The construction of tradition in the military depends on the meaning given to certain aspects of the past in the light of the pres- ent. West Germany’s history of tradition-building since 1955 is a case in point. After the end of Nazism, the new democratic armed forces, the Bundeswehr, was supposed to distance itself from the Wehrmacht by emphasizing the “civil” role of soldiers. Communicating historical knowledge became part of their democratic education rather than a guideline for military performance. Institutions such as the Center for Military History and the Museum of Military History, travel exhibitions, as well as popular scientific journals have contributed to an understand- ing of what is worthy of tradition – in particular the Prussian reforms, the plot of 20 July 1944, and the history of the Bundeswehr itself. Such references to the past – so the argument goes – help soldiers in combat to better grasp the ethical framework of military operations, provide orientation, and support their identity. Whether and how traditions should be adjusted according to changing military conditions remains controversial.
{"title":"Which Past for the Soldier? Military History, Historical Education, and the Ethics of Democracy in Germany Today","authors":"Jorg Echternkamp","doi":"10.22601/saa.2019.08.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22601/saa.2019.08.06","url":null,"abstract":"The construction of tradition in the military depends on the meaning given to certain aspects of the past in the light of the pres- ent. West Germany’s history of tradition-building since 1955 is a case in point. After the end of Nazism, the new democratic armed forces, the Bundeswehr, was supposed to distance itself from the Wehrmacht by emphasizing the “civil” role of soldiers. Communicating historical knowledge became part of their democratic education rather than a guideline for military performance. Institutions such as the Center for Military History and the Museum of Military History, travel exhibitions, as well as popular scientific journals have contributed to an understand- ing of what is worthy of tradition – in particular the Prussian reforms, the plot of 20 July 1944, and the history of the Bundeswehr itself. Such references to the past – so the argument goes – help soldiers in combat to better grasp the ethical framework of military operations, provide orientation, and support their identity. Whether and how traditions should be adjusted according to changing military conditions remains controversial.","PeriodicalId":250397,"journal":{"name":"Estonian Yearbook of Military History","volume":"90 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126073247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is broad agreement that the study of military history is an essential component of professional education for military officers. Although many successful modern commanders, including Napoleon and MacArthur, advocated extending their reading back to ancient times, Clausewitz wrote: “The further back one goes, the less useful mil- itary history becomes.” This essay argues, to the contrary, that officers have much to gain by including pre-modern warfare in their studies. A larger and more diverse data-set of examples and case studies allows for more reliable generalization, gives more opportunities for inspiration, and helps guard against the tempting but unwise assumptions that the next war will be similar to the last one, and the equally tempting and equally unwise presumption that material strength alone will ensure vic- tory. Moreover, historians of ancient and medieval warfare, like officers exercising their core professional responsibility in combat, must grapple with scanty and conflicting evidence. Pre-modern history, like war, is a realm of uncertainty; many of the “facts” can only be known as proba- bilities. The best preparation for seeing through the fog of war, therefore, may be the exercise of peering through the mists of time.
{"title":"The Study of Ancient and Medieval Military History: Benefits for professional military education","authors":"C. J. Rogers","doi":"10.22601/saa.2019.08.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22601/saa.2019.08.01","url":null,"abstract":"There is broad agreement that the study of military history is an essential component of professional education for military officers. Although many successful modern commanders, including Napoleon and MacArthur, advocated extending their reading back to ancient times, Clausewitz wrote: “The further back one goes, the less useful mil- itary history becomes.” This essay argues, to the contrary, that officers have much to gain by including pre-modern warfare in their studies. A larger and more diverse data-set of examples and case studies allows for more reliable generalization, gives more opportunities for inspiration, and helps guard against the tempting but unwise assumptions that the next war will be similar to the last one, and the equally tempting and equally unwise presumption that material strength alone will ensure vic- tory. Moreover, historians of ancient and medieval warfare, like officers exercising their core professional responsibility in combat, must grapple with scanty and conflicting evidence. Pre-modern history, like war, is a realm of uncertainty; many of the “facts” can only be known as proba- bilities. The best preparation for seeing through the fog of war, therefore, may be the exercise of peering through the mists of time.","PeriodicalId":250397,"journal":{"name":"Estonian Yearbook of Military History","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128268193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article analyses the teaching of military history in the Estonian army in the interwar period. It argues that the basic concepts – the purpose, thematic distribution, teaching methods – were developed by the former professor of the tsarist military academy, Lt. Gen. Aleksei Baiov. Baiov stressed that history, along with strategy, was at the core of military science. However, Baiov and other Russian emigres came under heavy criticism from the Estonian command, particularly Gen. Nikolai Reek, who thought Estonia was too small to require a school of strategy. In the background, there was the theoretical clash, carried over from the pre-war tsarist Russia, between the old generation of bayonet tac- tics and the new generation of fire and movement. In 1926, Baiov was fired, but Reek’s reforms, which subordinated history to the needs of tactical training, remained incomplete even at the end of the 1930s. A number of questions about the utility and the substance of military his- tory remained unresolved. Indeed, they are still not settled in Estonian officer education today.
{"title":"A Generational Shift: The military history crisis in the Estonian military education 1919–1940","authors":"Igor Kopõtin","doi":"10.22601/saa.2019.08.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22601/saa.2019.08.03","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyses the teaching of military history in the Estonian army in the interwar period. It argues that the basic concepts – the purpose, thematic distribution, teaching methods – were developed by the former professor of the tsarist military academy, Lt. Gen. Aleksei Baiov. Baiov stressed that history, along with strategy, was at the core of military science. However, Baiov and other Russian emigres came under heavy criticism from the Estonian command, particularly Gen. Nikolai Reek, who thought Estonia was too small to require a school of strategy. In the background, there was the theoretical clash, carried over from the pre-war tsarist Russia, between the old generation of bayonet tac- tics and the new generation of fire and movement. In 1926, Baiov was fired, but Reek’s reforms, which subordinated history to the needs of tactical training, remained incomplete even at the end of the 1930s. A number of questions about the utility and the substance of military his- tory remained unresolved. Indeed, they are still not settled in Estonian officer education today.","PeriodicalId":250397,"journal":{"name":"Estonian Yearbook of Military History","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129994078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The paper will address the role (or lack thereof) of military history and past experience in military doctrine building. The analysis will be based on four case studies: the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht 1919– 1940, the French army 1919–1940, the IDF 1948–1973, and the US Army 1973–1991. In the synthesis, the author will present the role of military history in building efficient military doctrine on three levels of war: tactics, operational art, and strategy. Several kinds of abuses and misuses of military history will be singled out as a warning sign for con- temporary policy and military decision makers.
{"title":"Building Military Doctrine based on History and Experience: 20th century examples from Germany, France, Israel and the US","authors":"Łukasz Przybyło","doi":"10.22601/saa.2019.08.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22601/saa.2019.08.04","url":null,"abstract":"The paper will address the role (or lack thereof) of military history and past experience in military doctrine building. The analysis will be based on four case studies: the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht 1919– 1940, the French army 1919–1940, the IDF 1948–1973, and the US Army 1973–1991. In the synthesis, the author will present the role of military history in building efficient military doctrine on three levels of war: tactics, operational art, and strategy. Several kinds of abuses and misuses of military history will be singled out as a warning sign for con- temporary policy and military decision makers.","PeriodicalId":250397,"journal":{"name":"Estonian Yearbook of Military History","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130661226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Russian Imperial Army fought for the first time in the mountains in 1799, when Alexander Suvorov led his corps from Italy across the Swiss Alps to join the Russian forces at Zurich and expel the French Army from Switzerland. His soldiers were skilled professionals who had won an impressive series of battles in Italy against the French. Suvorov did not anticipate problems in the Alps, being convinced that he would easily sweep away the small French garrisons deployed on his way. Yet, because of inexperience in mountain warfare, Suvorov’s corps struggled against enormous strategic, tactical, and logistical chal- lenges, lost half of its manpower and failed to attain its goals. The Swiss trek shows that mountain warfare defies amateurism, dilettantism and spontaneity. Even though mountains are located on the verges of Rus- sia, the Russian and then Soviet armies ignored the peculiarities of mountain warfare and fought every new campaign in the mountains the same way they would fight on the plains, with predictably dire consequences.
{"title":"The Alpine Campaign of 1799 as a Stepping Stone to a Doctrine of Mountain Warfare","authors":"Alexander Statiev","doi":"10.22601/saa.2019.08.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22601/saa.2019.08.02","url":null,"abstract":"The Russian Imperial Army fought for the first time in the mountains in 1799, when Alexander Suvorov led his corps from Italy across the Swiss Alps to join the Russian forces at Zurich and expel the French Army from Switzerland. His soldiers were skilled professionals who had won an impressive series of battles in Italy against the French. Suvorov did not anticipate problems in the Alps, being convinced that he would easily sweep away the small French garrisons deployed on his way. Yet, because of inexperience in mountain warfare, Suvorov’s corps struggled against enormous strategic, tactical, and logistical chal- lenges, lost half of its manpower and failed to attain its goals. The Swiss trek shows that mountain warfare defies amateurism, dilettantism and spontaneity. Even though mountains are located on the verges of Rus- sia, the Russian and then Soviet armies ignored the peculiarities of mountain warfare and fought every new campaign in the mountains the same way they would fight on the plains, with predictably dire consequences.","PeriodicalId":250397,"journal":{"name":"Estonian Yearbook of Military History","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128977082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Descriptive and Applied Military History – debating the utility of military history in Danish officer education","authors":"Anna Sofie Hansen Schøning","doi":"10.22601/saa.2019.08.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22601/saa.2019.08.05","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":250397,"journal":{"name":"Estonian Yearbook of Military History","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122522570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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