A cavalry force properly proportioned to Howe's army and fit for duty might have prevented the enemy from rallying. Two or three regiments of boldly led dragoons sabreing the stragglers and penetrating the flanks of the retreating column might have spread such confusion as to give a different turn to the campaign.[emphasis added]
18 January 2008
Historians' dreams?
While working on my book, I came across this passage in Piers Mackesy's The War for America: 1775-1783. Mackesy's book takes a decidedly British point of view, and I can't help but hear a note of anguish at the lost opportunity in the aftermath of the Battle of Brandywine, in September 1777.
09 January 2008
Military History Carnival X
The Tenth Military History Carnival went up at Walking the Berkshires earlier this week. (I missed the Ninth.) There's a theme to this one, as George MacDonald Fraser's death was announced during its preparation, so military historical fiction takes center stage. What caught my eye this time? A note about submersibles in the American Revolution, a military geography of the American Civil War, and one of my fellow Michiganders doing another one a good turn in fraught circumstances. I also was interested in a comment about whether the Arctic Convoys in the Second World War were worth the effort.
Most surprisingly, though, I found my own blog featured in the carnival, thanks to a nomination by Brett Holman at Airminded. Airminded's featured on my blogroll virtually since I started, and covers some similar ground to my first foray into a book proposal, which sadly went nowhere - strategic bombing. Thanks, Brett!
Most surprisingly, though, I found my own blog featured in the carnival, thanks to a nomination by Brett Holman at Airminded. Airminded's featured on my blogroll virtually since I started, and covers some similar ground to my first foray into a book proposal, which sadly went nowhere - strategic bombing. Thanks, Brett!
08 January 2008
Taps in Iraq: the Follow-Up
To my delighted surprise, NPR ran an item on Morning Edition today about the effects of the Surge, and the debate in the armed forces over what is happening. If you've listened to Biddle's lecture, it's worth following it up with this. (Alternatively, listen to Biddle after hearing this to get more background.)
The item mentioned a consequence of the US policy that I haven't mentioned, although I think it's possibly overstated here. The effect of paying these gangs is to create a parallel force, the consequences of which are difficult to forecast. One of the few comparable situations I can recall is England after the Hundred Years' War. The result? A civil war.
The item mentioned a consequence of the US policy that I haven't mentioned, although I think it's possibly overstated here. The effect of paying these gangs is to create a parallel force, the consequences of which are difficult to forecast. One of the few comparable situations I can recall is England after the Hundred Years' War. The result? A civil war.
07 January 2008
Taps in Iraq
If you are at all interested in the U.S. war in Iraq during the last two or three years, and have an hour and a half to spare, go right now to view Stephen Biddle's lecture at the University of California Berkeley in November of last year. You will need to scroll down the list on the page I've linked to, in order to find Biddle's entry. (I clicked on the left-most of the three icons, but you might find one of the others suits your needs better.)
I found the lecture interesting for two reasons. One is that it outlines part of what astute readers had already identified as the "official" American history of the war. I refer not to some wild conspiracy theory that hides the truth, but rather an attempt by American institutions themselves to describe what happened as they saw it, just as we have official histories of the Second World War. These works always carry great prestige, but in their nature are prey to the "Whig Interpretation of History". (I see I am not the first to identify Bush administration analysis in Iraq with Butterfield's critique.)
Biddle cites three turning points as having contributed to the reduction in American discomfort about Iraq as of Fall 2007. The first he cites is what he calls "the battle of Baghdad" in February 2006. This was less of a battle than the kind of systematic murder by death squads that all too often arises where American military force intervenes directly (see El Salvador, Colombia and dirty wars in Chile and Argentina). Biddle's argument is that the Sunni death squads suffered a major defeat there, from which all else develops. I'm not directly challenging Biddle's analysis. He knows far more than I do about Iraq. However, from an Iraqi point of view things may look different. They may see the Battle of Baghdad as an intermediate stage, because their decision-making cycle may not be so dependent on the electoral metronome that beats time for American decision-makers.
More worryingly for the future, Biddle talks about the way Sunni and Shia death squads have been bribed to stop fighting. He doesn't actually describe it in such bold language, but basically that's what happening. Gang leaders sign deals in which they agree to stop fighting in return for $300 a month for each gangster on their rosters. Basically, a substantial number of bilateral cease-fires is gradually spreading an armed peace across Iraq.
A sadly overlooked film (at least to my knowledge) that is useful here is Taps. Taps as a document predicting the cultural tensions of America under Reagan both at home and abroad was prescient. President Bush II has inherited these tensions to some extent in his own political coalition. Toward the end of the film, the cadet major is urged to "declare a victory". The $300-man policy in Iraq offers a foundation for just such a declared victory. The stipend buys a reduction in violence. At this point, a subsequent administration can choose whether to continue the Bush policy of stationing troops in Iraq in the way we did in Germany and Korea during the Cold War; or to leave after negotiating some kind of exit deal with Iraqi leaders that continues the death squads' subsidy for an indeterminate time.
The problem with hurrying to declare a victory is that it might not happen soon enough. It won't be long before leaders on both sides will find younger fellows putting them under pressure to act more radically. That's what young, ambitious people do - demand more, looking for signs of weakness. At some point, sooner or later, a U.S. administration is going to have to confront what it is trying to avoid at the moment - a government in Baghdad that is not sympathetic to American interests in the Middle East. A nationalist leader with a real democratic mandate would be America's biggest nightmare in Iraq. (See Chavez, Hugo.) What then? It wouldn't be the first time for a Western state to leave a Middle Eastern protectorate of strategic value after a controversial war, only to see it fall into the hands of the men they were fighting, who subsequently attempt to export their revolution to a neighbor, thus causing a new war involving the Western state.
Biddle talks about us needing a moratorium on Vietnam analogies. I've got a better one for him. Aden.
I found the lecture interesting for two reasons. One is that it outlines part of what astute readers had already identified as the "official" American history of the war. I refer not to some wild conspiracy theory that hides the truth, but rather an attempt by American institutions themselves to describe what happened as they saw it, just as we have official histories of the Second World War. These works always carry great prestige, but in their nature are prey to the "Whig Interpretation of History". (I see I am not the first to identify Bush administration analysis in Iraq with Butterfield's critique.)
Biddle cites three turning points as having contributed to the reduction in American discomfort about Iraq as of Fall 2007. The first he cites is what he calls "the battle of Baghdad" in February 2006. This was less of a battle than the kind of systematic murder by death squads that all too often arises where American military force intervenes directly (see El Salvador, Colombia and dirty wars in Chile and Argentina). Biddle's argument is that the Sunni death squads suffered a major defeat there, from which all else develops. I'm not directly challenging Biddle's analysis. He knows far more than I do about Iraq. However, from an Iraqi point of view things may look different. They may see the Battle of Baghdad as an intermediate stage, because their decision-making cycle may not be so dependent on the electoral metronome that beats time for American decision-makers.
More worryingly for the future, Biddle talks about the way Sunni and Shia death squads have been bribed to stop fighting. He doesn't actually describe it in such bold language, but basically that's what happening. Gang leaders sign deals in which they agree to stop fighting in return for $300 a month for each gangster on their rosters. Basically, a substantial number of bilateral cease-fires is gradually spreading an armed peace across Iraq.
A sadly overlooked film (at least to my knowledge) that is useful here is Taps. Taps as a document predicting the cultural tensions of America under Reagan both at home and abroad was prescient. President Bush II has inherited these tensions to some extent in his own political coalition. Toward the end of the film, the cadet major is urged to "declare a victory". The $300-man policy in Iraq offers a foundation for just such a declared victory. The stipend buys a reduction in violence. At this point, a subsequent administration can choose whether to continue the Bush policy of stationing troops in Iraq in the way we did in Germany and Korea during the Cold War; or to leave after negotiating some kind of exit deal with Iraqi leaders that continues the death squads' subsidy for an indeterminate time.
The problem with hurrying to declare a victory is that it might not happen soon enough. It won't be long before leaders on both sides will find younger fellows putting them under pressure to act more radically. That's what young, ambitious people do - demand more, looking for signs of weakness. At some point, sooner or later, a U.S. administration is going to have to confront what it is trying to avoid at the moment - a government in Baghdad that is not sympathetic to American interests in the Middle East. A nationalist leader with a real democratic mandate would be America's biggest nightmare in Iraq. (See Chavez, Hugo.) What then? It wouldn't be the first time for a Western state to leave a Middle Eastern protectorate of strategic value after a controversial war, only to see it fall into the hands of the men they were fighting, who subsequently attempt to export their revolution to a neighbor, thus causing a new war involving the Western state.
Biddle talks about us needing a moratorium on Vietnam analogies. I've got a better one for him. Aden.
05 January 2008
Digital Self -Publishing Success
It's very hard for digitally published books to be especially successful. Digital publishing offers an avenue for books that have problems with traditional publishers. These are, probably in order of importance -
1) Name recognition - Publishers have trouble marketing someone who has nothing to commend them, either in past experience (ex-soldier/sailor/airman in the case of books about war), or present position (academics).
2) Subject matter - You can tackle name recognition if your subject is sufficiently broad to have wide appeal, especially into foreign markets. Foreign sales almost equal free money for publishers, although this may change in the next ten years, if it hasn't already.
3) Length - Writers often neglect the fact that traditional publishers think in certain sizes. This is partly a pricing issue, as the cost of publishing a book goes down as it gets bigger (until it gets too big), which feeds into the idea of price points, where potential purchasers might be put off buying because the book seems expensive for its size.
This book on the experience of Canadian soldiers during the 1941 battle of Hong Kong has achieved some critical praise, but really falls foul of all three of my rules above. Digital self-publishing was really its only route to getting into print.
At that point, though, the marketing of the book takes over. This is the hardest hurdle to leap of all, which is why it's probably better to exhaust all avenues of small publishers before going the digital route. A small publisher will at least have some ability to claim review space, where self-publishing has none.
Basically, unless you can build up a network of promotion via blogs and pushing your product on online forums, you've got little chance of sales outside of your immediate market of friends and family.
1) Name recognition - Publishers have trouble marketing someone who has nothing to commend them, either in past experience (ex-soldier/sailor/airman in the case of books about war), or present position (academics).
2) Subject matter - You can tackle name recognition if your subject is sufficiently broad to have wide appeal, especially into foreign markets. Foreign sales almost equal free money for publishers, although this may change in the next ten years, if it hasn't already.
3) Length - Writers often neglect the fact that traditional publishers think in certain sizes. This is partly a pricing issue, as the cost of publishing a book goes down as it gets bigger (until it gets too big), which feeds into the idea of price points, where potential purchasers might be put off buying because the book seems expensive for its size.
This book on the experience of Canadian soldiers during the 1941 battle of Hong Kong has achieved some critical praise, but really falls foul of all three of my rules above. Digital self-publishing was really its only route to getting into print.
At that point, though, the marketing of the book takes over. This is the hardest hurdle to leap of all, which is why it's probably better to exhaust all avenues of small publishers before going the digital route. A small publisher will at least have some ability to claim review space, where self-publishing has none.
Basically, unless you can build up a network of promotion via blogs and pushing your product on online forums, you've got little chance of sales outside of your immediate market of friends and family.
03 January 2008
Spain and the American Revolution
I've set up a couple of Google Alerts as part of writing my book on the American Revolution. Via this, I was informed that there is an art exhibit in Washington, DC, on the theme of Spanish support for the American Revolution. This is one of those episodes of a Latin American military history that needs to be made more prominent.
Spain's participation in the war focused on retrieving the Gulf Coast, which had fallen into British hands after the end of the Seven Years' War. The British divided the colony into two, and established the capital of West Florida, which included the Florida panhandle and stretched west along the cost to the Mississippi river, at Pensacola.
The Spanish governor of Louisiana (which had been transferred by France to Spain in 1762, although no-one knew until 1764), Bernardo de Gálvez y Gallado, pursued an aggressive campaign against British West Florida following the Spanish declaration of war against Britain in 1779. A summary article outlining Gálvez' actions is found at the Patriot Resource.
The most significant action occurred in 1781, with the siege and battle of Pensacola. This has apparently been described as one of the most written-about battles in history, and extensive excerpts from Gálvez' own combat diary are included at the Florida Historical Quarterly. The Spanish won; and the peace agreements of 1783 that ended the war gave them back both of the Floridas. Of course, the actual northern boundary of the Floridas was not carefully delineated in all the agreements, and the resultant dispute returned relations between Catholic Spain and Protestant Anglo-America back to their frigid normal state.
If you haven't got time to read so much as I offer in my links, you could do worse than read the summary of events at Little Town Mart.
Spain's participation in the war focused on retrieving the Gulf Coast, which had fallen into British hands after the end of the Seven Years' War. The British divided the colony into two, and established the capital of West Florida, which included the Florida panhandle and stretched west along the cost to the Mississippi river, at Pensacola.
The Spanish governor of Louisiana (which had been transferred by France to Spain in 1762, although no-one knew until 1764), Bernardo de Gálvez y Gallado, pursued an aggressive campaign against British West Florida following the Spanish declaration of war against Britain in 1779. A summary article outlining Gálvez' actions is found at the Patriot Resource.
The most significant action occurred in 1781, with the siege and battle of Pensacola. This has apparently been described as one of the most written-about battles in history, and extensive excerpts from Gálvez' own combat diary are included at the Florida Historical Quarterly. The Spanish won; and the peace agreements of 1783 that ended the war gave them back both of the Floridas. Of course, the actual northern boundary of the Floridas was not carefully delineated in all the agreements, and the resultant dispute returned relations between Catholic Spain and Protestant Anglo-America back to their frigid normal state.
If you haven't got time to read so much as I offer in my links, you could do worse than read the summary of events at Little Town Mart.
02 January 2008
A Voyage into Amazonia
During the autumn, the Christmas present season, I started to keep an eye on the best-sellers in military history on various Amazon sites - the American, British, French and Canadian ones. It proved an interesting exercise, if only because it highlighted how different the markets are.
The British list offered the greatest insight, if only because it captured what might be called the fundamental problem, from a publishing point of view, of the British book buying public.The top titles were dominated by what one might call "franchise authors". These are people whose names are very well known already - Max Hastings, Antony Beevor, Max Arthur - and who can be easily marketed. (Broadcast media producers are more likely to be interested in a Falklands journalist and former Evening Standard editor than some retired fellow making a second career to supplement a pension by hacking away at illustrated book publishing.) British history book buyers resemble the mass-market fiction purchaser, always after this year's book by a favored author. They have some justification for this. Hastings and Beevor are compelling storytellers. But authors and publishers would perhaps wish they were a little more adventurous.
The French list need not detain us long, because there isn't actually much about war on it. At least, not in the sense of histories of battles and campaigns. The French list focuses on theory (Sun-Tzu appears twice), rather than practice. Books with American themes (eg, the Pentagon on climate change) prop up the lower reaches of the top 25.
The American list was dominated for a long time by Marcus Luttrell's account of an Afghan battle. It was eventually supplanted by the book of the film (or was it the other way round?) on Charlie Wilson's war. The key thing to my mind, though, was how the list featured contemporary conflicts rather than historical ones. I expected to see more Civil War books pushing aside a title such as Rajiv Chandrasekaran's. I also expected to see more of a "franchise author" effect. In fact, it was almost absent. American readers are a little more adventurous (or fickle, to an author), it seems. They aren't greatly interested in anything that doesn't involve Americans, though.
Finally, a survey of the Canadian list left me with the impression that Canadians are the most militaristic of the four Amazon countries. The list is almost entirely concerned with fighting wars, whether at the sharp end or supplying the men at the front. Canadian readers are as intensely nationalistic as the Americans, but more historically minded. Theory is of least interest, without a single theoretical title. (Even the Americans were buying Sun-Tzu.)
I see lessons here for anyone trying to organize a publishing programme. Most importantly, one needs a broad range of titles each season to capture the interest of different sectors of the military history reading public, as well as to maximize one's international prospects. But, sadly for me, the general rule of thumb is to avoid real history - unless your name is Max Beevor.
The British list offered the greatest insight, if only because it captured what might be called the fundamental problem, from a publishing point of view, of the British book buying public.The top titles were dominated by what one might call "franchise authors". These are people whose names are very well known already - Max Hastings, Antony Beevor, Max Arthur - and who can be easily marketed. (Broadcast media producers are more likely to be interested in a Falklands journalist and former Evening Standard editor than some retired fellow making a second career to supplement a pension by hacking away at illustrated book publishing.) British history book buyers resemble the mass-market fiction purchaser, always after this year's book by a favored author. They have some justification for this. Hastings and Beevor are compelling storytellers. But authors and publishers would perhaps wish they were a little more adventurous.
The French list need not detain us long, because there isn't actually much about war on it. At least, not in the sense of histories of battles and campaigns. The French list focuses on theory (Sun-Tzu appears twice), rather than practice. Books with American themes (eg, the Pentagon on climate change) prop up the lower reaches of the top 25.
The American list was dominated for a long time by Marcus Luttrell's account of an Afghan battle. It was eventually supplanted by the book of the film (or was it the other way round?) on Charlie Wilson's war. The key thing to my mind, though, was how the list featured contemporary conflicts rather than historical ones. I expected to see more Civil War books pushing aside a title such as Rajiv Chandrasekaran's. I also expected to see more of a "franchise author" effect. In fact, it was almost absent. American readers are a little more adventurous (or fickle, to an author), it seems. They aren't greatly interested in anything that doesn't involve Americans, though.
Finally, a survey of the Canadian list left me with the impression that Canadians are the most militaristic of the four Amazon countries. The list is almost entirely concerned with fighting wars, whether at the sharp end or supplying the men at the front. Canadian readers are as intensely nationalistic as the Americans, but more historically minded. Theory is of least interest, without a single theoretical title. (Even the Americans were buying Sun-Tzu.)
I see lessons here for anyone trying to organize a publishing programme. Most importantly, one needs a broad range of titles each season to capture the interest of different sectors of the military history reading public, as well as to maximize one's international prospects. But, sadly for me, the general rule of thumb is to avoid real history - unless your name is Max Beevor.
31 December 2007
A Crashing Rotten Structure
Over the holidays, watching an episode of The World At War being broadcast on on UKTV History, I was reminded of an incident in my publishing career from twenty years ago. I was working on what was my favorite of all my partwork projects ever, a flop called "Battlefield". Only three issues saw publication, but we got up to about eight or nine in some form of preparation.
The idea behind Battlefield was to create an alphabetical illustrated encyclopedia of photographed conflict. It was a brilliant concept in the context of partwork publishing, since there would be considerable opportunities for reusing material, and full credit for this concept should go to the man who launched my career in publishing, Ashley Brown. Issue three included a short, six-page article on Operation Barbarossa, which happened to be the same subject as my episode of The World At War.
I had a ruck with Ashley Brown over this article, which I thought was preposterous. Barbarossa was too vast a campaign for it to be covered in six pages. (We're talking about the whole shebang, from 22 June 1941 to 8 December 1941.) In the end, once the article had been assembled and gone off for repro, the editor (Reg Grant) confided in me that the article was indeed slim by comparison with our fairly extensive coverage of Second El Alamein or Amiens in 1918 or Arras in 1940.
My World at War viewing reminded me of this episode in my personal history, as well as my experience of writing Chronicle of War. I now think that coverage of Barbarossa, as understood by the "intelligent general reader" during the 1970s and 1980s, was highly misleading because it didn't focus on the individual battles during the campaign, but on the wider objectives of Hitler's daring thrusts. This sentiment is partially reflected in Chronicle of War.
Things are not as bad as they were, as the Wikipedia entry on Operation Barbarossa indicates. But I'm still not clear whether the idea that the Red Army defeated their German counterpart, fair and square, has entered into general understanding. I started drawing up a detailed chronology of Barbarossa, which I thought would help build a book or other project, while writing Chronicle of War, but the actual work of providing 150,000 words prevented me from taking this idea far enough to turn into something practical.
The idea behind Battlefield was to create an alphabetical illustrated encyclopedia of photographed conflict. It was a brilliant concept in the context of partwork publishing, since there would be considerable opportunities for reusing material, and full credit for this concept should go to the man who launched my career in publishing, Ashley Brown. Issue three included a short, six-page article on Operation Barbarossa, which happened to be the same subject as my episode of The World At War.
I had a ruck with Ashley Brown over this article, which I thought was preposterous. Barbarossa was too vast a campaign for it to be covered in six pages. (We're talking about the whole shebang, from 22 June 1941 to 8 December 1941.) In the end, once the article had been assembled and gone off for repro, the editor (Reg Grant) confided in me that the article was indeed slim by comparison with our fairly extensive coverage of Second El Alamein or Amiens in 1918 or Arras in 1940.
My World at War viewing reminded me of this episode in my personal history, as well as my experience of writing Chronicle of War. I now think that coverage of Barbarossa, as understood by the "intelligent general reader" during the 1970s and 1980s, was highly misleading because it didn't focus on the individual battles during the campaign, but on the wider objectives of Hitler's daring thrusts. This sentiment is partially reflected in Chronicle of War.
Things are not as bad as they were, as the Wikipedia entry on Operation Barbarossa indicates. But I'm still not clear whether the idea that the Red Army defeated their German counterpart, fair and square, has entered into general understanding. I started drawing up a detailed chronology of Barbarossa, which I thought would help build a book or other project, while writing Chronicle of War, but the actual work of providing 150,000 words prevented me from taking this idea far enough to turn into something practical.
28 December 2007
Wartime Assassination
I like to look at events from different angles, and yesterday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto made me think about assassination as a military operation. My memory cannot come up with a single assassination attempt sponsored by a government at war with its target prior to 1942 (with the possible exception of some events during the American Civil War). While those fighting a propaganda war may choose to depict Benazir Bhutto as a non-combatant, she was only a non-combatant in the same way Thomas Dewey was a non-combatant as he campaigned against Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. Bhutto was seeking to become a key political leader in a country at war with both dissidents in its own country and the former government of its neighbor, Afghanistan.
If the assassin was connected with the Taliban, al-Qaeda or even the combatants in Waziristan, then this was an act of war, not a political assassination such as that of Gaitan in Colombia. If that's the case, you have to wonder how much responsibility rests at the feet of Ms Bhutto and her political associates, who perhaps should have been more cautious about security arrangements in a war zone.
But more noteworthy to me is how political leaders have become legitimate military targets according to the laws of war in the 21st century. This is a bad, not a good, thing. It's one thing to exile a defeated military leader, and another to seek to kill him or her anywhere but on the battlefield.
If the assassin was connected with the Taliban, al-Qaeda or even the combatants in Waziristan, then this was an act of war, not a political assassination such as that of Gaitan in Colombia. If that's the case, you have to wonder how much responsibility rests at the feet of Ms Bhutto and her political associates, who perhaps should have been more cautious about security arrangements in a war zone.
But more noteworthy to me is how political leaders have become legitimate military targets according to the laws of war in the 21st century. This is a bad, not a good, thing. It's one thing to exile a defeated military leader, and another to seek to kill him or her anywhere but on the battlefield.
23 December 2007
Naughty Computers, New Book
My silence has been imposed in part by my computers, all of which decided to give me headaches during the past ten days. (I've also been working on my other blog, a rather more primitive affair.) I managed to sort all my problems out myself, thanks to one of the two always being able to connect to the Internet, save for one day when my broadband connection went down for some reason. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a little knowledge of using the command line, patience and an Internet connection.
More interesting, I hope, is that I've got a new commission, to write a short book on the American Revolution for children aged 10-13. I'll post some of my experiences over the coming weeks. The deadline is very soon, so I've got a full plate just now.
More interesting, I hope, is that I've got a new commission, to write a short book on the American Revolution for children aged 10-13. I'll post some of my experiences over the coming weeks. The deadline is very soon, so I've got a full plate just now.
01 December 2007
Mosier vs the British: Round Two
An anonymous commentator on this blog post about John Mosier's old book The Myth of the Great War sent me back to the library to check out a copy.
Mr Anonymous basically rehashes the criticisms deployed by what he describes as ‘The "BEF Party Line"…the John Terraine/Gary Sheffield school’. The key points he makes are
(a) The book is riddled with serious errors.
(b) ‘He can't seem to resist passing up any opportunity to denigrate the British, even to the point of dismissing acres of research with which he does not agree in sneering footnotes. This reeks of the glib undergraduate essay, not a serious book.’
(c) ‘Mosier exaggerates the US battlefield role in 1918.’
The problem with all the reviews I've so far read about Mosier’s work (which are not that many, to be honest), is basically summarized in the statement, which could be the theme of this blog, that ‘history, especially the history of war, is politics by another means.’ Perhaps in no war is this more the case than in the First World War, which even at the time saw a protracted argument at high cost that set ‘Easterners’ against ‘Westerners’ in both Allied and Central Powers’ camps. The continuing rage against the British high command has its origins in 1915, and it may not be far wrong to say that the great monuments scattered around the Commonwealth and in Belgium to the war dead are an attempt to offer some kind of palliative to this anger.
Furthermore, Mosier is an American, and there remains a profound undercurrent of Anglophobia in the United States for which the trope of Bungling Butchers of the Western Front is meat and drink. Mosier, like any good barrister, ignores the inconvenient facts and exaggerates the convenient ones to make his case. But while the BEF/Haig Lobby turns purple with outrage at the many mistakes in Mosier’s polemical account, they continue to avoid engaging the essential points of his book. In other words, they are being good barristers for their own clients.
Mosier’s essential points are:
(a) The German Army started the war both doctrinally and materially superior to the Allies.
(b) The German Army had been winning on the Western Front until the American Army intervened.
(c) ‘No British or American account deals adequately with the war between France and Germany on the Western Front.’ - his preface
The question to my mind is whether the merits of his contributions on these points outweigh his mistakes and exaggerations elsewhere. I’ll call this round a draw because for me, as well as Mosier’s bringing into view the considerable extent of American support for the Allies prior to April 1917, point (c) in particular is very important indeed.
Mr Anonymous basically rehashes the criticisms deployed by what he describes as ‘The "BEF Party Line"…the John Terraine/Gary Sheffield school’. The key points he makes are
(a) The book is riddled with serious errors.
(b) ‘He can't seem to resist passing up any opportunity to denigrate the British, even to the point of dismissing acres of research with which he does not agree in sneering footnotes. This reeks of the glib undergraduate essay, not a serious book.’
(c) ‘Mosier exaggerates the US battlefield role in 1918.’
The problem with all the reviews I've so far read about Mosier’s work (which are not that many, to be honest), is basically summarized in the statement, which could be the theme of this blog, that ‘history, especially the history of war, is politics by another means.’ Perhaps in no war is this more the case than in the First World War, which even at the time saw a protracted argument at high cost that set ‘Easterners’ against ‘Westerners’ in both Allied and Central Powers’ camps. The continuing rage against the British high command has its origins in 1915, and it may not be far wrong to say that the great monuments scattered around the Commonwealth and in Belgium to the war dead are an attempt to offer some kind of palliative to this anger.
Furthermore, Mosier is an American, and there remains a profound undercurrent of Anglophobia in the United States for which the trope of Bungling Butchers of the Western Front is meat and drink. Mosier, like any good barrister, ignores the inconvenient facts and exaggerates the convenient ones to make his case. But while the BEF/Haig Lobby turns purple with outrage at the many mistakes in Mosier’s polemical account, they continue to avoid engaging the essential points of his book. In other words, they are being good barristers for their own clients.
Mosier’s essential points are:
(a) The German Army started the war both doctrinally and materially superior to the Allies.
(b) The German Army had been winning on the Western Front until the American Army intervened.
(c) ‘No British or American account deals adequately with the war between France and Germany on the Western Front.’ - his preface
The question to my mind is whether the merits of his contributions on these points outweigh his mistakes and exaggerations elsewhere. I’ll call this round a draw because for me, as well as Mosier’s bringing into view the considerable extent of American support for the Allies prior to April 1917, point (c) in particular is very important indeed.
27 November 2007
Pizarro Coup
We've recently passed an important anniversary in the military history of South America, probably the most significant such event in all its history. It certainly is a top choice of Jared Diamond, whose book Guns, Germs & Steel is still popular on Amazon.com's military bestseller list. I write of the Capture of an Inca King at the Ambush at Cajamarca on 16 November 1532. (The word "Battle", normally used for this, seems to glorify what was basically a massacre.) If your Spanish is up to it, you can read a hand-written account here.
23 November 2007
Maple Leafs in Blue and Grey
I'd known about "British North America's" oblique involvement in the American Civil War since I was very young, thanks to some comic book history of the conflict that I was given when I was about 6 or 7 years old. Some of the panels covered Confederates scheming sabotage north of the border in the loyal states. Then, some years later, I discovered that Clement Vallandigham, the notorious Copperhead, set up his base in Windsor, Ontario, across the river from where I grew up.
However, I was not aware of how substantial Canada's contribution was in terms of supplying volunteers for the conflict. Of course, Collections Canada has an online exhibit of some photographs and printed matter related to the Canadian Civil War, but these all focus on the contribution to the Union cause; undestandable, since the subject of the exhibit is the anti-slavery movement in Canada. Yet some Canadians volunteered for service in the Confederate army, too.
Not quite a hat-tip, but some ackowledgment is due to Gates of Vienna, via Small Dead Animals, who put me on the track of this topic.
However, I was not aware of how substantial Canada's contribution was in terms of supplying volunteers for the conflict. Of course, Collections Canada has an online exhibit of some photographs and printed matter related to the Canadian Civil War, but these all focus on the contribution to the Union cause; undestandable, since the subject of the exhibit is the anti-slavery movement in Canada. Yet some Canadians volunteered for service in the Confederate army, too.
Not quite a hat-tip, but some ackowledgment is due to Gates of Vienna, via Small Dead Animals, who put me on the track of this topic.
OT: My Inner European
I'm not at all surprised.
Hat-tip to Chone.
| Your Inner European is French! |
 Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. |
Hat-tip to Chone.
19 November 2007
Hobson's and Nixon's War
Richmond P. Hobson, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, is not a name people of my generation can be expected to know, but it has been familiar to me since I was a little boy. For some reason, I've always been attracted to more obscure conflicts than the Big Three of the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War. One of my early favourites was the Spanish-American War, largely on account of my liking the look of ships from that era. Amply illustrated books such as Frank Friedel's The Splendid Little War, certainly helped.
One of the most celebrated heroes at the time of the war was Lieutenant Hobson, who attempted to block the harbour entrance to the port of Santiago at a time when the Spanish squadron of four armoured cruisers and two destroyers was inside. He took a collier, the USS Merrimac, and tried to scuttle it at the narrowest point of the channel. Hobson's daring adventure ended in failure, but it gave him national celebrity.
Not many years after I first read the story of Hobson, on 17 June 1971, President Richard Nixon mobilized part of the resources of American government against what he called "public enemy number one" - illegal recreational drugs generally and heroin in particular. I have vague memories of newsmagazine stories about opium poppies (then predominantly grown in Turkey) and the heroin trade. Yet I was utterly unaware of Hobson's part in developing the thesis that heroin and other narcotices were a major cause of crime in the United States, and that it was vital to keep it out of the country.
Hobson had been an important spokesman of the movement that ended up giving us Prohibition in the 1920s. With his work done in that field, he turned his attention to narcotics, and spent the rest of his life writing and lecturing about the dangers criminals using heroin posed to civilized society.
The war Hobson urged and Nixon started has turned into a Thirty-Five Years' War that shows no signs of even getting near an end.
One of the most celebrated heroes at the time of the war was Lieutenant Hobson, who attempted to block the harbour entrance to the port of Santiago at a time when the Spanish squadron of four armoured cruisers and two destroyers was inside. He took a collier, the USS Merrimac, and tried to scuttle it at the narrowest point of the channel. Hobson's daring adventure ended in failure, but it gave him national celebrity.
Not many years after I first read the story of Hobson, on 17 June 1971, President Richard Nixon mobilized part of the resources of American government against what he called "public enemy number one" - illegal recreational drugs generally and heroin in particular. I have vague memories of newsmagazine stories about opium poppies (then predominantly grown in Turkey) and the heroin trade. Yet I was utterly unaware of Hobson's part in developing the thesis that heroin and other narcotices were a major cause of crime in the United States, and that it was vital to keep it out of the country.
Hobson had been an important spokesman of the movement that ended up giving us Prohibition in the 1920s. With his work done in that field, he turned his attention to narcotics, and spent the rest of his life writing and lecturing about the dangers criminals using heroin posed to civilized society.
The war Hobson urged and Nixon started has turned into a Thirty-Five Years' War that shows no signs of even getting near an end.
15 November 2007
Valkyrie Hundred
Today is the 100th birthday of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the German colonel who planted the bomb that nearly killed Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. Von Stauffenberg (apologies if I spoil the end of Tom Cruise's next big film) was shot that night in Berlin, effectively on the orders of a general who wanted to conceal his own sympathies for the plotters.
Von Stauffenberg's reputation remains quite lustrous, in spite of his coming somewhat late to anti-Hitler plotting. Hans Oster, Wilhelm Canaris, Hans-Bernd Gisevius all preceded Von Stauffenberg into organizing a conspiracy against the German dictator, but are largely forgotten by all except by those taking a closer interest into resistance to the Nazi regime. This is a shame, in part because they came closer to success than one might have imagined at the time of the Munich crisis in 1938.
As usual when it comes to laying blame for responsibility for the Second World War, the British government's own inability to decide whose side it was on during the interwar period bears the greatest blame. Theodor Kordt, the German ambassador to London, alerted the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, to the existence of the conspiracy on September 7, 1938. Six days later, Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister, announced he would negotiate with Herr Hitler. Although, this in itself did not puncture the balloon created by the plotters, it set in motion the events that did. On September 28, Chamberlain agreed to the Munich conference, that apologists for Britain's interwar governments always characterize as having bought vital time for the organization of the Royal Air Force and rearmament. The conspirators, faced with another of Hitler's lucky breaks, put their plans on hold.
Whether the plotters would have succeeded in 1938 is of course open to some degree of doubt. Certainly, the knowledge that a conspiracy had existed at that time encouraged the British belief that almost randomly dropping bombs on German cities at night would eventually rouse the conspirators to action once again. (It didn't, by the way.) Furthermore, Halifax and Chamberlain could not necessarily regard Kordt's statements as reflecting a powerful conspiracy, as opposed to some talking circle Kordt sought to inflate all out of proportion to its real strength.
Yet even with these caveats, the fact remains that there was a chance for the war to be delayed, if not averted, in 1938, and that from time to time we should recall that German opposition to Hitler had a long gestation period.
Von Stauffenberg's reputation remains quite lustrous, in spite of his coming somewhat late to anti-Hitler plotting. Hans Oster, Wilhelm Canaris, Hans-Bernd Gisevius all preceded Von Stauffenberg into organizing a conspiracy against the German dictator, but are largely forgotten by all except by those taking a closer interest into resistance to the Nazi regime. This is a shame, in part because they came closer to success than one might have imagined at the time of the Munich crisis in 1938.
As usual when it comes to laying blame for responsibility for the Second World War, the British government's own inability to decide whose side it was on during the interwar period bears the greatest blame. Theodor Kordt, the German ambassador to London, alerted the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, to the existence of the conspiracy on September 7, 1938. Six days later, Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister, announced he would negotiate with Herr Hitler. Although, this in itself did not puncture the balloon created by the plotters, it set in motion the events that did. On September 28, Chamberlain agreed to the Munich conference, that apologists for Britain's interwar governments always characterize as having bought vital time for the organization of the Royal Air Force and rearmament. The conspirators, faced with another of Hitler's lucky breaks, put their plans on hold.
Whether the plotters would have succeeded in 1938 is of course open to some degree of doubt. Certainly, the knowledge that a conspiracy had existed at that time encouraged the British belief that almost randomly dropping bombs on German cities at night would eventually rouse the conspirators to action once again. (It didn't, by the way.) Furthermore, Halifax and Chamberlain could not necessarily regard Kordt's statements as reflecting a powerful conspiracy, as opposed to some talking circle Kordt sought to inflate all out of proportion to its real strength.
Yet even with these caveats, the fact remains that there was a chance for the war to be delayed, if not averted, in 1938, and that from time to time we should recall that German opposition to Hitler had a long gestation period.
14 November 2007
Military History Carnival VIII
The newest Military History Carnival is up at Gary Smailes' blog. It went up about a week ago. The Australian War Memorial item on pillboxes around Passchendaele 1917 is of considerable interest, if only for the accompanying photographs. The existence of such fortifications in the First World War tends to be forgotten in mainstream imagery. However, I'd also recommend the five-part series on cotton speculation during the American Civil War, if only because I've read it alleged that the assault on Iwo Jima was largely in order to allow American construction companies to profit from building an air base, rather than any serious strategic considerations. Or, to phrase it another way: 1. Get Air Force to bomb Japan; 2. Build the airfields, 3. Profit!
13 November 2007
25 Years of The Wall
Today is the 25th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. The architect/designer, Maya Lin, expressed the view that the politics of the war had 'eclipsed' the sacrifice of those who fought it. Yet how often does the politics of a war eclipse the sacrifice of those who are fighting it? More frequently than we might think, perhaps.
08 November 2007
Tercios
Continuing a somewhat accidental Hispanic theme, I was watching the film Alatriste on DVD last night, when I was struck by the events of the battle of Rocroi portrayed there not quite fitting my admittedly sketchy memory of the action. A quick search to confirm my memory uncovered this detailed site about the Tercios, infantry units of the Spanish army of the 16th and 17th centuries. It includes a lengthy section on organization, tactics and life in the ranks, as well as descriptions of battles.
07 November 2007
Sack of Lima Library
The War of the Pacific is a little-known conflict in the English-speaking world. However, it made the headlines today when Chile returned 3,778 books to Peru, books that had been seized during the Chilean occupation of the capital Lima during the war. The books include the works of Homer, Bibles, and the 16th-century poet Garcilaso de la Vega.
The comments to this 2006 blog entry reveals a list of some of the absent volumes. In February of this year, a former director of the Peruvian National Library proposed the creation of a commission to draw up a list of the books pending their return. In March, 50 Latin American intellectuals sent an open letter to the Chilean government requesting the return of these books. The Chilean government agreed to do so shortly afterwards. If you can read Spanish, here's a decidedly Peruvian view, suggesting that the 3,778 books represent only a small part of a cultural heritage that has passed into institutional and private hands in Chile, and more should be returned. These two countries still don't get on, really.
The comments to this 2006 blog entry reveals a list of some of the absent volumes. In February of this year, a former director of the Peruvian National Library proposed the creation of a commission to draw up a list of the books pending their return. In March, 50 Latin American intellectuals sent an open letter to the Chilean government requesting the return of these books. The Chilean government agreed to do so shortly afterwards. If you can read Spanish, here's a decidedly Peruvian view, suggesting that the 3,778 books represent only a small part of a cultural heritage that has passed into institutional and private hands in Chile, and more should be returned. These two countries still don't get on, really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)