão, ‘The EU’s
security actorness: the case of EUMM in Georgia’, European Security Vol. 22, No. 4 (2013),
pp. 464–477; and Richard G. Whitman and Stefan Wolff, ‘The EU as a conflict manager?
The case of Georgia and its implications’, International Affairs Vol. 86, No. 1 (2010),
pp. 87–107.
12
Dominika Krois, in this volume. See the Joint declaration by the President of the European
Council, the President of the European Commission, and the Secretary General of the North
10 R. FAWN

from offering prospects for cooperation with the EU, Eurasian regional
formations increasingly frame themselves in contradistinction to the EU,
and have arguably outwardly resisted what they see as the EU’s encroach-
ment on their territories and economic systems. While Moscow raised no
objections to EU enlargements (unlike those of NATO, against which
Moscow protested), it also gave a ‘flat rejection’ to its own inclusion in the
European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). That refusal was seen already as
an act of ‘great significance’, in a growing divide between the Russian
Federation and the EU.13 (Four EU-Russia Common Spaces were created
instead, arguably giving Moscow a pre-eminent status among Soviet suc-
cessor states in its relations with the EU.) But the EU-Russia divide was
intensified with the launch of the EaP, which Russian officials framed as an
unacceptable zero-sum game imposed on countries to which it had
extremely deep and multifaceted connections.
The presumption of cooperation extends to the EUGS’s fifth priority,
that of Global Governance for the Twenty-First Century. The values con-
tained in that priority are central to EU initiatives generally, ranging from
women’s empowerment to meeting the Millennium Development goals.
In that respect, the fifth priority speaks more generally to the EU’s east
than to other priorities. And that might be an appropriate juncture at
which to assess how the EU has framed geographically its neighbourhood
generally; its conception of and for the rest of ‘Europe’, more particularly;
and then the EaP and related countries, specifically.

Wider Europe, the ENP and the EaP: Situating


Different ‘Europes’ and Their Possible Parts
The EU has created multiple terms for states around it. Those definitions
not only are essential in themselves but also help to frame analyses of the
threats to the EU. Three key terms apply: Wider Europe, the European
Neighbourhood and the Eastern Partnership. Their differences, in terms
of both EU policy and analysis, in turn help to inform this book’s identi-
fication of issues and case studies.

Atlantic Treaty Organization, 8 July 2016, available at: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/


natohq/official_texts_133163.htm.
13
A good contemporary account is given in Hiski Haukkala, ‘Russian Reactions to the
European Neighbourhood Policy’, Problems of Post-Communism (September/October
2008), pp. 40–48; quotation at p. 41.
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 11

The term ‘Wider Europe’, not yet introduced in this discussion, was
generated by the European Commission on 11 March 2003, referring to
the principles of its relations with the Russian Federation, with what it
called the Western New Independent States (of the former Soviet Union),
and with the Southern Mediterranean countries.14 National foreign minis-
tries responded by creating sections and staffs dedicated to it. Similarly
research and think tank institutes responded, so that, for example, the
European Council on Foreign Relations opened and still runs a dedicated
‘Wider Europe’ programme. ‘Wider Europe’ derived substantially from the
twofold implications of the EU’s ‘big bang’ enlargement, agreed in 2002
and effective from 1 May 2004. Those joining, as said, brought the EU
further east and increased the EU’s physical presence in the Mediterranean.
This expansion potentially had enormous consequences not just for the
EU’s new neighbours, but for the Union itself. As Elisabeth Johansson-­
Nogués asserts, ‘the destabilisation of the eastern and southern neigh-
bourhood’ is not merely issues in themselves, but also have consequences
that ‘upset the narrative of the European integration and arguably, on a
deeper level, the EU’s ontological security’, that is also how it thinks and
defines itself and its security.15
While in less circulation now, the term Wider Europe continues in
usage and embraces 54 countries: the EU itself (28, retaining in that num-
ber the United Kingdom); 5 EU candidate countries; 3 potential candi-
date countries; 11 countries in the Middle East and North Africa,
extending also inland to Mauritania; as well as Russia and 6 European
post-Soviet states. Already in its early stages of launch, the EU’s handling
of ‘Wider Europe’ was seen to be ‘oscillating between an inclusionary and
exclusionary approach’ to those many countries.16 Thus, for example, in
one usage by Russia specialist Richard Sakwa we can read that the
‘European Union and its expansive “wider Europe” agenda is really the
only game in town’. He continues with an important ‘if’, but nevertheless
suggests the potential consequences of such a project: ‘If the latter, then

14
Wider Europe—Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and
Southern Neighbours (Brussels, 11 March 2003), available at: http://eeas.europa.eu/
archives/docs/enp/pdf/pdf/com03_104_en.pdf.
15
Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués, ‘The EU’s ontological (in)security: Stabilising the ENP
area … and the EU-self?’, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 53, No. 4 (2018), p. 529.
16
Sandra Lavenex, ‘EU External Governance in “Wider Europe,”’ Journal of European
Public Policy 11:4 (2004), pp. 680–700.
12 R. FAWN

those left outside are faced with few choices but to adapt or be excoriated.’17
The European Commission states that it aims to ‘respond efficiently to
global challenges’ and it immediately follows those challenges with specific
reference to ‘the crises in its neighbourhood’.18 Despite originally having
been banded together in ‘Wider Europe’, the Mediterranean and North
Africa, the southern neighbourhood, has been treated and studied differ-
ently from the eastern neighbourhood.19
With the EU’s enlargement to the east and south having been declared
in 2002, and set to occur in 2004, the European Commission outlined in
March 2003 its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Tighter in both
the number of members and the intensity of relations with the EU than in
the ‘Wider Europe’ programme, the ENP nevertheless remained geo-
graphically expansive, and embracing hugely varied societies, economies
and polities. At a meeting of 12–13 December 2003, the European
Council adopted the European Security Strategy, which was declared to
provide the conceptual framework for the Common Foreign and Security
Policy, including what would later become the Common Security and
Defence Policy (CSDP). It contained a section on ‘Regional Conflicts’
and further illustrated the EU’s global outlook. The following conflicts
were mentioned: Kashmir, between India and Pakistan; the Great Lakes
Region of Central Africa; the Korean Peninsula, which remains a poten-
tially volatile flashpoint that involves major powers, including the United
States and China; and the Middle East.
The EU’s immediate proximity, the section entitled ‘Building Security
in our Neighbourhood’, referred to the Balkans, but not, notably, to the
post-Soviet space. A severe competition of competing regionalisms could
be said to have begun between Brussels and Moscow over the EaP
countries.20
17
Richard Sakwa ‘Letter to the Editor’, Europe-Asia Studies, 68:6 (2016), p. 1103.
18
European Commission, ‘A stronger global actor: Bringing together the tools of Europe’s
external action’, available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/stronger-global-
actor_en.
19
Among earlier works of the EU and the southern dimension are Federica Bicchi,
European Foreign Policy Making Toward the Mediterranean (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008).
20
An example of stark identification of such regional competition can be the following:
‘The EU put pressure on the various countries to enter into closer institutional and economic
links with the EU and not with Russia…. Russia explicitly warned countries like Georgia,
Moldova and Ukraine that it would be a mistake to seek closer ties with the EU and it threat-
ened with potential counter-reactions against countries that would opt for the EU.’ Stephan
Keukeleire and Irina Petrova, ‘The European Union, the Eastern Neighbourhood and
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 13

The EU remains very positive of the ENP, writing, for example, in


2011 that ‘since its inception in 2004, the ENP has promoted a variety of
important initiatives, particularly on the trade and economic front, which
have allowed the EU and its neighbours to develop stronger relationships
in virtually all policy fields, from energy to education, from transport to
research’.21 Nevertheless, the EU’s east was not uniformly responsive to
the EU’s offers of assistance, especially in terms of wholesale domestic
political-economic reforms; more importantly, the areas produced crises of
its own, which affected the EU and challenged the abilities of its primary
instruments of influence to function.
As scholar-foreign policy adviser to the then-Italy’s foreign minis-
ter Federica Mogherini, Nathalie Tocci summarised of her policymaking
experience regarding the EU, the Union’s political leaders had ‘to con-
stantly jump from one crisis to the next’. Consequently, she noted ‘A strat-
egy would give direction’.22 In ‘Wider Europe’, the ENP and especially
the EaP, the EU believed it had ‘strategy’. Its own actions, particularly
through the EaP, and developments within the EU’s eastern neighbours
tested strategy and demanded response. We turn next to how those chal-
lenges could be identified and addressed.

How and Why to Analyse the EU’s Eastern Flanks


Having given appreciation of the geographic scopes of the EU’s terminol-
ogy for its surrounding countries and regions, this volume contends that
the scope is to the EU’s south and east. It takes a broader approach than
the EaP, both arguing for necessary connections to, and also identifying
the EU’s own recognition of interlinkages with countries, regions and
security issues that go physically beyond the EaP countries.
Consequently, the EU’s eastern flank also means the countries of the
former Soviet Union and Turkey. Benefit may come from pausing to con-

Russia: Competing Regionalisms’ in Mario Telò (ed.), European Union and New Regionalism:
Competing Regionalism and Global Governance in a Post-Hegemonic Era (Routledge, 2016),
p. 263.
21
Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic
and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. A new response to a changing
Neighbourhood (May 2011), available at: https://ec.europa.eu/research/iscp/pdf/policy/
com_2011_303.pdf.
22
Nathalie Tocci, ‘The Making of the EU Global Strategy,’ Contemporary Security Policy
37: 3 (2016), p. 461.
14 R. FAWN

sider the place of the Western Balkans as a region with a distinctive dynamic
with the EU and arguably, as suggested above, deeply accepting of the
Union’s influence. A striking difference of course is that several Western
Balkan countries are in accession negotiations with the EU. Four Western
Balkan countries are defined as candidate countries for membership:
Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia/the Republic of
North Macedonia23; Montenegro; and Serbia. The latter two have begun
accession negotiations. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo (by that
name) are considered as potential candidates. Croatia, after surrendering
one indicted war criminal, acceded to the Union already in 2013. The
European Commission, at a minimum, pronounced that ‘All Western
Balkans [countries] have the chance to move forward on their respective
European paths’. The EaP, while demanding almost similar domestic
reforms, rules out EU membership.
To be sure, some Western Balkan countries will continue to prove chal-
lenging for the success of EU influence. Even so, the EU’s proximity,
effectively surrounding the Western Balkans, the small demographics of
Western Balkans countries (the largest population is Serbia’s, at under
nine million) and the attractiveness of their wealthy markets, and access to
higher education and massive assistance programmes ensure preponderant
influence. The EU has long referred to the whole of the Western Balkans
as having ‘a clear EU perspective’.24 That clearly cannot be, and it is not
said of the EaP countries, let alone of the larger post-Soviet space. By fur-
ther contrast, Wider Europe presents the EU with divergent geographic
challenges, which includes Russia, the former Soviet Union more broadly,
and Turkey, the only one of these countries to have entered into accession
negotiations with the EU, a process that began before any of the other
accession negotiations mentioned here. The focus in this collection is on
the EaP countries and others that interconnect with them or with EU aims
towards them. As EU foreign relations analyst Michael E. Smith observed,

23
The European Commission began backdating its documentation with this country to
include reference to the new country name that was agreed between Skopje and Athens on
12 February 2019. Commission webpages now write, for example, that ‘The Republic of
North Macedonia’s application for EU membership was submitted on 26 February 2004’,
even though that name was not in use at the time. See https://www.consilium.europa.eu/
en/policies/enlargement/republic-north-macedonia/, last current at 26 February 2019.
24
European Commission, Directorate-General for Trade, Regions: Western Balkans, avail-
able at: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bi-lateral-relations, accessed 9
August 2012.
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 15

‘the EU cannot devote equal attention to all aspects’ of its ambitious


Global Strategy. Consequently, ‘the EU’s strategic priority must involve
stabilizing its own neighbourhood’.25 In this way the eastern flank remains
the key geographic area for the EU. The EU’s east, however, is not only
the Union’s key geographic area of concern, but the region also provides
a multiplicity of security challenges that challenge the EU’s capacities.

The EU’s Eastern Security Challenges


and the Rationale and Scope of This Volume

What the volume shows also is the range of security challenges that the
EU faces from its east. These are many, and some are not specifically or
uniquely regional but more extensive, or even global, such as climate
change. Nevertheless, the EU’s east, as outlined above, presents immedi-
ate and unavoidable challenges, and some of which arguably have arisen
because of EU policies.
The volume begins with analysis of the European Union itself, the
threats and challenges that it faces, and its capacities towards its eastern
flanks. The necessary starting place is to ask how EU’s regional security
role in Europe has evolved and why, and particularly how these changes
are reflected in the conceptual design of its vicinity policy. In Chap. 2,
Maria Raquel Freire and Licínia Simão analyse specifically the Eastern
dimension of the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) by focusing on the
EU’s institutional discourse. They map the points of inflection and adjust-
ments to the ENP’s overall conceptualisation as a regional security policy.
The chapter does so by testing potential explanations regarding the rea-
sons for and the directions of these shifts in EU policy. It contends that
arguments regarding path dependency provide powerful explanations for
the early design of the ENP’s approach to regional security. It then out-
lines both as an understanding of the EU as an actor in its neighbourhood
and as a further conceptual framework for this volume, by analysing the
evolving debates, views and approaches to the ENP and particularly the
EaP. It identifies the EaP’s articulation with major EU policy documents,
including the 2016 Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and
Security Policy, to map and explain the most important shifts in the con-

25
Michael E. Smith, ‘Implementing the Global Strategy where it matters most: The EU’s
credibility deficit and the European neighbourhood’, Contemporary Security Policy, 37:3,
2016, p. 446, quoting the abstract.
16 R. FAWN

ceptualisation of the EU’s regional security role beyond enlargement. It


further provides an overview of the most significant challenges and poten-
tial avenues for further development of the EU’s Eastern Partnership,
which are also examined in greater detail in subsequent chapters.
For the EU, however, an unavoidable factor in its expression of influ-
ence into its eastern flank is Russia. The volume’s third chapter, by Rick
Fawn, employs the metaphor of Russia having not merely a double-headed
eagle, but two doubled-headed eagles, on its coat of arms to present two
pairs of contradictory practices in Russian foreign policy that all confound
the EU’s tool box.
The arguments include that Russia has certain legitimate concerns but
it expresses them in a manner that first created an ideational security
dilemma, and then, second, one that has taken on physical manifestations
of aggression. The ideational security dilemma arose from a contest over
the fundamental meaning of core values, such as human rights, democracy
and the role of law. From that also follows the place and roles of interna-
tional actors, both intergovernmental and international non-­governmental,
within states and their societies. The tangible manifestations include
Russia’s recognition as independent states of territories belonging to oth-
erwise fully sovereign states and the annexation of other territory. Moscow
employs the mechanisms of legitimation, such as referendums, and mor-
ally justified language from Responsibility to Protect, even to the point of
preventing genocide.26 The book, both in Chap. 3 and, then, indicative of
the scope of contemporary Russian challenges to EU’s values, also in sev-
eral other cases, addresses the fundamental dilemma of a Russia that simul-
taneously flouts international laws and norms and yet sees itself as a
protector of precisely those.27
The difficulty for the EU remains that Russia operates on a basis of dif-
ferent values yet sees them as at least equally valid to those of the
EU. Indeed, Russia rejects the EU’s values system to the point of hostility
that that bilateral relationship, irrespective of other former Soviet coun-

26
Contending justifications for the 2008 war and given, for example, in Rick Fawn and
Robert Nalbandov, ‘The Difficulties of Knowing the Start of War in the Information Age:
Russia, Georgia and the War over South Ossetia, August 2008’, European Security, Vol. 21,
No. 1 (March 2012), pp. 57–91.
27
A highly informative study remains Roy Allison, Russia, the West, and Military
Intervention (Oxford University Press, 2013). On human rights, see especially Tuomas
Forsberg and Hiski Haukkala, The European Union and Russia (London: Palgrave, 2016).
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 17

tries’ ambitions, went from ‘courtship to confrontation’.28 Additionally


problematic, however, is that while Russia had originally accepted the
enlargement of the EU to post-communist countries (while resisting the
same of NATO), Moscow came to see the EaP as a direct threat not only
to its regional interests but possibly even to regime stability itself.
Unfortunately, the conclusion is that the gulf of misunderstanding is so
great as currently to be unrepairable. That said, issues and dynamics out-
side Europe allow and still require cooperation, and these are a means to
address Russia’s persistent need for the self-satisfaction of being consid-
ered to be, if not a global power, then at least a major and certainly a
regional power.
That said, of course, the EU does not operate alone. Perhaps ironically,
some similarities exist between Russian and US world views. As Gerard
Toal contends, ‘It is a striking fact that, in the heat of the crises generated
by Russia’s invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, both Russian and U.S. geo-
political culture drew upon the same archetypal narratives to frame the
meaning of crises for their populations.’ But such ‘structurally similar
affective storylines’ only heighten differences between the United States
and Russia, rather than facilitating any mutual comprehension.29 Brussels
and Washington continue to have considerable commonality in their
views, and interests, in addressing Russia.
In Chap. 4, Jason Bruder shows how, despite some divergence under
the Trump Administration in other areas, US foreign policy remains highly
supportive of the EU’s approach to the EaP countries and, thus, also of
Brussels’ approach to Moscow over relations with these post-Soviet coun-
tries. And despite seeming personal chemistry between Trump and
President Putin, the Trump Administration’s specific policies towards
Russia have been noted to be more strict, not less, than that of the preced-
ing Obama Administration.30 Additionally, EU cooperation with NATO

28
Anna-Sophie Maass, EU-Russia Relations, 1999–2015: From Courtship to Confrontation
(London: Routledge, 2016).
29
Gerard Toal, Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus
(Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 275.
30
In a news account of Scotland-born Russia adviser to Trump, Fiona Hill, commented
more widely: ‘Yet Hill and her peers have managed to craft a Russia policy that is, by any
measure—sanctions, expulsions, military buildup—tougher than that of the Obama admin-
istration. Trump has not always championed this approach, but he apparently hasn’t hin-
dered Hill and her colleagues on the National Security Council or in the State Department
from doing their work. He has, in effect, sanctioned a Russia policy that is entirely at odds
18 R. FAWN

has intensified despite the lack of perfect symmetry of country member-


ship, particularly in the scope of the Union’s Global Strategy document.
In turn, and in contradistinction to Moscow’s previous unwary attitude
towards the EU, its National Security Concept now defines both NATO
and the EU as threats to it.31
It is in this context of differences over political values, and even open
confrontation, between the EU and Russia that three subsequent chapters
then turn to address specific issue areas. Five of the six EaP countries have
conflicts over territory. Only the Karabakh conflict, between Armenia and
Azerbaijan (although the former often maintains that it is not party to that
conflict, even as it attends international mediation) is one where Russian
military involvement, though very significant, remains indirect (and that
as an arms supplier to both countries, in contravention of an international
embargo, and despite Russia being a co-chair of the Minsk Group plat-
form for conflict mediation). By contrast, in 2008, with a range of
­justifications, Russia recognised as independent states Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, and militarily reinforces them to make both diplomatic and mili-
tary resistance by Georgia ever more difficult. Moldova has since the early
1990s de facto lost control of its eastern territory of Transdnistria. And
although the newly independent Ukraine already faced risks to its territo-
rial integrity in the 1990s, that only materialised by the Russian annexa-
tion of Crimea and what, despite Muscovite counter-claims of
non-involvement, surely is a simmering war in eastern Ukraine where
Kyiv’s authority is broken.
These conflicts in EaP countries both show the importance to the EU
of addressing these crises, but also that the EU does not act alone. Nina
Lutterjohann illustrates in Chap. 5, much how the EU is a partner, some-
times even in what could be called junior roles, in dealing with post-­Soviet

with his own pronouncement.’ Alexander Nazaryan, ‘Fiona Hill, Trump’s top expert on
Russia, is quietly shaping a tougher U.S. policy’, Yahoo News, 25 September 2018, available
at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/fiona-hill-trumps-top-expert-russia-quietly-shaping-
tougher-u-s-policy-090025600.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=tw&guccounter=1.
31
Paragraph 61 refers to the ‘geopolitical expansion’ of both the EU and the NATO, and the
practices of both had led to a ‘serious crisis in the relations between Russia and the Western State’.
Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation (approved by President of the Russian Federation
Vladimir Putin on November 30, 2016), citing the official English version, available at: http://
www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/con-
tent/id/2542248?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_CptICkB6BZ29&_101_INSTANCE_
CptICkB6BZ29_languageId=en_GB.
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 19

conflicts in Georgia and Moldova. The chapter, however, importantly


underlines, first, that the EU does not seek unilaterally to engage in con-
flict transformation and resolution in its Eastern Neighbourhood. Rather,
the EU supports peace-making efforts in tandem with the OSCE and
other actors, including individual states. The chapter’s second dimension
contends that, while the conflicts in Moldova and Georgia continue,
opportunities exist for conflict transformation, signalling positive roles for
the EU in these conflicts. Without so saying, the EU is extending its
regional cooperation priorities by the necessary cooperation with other
intergovernmental partners, particularly the OSCE, to confront these fun-
damental challenges to its EaP project.
In Chap. 6, Shu Uchida elaborates the analysis of EU capacities with an
intensive case study of EU policies towards Georgia, perhaps the most
willing of the EaP countries for absorbing EU practices into national law
and practice under the terms of the EaP. On the one hand, he concludes
from the Georgian case that Russian policies against the country have
pushed Georgia to seek Euro-Atlantic accession, making an even-more
willing adherent out of the country. However, Uchida warns from his on-­
ground work and unique interviews that despite even the signature of an
Association Agreement and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade
Agreement, Georgian patience for full EU membership may wear thin. He
finds grounds to compare that impatience with Turkey’s current malaise,
one that arises from decades of queuing for possible membership. The
chapter also provides a specific test case of what is developing as differen-
tiations of EU capacity to influence neighbouring countries, to the point
that that may take on what is becoming called elsewhere: ‘deep, deep-light
and shallow modes’ of such integration.32
Georgia also became a hallmark for pioneering security efforts by the
EU when it not only (through the French presidency of the European
Council) brokered a peace between Georgia and Russia in 2008, but also
deployed its multinational EU Monitoring Mission. On a larger level, the
move put the EU into high politics, even if with some ambiguity. As
Angela Stent commented, ‘Given the strained relationship between
Washington and Moscow, it was prudent to pass the responsibility for end-
ing the conflict to the French [in the role of the rotating presidency of the

32
See László Bruszt and Julia Langbein, ‘Varieties of dis-embedded liberalism. EU integra-
tion strategies in the Eastern peripheries of Europe’, Journal of European Public Policy, 24: 2
(2017), pp. 297–315.
20 R. FAWN

EU], but some in Washington bristled at the idea that the United States
was now on the sidelines of conflict.’33
Some observers warned since the early 1990s that Ukraine faced both
disintegrative forces and Russian revisionism. This observation from 1994
reads appositely for events two decades later: ‘A Russian-Ukrainian conflict
arising from a crisis in Crimea … would endanger Russia’s already difficult
reforms, destroy the weak remaining chances for the survival of indepen-
dent Ukraine, and push Russia on the path of re-expansion in defense of an
illegitimate secessionist movement created by domestic stagnation in
Ukraine.’34 Foresight aside, Ukraine since 2013 has gone further than even
Moldova and Georgia in testing the EU’s capacities for response to conflict
in its eastern neighbourhood. But in addition to the challenges from
Ukraine, the EU can take comfort, even reassurance: parts of Ukrainian
society have given arguably the greatest demonstration of historical sup-
port for EU accession when, eventually, 800,000 people protested for EU
accession after the government of Viktor Yanukovych decided arbitrarily
not to accept EU trade and reform terms in November 2013.
The Ukraine crisis is arguably even a result of the normative power of
the EU that is seeking association so all-embracing that it made relations
with Russia mutually exclusive, or so it was perceived by Moscow.35 Two
decades ago, the academic analysis of the EU’s values system was that it
was capable of conflict prevention through its own example and the expor-
tation of its values: ‘The best form of conflict prevention is the spread of
the belief that violent conflict is counter-productive and that other priori-
ties and values are more important. The EU can legitimately hope to help
to promote this belief in the long term, and by a variety of means, many
indirect.’36 Normative influence now may have helped to provoke conflict.

33
Angela M. Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First
Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 173.
34
Eugene B. Rumer, ‘Eurasia Letter: Will Ukraine Return to Russia?’ Foreign Policy, No.
96 (Autumn 1994), p. 143.
35
See Hiski Haukkala, ‘From Cooperative to Contested Europe? The Conflict in Ukraine
as the Culmination of a Long-Term Crisis in EU-Russian Relations,’ Journal of Contemporary
European Studies Vol. 40, No. 1 (2015), pp. 25–40. Richard Sakwa lays blame for the
Ukrainian crisis overwhelmingly on Western policies of failure towards Russia and the post–
Cold War European order. Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2016).
36
Christopher Hill, ‘The EU’s Capacity for Conflict Prevention’, European Foreign Affairs
Review 6:3 (2001), p. 333.
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 21

In this regard, Chap. 7, by Andreas Marazis, identifies the severe diffi-


culties that the EU faces in working with Ukraine. Ukraine’s internal
political dynamics meant, briefly stated, that its commitment to engage-
ment with Brussels or Moscow was contingent on a particular leadership.
And while domestic Ukrainian politics should not be reduced to a simple
axis of Western-versus-Eastern voting patterns, nonetheless certain prefer-
ences have emerged. The EU may have been over-optimistic, or perhaps
naïve to expect that Ukraine would sign up to an Association Agreement
at the Vilnius Summit in December 2013, particularly after Armenia had
balked already in September 2013.
Not only was the EU faced with a demographically and geographically
enormous country whose government rejected EU values, but the spiral
of events that followed meant that the EU’s capacities became fundamen-
tally tested. Following the flight of President Viktor Yanukovych, demo-
cratically elected in 2010, Russia claimed to support both the democratic
rights of the population of Ukraine’s southern extremis, the Crimean
Peninsula, and the supposed threats to them by Ukraine’s new but illegiti-
mate and even ‘fascist’ government. The response, with the seeming legit-
imacy of a quick referendum, was for Crimea, and the city of Sebastopol,
to join the Russian Federation.
The EU protested but was materially powerless to confront this territo-
rial alteration, the first conducted unilaterally since the Second World War.
On 27 March 2014, the EU’s statement on Ukraine stated: ‘There is no
place for the use of force and coercion to change borders in Europe in the
twenty-first century. Russia’s actions are in clear breach of the Helsinki
principles.’ That same statement referred to European Council Conclusions
made a week earlier.37 EU capacities were shown to be even more mean-
ingless in the face of the low-intensity conflict that erupted in Donbass in
eastern Ukraine, and resulted in the de facto loss of territory, as well some
13,000 deaths and 1,500,000 people being displaced inside Ukraine and
(far less reported in the West) also into Russia. To be sure, the EU has
maintained a firm diplomatic stand objecting to the violence in and the
loss of Ukraine territory, has supported international mediation and has
also enacted sanctions against Russia. While Crimea and eastern Ukraine
on the one hand show the limits of EU influence and, on the other, Kyiv’s
enthusiasm for closer relations with the EU, culminating in the Association

37
See ‘EU Statement on Ukraine’, OSCE Permanent Council, 27 March, 2014, available
at: PC.DEL/346/14, 27 March 2014 https://www.osce.org/pc/117093?download=true.
22 R. FAWN

Agreement that entered into force on 1 September 2017, which demon-


strates the EU’s attractiveness.
But the EaP countries, of course, are not the only parties to the EU’s
eastern flank. And while the EU identified six post-Soviet states for its EaP,
it recognises itself that it, and those countries, also interact with other
former Soviet states. For that, and other reasons, this volume includes two
subregions and another region. The first subregion is Kurdistan, and its
implications for Iraq and also for Syria and Turkey. Conflicts in the Middle
East have intensified the geostrategic importance of Turkey to the EU,
which has been a long-standing accession country to the EU (and, indeed,
because it has queued so long, it was an accession country to the former
European Economic Community and the European Community). Apart
from accession considerations, Turkey interlinks with many of these other
countries and also both produces and absorbs for the EU some of the key
security issues with which the volume deals.
Turkey perhaps both presents a security issue and is a partner for the
EU to confront instability in that country, particularly in its minority
Kurdish areas, and also on its southern borders, including Iraq and Syria.
Ankara and Brussels have shared an ambiguous relationship, but security
and stability issues in that relationship could not be more graphically dem-
onstrated than through the migrant/refugee crisis on 2015 onwards. The
creation of the Turkey Refugee Facility in late 2015 had Turkey assist the
EU to stem the refugee flow, which the European Commission has put at
over 2.7 million people; in the following year, in 2016–2017, the EU
funded the Facility with €3 billion.38 Turkey has had long-standing issue
over its Kurdish minority—and with the violent disintegration of both
Iraq and Syria, the pan-regional fate of Kurds has intensified.
As Samuel Doveri Vesterbye argues in Chap. 8, even though Iraq has
not been included in the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP),
while Syria has been, he contends that the EU’s sets of foreign policy val-
ues are also applied to its southern neighbour. He concludes that any suc-
cessful EU strategy towards Iraq requires a serious reconsideration and
improvement of current relations with Ankara, including support from
Washington. Such relations are likely to depend on a series of complex and
domestic Turkish-European policy elements, ranging from the improve-

38
European Commission, ‘European Neighbourhood Policy And Enlargement
Negotiations: Turkey,’ available at: https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/
countries/detailed-country-information/turkey_en.
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 23

ment of the EU’s relations with the ruling Turkish Justice and Development
Party, a likely conundrum for EU values in the face of Turkish domestic
political developments, but also in mutually beneficial functional coopera-
tion, such as in a common energy project and a modernised Customs Union.
The second subregion addressed in the volume is the North Caucasus
of the Russian Federation, which raises another key security theme and
policy area, that of terrorism and counter-terrorism.
And that, then, raises issues of cooperation between the EU and the
Russian Federation. Elena Zhirukhina opens Chap. 9 with an apposite
quotation from President Vladimir Putin, deserving iteration here:

The consolidation of the world community is needed for an effective fight


against terrorism, extremism, neo-Nazism and other threats. We [Russia]
are open to such cooperation. Russia will always side with the forces of
peace, with those who opt for equal partnership, who reject wars as contrary
to the very essence of life and the nature of man.39

Before al-Qaeda’s prominence following the 9/11 attacks and that of


Islamic State (IS) since its 2014 seizure of territory in Syria and Iraq, the
EU and Russia faced similar, though separate, terrorist threats. Similar
because they predominantly came from subnational sources, that is, from
within countries and primarily against the government. Separate because
ETA, or the Irish Republican Army, and later for Russia the Chechen sepa-
ratists, at the time of their prime activity were not operating regionally, let
alone internationally. Al-Qaeda and IS of course changed that with their
ability to attack internationally.
While much literature exists on EU counter-terrorism efforts,40 Chap. 9
provides statistical analysis, and with fluency, both in the Russian calculus
of such and its own methods of how Russian strategies work—and their
limitations. Within that is the need for cooperation with the EU. That
spirit of such cooperation may be found also in other geographic areas,
perhaps particularly that of the EU’s Western Balkan Counter-Terrorism
Initiative. As Dominika Krois writes later in this collection, ‘Dealing with

39
Vladimir Putin, ‘Speech for the Victory Day Celebration on 9 of May 2017’, kremlin.ru,
9 May 2017, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54467.
40
See, for example, Javier Argomaniz, Oldrich Bures and Christian Kaunert (eds), EU
Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence: A Critical Assessment (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017);
and Raphael Bossong, The Evolution of EU Counter-Terrorism: European Security Policy after
9/11 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).
24 R. FAWN

the jihadist threat and identifying opportunities for enhanced cooperation


remains the most important tool to coordinate counter-terrorism/counter
violent extremism activities in the Western Balkans region and a top prior-
ity for the EU.’41 Despite the myriad difficulties in Russian-EU relations,
counter-terrorism remains an area of established cooperation and high pri-
ority for both partners. The Russian Federation’s 2016 Foreign Policy
Concept noted the ‘potential for Russia and the EU to step up combined
efforts to counter terrorism, uncontrolled and illegal migration, as well as
organised crime, including human trafficking, illicit trafficking of narcotic
drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors, arms and explosives,
and cybercrime’.42 Scope for EU-Russian counterterrorism cooperation
extends also to the collapse of the Islamic State. Thousands of each of their
citizens have become fighters in Syria, and who may return home but are
possibly part of the mercurial and internationalised extremist network that
wreaks fear in the EU and Russia alike. As a popular work stated of the
collapsing Islamic State, ‘Many of the non-Arab foreign fighters attempted
to return to their home countries in Europe and the Central Asian states,
all of which look destined to be plagued by violent Islamism for years
to come.’43
Moving further east from Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and from the North
Caucasus, the volume contends that post-Soviet Central Asia both con-
nects to other regional consideration of the EU and demonstrates how the
EU projects its values. Indeed, post-Soviet Central Asia states were
included in wider policies and programmes of the EC/EU in the 1990s
through some of the major outreach such as Partnership and Co-operation
Agreements (PCAs) and Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of
Independent States (TACIS).44 Of the 2015 appointment of the EUSR for
Central Asia, the European External Action Service (EEAS) wrote that it
‘shows the EU’s continued cooperation with Central Asia, ensuring strong

41
Dominika Krois, ‘Reflections on How the EU is Handling Threats to Stability in Wider
Europe’, in this volume.
42
Paragraph 64, available at: http://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/official_docu-
ments/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/2542248?p_p_id=
101_INSTANCE_CptICkB6BZ29&_101_INSTANCE_CptICkB6BZ29_languageId=
en_GB.
43
Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography (London: Elliott and Thompson, 2015), p. 161.
44
For an overview, see Laure Delcour, Shaping the Post-Soviet Space? EU Policies and
Approaches to Region-Building (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), especially Ch. 2, ‘The EU: A
Latecomer in Central Asia’s Great Game’.
1 THE PRICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF GOING EAST? THE EUROPEAN UNION… 25

presence in our engagement on key issues of mutual interest including the


rule of law, security, energy, water, education and human rights.’45
The EU influence is less tangible in this further-flung region, and has
also faced intense competition from Russia and especially from China, but
nevertheless is of identified increasing important to the EU, and also one
linked by common history, hydrocarbons and human security issues to
other post-Soviet countries in the EaP. But it is nevertheless, and arguably
also because of that, of increasing importance to the EU. As Krois further
observers, ‘The EU’s strong interest in the stability and security of Central
Asia translates into the cooperation with the Central Asian states in build-
ing peace and economic prosperity in the region, and clearly extends the
EU’s aims to extend its values and experience beyond the EaP.’46
Karolina Kluczewska and Shairbek Dzhuraev importantly demonstrate
in Chap. 10 that the EU has through its representatives effectively said
that ‘although the EU does not see itself as imposing them, it nevertheless
believes that its values are excellent and universal, and should be accepted
by Central Asian countries’. This is an additional test case of how the EU
can export values. While identifying challenges, their analysis is more opti-
mistic for the EU’s capacities than in many of the other cases studies,
contending that ‘EU-Central Asia relations have great potential. While
both parties pursue their own agendas, the cooperation is free of an overly
“realpolitik” nature that would push one side into the corner. The EU and
Central Asia relations are essentially well-intentioned with greater benefits
for both sides still to be realised’.47
Chapter 11 gives analysis of how the EU deals with its neighbourhood.
Dominika Krois, an international lawyer and OSCE/COSCE Coordinator
of the European External Action Service, offers her personal analysis. She
outlines how the EU support for economic development in neighbouring
countries through its stabilisation policy; conflict mediation, with multiple
roles, including particularly regarding Ukraine has been firm on principle,
applying restrictive measures where necessary and cautiously keeping
options for diplomatic engagement open. A further measure is the EU’s
response to security challenges, as identified in the 2016 Global Strategy,
45
EEAS, ‘EU Special Representatives’, 14 June 2016, available at: https://eeas.europa.
eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en/3606/EU%20Special%20Representatives.
46
Dominika Krois, ‘Conclusion: How is the EU handling threats to stability in wider
Europe?’ in this volume.
47
Karolina Kluczewska and Shairbek Dzhuraev, ‘The EU and Central Asia: The Nuances
of an “Aided” Partnership,’ in this volume.
26 R. FAWN

and its five priorities, outlined above. Additionally, the EU supports


regional cooperative initiatives that provide both states and populations
with opportunities to better manage security concerns in the Black Sea
region, Baltic Sea region and Northern Europe, and these are seen to offer
positive spillovers for increasing stability.
We turn now to see how the EU functions as a global actor, and par-
ticularly towards the EaP countries.

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CHAPTER 2

Turning Points and Shifting Understandings


of European Security: The European
Neighbourhood Policy’s Development

Maria Raquel Freire and Licínia Simão

The European Union (EU) plays a fundamental role in Europe’s security.


The EU’s capabilities are undergoing significant changes, which are
increasingly reflected in the conceptual design of its Neighbourhood
Policy (ENP). These changes result both from the external context within
which EU policies are implemented and from the institutional and politi-
cal context in which they are designed. Regarding the former, we identify
several turning points which have affected European security since the
inception of the ENP, in 2003. These include developments in EU-US
relations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and EU
enlargements in a post-9/11 context, the important role of Russia and its
relations with former-Soviet countries, as well as the Arab Spring events
and the political instability in the Southern neighbourhood of the
EU. Regarding EU institutional and political context, we focus on the
impacts of the 2004/2007 EU enlargements, particularly in terms of the
regional agenda that was uploaded onto the EU’s regional security con-

M. R. Freire (*) • L. Simão


Faculty of Economics and Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: rfreire@fe.uc.pt; lsimao@fe.uc.pt

© The Author(s) 2020 31


R. Fawn (ed.), Managing Security Threats along the EU’s Eastern
Flanks, New Security Challenges,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26937-1_2
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“Oh, I’m not thinking of you, darling; you are as cold and austere as
Diana herself. I do wish you were not so icy to some one—you know
who I mean.”
But Aurea’s expression was not encouraging, and her vivacious
companion continued—
“Isn’t this a darling old place?” rising and looking over the Italian
gardens and sloping lawns. “Somehow I always feel sorry for those
Davenants, and as if we had no business here, and it was still theirs.
We have their heirlooms too—the Davenants’ Vandyke, the
lacquered cabinets, the Chippendale chairs. Dad bought them, as
they matched the place; but we don’t fit in. Dad and mum were far
happier in London; keeping up a great estate and a great position is
an awful strain when one was not caught young. Do you know, the
servants are a frightful trial; they find the country dull. And at the last
ball we had, nearly all the hired waiters were intoxicated; they drank
most of the champagne, and one of them handed a lemonade to
Lord Mottisfont, and said there was no fiz left! The mum was so
mortified she wept, poor dear.”
“Well, everything always seems to go smoothly, quite London
fashion, and without a hitch,” said Aurea consolingly.
“Yes, but not behind the scenes; and the Mum sometimes makes
such horrible blunders in etiquette, such as sending in a baronet’s
wife before a countess—and the countess looked pea-green!
Altogether it’s a fag. When Bertie marries I expect pater will make
him over the place. I wouldn’t mind reigning here myself—would you,
Aurea?”
“What a silly question, Joey! I’m not cut out for reigning anywhere.”
“Only in people’s hearts, eh?” stroking her cheek with a finger. “Isn’t
that a pretty speech? Well, come along, I want to show you the
pretty things I collected abroad—my fans and lace and
embroideries.”
But just at this moment a maid entered, and said—
“If you please, ma’am, I was to say that Miss Parrett’s car is at the
door, and she’s waiting for Miss Morven.”
The drive home was made by another road (in spite of Miss Parrett’s
querulous protestations, and it was evident that the sooner she could
abandon the motor the better she would be pleased). Susan, on the
other hand, was anxious to see more of the country, and make a
detour round by a little town, eight miles away.
“Why, it’s nothing,” she protested; “it’s not worth taking out the car for
a run over to Westmere—one might as well walk!”
“One would think it was your car, to hear you talking, Susan;” and
Miss Parrett threw herself back in the corner, and closed her eyes,
only to open them again immediately, as they sped along the empty,
country roads between hedges already green.
“There’s Hopfield Hill!” she exclaimed, suddenly sitting bolt upright.
“I’m not going down that in a motor, so don’t suppose it, either of
you.”
“But it’s three-quarters of a mile long, and you have a blister on your
heel,” expostulated her sister. “Come, Bella, don’t be foolish.”
“Don’t argue; if it was twenty miles I’d walk it. This thing gives me
palpitation as it is.”
In spite of Aurea’s and Miss Susan’s prayers, vows, and assurances,
Miss Parrett descended at the top of a long hill, insisted that her
companions should accompany her, and together the trio tramped
down in the mud, whilst the chauffeur sped along merrily, and
awaited them at the base. On their way home by a narrow byroad
they nearly met with a nasty accident. A cart, drawn by a young
horse, was coming out of a gate as the motor approached, and there
was an exciting scene. The boy who was driving lost his head, the
horse reared and plunged, Miss Parrett shrieked, and the motor—
which was jammed into the bank—shuddered all over; but, after a
moment—a critical moment—all was well—all but Miss Parrett, who
collapsed into her corner, and announced that she had spasms of
the heart, and was dying!
Ultimately they reached the Manor without further trouble; the dying
lady was restored with brandy and water, and Owen the chauffeur
spent the next two hours in cleaning the muddy car. This was the
part of the job he loathed. Just as he had completed his task, he
beheld, to his discomfiture, the cook stepping delicately across the
yard, carrying a black bottle in one hand, and a wineglass in the
other.
“Good-evening to you, Mr. Owen. My word! you do look hot after all
your fag with the car. Beastly work, ain’t it? I’ve just run over with a
glass of ginger wine—it’s my own.”
“Thank you, Miss Hicks. It’s awfully good of you, but it’s a thing I
never touch,” he answered politely.
“Then what do you say to a pint o’ beer, or a cup o’ tea?”
“No—er—I’m about done,” pulling down his sleeves; “and I’m going.”
“The old girl seems a bit upset,” remarked the cook, who had come
out for conversation; “she’s awful frightened of the car.”
“She needn’t be,” he answered shortly.
“Not with you a-driving, I’m sure, Mr. Owen. I wish I could have a run
in it, eh? There was a chauffeur as I knew in London—rather a pal of
mine—that used to give his friends fine drives, as much as down to
Brighton, when the family was out of town. He were a treat, I can tell
you!”
“Was he? I’d say he was a thief—unless he used his own petrol.”
“Oh, come now, you’re mighty strict and proper, I can see. Chapel, I
suppose?”
“No; you’re wrong there.”
“Look here, what’s the use of being so stand-off and so stiff—it’s
downright silly; you and me, as it were, coming to this cruel place
from the same reference. Won’t you call round and take me for a
nice walk on Sunday afternoon?”
“No; you’re very kind—but I can’t.”
“Why, what else have you to do?” her eyes kindling. What else had
he to do? Lie on his bed and smoke, and read Leila’s papers. And
there were other alternatives; he could take a long stretch, say ten
miles out and back, or he might go to evening service and gaze at
Aurea Morven!
“My word! you are a stupid!” declared Miss Hicks; “even if you have
a young woman up in town, she won’t mind. Have you a young
lady?” and her bold eyes were searching.
Had he? He had! His young lady was Miss Aurea, her mistress’s
niece—Aurea or no other; and as he put on his coat he looked his
tormentor steadily in the face and answered—
“Yes, I have.”
“Oh, so that’s it! I see! And you’re hurrying off to write to her?
Well,”—spitefully—“I can tell you one thing for yer comfort, there’s no
post out of Ottinge before Monday morning!”
“Isn’t there? That’s a pity. Well, good-evening to you, Miss Hicks;”
and he walked off, leaving Miss Hicks gaping after him. She,
however, consoled herself with a couple of glasses of ginger wine,
before re-entering the house.
CHAPTER XII
THE DOGS’ HOTEL

The morning succeeding the motor’s first trip proved depressingly


wet; thick mists of cold spring rain shrouded the outlook from the
Manor, beat down upon the pleasure ground, and made pools in the
hollows of the drive.
Miss Parrett, who was, as the servants expressed it, “dodging” in
and out of the sitting-room, issuing commands and then withdrawing
them, fastened upon the chauffeur the moment he came for orders.
No, the car would not be required, and he could go some errands
into the village.
“Mind you don’t go loitering and gossiping,” she added. “I know your
sort, chattering with the maids. Remember that your time belongs to
me;” and she pointed a stumpy forefinger at her knitted jacket. “I’ve a
note for Miss Morven at the Rectory, and another for Ivy House, and
I want some things at Topham’s shop. I’ll give you a list. You can go
into the schoolroom and wait.”
Calm with excessive rage Wynyard entered the schoolroom, where
he found Miss Susan with a handkerchief tied over her head, and an
apron over her dress, unpacking dusty china from a battered case.
“Such a day!” she exclaimed cheerfully; “and they say it’s going to
last—so we shall be very busy, and make use of you.”
“All right, miss,” he assented shortly; the accusation of “chattering
with maids” still left its sting.
“We are going to get up the cases of old books and china, and
unpack them here. The carpenter is putting shelves in the library; but
he is such a lazy fellow, I don’t expect he will come out in this
weather.”
“There you are as usual, Susan, talking and idling people,” said her
sister, entering with two notes and a list; and in another moment
Wynyard had been dispatched.
First of all he went to the Rectory, and here the door was opened by
Mr. Morven himself, attended by Mackenzie, who immediately
stiffened from head to tail, and growled round the chauffeur’s legs,
evidently recognising in him the ally of his mortal foe. Mr. Morven
was a squarely built elderly man with a grey beard, a benevolent
expression, and the eyes of the dreamer.
As he took the note he glanced at the messenger, and his eyes
dilated with the intentness of a surprised stare. Wynyard’s type was
not common in the parish; somehow Mrs. Hogben’s lodger did not
correspond with his surroundings.
“I see this is for my daughter,” he said, and beckoning to a parlour-
maid he handed it to her. “Just come into my study, will you, till the
answer is written,” leading the way across a wide hall panelled in
oak. Through an open door Wynyard caught a glimpse of the
drawing-room, and was conscious of a faded carpet, fresh chintz,
books, old china, a glowing fire, and a fragrant atmosphere. The
general impression of the Rectory, with its oaken staircase, family
portraits, and bowls of potpourri, was delightful but fleeting; it
seemed a peaceful, flower-scented old house, of spotless neatness.
“You’re a newcomer, I believe?” said the Rector, preceding him into a
room lined with books from floor to ceiling, and seating himself at a
writing-table. “Miss Parrett’s chauffeur?” and he smiled to himself at
some reminiscence. “I see they are making use of you. Church of
England?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you have any sort of voice—tenor, baritone, or bass—we shall be
glad to have you in the choir; our tenor is getting on; he must be
close on seventy.”
“I’m afraid I’m not much good, sir.”
“Well, if you don’t sing, you look like a cricketer, eh? I must get
something out of you, you know;” and he laughed pleasantly.
“Oh yes, I can play cricket all right.”
“If you can bowl a bit, with Miss Parrett’s leave, I’ll put you into the
village club; we rather fancy ourselves, and a young man of your
stamp will be an acquisition.” At this moment Aurea entered, carrying
an enormous cardboard box.
“Good-morning,” she said. “I see aunt sent you for the lampshade,
and here it is.”
“What a size!” exclaimed her father. “Why, you must have robbed
your best hat! I declare it’s not fair to a man to ask him to be seen
with such a thing going through the village.”
“Not half so bad as seeing people go down the street with a black
bottle in either hand!” retorted his daughter.
“I don’t mind, sir,” said Wynyard, taking up the box as he spoke.
“Please tell Aunt Bella I will be after you in two or three minutes,”
said Aurea; then to her father, “She wants to unpack grandpapa’s
books at last!”
“You mean that she wants you to unpack the books,” corrected Mr.
Morven; “you might steal a few for me, eh? I suppose you will be
away all day?” and he looked at her rather wistfully.
“No, no, dear, I’ll be back soon after tea.” To Owen: “Straight on, it’s
an easy door.”
As Wynyard turned in the hall and backed out, box in hand, he had a
vision of pretty Miss Aurea perched on the arm of his chair, with her
arm round her father’s neck. Lucky old beggar!
His next errand was to the shop—Topham’s—and as he lingered
irresolutely in the rain, staring up and down the street, he was
overtaken by a brisk figure in an aquascutum and motor cap.
“I see you are searching for our emporium,” she began, “and I’ll
show it to you—in fact, I’m going in myself to get some brass-headed
carpet nails.”
The shop stood sideways to the street, as if anxious for
concealment, and was the most astonishing place of its kind that
Wynyard had ever entered. A stall in an Indian bazaar was tame and
tidy in comparison. The house was old and low, the shop of narrow
dimensions; it widened out as it ran back, and lost itself in a sort of
tumbledown greenhouse. The smell was extraordinary, so varied,
penetrating, and indescribable—and small wonder, he said to
himself, when he had inspected the stock!
An oldish woman with a long nose (the Ottinge nose) stood stiffly
behind the counter; at her left the window was full of stale
confectionery, biscuit tins, sticky sweets in glass bottles, oranges
and apples in candle boxes; heaps of Rickett’s blue, and some fly-
blown advertisements.
Behind Mrs. Topham were two shelves dedicated to “the library,”
which consisted of remarkably dirty and battered sixpenny novels;
these she hired to the village at the generous price of a penny a
volume for one week. To the left of the entrance were more shelves,
piled with cheap toys, haberdashery, and china; and here ended the
front of the shop. Concealed by a low screen were tins of oil, a barrel
of ginger ale on tap, and a large frying-pan full of dripping. The
remainder of the premises was abandoned to the greengrocery
business on a large scale—onions, potatoes, and cabbages in
generous profusion.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Topham,” said Miss Morven. “What a wet day!
How is your cough?”
“Oh, I’m amongst the middlings, miss. What can I do for you?”
“I want some brass-headed carpet nails, and my aunts have sent a
list;” and she motioned to Wynyard.
Mrs. Topham seized upon it with her long, yellow fingers (they
resembled talons)—the Manor were good customers.
“You can send over the things, Mrs. Topham; but I want the nails
now.”
“I’m sure, miss, I’ve got ’em, but I can’t just rightly think where they
be.”
As she spoke, she turned out a drawer and rummaged through it
violently, and then another; the contents of these gave one an idea
of what is seriously understood by the word “chaos”: wool, toffee,
night-lights, dog biscuits, and pills were among the ingredients.
“Try the blue box,” suggested Aurea, who was evidently acquainted
with the resources of the establishment.
The blue box yielded nothing but a quantity of faded pink ribbon, a
few postcards of the church and Drum, a dozen tennis balls, some
small curling-pins, and several quires of black-edged paper.
“Why, if that isn’t the very thing I was looking for last week!”
exclaimed Mrs. Topham, as she pounced on the paper. “And now
Miss Jakes she’s bin and got it over at Brodfield; ’tis a cruel chance
to be near a big town—and so there’s for you!”
As the search for nails promised to be protracted, Miss Morven
turned to Wynyard and said—
“You need not wait; please take the lampshade on, and say that I’m
coming.”
But before returning to the Manor he had yet another errand to fulfil
—a note for Mrs. Ramsay at Ivy House. Here he rang repeatedly, he
even gave heavy single knocks with the bulbous brass knocker, but
received no reply beyond the distant barking of indignant dogs. At
last he went round and discovered a large paved yard, but no human
being. Then he ventured to approach one of the sitting-room
windows and peered in—a comfortable dining-room with a cheerful
fire, but empty. No, just underneath the window on a sofa lay an
elderly man fast asleep. He wore grey woollen socks on his
slipperless feet, an empty tumbler stood on a chair beside him—and
this at eleven o’clock in the morning. (True, O. Wynyard, but it had
contained no stronger drink than hot water.)
He had the intention of rapping at the pane, but changed his mind
and retired to the door, and as he waited he heard a voice above him
calling out in a rich brogue—
“Bad scran to ye, Fanny, if there isn’t a young gentleman below wid a
big band-box, and he is afther pullin’ out the bell by the roots; ’tis a
shame to lave him standin’ in all the pours of rain! An’ such a lovely
big man!”
At this moment the hall door was opened by a tall dark woman in a
mackintosh and motor cap, with two frantic fox-terriers on the lead,
and a self-possessed French bulldog in dignified attendance.
“I’m afraid you’ve been waiting,” she said, in a soft brogue. “I was
away at the kennels, the servants were upstairs, and the Captain is
asleep.” Then, opening the note (as well as the fox-terriers would
permit), she glanced over it, and the messenger glanced at her—a
woman of thirty-five, with a thin, well-bred face, black hair, and very
long lashes. When she lifted them, he saw that her eyes were of a
blue-black shade, both sad and searching—the whole expression of
her face seemed to be concentrated in their pupils.
“Please tell Miss Parrett I’ll come to tea. I’ve no time to write. I have
to take the dogs out.” The fox-terriers were straining hard at their
leash. “They must have exercise; and when these come back, there
are three more.”
As she spoke, Wynyard could hear the injured yelping of their
disappointed companions.
“Now, don’t open the little dogs’ room,” she called to an elderly
woman in the background, who gave the amazing answer—
“And what would ail me?”
“And mind that the Captain has his broth at twelve.” Then she
stepped out into the beating rain, and Wynyard was surprised to find
that Mrs. Ramsay was about to accompany him.
“I’m going your way,” she explained; “it’s the safest. These two are
new dogs, and I’m rather afraid to go near the Rectory; their
Aberdeen is such a quarrelsome beast—always trailing his coat.”
“Mackenzie?”
“Ah, and so you know him?” she said, with a smile; “you weren’t long
in making his acquaintance.”
Wynyard exhibited his left hand, and a severe bite.
“I suppose he was trying to kill Joss; that’s his profession—a killer of
other dogs.”
“You seem to have a good many of them,” as an afterthought,
“ma’am.”
“Yes; they are not all my own. I take in boarders—only six at a time,
and they must be small, no invalids accepted. I look after them for
people who go abroad, or from home for a few weeks. I am fond of
dogs, so I combine business and pleasure.”
“Yes, ma’am; but they must be a trouble and a responsibility—other
people’s pets.”
“I have to take my chance! Some are so nice, it just breaks my heart
to part with them. Indeed, there’s Tippy here, the bulldog, I’m
pretending he is sick—isn’t it a shame of me? Some are surly, others
so sporting, that half my time is spent in scouring the country, and
looking into rabbit holes. Others are quarrelsome, or chase, snap,
and kill fowl and get me into great trouble. I never keep them on an
hour after their time is up. You are the Miss Parretts’ chauffeur, aren’t
you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is this your first situation?” eyeing him keenly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Why did she ask such a question? Did she, to use the good old
expression, “smell a rat”?
“I’m afraid you will find Ottinge terribly dull. I wonder how you
discovered a place so far from everywhere—just the back of
beyond?” and she looked at him interrogatively—her dark blue eyes
were extraordinarily piercing.
To this impertinent remark no reply was necessary, as it brought
them precisely to the Manor gate. The lady nodded, and walked on
quickly—a slim, active, resolute figure, with the straining fox-terriers
dragging at her hands, the little bulldog trotting sedately at her heels.
The group passed steadily out towards the open country, with the
light rain drifting down upon them. What queer people one came
across in Ottinge! Miss Parrett, the ill-tempered old bully, the Hon.
Mrs. Ramsay, with her soft voice and expressive eyes, eking out a
living by making herself a slave to strangers’ dogs.
“Oh, so she sent a verbal message, did she?” snorted Miss Parrett.
“Well, when I was a girl,”—turning to her sister—“and people asked
me out, I always wrote them a proper note; but manners are not
what they were in my day. Oh, if my dear, courteous father could
only know of some of the things that are done, he would turn in his
grave!”
Miss Parrett was fond of quoting the old Colonel, and insisting upon
his devotion to herself; whilst, if the truth were known, they had been
bitterly antagonistic to one another during his lifetime, and the Manor
was the frequent scene of acrimonious quarrelling, unfilial gibes, and
furious rejoinders.
It was fully a quarter of an hour later when Miss Morven arrived with
the brass-headed carpet nails.
“I knew she had them!” she declared triumphantly; “for she got a lot
for us last winter, so I ransacked the shop, and, after a long search,
where do you think I found them, Susan?”
“In her pocket, to be sure!”
“No, not quite—probably I shall next time. In one of the brown
teapots she has on sale! She was surprised—I wasn’t! She is getting
quite dotty, and won’t have help; and there is Dilly, her pretty, flighty
granddaughter, with nothing to do but flirt!”
All that day Wynyard worked zealously, assisting the carpenter (who
had come after all) and in unpacking and dusting books that had not
seen daylight for thirty years. On this occasion, in spite of Miss
Parrett’s condescending invitation, he dined at Holiday Cottage.
That very same evening Mrs. Ramsay came to tea at the Manor, and
was fervent in her admiration of the drawing-room, which praise Miss
Parrett absorbed with toothless complacency, saying in her
quavering bleat—
“I’m so glad you like it. Of course it was my taste, and my ideas, and
they are my things; but Aurea and Susan helped me—yes, and the
chauffeur made himself useful.”
Wynyard, who was working close by, felt inclined to laugh out loud. It
seemed to him that he was everything but a chauffeur: window-
cleaner, carpet-layer, messenger, and assistant carpenter—a good
thing he was naturally pretty handy. And although all these extra
burdens had been laid upon him, the first impulse to throw up the
situation had died away; he did not mind what jobs the old lady set
him to do, but would take them as all in the day’s work, for he had no
intention of leaving Ottinge at present—he must have some
consideration for Leila!

After tea, when Miss Parrett was engaged in scolding her domestics
and writing violent postcards to her tradesmen, Mrs. Ramsay drew
Aurea into the drawing-room.
“Well, me dear,” and her dark eyes danced, “I did not say a word
before your aunts, but I’ve seen the remarkable chauffeur! I assure
you, when I opened the door and found him standing there with a
large box, you might have knocked me down with the traditional
feather! I was taking the new dogs out for a run, and so we walked
together to this gate.”
“What do you think of him?” asked Aurea, carelessly, as she
rearranged some daffodils in a blue bowl.
“What do I think? I think—although he scarcely opened his lips—that
there is some mystery attached to him, and that he is a gentleman.”
“Why do you say so?” inquired the girl, anxious to hear her own
opinion endorsed. “He is not a bit smarter than the Woolcocks’ men.”
“Oh, it’s not exactly smartness, me dear, it’s the ‘born so’ air which
nothing can disguise. His matter-of-course lifting his cap, walking on
the outside, opening the gate, and, above all, his boots.”
“Boots!”
“Yes, his expensive aristocratic shooting boots; I vow they come from
Lobbs. Jimmy got his there—before he lost his money.”
“Perhaps the chauffeur bought them second-hand?” suggested
Aurea.
Mrs. Ramsay ignored the remark with a waving hand.
“I cannot think what has induced a man of his class to come and
bury himself here in this God-forsaken spot.”
“Ottinge-in-the-Marsh is obliged to you!”
“Now, you know what I mean, Aurea. You are a clever girl. I put the
question to him, and got no satisfactory answer. Is it forgery, murder,
piracy on the high seas, somebody’s wife—or what?” She rested her
chin on her hand, and nodded sagaciously at her companion. “I
understand that he has been working indoors a good deal, and
helping you and Miss Susan.” She paused significantly. “You must
have seen something of him. Tell me, darling, how did you find him?”
“Most useful, wonderfully clever with his hands, strong, obliging, and
absolutely speechless.”
“Ah! Does he have his meals here?”
“No.”
“Dear me, what a cruel blow for the maid-servants! Did he come
from a garage?”
“No; a friend of Aunt Bella’s found him.”
“A woman friend?”
“Yes; she gave him an excellent character.”
“And what of hers?”
“Oh, my dear Kathleen, she is Lady Kesters, a tremendously smart
Society lady, awfully clever, too, and absolutely sans reproche!”
“Is that so?” drawled Mrs. Ramsay. “Well, somehow or other, I’ve an
uneasy feeling about her protégé. There is more than meets the eye
with respect to that young man’s character, believe me. My woman’s
instinct says so. I’m sorry he has come down and taken up your
aunt’s situation, for I seem to feel in me bones that he will bring
trouble to some one.”
“Oh, Kathleen! You and your Irish superstitions!” and Aurea threw up
her hands, clasping them among her masses of hair, and stared into
her friend’s face and laughed.
“Well, dear, if he does nothing worse, he will have half the girls in
love with him, and breaking their hearts. It’s too bad of him, so good-
looking, and so smart, coming and throwing the ‘comether’ over this
sleepy little village. Believe me, darlin’, he has been turned out of his
own place; and it would never surprise me if he was just a nice-
looking young wolf in sheep’s clothing!”
“Oh, what it is to have the nice, lurid, Celtic imagination!” exclaimed
Aurea. “I don’t think the poor man would harm a fly. Joss has taken
to him as a brother—and——”
“Miss Morven as—a sister?”
“Now, what are you two conspiring about?” inquired Miss Susan,
entering, brisk, smiling, and inquisitive.
“I’m only discussing your chauffeur, me darlin’ Miss Susan. I notice
that several of the village girls drop in on Mrs. Hogben—you see I
live opposite—and they expose their natural admiration without
scruple or reserve.”
“Owen is a useful young man, if he is a bit ornamental—isn’t he,
Aurea? I’m going to get him to help me in the greenhouse, for I don’t
believe, at this rate, that we shall ever use the car.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE DRUM AND ITS PATRONS

Mrs. Hogben had lost no time in giving her lodger explicit


instructions as to what was expected of him in Ottinge! Her lecture
assumed a negative form. He was not to take out any one’s girl, or
there’d be trouble; he was not to talk too much politics, or there’d be
more trouble; he was not to drink and get fuddled and fighting, or
there was the Bench and a fine; as to amusement, there was cricket,
Mrs. Topham’s Library, and the Drum Inn, for his evenings.
The good woman said to herself, “The motor is always washed and
put away by six o’clock, and if he comes here, he must either sit in
his room or in the kitchen, and she wasn’t a-goin’ to have that
blocked up with young girls, and never a chair for herself and her
own friends.”
Wynyard readily took the hint; at Ottinge one must do as Ottinge did,
and he cheerfully accompanied Tom over to the Drum a few
evenings after his arrival.
“What sort of liquor do they keep, Tom?” he asked, as they crossed
the street.
“Well, some be better nor some, but there’s no bad beer; the old stuff
here is rare and strong, but it comes pretty dear.”
The low, wainscoted taproom, with its sanded floor, was full of day-
labourers, herds, ploughmen, cow-men, and carters taking their bit of
pleasure, talking loudly and disjointedly, drinking beer in mugs, or
playing the ever-popular game of “ring.” Here, for the first time in his
life, Wynyard was brought into personal contact, as man to man, with
the agricultural world as it is. In the more exclusive bar were to be
found farmers, owners of certain comfortable red houses scattered
up and down the street, the organist, the schoolmaster, the grocer—
in short, the moneyed patrons of the hostelry. Several were talking
over village affairs, discussing politics, racing, artificial manures, or
cattle. Some were playing draughts, some were reading the daily
papers, others were doing nothing. Of these, one was a bent,
gentlemanly individual in a grey tweed suit, with a grey moustache, a
grey, sunken, vacant face, who sat aloof smoking a brier pipe—his
eyes staring into vacancy. Another was a white-haired, shrunken old
man, who wore green carpet slippers, and occupied a cushioned
arm-chair, and the best seat near the fire. This was Joe Thunder, the
oldest inhabitant, ninety-three years of age his last birthday. Once
upon a time he had seen the world—and other worlds; now he was
comfortably moored in a fine, substantial cottage with a garden back
and front, kept bees, was an authority on roses, and filled the post of
the patriarch of Ottinge.
All newcomers were formally presented to Daddy Thunder, and as
Tom pushed Wynyard in his direction he said—
“This be the Parrett ladies’ new man, daddy.” To Owen, “Daddy,
here, he knows the place well, and can tell ye all about it, better nor
any, though he wasn’t Ottinge born.”
Daddy slowly removed his long clay pipe, and inspected the stranger
with a pair of shrewd little grey eyes. He had rosy cheeks, a
benevolent, even sweet expression, and looked fifteen years
younger than his age.
“Ye come fra’ London?” he began agreeably.
“Yes, sir, three days ago. It’s a good long journey.”
“Ay, mister,” nodding his white head expressively. “Ye don’t belong to
us. Yer speech—like the Bible chap—bewrayeth ye—y’re no working
man!”
“I am, indeed,” rejoined Wynyard quickly, “and working for my bread
the same as the rest of the company; it’s all I have to look to—my
two hands.”
“Nay, is that so?” and he glanced at him incredulously. “Well, I’ve bin
here a matter o’ twenty year, and I never see one o’ your make a-
comin’ in and settin’ in the Drum. There’s ’im,” and he indicated the
bent figure in the corner, whose pipe was in his hand, his eyes
riveted on the stranger with a look of startled inquiry.
“That’s the Captain, but ’e’s no account. ’E comes in and ’e sits and
maybe listens; ’e never speaks. They do say ’e ’ad a soort o’ stroke
in India, and ’is brain ’as melted like, but ’e is ’armless enough—
anyhow, ’is lady won’t put ’im away.”
“I suppose you’ve lived here a long time?” said Wynyard, drawing
forward a chair, and placing it so as to sit with his back to the said
Captain, whose stare was disagreeably steady.
“Twenty year, more or less. I am a south country man, and my
daughter she married and settled ’ere, and ’er ’usband died; an’ as
there was only the two on us, I come along to keep ’er company, and
to die ’ere, since I was gettin’ pretty old, being over seventy; but, Lor’
bless ye! that’s twenty-two year ago, and ’ere I be still gettin’ about,
and doin’ a bit o’ gardenin’. The air is grand—nothing ails me but
gout,” holding out a crippled hand. “This isn’t the place to die in—it’s
the place to live in. It keeps ye alive. Why, I’m ninety-three. Oh, it’s
what ye may call a terrible lively place.”
This was not his listener’s opinion, who would have instituted instead
the word “deadly.”
“You must have seen a great deal in ninety-three years,” said
Wynyard, lighting his pipe.
“Lor’ bless ye, yes; and I’ve a wunnerful memory.”
“Do you remember the days of Napoleon?”
“What—old Bony! Nay,” a little offended, “I’m not as old as that; but I
do mind a talk o’ ’is funeral in France.”
“I beg your pardon, I’m an awful duffer at dates. You remember
Wellington?”
“Oh ay, ’e was only the other day, so to speak.”
“And what else do you remember?”
“Well, as a lad, I remember I was terrible afeerd o’ the press gang.”
“The press gang?”
“Ay; that come pokin’ round after able-bodied men for the Navy, and
kidnappin’ ’em away to sea, and keepin’ them there, whether or no,
for years, and their families at home starvin’.”
“I say, what times!”
“Ay, so they was. I’ve seen two men ’angin’ in chains on Camley
Moor when I was about ten—it were for sheep-stealin’, and put the
fear o’ death on me. Surely I can ’ear them chains a-clankin’ now!”
Wynyard felt as if he had been suddenly precipitated into another
world. Here he was, sitting talking to a live man, who discoursed
familiarly of hanging in chains, and the press gang!
“Would you take something, sir?” he asked. “I’d like to drink your
health.”
“Ay, ay, I don’t mind ’avin’ a glass wi’ ye. Ginders! Ginders!” raising
his voice, “give us a taste of yer old beer, the best—two half-pints;”
and, as they were brought, he looked at Wynyard, and said, “To ye,
young sir, and good luck to ye in Ottinge; may ye live as long as I
do!”
“Thank you; have you any prescription for your wonderful health?”
“Ay, I have so. Look ’ere, I’ve not tasted medicine for fifty year. I don’t
hold wi’ doctors. I only eat twice a day—my breakfast at eight, and
my dinner at two. My daughter she do mike me a cup o’ tea at six,
but I don’t want it, and it’s only to oblige her. Work—work’s the thing
when yer young. I mind bein’ in the train one day, and a great heavy
man complainin’ o’ his pore ’ealth, and ’is inside, and another says, ‘I
can tell ye o’ a cure, master, and a sure one.’ ‘What’s that?’ ses ’e,
all alive. ‘Rise of a mornin’ at four o’clock, and mow an acre before
ye break yer fast, and go on mowing all day—that will cure ye—ye’ll
be a new man.’ ‘I’d be a dead un,’ ses ’e. My advice is: no medicine,
short commons, lots of work, and there ye are, and ye’ll live to
maybe a hundred.”
“But what about cuts and wounds? How do you doctor them?”
“Oh, just a plaster o’ earth, or a couple o’ lily leaves. One is as good
as t’other. Well, I’m a-goin’,” struggling to his feet; “an old gaffer like
me keeps early hours.”
As Wynyard handed him his stick, he slapped him smartly on the
back, and it was evident from this accolade that the “shover” was
now made free of the Drum.
The newcomer looked about him, some were playing dominoes,
some cards, one or two were reading the day’s papers, and all the
time the Captain sat immovable in a corner, and his eyes never
moved from Wynyard. Such cold, impassive staring made him feel
uncomfortable, and settling his reckoning he presently followed old
Thunder’s example and went home.
Captain Ramsay, whose fixed attention had made the stranger so
uneasy, had once been a popular officer in a popular regiment, and
when quartered in India had fallen in love with and married the Hon.
Kathleen Brian (daughter of an impoverished viscount) who was on a
visit to relatives in Simla. The first year was rapturously happy for
both of them, and then one day, when out pig-sticking near
Cawnpore, Captain Ramsay had his topee knocked off, and in the
excitement of the chase galloped on, with the result that he was
knocked over by a sunstroke. Sunstroke was followed by brain fever,
and he nearly died. Ultimately he was invalided home, and, owing to
ill-health, obliged to leave the Service. Nor was this all. He seemed
to become another man, his character underwent a complete
change; he was quarrelsome and morose, fought with his own
family, insulted his wife’s people, and developed into an Ishmael. He
invested his money in the maddest ventures, and rapidly dispersed
his entire fortune (Kathleen was penniless), and now nothing
remained but his small pension. Year by year he became more
disagreeable, restless, and strange. The couple wandered from
place to place, from lodging to lodging. Vainly his wife’s relatives
implored her to leave him; he was “impossible,” her health was
suffering; she, who had been so pretty, at twenty-seven looked
prematurely faded and haggard; but Kathleen was obstinate, and
would go her own way and stick to her bad bargain. Her brothers did
not know, and would never know, the Jimmy she had married—so

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