Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221105258
Jennine Hurl-Eamon
A wide variety of eighteenth-century authors made comparisons to soldiering and slavery in newspapers, pamphlets and books. The analogy tended to be applied to highlight the lack of personal autonomy and inadequate wages of army service, as well as its harsh punishment and lifetime enlistment periods. While some commentators championed soldiers' rights to better treatment, many had other agendas in mind. It was particularly prominent in anti-abolitionist propaganda, for example. Regardless of their intentions, civilians' soldier-as-slave rhetoric took a toll on the actual men in uniform. The few rank-and-file writers to acknowledge it suggest that the metaphor shamed and humiliated them.
{"title":"Enslaved by the Uniform: Contemporary Descriptions of Eighteenth-Century Soldiering.","authors":"Jennine Hurl-Eamon","doi":"10.1177/09683445221105258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221105258","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A wide variety of eighteenth-century authors made comparisons to soldiering and slavery in newspapers, pamphlets and books. The analogy tended to be applied to highlight the lack of personal autonomy and inadequate wages of army service, as well as its harsh punishment and lifetime enlistment periods. While some commentators championed soldiers' rights to better treatment, many had other agendas in mind. It was particularly prominent in anti-abolitionist propaganda, for example. Regardless of their intentions, civilians' soldier-as-slave rhetoric took a toll on the actual men in uniform. The few rank-and-file writers to acknowledge it suggest that the metaphor shamed and humiliated them.</p>","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"3-20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/12/59/10.1177_09683445221105258.PMC9929689.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10773188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221142270c
Brian E. Crim
seen from Washington, London, and Tokyo, rather than Port Moresby or Rabaul. This focus may be helpful for those new to the theatre, however Carafano’s emphasis on context means that readers are 100 pages into the book before there is any discussion of the first shots fired in combat in Papua. Rather than a detailed narrative, Carafano provides a series of vignettes relating to the campaign. The battles for Kokoda and Isurava in July and August are highlighted, as is an overly positive account of Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger and US forces at Buna in December. These actions bookend the campaign, but much happened in between. Despite the work’s title, there is surprisingly little serious discussion of the brutality or nature of the war in Papua and New Guinea. Readers interested in soldiers’ experiences, tactics and operations, logistics, and the nuances of the Australian–American alliance should consult Peter Brune’s A Bastard of a Place: the Australians in Papua (2003); John C. McManus’s Fire and Fortitude: the US Army in the Pacific War, 1941–1943 (2019); and Peter J. Dean’s MacArthur’s Coalition: US and Australian Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1942–1945 (2018) for further detail. Carafano does well to draw on English translations of Japanese source material and publications, and avoids representing the Japanese as an anonymous enemy or repeating simplistic wartime stereotypes. The work’s greatest strength, however, is Carafano’s chapter on the vital contribution of the peoples of Papua, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands to the Allies. Often ignored or represented patronisingly as ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’ (p. 125), Papuans and New Guineas acted as guides, carriers, labourers, and armed combatants for the Allies (and, at times, the Japanese). Their villages were occupied during the war, communities were relocated, and many – particularly women, children, and the elderly – became displaced refugees. Another point well addressed by Carafano is the theme of war remembrance through (predominantly American) popular culture. ‘Veterans of the Southwest Pacific’, Carafano argues, ‘were perhaps the most frustrated of all, feeling they never got their fair share of attention’. The ‘protracted land campaigns in the Pacific, such as the remote operations in Papua New Guinea, seemed obscure’ when compared to the dominance of the war in Europe (p. 244). He considers representations of the Pacific War through the writing of official histories, soldier memoirs, cinema, and other publications. Brutal War provides a useful introduction to the Second World War in the Southwest Pacific, reminding readers that there was more to the global conflict than Nazis and D-Day.
{"title":"Book Review: The Virtuous Wehrmacht: Crafting the Myth of the German Soldier on the Eastern Front, 1941–1944 by David A. Harrisville","authors":"Brian E. Crim","doi":"10.1177/09683445221142270c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221142270c","url":null,"abstract":"seen from Washington, London, and Tokyo, rather than Port Moresby or Rabaul. This focus may be helpful for those new to the theatre, however Carafano’s emphasis on context means that readers are 100 pages into the book before there is any discussion of the first shots fired in combat in Papua. Rather than a detailed narrative, Carafano provides a series of vignettes relating to the campaign. The battles for Kokoda and Isurava in July and August are highlighted, as is an overly positive account of Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger and US forces at Buna in December. These actions bookend the campaign, but much happened in between. Despite the work’s title, there is surprisingly little serious discussion of the brutality or nature of the war in Papua and New Guinea. Readers interested in soldiers’ experiences, tactics and operations, logistics, and the nuances of the Australian–American alliance should consult Peter Brune’s A Bastard of a Place: the Australians in Papua (2003); John C. McManus’s Fire and Fortitude: the US Army in the Pacific War, 1941–1943 (2019); and Peter J. Dean’s MacArthur’s Coalition: US and Australian Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1942–1945 (2018) for further detail. Carafano does well to draw on English translations of Japanese source material and publications, and avoids representing the Japanese as an anonymous enemy or repeating simplistic wartime stereotypes. The work’s greatest strength, however, is Carafano’s chapter on the vital contribution of the peoples of Papua, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands to the Allies. Often ignored or represented patronisingly as ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’ (p. 125), Papuans and New Guineas acted as guides, carriers, labourers, and armed combatants for the Allies (and, at times, the Japanese). Their villages were occupied during the war, communities were relocated, and many – particularly women, children, and the elderly – became displaced refugees. Another point well addressed by Carafano is the theme of war remembrance through (predominantly American) popular culture. ‘Veterans of the Southwest Pacific’, Carafano argues, ‘were perhaps the most frustrated of all, feeling they never got their fair share of attention’. The ‘protracted land campaigns in the Pacific, such as the remote operations in Papua New Guinea, seemed obscure’ when compared to the dominance of the war in Europe (p. 244). He considers representations of the Pacific War through the writing of official histories, soldier memoirs, cinema, and other publications. Brutal War provides a useful introduction to the Second World War in the Southwest Pacific, reminding readers that there was more to the global conflict than Nazis and D-Day.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"20 1","pages":"90 - 92"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41261586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221142270a
D. Porch
{"title":"Book Review: When France Fell. The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance by Michael S. Neiberg","authors":"D. Porch","doi":"10.1177/09683445221142270a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221142270a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"87 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43262127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221145291
C. Esdaile
For many years English-language coverage of Italy’s experience of the First and Second World Wars was scarcely superabundant. On the first of these conflicts, for example, until little more than a decade ago the historiography was limited to little more than Cyril Falls’ dated 1965 battle study, Caporetto, and Mark Thompson’s much more detailed but still narrowly military The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1914–1917 (2008). Over the course of the past 10 years, however, two remarkable British historians, John Gooch – a tutor of this reviewer during the latter’s undergraduate career to whom this essay is respectfully dedicated – and Vanda Wilcox, have set the record straight by publishing no fewer than five monographs that cover the whole gamut of war and society in both liberal and fascist Italy. The intention of this review article is to discuss all of them at once so as to highlight, or so it is hoped, the common themes that bind them together. Let us begin with The Italian Army in the First World War. In this work, Gooch offers a concise narrative history of the bloody battles that raged along Italy’s north-eastern frontiers from 1915 to 1917, and in this respect alone it is a useful place to start, not least because it soon becomes clear that the oft-published photographs of Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops manning lonely outposts on lofty Alpine summits are deeply unrepresentative, the vast majority of the fighting taking place on terrain that, if still rugged, was both at an infinitely lower altitude and far more accessible. That said, the Review Article
{"title":"Italy in the Era of Total War","authors":"C. Esdaile","doi":"10.1177/09683445221145291","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221145291","url":null,"abstract":"For many years English-language coverage of Italy’s experience of the First and Second World Wars was scarcely superabundant. On the first of these conflicts, for example, until little more than a decade ago the historiography was limited to little more than Cyril Falls’ dated 1965 battle study, Caporetto, and Mark Thompson’s much more detailed but still narrowly military The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1914–1917 (2008). Over the course of the past 10 years, however, two remarkable British historians, John Gooch – a tutor of this reviewer during the latter’s undergraduate career to whom this essay is respectfully dedicated – and Vanda Wilcox, have set the record straight by publishing no fewer than five monographs that cover the whole gamut of war and society in both liberal and fascist Italy. The intention of this review article is to discuss all of them at once so as to highlight, or so it is hoped, the common themes that bind them together. Let us begin with The Italian Army in the First World War. In this work, Gooch offers a concise narrative history of the bloody battles that raged along Italy’s north-eastern frontiers from 1915 to 1917, and in this respect alone it is a useful place to start, not least because it soon becomes clear that the oft-published photographs of Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops manning lonely outposts on lofty Alpine summits are deeply unrepresentative, the vast majority of the fighting taking place on terrain that, if still rugged, was both at an infinitely lower altitude and far more accessible. That said, the Review Article","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"80 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45361214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221142270e
Sean L. Malloy
Charles de Gaulle – wanted French troops on Ivorian soil after independence in order to preserve his rule, minimise spending on his own military, and to focus on internal development (p. 190). Furthermore, the increasingly dictatorial nature of his regime provided a contrast with the more pluralist and democratic politics of Nigeria, at least up until the coup which led to Balewa’s assassination on 15 January 1966 (p. 1). Wyss convincingly argues that these contrasting Nigerian and Ivorian perspectives dovetailed with the priorities of their former overlords. The British were frustrated and disappointed with the collapse of the Defence Agreement with Lagos, but viewed relations with Nigeria through a Cold War lens, concluding that the military price paid – for example, with the April 1963 agreement that gave the Federal Republic of Germany the main role in creating the Nigerian Air Force (pp. 182–183) – was counterbalanced by its strategic benefits. Nigeria may have rejected a formal defence partnership with Britain, but it was at least still broadly pro-Western in orientation, and did not want military assistance from the Soviet bloc. In contrast, the French were determined to maintain a privileged neo-colonialist position over their former African territories, and in Cote d’Ivoire they acted decisively to exclude the USA and Israel from encroaching on training and equipping the Ivorian armed and security forces (pp. 206–209, 260–263). For his part, although Houphouet-Boigny used the threat of external aid to encourage concessions from Paris, notably the permanent stationing of troops at Port-Bouet, he had no intention of abandoning defence ties with France. Wyss’ research, therefore, portrays a fascinating and convincing picture of the complex ties between the recently independent states and the former colonisers, showing that the former were able to bargain with and also gain concessions from the latter, and, in the case of Nigeria, were able to broaden their defence ties with third parties. The Ivorians and Nigerians also emerge in this book as active strategists, conscious of their strengths and weaknesses in their relations with their former rulers, wary (if not paranoid) about potential rivals and threats of subversion (the reviewer was surprised to learn that Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire came close to launching a military intervention in Togo after the assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio on 13 January 1963), and also adept in both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. The author’s findings are firmly based on an impressive research effort incorporating British, French, the United States, German, Nigerian, Ghanaian, and Ivorian archives. Postcolonial Security represents a major contribution to the fields of imperial, African, and Cold War history, and is strongly recommended to scholars in these respective fields.
{"title":"Book Review: Rational Fog: Science and Technology in Modern War by M. Susan Lindee","authors":"Sean L. Malloy","doi":"10.1177/09683445221142270e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221142270e","url":null,"abstract":"Charles de Gaulle – wanted French troops on Ivorian soil after independence in order to preserve his rule, minimise spending on his own military, and to focus on internal development (p. 190). Furthermore, the increasingly dictatorial nature of his regime provided a contrast with the more pluralist and democratic politics of Nigeria, at least up until the coup which led to Balewa’s assassination on 15 January 1966 (p. 1). Wyss convincingly argues that these contrasting Nigerian and Ivorian perspectives dovetailed with the priorities of their former overlords. The British were frustrated and disappointed with the collapse of the Defence Agreement with Lagos, but viewed relations with Nigeria through a Cold War lens, concluding that the military price paid – for example, with the April 1963 agreement that gave the Federal Republic of Germany the main role in creating the Nigerian Air Force (pp. 182–183) – was counterbalanced by its strategic benefits. Nigeria may have rejected a formal defence partnership with Britain, but it was at least still broadly pro-Western in orientation, and did not want military assistance from the Soviet bloc. In contrast, the French were determined to maintain a privileged neo-colonialist position over their former African territories, and in Cote d’Ivoire they acted decisively to exclude the USA and Israel from encroaching on training and equipping the Ivorian armed and security forces (pp. 206–209, 260–263). For his part, although Houphouet-Boigny used the threat of external aid to encourage concessions from Paris, notably the permanent stationing of troops at Port-Bouet, he had no intention of abandoning defence ties with France. Wyss’ research, therefore, portrays a fascinating and convincing picture of the complex ties between the recently independent states and the former colonisers, showing that the former were able to bargain with and also gain concessions from the latter, and, in the case of Nigeria, were able to broaden their defence ties with third parties. The Ivorians and Nigerians also emerge in this book as active strategists, conscious of their strengths and weaknesses in their relations with their former rulers, wary (if not paranoid) about potential rivals and threats of subversion (the reviewer was surprised to learn that Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire came close to launching a military intervention in Togo after the assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio on 13 January 1963), and also adept in both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. The author’s findings are firmly based on an impressive research effort incorporating British, French, the United States, German, Nigerian, Ghanaian, and Ivorian archives. Postcolonial Security represents a major contribution to the fields of imperial, African, and Cold War history, and is strongly recommended to scholars in these respective fields.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"93 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42825634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1177/09683445221133046
C. Eldridge
An estimated 66,678 men deserted from the French Army between 1914 and 1918. Using conseil de guerre (military tribunal) evidence, including interviews with captured deserters, this article shifts the scholarly focus on desertion from quantitative to qualitative data. This methodological move centres the experiences and voices of individual, often marginalised soldiers and demonstrates how desertion enabled otherwise constrained combatants to exercise agency, both when deserting and during the military justice process. Focusing on colonial citizens and subjects mobilised from North Africa, the article draws empire into scholarly conversations surrounding military justice to enhance understanding of France's multi-ethnic army and the specific imperial dimensions of desertion during the First World War.
{"title":"Absence, Agency and Empire: Desertion from the French Army During the First World War","authors":"C. Eldridge","doi":"10.1177/09683445221133046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221133046","url":null,"abstract":"An estimated 66,678 men deserted from the French Army between 1914 and 1918. Using conseil de guerre (military tribunal) evidence, including interviews with captured deserters, this article shifts the scholarly focus on desertion from quantitative to qualitative data. This methodological move centres the experiences and voices of individual, often marginalised soldiers and demonstrates how desertion enabled otherwise constrained combatants to exercise agency, both when deserting and during the military justice process. Focusing on colonial citizens and subjects mobilised from North Africa, the article draws empire into scholarly conversations surrounding military justice to enhance understanding of France's multi-ethnic army and the specific imperial dimensions of desertion during the First World War.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"277 - 299"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42947920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1177/09683445221136183
Kelly Maddox
This article offers a detailed examination of the strategies employed by the resistance leadership in Panay to mobilize and, if necessary, coerce civilians into supporting them in their guerrilla conflict with Japan. It argues that their ability to adapt and, thereby, continually ensure the support and compliance of the civilian population were as important, if not more so, to their overall success than strictly military accomplishments. The primary aim of this article is to bring the importance of civilians into focus and deepen our historical understanding of a much-understudied and understated aspect of resistance to Japanese occupation in the Philippines.
{"title":"‘First Essentials of Survival’: Ensuring the Support and Compliance of Civilians in the Guerrilla Conflict with Japan on Panay, 1942–1945","authors":"Kelly Maddox","doi":"10.1177/09683445221136183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221136183","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers a detailed examination of the strategies employed by the resistance leadership in Panay to mobilize and, if necessary, coerce civilians into supporting them in their guerrilla conflict with Japan. It argues that their ability to adapt and, thereby, continually ensure the support and compliance of the civilian population were as important, if not more so, to their overall success than strictly military accomplishments. The primary aim of this article is to bring the importance of civilians into focus and deepen our historical understanding of a much-understudied and understated aspect of resistance to Japanese occupation in the Philippines.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"300 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41571393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221130401g
Hannah West
of India. Apparently, during the spring of 1947, Colonel Akbar Khan and other Muslim officers of the British Indian Army used to meet at Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s residence on Aurangzeb Road in Delhi to plan that clandestine incursion into Kashmir. The reference given is to a book, A Soldier Recalls, by Lieutenant General S. K. Sinha. I have not seen this event mentioned by other writers and its reliability is difficult to assess. But if true, it adds another dimension to the origins of the Kashmir dispute. The great strength of the book is that the overall political situation, the role of key players in civilian governments and of the generals, marshals and commanders are brought into the picture vividly and even-handedly when the wars are discussed. In doing so, the author evaluates the performances of the army, air force and navy and of the main weapons deployed during battles, while highlighting the levels and degrees of coordination of the three services. One gets a holistic, comprehensive overview of those wars. Arjun Subramaniam has undoubtedly produced a compendium on India’s military history, which the public as well as specialists and researchers will find an invaluable work of dedicated scholarship.
{"title":"Book Review: A Woman’s Place: US Counterterrorism since 9/11 by Joana Cook","authors":"Hannah West","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401g","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401g","url":null,"abstract":"of India. Apparently, during the spring of 1947, Colonel Akbar Khan and other Muslim officers of the British Indian Army used to meet at Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s residence on Aurangzeb Road in Delhi to plan that clandestine incursion into Kashmir. The reference given is to a book, A Soldier Recalls, by Lieutenant General S. K. Sinha. I have not seen this event mentioned by other writers and its reliability is difficult to assess. But if true, it adds another dimension to the origins of the Kashmir dispute. The great strength of the book is that the overall political situation, the role of key players in civilian governments and of the generals, marshals and commanders are brought into the picture vividly and even-handedly when the wars are discussed. In doing so, the author evaluates the performances of the army, air force and navy and of the main weapons deployed during battles, while highlighting the levels and degrees of coordination of the three services. One gets a holistic, comprehensive overview of those wars. Arjun Subramaniam has undoubtedly produced a compendium on India’s military history, which the public as well as specialists and researchers will find an invaluable work of dedicated scholarship.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"876 - 877"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45356500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221130401a
Ian Johnson
{"title":"Book Review: Hitler’s Fatal Miscalculation: Why Germany Declared War on the United States by Klaus H. Schmider","authors":"Ian Johnson","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"865 - 866"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44464811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/09683445221130401
Aaron Graham
Even in so crowded a field as the military history of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, there are still important and unexplored niches to be found. In looking at the history of the Transport Board between 1794 and 1815, Sutcliffe offers an important and effective study that does an excellent job of filling one of these niches. Founded shortly after the outbreak of war, the Board technically lay under the control of the Treasury and was intended to address the problems of hiring and coordinating the shipping of men and materiel that had dogged the separate departments of the British fiscal-military state during the American Revolutionary War. Viewing the wars from the perspective of the Board, Sutcliffe is sympathetic to its challenges and argues that it did the best job it could to balance the urgent calls on its scarce resources, enabling Britain to project military power in Europe and further afield. A number of thematic chapters examine administration, the shipping markets, amphibious operations and the use of naval ships as troops transports, and these are rounded off by several further chapters that adopt a chronological perspective and track the ebb and flow of business at the Board during the peak years of the Napoleonic Wars between 1805 and 1815. Sutcliffe, therefore, situates his book between the more administrative or institutional studies by David Syrett of naval transport earlier in the eighteenth century, and the more strategic focus adopted by Christopher Hall in his study of naval power during the Peninsular War, to suggest how these elements interacted. He argues that the Board had to juggle competing demands from commanders such as Wellington, and developed formidable bureaucratic resources to do so, not least the system of regular returns that enabled it to keep track of its transports and direct them most efficiently. Too often it faced problems because strategic planning by the Cabinet failed to take account of transport needs, and the Board lacked the political muscle to have an input into the planning process. To secure shipping the Board also had to cultivate good relations with the small clique of ship-brokers in London who could help assemble transports at short notice. Indeed, in one of the most effective and useful sections of the book, Sutcliffe reconstructs the state of the market for shipping in early 19th-century London. About 10,000 ships were registered in London in 1790 but Book Reviews
{"title":"Book Review: British Expeditionary Warfare and The Defeat of Napoleon, 1793–1815 by Robert K. Sutcliffe","authors":"Aaron Graham","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401","url":null,"abstract":"Even in so crowded a field as the military history of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, there are still important and unexplored niches to be found. In looking at the history of the Transport Board between 1794 and 1815, Sutcliffe offers an important and effective study that does an excellent job of filling one of these niches. Founded shortly after the outbreak of war, the Board technically lay under the control of the Treasury and was intended to address the problems of hiring and coordinating the shipping of men and materiel that had dogged the separate departments of the British fiscal-military state during the American Revolutionary War. Viewing the wars from the perspective of the Board, Sutcliffe is sympathetic to its challenges and argues that it did the best job it could to balance the urgent calls on its scarce resources, enabling Britain to project military power in Europe and further afield. A number of thematic chapters examine administration, the shipping markets, amphibious operations and the use of naval ships as troops transports, and these are rounded off by several further chapters that adopt a chronological perspective and track the ebb and flow of business at the Board during the peak years of the Napoleonic Wars between 1805 and 1815. Sutcliffe, therefore, situates his book between the more administrative or institutional studies by David Syrett of naval transport earlier in the eighteenth century, and the more strategic focus adopted by Christopher Hall in his study of naval power during the Peninsular War, to suggest how these elements interacted. He argues that the Board had to juggle competing demands from commanders such as Wellington, and developed formidable bureaucratic resources to do so, not least the system of regular returns that enabled it to keep track of its transports and direct them most efficiently. Too often it faced problems because strategic planning by the Cabinet failed to take account of transport needs, and the Board lacked the political muscle to have an input into the planning process. To secure shipping the Board also had to cultivate good relations with the small clique of ship-brokers in London who could help assemble transports at short notice. Indeed, in one of the most effective and useful sections of the book, Sutcliffe reconstructs the state of the market for shipping in early 19th-century London. About 10,000 ships were registered in London in 1790 but Book Reviews","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"864 - 865"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42158535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}