| Level | Fonds |
| Finding Number (Click this to use the hierarchy browser to access the full catalogue) | MS834 |
| Title | Cowgill Inquiry Papers |
| Extent | 25 boxes |
| Date | 1945-1994 |
| Description | Collection of papers accumulated by Anthony Cowgill relating to the inquiry which he initiated into the repatriations of Cossacks from Austria in 1986 and to the related court cases involving Nikolai Tolstoy in connection with the claims he made in his publication, 'The Minister and the Massacres' about the repatriations and other papers.
The material principally comprises correspondence, drafts of reports and other supporting papers, together with the documents accumulated by the inquiry team as part of their research and used as evidence in their inquiry.This material includes extracts, copies and some originals documents such as minutes, memoranda, briefing notes, intelligence reports, diaries and letters as well as presscuttings, copies of published material and maps which was identified in the National Archives in Washington and London as well as in Austrian and Yugoslavian archives. There is also a copy of the published report and the published facsimiles of evidence, 1988 & 1990.
The collection also includes the papers of the court proceedings, judgement and witness statements of Lord Aldington's successful libel case brought against Tolstoy in 1989 and Cowgill's correspondence relating to this and annotated court papers relating to the case brought by Tolstoy against Lord Aldington in 1994.
There is also a transcript of a seminar at the London School of Economics organised by the Academic Council for Peace and Freedom on the subject of the Cowgill Committee, 16 March 1989. |
| Arrangement | Arranged by Cowgill in 32 box files (labelled 'Repatriations'), together with papers relating to the court cases and other papers in unnumbered boxes. |
| Access Conditions | Any researcher who wishes to consult this collection in advance of full cataloguing should contact Special Collections in advance of full cataloguing |
| Language | English |
| Yugoslav |
| German |
| Finding Aids | This is a preliminary description and will be enhanced at a future date. For further information please contact Special Collections. |
| Administrative History | Anthony Wilson Cowgill (1915-2009), soldier and engineer, was educated at the University of Birmingham and graduated in Mining Engineering in. He joined the Army where he served in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and saw active service in France during the Second World War for which he was awarded a military MBE; he was then seconded to the Partition Commission in 1947 during India's preparation for independence following which he was assigned to the new Pakistani Army. Following his service in the Korean War, he retired from the Army as a brigadier in 1969 and became Chief Industrial Engineer to Rolls-Royce. In 1979, he also set up the British Management Data Foundation (BMDF), an independent body which supports member companies in British industry to improve performance and global competitiveness and offers advice and help, including liaison with British government policy makers. The BMDF's edition of the Maastrich treaty was the result of Cowgill's work which, with the help of his son, was produced and circulated to every MP before the Maastricht Bill reached its second reading in 1992; and they similarly produced authoritative editions of subsequent EU treaties.
In 1986, Cowgill set up an unofficial investigation into the events surrounding the repatriation of Cossacks and Yugoslavs at the end of the Second World War by the British Army in Austria.The impetus for this inquiry was the publication of 'The Minister and the Massacres' by Nikolai Tolstoy in which it was claimed that the handing over of 67,000 anti-Communist Cossacks and Yugoslavs to their Communist enemies and to certain death was in effect a war crime, one in which Harold Macmillan, the then Prime Minister, and a number of senior Army officers including Brigadier Toby Low (later Lord Aldington) had conspired in breach of their military orders and official policy and had then falsified the records. The other members of the investigation team were Lord Brimelow, a former head of the Foreign Office, the journalist, Christopher Booker and Brigadier Edward Tryon-Wilson. The results of their investigations, which took more than four years to complete and which included the uncovering of considerable new evidence, was published in Cowgill's report 'The Repatriations from Austria in 1945' with its accompanying volume of documentary evidence were published in 1990. This revealed that Tolstoy's version of the events surrounding the episode (which had been widely believed) were considerably distorted and indeed erroneous. The charges against of Harold Macmillan were shown to be unfounded, the handovers were proved to have been fully authorised and some of the 'massacres' described had clearly never taken place. The documents uncovered as part of this investigation were used in Lord Aldington's successful libel case brought against Tolstoy in 1989.
Sources: Obituary in 'The Daily Telegraph; 'The Repatriations from Austria in 1945. The report of an inquiry', 1988. |
| Acquisition | Presented by his son, May 2011 |
| Related Material | Special Collections hold the Foreign Office Papers of Anthony Eden (FO954) and his personal and political papers (AP) which include material relating to the repatriations. |
| Publication Note | Cowgill published the report of the inquiry and facsimiles of the key documentary evidence in tow companion volumes: 'The Repatriations from Austria in 1945. The report of an inquiry', 1988 and 'The Repatriations from Austria in 1945. The Documentary Evidence reproduced in full from British, American, German and American sources.', 1990 |