http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/dnss/history/why_read.

htm

Why Read Military History? "Military History, accompanied by sound criticism, is indeed the true school of war." Jomini Most soldiers who have read much history probably would agree with General Douglas MacArthur when he asserted, over fifty years ago: "More than most professions, the military is forced to depend upon intelligent interpretation of the past for signposts charting the future.... The facts derived from historical analysis he [the soldier] applies to conditions of the present and the proximate future, thus developing a synthesis of appropriate method, organization, and doctrine.... These principles know no limitation of time. Consequently the Army extends its analytical interest to the dust-buried accounts of wars long past as well as to those still reeking with the scent of battle. It is the object of the search that dictates the field for its pursuit." General John R. Galvin while Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, contributed the following essay on why officers should want to read history. Good military leaders understand history. Leadership without a sense of history can only be instinctive, and thereby limited in its scope. The study of history contributes to our knowledge of the human experience so that in the end we are better able to render judgment, and what is leadership but the ability to judge what must be done and how to accomplish it? The late World War II historian and combat journalist Cornelius Ryan told of watching a group of green American lieutenant replacements in Italy moving up to take over platoons that were already in heavy action. A fellow war correspondent at his side commented simply, "I hope they are well read." Ryan found much wisdom in that observation. How else could men so young and new to war hope to lead others? They had little chance to train; they had no experience of war; they were too young to know much of life firsthand. Those with an early acquired sense of history, with a knowledge of human endeavor, would be relatively well off indeed at that moment. As military leaders we are charged to prepare our soldiers and ourselves for war. We go about this in a variety of ways, not least of which is to bring about some understanding of the nature of war. With this in mind we can look back over the Army's recent training programs and activities with some satisfaction that we have been able to emphasize history as a part of them. Our military schools are encouraging more and more historical readings and analyses. Units are visiting battlefields, making terrain walks, taking staff rides, and investigating the decisions and circumstances of the men who fought there. We are requiring our junior officers, and encouraging our more senior ones, to select from recommended lists, to read, and to reflect. More and more of our people are writing, and more and more of their works are being published. Hopefully, we are seeing the development of a trend here. Perhaps we can take some pride in the indicators that history is a more vital part of training than it has been in the recent past. But there are still those who would question whether we really need all this effort. After all, the military is a busy place, the days are long, the work demanding, and the pace exhausting. Can we really devote much time and effort to reading history?

Clausewitz answered that question some time ago. In his effort to understand the nature of war, he praised the use of historical example. He approached the use of history from four perspectives: as an explanation, as a demonstration of the application of an idea, as a support for a statement, and as a detailed presentation from which one might deduce doctrine. Each use requires greater degrees of rigor. The first and simplest demand is for accuracy. If we read widely enough, we can develop an ability to discern and a base for comparison that will develop a feel for accuracy. The second and far greater demand is to project ourselves into the moment in time under study, not to force fit it into our own world. Only by understanding the conditions of the era and the perspectives of the people under study can we understand the rationale of their decisions-and make judgments for our own time. The third and fourth are matters of logic and discipline. In sum, the reading of history is a way to gain experience. The reader swelters with Lawrence in the burning Arabian sands and learns the brutality and fluidity of guerrilla warfare. He gasps at Chandler's description of the genius Napoleon arising at midnight to dictate his orders through the night to set the stage for the battle. He hammers at Lee's Army of Northern Virginia with Grant's memoirs; overcomes the terror of the Burmese jungle and turns defeat into victory with Slim; unravels the conceptual threads of battle and maneuver with Delbruck; relates war to nuclear weapons to politics with Brodie; freezes in Korea with Marshall at the river and the gauntlet; and cries out with MacDonald at the inanities of the Kall trail before Schmidt. In the end he emerges as a veteran-more inured to the shock of the unexpected, better prepared to weigh the consequences of critical decisions, and imbued with the human drama breaking upon leaders and led in their march to destiny. He knows the fine line between foolhardiness and courage, between abstinence and conviction, between disgrace and glory. He has had a conversation with the soldiers of all time and has shared their lives and thoughts. His judgment is sharpened, and he is better prepared to lead. As we read history we enter into a conversation together, where a reference to Douhet, an analogy that cites Verdun, or an illustration that notes Trafalgar evokes a much greater understanding of what is meant. Professional exchanges are richer, transmission of ideas more efficient, and misunderstandings fewer. A common historical understanding carries a wealth of meaning for us as leaders. We have done much in our Army recently to heighten our professionalism and our readiness to defend our nation. Not least among our accomplishments has been a restatement of the importance of history in general and military history in particular. No one should become so busy with the course of events that he does not pause and consider how others have dealt with similar circumstances in their own time and place. To immerse oneself in history is to spend time well. *
* Originally printed in Center for Military History Journal, September 1989. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_military_history.html

Victor Davis Hanson

Why Study War?

Military history teaches us about honor, sacrifice, and the inevitability of conflict. Summer 2007

T ry explaining to a college student that Tet was an American military victory.

Youll provoke not a counterargumentlet alone an assentbut a blank stare: Who or what was Tet? Doing interviews about the recent hit movie 300, I encountered similar bewilderment from listeners and hosts. Not only did most of them not know who the 300 were or what Thermopylae was; they seemed clueless about the Persian Wars altogether. Its no surprise that civilian Americans tend to lack a basic understanding of military matters. Even when I was a graduate student, 30-some years ago, military historyunderstood broadly as the investigation of why one side wins and another loses a war, and encompassing reflections on magisterial or foolish generalship, technological stagnation or breakthrough, and the roles of discipline, bravery, national will, and culture in determining a conflicts outcome and its consequences had already become unfashionable on campus. Today, universities are even less receptive to the subject. This state of affairs is profoundly troubling, for democratic citizenship requires knowledge of warand now, in the age of weapons of mass annihilation, more than ever.

I came to the study of warfare in an odd way, at the age of 24. Without ever taking
a class in military history, I naively began writing about war for a Stanford classics dissertation that explored the effects of agricultural devastation in ancient Greece, especially the Spartan ravaging of the Athenian countryside during the Peloponnesian War. The topic fascinated me. Was the strategy effective? Why assume that ancient armies with primitive tools could easily burn or cut trees, vines, and grain on thousands of acres of enemy farms, when on my family farm in Selma, California, it took me almost an hour to fell a mature fruit tree with a sharp modern ax? Yet even if the invaders couldnt starve civilian populations, was the destruction still harmful psychologically? Did it goad proud agrarians to come out and fight? And what did the practice tell us about the values of the Greeksand of the generals who persisted in an operation that seemingly brought no tangible results? I posed these questions to my prospective thesis advisor, adding all sorts of further justifications. The topic was central to understanding the Peloponnesian War, I noted. The research would be interdisciplinarya big plus in the modern university drawing not just on ancient military histories but also on archaeology, classical drama, epigraphy, and poetry. I could bring a personal dimension to the research, too, having grown up around veterans of both world wars who talked constantly about battle. And from my experience on the farm, I wanted to add practical details about growing trees and vines in a Mediterranean climate.

Yet my advisor was skeptical. Agrarian wars, indeed wars of any kind, werent popular in classics Ph.D. programs, even though farming and fighting were the ancient Greeks two most common pursuits, the sources of anecdote, allusion, and metaphor in almost every Greek philosophical, historical, and literary text. Few classicists seemed to care any more that most notable Greek writers, thinkers, and statesmenfrom Aeschylus to Pericles to Xenophonhad served in the phalanx or on a trireme at sea. Dozens of nineteenth-century dissertations and monographs on ancient warfareon the organization of the Spartan army, the birth of Greek tactics, the strategic thinking of Greek generals, and much morewent largely unread. Nor was the discipline of military history, once central to a liberal education, in vogue on campuses in the seventies. It was as if the university had forgotten that history itself had begun with Herodotus and Thucydides as the story of armed conflicts.

W hat lay behind this academic lack of interest? The most obvious explanation: this
was the immediate post-Vietnam era. The public perception in the Carter years was that America had lost a war that for moral and practical reasons it should never have foughta catastrophe, for many in the universities, that it must never repeat. The necessary corrective wasnt to learn how such wars started, went forward, and were lost. Better to ignore anything that had to do with such odious business in the first place. The nuclear pessimism of the cold war, which followed the horror of two world wars, also dampened academic interest. The postwar obscenity of Mutually Assured Destruction had lent an apocalyptic veneer to contemporary war: as President Kennedy warned, Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. Conflict had become something so destructive, in this view, that it no longer had any relation to the battles of the past. It seemed absurd to worry about a new tank or a novel doctrine of counterinsurgency when the press of a button, unleashing nuclear Armageddon, would render all military thinking superfluous. Further, the sixties had ushered in a utopian view of society antithetical to serious thinking about war. Government, the military, business, religion, and the family had conspired, the new Rousseauians believed, to warp the naturally peace-loving individual. Conformity and coercion smothered our innately pacifist selves. To assert that wars broke out because bad men, in fear or in pride, sought material advantage or status, or because good men had done too little to stop them, was now seen as antithetical to an enlightened understanding of human nature. What difference does it make, in the words of the much-quoted Mahatma Gandhi, to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? The academic neglect of war is even more acute today. Military history as a discipline has atrophied, with very few professorships, journal articles, or degree programs. In 2004, Edward Coffman, a retired military history professor who taught at the University of Wisconsin, reviewed the faculties of the top 25 history

departments, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. He found that of over 1,000 professors, only 21 identified war as a specialty. When war does show up on university syllabi, its often about the race, class, and gender of combatants and wartime civilians. So a class on the Civil War will focus on the Underground Railroad and Reconstruction, not on Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. One on World War II might emphasize Japanese internment, Rosie the Riveter, and the horror of Hiroshima, not Guadalcanal and Midway. A survey of the Vietnam War will devote lots of time to the inequities of the draft, media coverage, and the antiwar movement at home, and scant the air and artillery barrages at Khe Sanh. Those who want to study war in the traditional way face intense academic suspicion, as Margaret Atwoods poem The Loneliness of the Military Historian suggests:
Confess: its my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I dont go out of my way to be scary.

Historians of war must derive perverse pleasure, their critics suspect, from reading about carnage and suffering. Why not figure out instead how to outlaw war forever, as if it were not a tragic, nearly inevitable aspect of human existence? Hence the recent surge of peace studies (see The Peace Racket).

T he universitys aversion to the study of war certainly doesnt reflect public lack of
interest in the subject. Students love old-fashioned war classes on those rare occasions when theyre offered, usually as courses that professors sneak in when the choice of what to teach is left up to them. I taught a number of such classes at California State University, Stanford, and elsewhere. Theyd invariably wind up overenrolled, with hordes of students lingering after office hours to offer opinions on the battles of Marathon and Lepanto. Popular culture, too, displays extraordinary enthusiasm for all things military. Theres a new Military History Channel, and Hollywood churns out a steady supply of blockbuster war movies, from Saving Private Ryan to 300. The postKen Burns explosion of interest in the Civil War continues. Historical reenactment societies stage historys great battles, from the Roman legions to the Wehrmachts. Barnes and Noble and Borders bookstores boast well-stocked military history sections, with scores of new titles every month. A plethora of websites obsess over strategy and tactics. Hit video games grow ever more realistic in their reconstructions of battles. The public may feel drawn to military history because it wants to learn about honor and sacrifice, or because of interest in technologythe muzzle velocity of a Tiger Tanks 88mm cannon, for instanceor because of a pathological need to experience

violence, if only vicariously. The importanceand challengeof the academic study of war is to elevate that popular enthusiasm into a more capacious and serious understanding, one that seeks answers to such questions as: Why do wars break out? How do they end? Why do the winners win and the losers lose? How best to avoid wars or contain their worst effects?

A wartime public illiterate about the conflicts of the past can easily find itself
paralyzed in the acrimony of the present. Without standards of historical comparison, it will prove ill equipped to make informed judgments. Neither our politicians nor most of our citizens seem to recall the incompetence and terrible decisions that, in December 1777, December 1941, and November 1950, led to massive American casualties and, for a time, public despair. So its no surprise that today so many seem to think that the violence in Iraq is unprecedented in our history. Roughly 3,000 combat dead in Iraq in some four years of fighting is, of course, a terrible thing. And it has provoked national outrage to the point of considering withdrawal and defeat, as we still bicker over up-armored Humvees and proper troop levels. But a previous generation considered Okinawa a stunning American victory, and prepared to follow it with an invasion of the Japanese mainland itselfdespite losing, in a little over two months, four times as many Americans as we have lost in Iraq, casualties of faulty intelligence, poor generalship, and suicidal head-on assaults against fortified positions. Its not that military history offers cookie-cutter comparisons with the past. Germanys World War I victory over Russia in under three years and her failure to take France in four apparently misled Hitler into thinking that he could overrun the Soviets in three or four weeksafter all, he had brought down historically tougher France in just six. Similarly, the conquest of the Taliban in eight weeks in 2001, followed by the establishment of constitutional government within a year in Kabul, did not mean that the similarly easy removal of Saddam Hussein in three weeks in 2003 would ensure a working Iraqi democracy within six months. The differences between the countriescultural, political, geographical, and economicwere too great. Instead, knowledge of past wars establishes wide parameters of what to expect from new ones. Themes, emotions, and rhetoric remain constant over the centuries, and thus generally predictable. Athenss disastrous expedition in 415 BC against Sicily, the largest democracy in the Greek world, may not prefigure our war in Iraq. But the story of the Sicilian calamity does instruct us on how consensual societies can clamor for waryet soon become disheartened and predicate their support on the perceived pulse of the battlefield.

M ilitary history teaches us, contrary to popular belief these days, that wars arent
necessarily the most costly of human calamities. The first Gulf War took few lives in getting Saddam out of Kuwait; doing nothing in Rwanda allowed savage gangs and militias to murder hundreds of thousands with impunity. Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin killed far more off the battlefield than on it. The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic

brought down more people than World War I did. And more Americansover 3.2 millionlost their lives driving over the last 90 years than died in combat in this nations 231-year history. Perhaps what bothers us about wars, though, isnt just their horrific lethality but also that people choose to wage themwhich makes them seem avoidable, unlike a flu virus or a car wreck, and their tolls unduly grievous. Yet military history also reminds us that war sometimes has an eerie utility: as British strategist Basil H. Liddell Hart put it, War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it. Warsor threats of warsput an end to chattel slavery, Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism, and Soviet Communism. Military history is as often the story of appeasement as of warmongering. The destructive military careers of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler would all have ended early had any of their numerous enemies united when the odds favored them. Western air power stopped Slobodan Miloevis reign of terror at little cost to NATO forcesbut only after a near-decade of inaction and dialogue had made possible the slaughter of tens of thousands. Affluent Western societies have often proved reluctant to use force to prevent greater future violence. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things, observed the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. Indeed, by ignoring history, the modern age is free to interpret war as a failure of communication, of diplomacy, of talkingas if aggressors dont know exactly what theyre doing. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, frustrated by the Bush administrations intransigence in the War on Terror, flew to Syria, hoping to persuade President Assad to stop funding terror in the Middle East. She assumed that Assads belligerence resulted from our aloofness and arrogance rather than from his dictatorships interest in destroying democracy in Lebanon and Iraq, before such contagious freedom might in fact destroy him. For a therapeutically inclined generation raised on Oprah and Dr. Philand not on the letters of William Tecumseh Sherman and William Shirers Berlin Diaryproblems between states, like those in our personal lives, should be argued about by equally civilized and peaceful rivals, and so solved without resorting to violence. Yet its hard to find many wars that result from miscommunication. Far more often they break out because of malevolent intent and the absence of deterrence. Margaret Atwood also wrote in her poem: Wars happen because the ones who start them / think they can win. Hitler did; so did Mussolini and Tojoand their assumptions were logical, given the relative disarmament of the Western democracies at the time. Bin Laden attacked on September 11 not because there was a dearth of American diplomats willing to dialogue with him in the Hindu Kush. Instead, he recognized that a series of Islamic terrorist assaults against U.S. interests over two decades had met with no meaningful reprisals, and concluded that decadent Westerners would never fight, whatever the provocationor that, if we did, we would withdraw as we had from Mogadishu.

I n the twenty-first century, its easier than ever to succumb to technological

determinism, the idea that science, new weaponry, and globalization have altered the very rules of war. But military history teaches us that our ability to strike a single individual from 30,000 feet up with a GPS bomb or a jihadists efforts to have his propaganda beamed to millions in real time do not necessarily transform the conditions that determine who wins and who loses wars. True, instant communications may compress decision making, and generals must be skilled at news conferences that can now influence the views of millions worldwide. Yet these are really just new wrinkles on the old face of war. The improvised explosive device versus the up-armored Humvee is simply an updated take on the catapult versus the stone wall or the harquebus versus the mailed knight. The long history of war suggests no static primacy of the defensive or the offensive, or of one sort of weapon over the other, but just temporary advantages gained by particular strategies and technologies that go unanswered for a time by less adept adversaries. So its highly doubtful, the study of war tells us, that a new weapon will emerge from the Pentagon or anywhere else that will change the very nature of armed conflictunless some sort of genetic engineering so alters mans brain chemistry that he begins to act in unprecedented ways. We fought the 1991 Gulf War with dazzling, computer-enhanced weaponry. But lost in the technological pizzazz was the basic wisdom that we need to fight wars with political objectives in mind and that, to conclude them decisively, we must defeat and even humiliate our enemies, so that they agree to abandon their prewar behavior. For some reason, no American general or diplomat seemed to understand that crucial point 16 years ago, with the result that, on the cessation of hostilities, Saddam Husseins supposedly defeated generals used their gunships to butcher Kurds and Shiites while Americans looked on. And because we never achieved the wars proper aimensuring that Iraq would not use its petro-wealth to destroy the peace of the regionwe have had to fight a second war of no-fly zones, and then a third war to remove Saddam, and now a fourth war, of counterinsurgency, to protect the fledgling Iraqi democracy.

M ilitary history reminds us of important anomalies and paradoxes. When Sparta

invaded Attica in the first spring of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides recounts, it expected the Athenians to surrender after a few short seasons of ravaging. They didntbut a plague that broke out unexpectedly did more damage than thousands of Spartan ravagers did. Twenty-seven years later, a maritime Athens lost the war at sea to Sparta, an insular land power that started the conflict with scarcely a navy. The 2003 removal of Saddam refuted doom-and-gloom critics who predicted thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, just as the subsequent messy fouryear reconstruction hasnt evolved as anticipated into a quiet, stable democracyto say the least. The size of armies doesnt guarantee battlefield success: the victors at Salamis, Issos, Mexico City, and Lepanto were all outnumbered. Wars most savage

momentsthe Allied summer offensive of 1918, the Russian siege of Berlin in the spring of 1945, the Battle of the Bulge, Hiroshimaoften unfold right before hostilities cease. And democratic leaders during warthink of Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixonoften leave office either disgraced or unpopular. It would be reassuring to think that the righteousness of a cause, or the bravery of an army, or the nobility of a sacrifice ensures public support for war. But military history shows that far more often theperception of winning is what matters. Citizens turn abruptly on any leaders deemed culpable for losing. Public sentiment is everything, wrote Abraham Lincoln. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws. Lincoln knew that lesson well. Gettysburg and Vicksburg were brilliant Union victories that by summer 1863 had restored Lincolns previously shaky credibility. But a year later, after the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Cold Harbor battlesCold Harbor claimed 7,000 Union lives in 20 minutes the public reviled him. Neither Lincoln nor his policies had changed, but the Confederate ability to kill large numbers of Union soldiers had. Ultimately, public opinion follows the ups and downsincluding the perception of the ups and downsof the battlefield, since victory excites the most ardent pacifist and defeat silences the most zealous zealot. After the defeat of France, the losses to Bomber Command, the U-boat rampage, and the fall of Greece, Singapore, and Dunkirk, Churchill took the blame for a war as seemingly lost as, a little later, it seemed won by the brilliant prime minister after victories in North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy. When the successful military action against Saddam Hussein ended in April 2003, over 70 percent of the American people backed it, with politicians and pundits alike elbowing each other aside to take credit for their prescient support. Four years of insurgency later, Americans oppose a now-orphaned war by the same margin. General George S. Patton may have been uncouth, but he wasnt wrong when he bellowed, Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. The American public turned on the Iraq War not because of Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore but because it felt that the battlefield news had turned uniformly bad and that the price in American lives and treasure for ensuring Iraqi reform was too dear. Finally, military history has the moral purpose of educating us about past sacrifices that have secured our present freedom and security. If we know nothing of Shiloh, Belleau Wood, Tarawa, and Chosun, the crosses in our military cemeteries are just pleasant white stones on lush green lawns. They no longer serve as reminders that thousands endured pain and hardship for our right to listen to what we wish on our iPods and to shop at Wal-Mart in safetyor that they expected future generations, links in this great chain of obligation, to do the same for those not yet born. The United States was born through war, reunited by war, and saved from destruction by war. No future generation, however comfortable and affluent, should escape that terrible knowledge.

W hat, then, can we do to restore the study of war to its proper place in the life of
the American mind? The challenge isnt just to reform the graduate schools or the professoriate, though that would help. On a deeper level, we need to reexamine the larger forces that have devalued the very idea of military historyof war itself. We must abandon the naive faith that with enough money, education, or good intentions we can change the nature of mankind so that conflict, as if by fiat, becomes a thing of the past. In the end, the study of war reminds us that we will never be gods. We will always just be men, it tells us. Some men will always prefer war to peace; and other men, we who have learned from the past, have a moral obligation to stop them. Studying War: Where to Start While Thucydides Peloponnesian War, a chronicle of the three-decade war between Athens and Sparta, establishes the genre of military history, the best place to begin studying war is with the soldiers stories themselves. E. B. Sledges memoir of Okinawa, With the Old Breed, is nightmarish, but it reminds us that war, while it often translates to rot, filth, and carnage, can also be in the service of a noble cause. Elmer Bendiners tragic retelling of the annihilation of B-17s over Germany, The Fall of Fortresses: A Personal Account of the Most Daring, and Deadly, American Air Battles of World War II, is an unrecognized classic. From a different wartime perspectivethat of the generalsU. S. Grants Personal Memoirs is justly celebrated as a model of prose. Yet the nearly contemporaneous Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman is far more analytical in its dissection of the human follies and pretensions that lead to war. Likewise, George S. Pattons War As I Knew It is not only a compilation of the eccentric generals diary entries but also a candid assessment of human nature itself. Fiction often captures the experience of war as effectively as memoir, beginning with Homers Iliad, in which Achilles confronts the paradox that rewards do not always go to the most deserving in war. The three most famous novels about the futility of conflict are The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, and August 1914, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. No work has better insights on the folly of war, however, than Euripides Trojan Women. Although many contemporary critics find it pass to document landmark battles in history, one can find a storehouse of information in The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, by Edward S. Creasy, and A Military History of the Western World, by J. F. C. Fuller. Hans Delbrcks History of the Art of War and Russell F. Weigleys The Age of Battles center their sweeping histories on decisive engagements, using battles like Marathon and Waterloo as tools to illustrate larger social, political, and cultural values. A sense of high drama permeates William H. Prescotts History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru, while tragedy more often characterizes Steven Runcimans spellbinding short

account The Fall of Constantinople 1453 and Donald Morriss massive The Washing of the Spears, about the rise and fall of the Zulu Empire. The most comprehensive and accessible one-volume treatment of historys most destructive war remains Gerhard L. Weinbergs A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Relevant histories for our current struggle with Middle East terrorism are Alistair Hornes superb A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 19541962, Michael Orens Six Days of War, and Mark Bowdens Black Hawk Down. Anything John Keegan writes is worth reading; The Face of Battle remains the most impressive general military history of the last 50 years. Biography too often winds up ignored in the study of war. Plutarchs lives of Pericles, Alcibiades, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Alexander the Great established the traditional view of these great captains as men of action, while weighing their record of near-superhuman achievement against their megalomania. Elizabeth Longfords Wellington is a classic study of Englands greatest soldier. Lees Lieutenants: A Study in Command, by Douglas Southall Freeman, has been slighted recently but is spellbinding. If, as Carl von Clausewitz believed, War is the continuation of politics by other means, then study of civilian wartime leadership is critical. The classic scholarly account of the proper relationship between the military and its overseers is still Samuel P. Huntingtons The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. For a contemporary Jaccuse of American military leadership during the Vietnam War, see H. R. McMasters Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. Eliot A. Cohens Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime is purportedly a favorite read of President Bushs. It argues that successful leaders like Ben-Gurion, Churchill, Clemenceau, and Lincoln kept a tight rein on their generals and never confused officers esoteric military expertise with either political sense or strategic resolution. In The Mask of Command, Keegan examines the military competence of Alexander the Great, Wellington, Grant, and Hitler, and comes down on the side of the two who fought under consensual government. In The Soul of Battle, I took that argument further and suggested that three of the most audacious generals Epaminondas, Sherman, and Pattonwere also keen political thinkers, with strategic insight into what made their democratic armies so formidable. How politicians lose wars is also of interest. See especially Ian Kershaws biography Hitler, 19361945: Nemesis. Mark Moyars first volume of a proposed two-volume reexamination of Vietnam, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 19541965, is akin to reading Euripides tales of self-inflicted woe and missed

chances. Horne has written a half-dozen classics, none more engrossing than his tragic To Lose a Battle: France 1940. Few historians can weave military narrative into the contemporary political and cultural landscape. James McPhersons Battle Cry of Freedom does, and his volume began the recent renaissance of Civil War history. Barbara Tuchmans The Guns of August describes the first month of World War I in riveting but excruciatingly sad detail. Two volumes by David McCullough, Truman and 1776, give fascinating inside accounts of the political will necessary to continue wars amid domestic depression and bad news from the front. So does Martin Gilberts Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 19391941. Donald Kagans On theOrigins of War and the Preservation of Peace warns against the dangers of appeasement, especially the lethal combination of tough rhetoric with no military preparedness, in a survey of wars from ancient Greece to the Cuban missile crisis. Robert Kagans Dangerous Nation reminds Americans that their idealism (if not self-righteousness) is nothing new but rather helps explain more than two centuries of both wise and ill-considered intervention abroad. Any survey on military history should conclude with more abstract lessons about war. Principles of War by Clausewitz remains the cornerstone of the science. Niccol Machiavellis The Art of War blends realism with classical military detail. Two indispensable works, War: Ends and Means, by Angelo Codevilla and Paul Seabury, and Makers of Modern Strategy, edited by Peter Paret, provide refreshingly honest accounts of the timeless rules and nature of war. Victor Davis Hanson

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Military History: Is It Still Practicable?

by

Jay Luvaas Originally published in Army War College's Parameters, March 1982 THERE was a day, before the advent of the A-bomb and its more destructive offspring, before smart bombs and nerve gas, before computer technology and war games, when professional soldiers regarded reading history as a useful

pastime. Many who have scaled the peaks of the military profession have testified to the utility of studying military history. Most of these, however, seem to be commanding voices out of the past. MacArthur, steeped in family tradition and familiar with many of the 4000 volumes inherited from his father, was never at a loss for a historical example to underscore his point of view; Krueger, as a young officer, translated books and articles from the German military literature; Eisenhower spent countless hours listening to the erudite Fox Conner on what could be learned from military history; Marshall and his contemporaries at the Army Staff College at Leavenworth reconstructed Civil War campaigns from the after-action reports; Patton took the time in 1943 to read a book on the Norman conquest of Sicily nearly nine centuries earlier and to ponder "the many points in common with our operations";[1] and Eichelberger summoned from memory a passage he had read ten years before in Grant's Memoirs (which ought to be required reading for all officers) and thereby stiffened his resolve to press home the attack at Buna. These Army commanders were all remarkably well versed in history. So were many of their civilian superiors. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was an avid reader of naval history, and Harry Truman frequently acknowledged the pertinent lessons that he had gleaned from a lifetime of exposure to history: Reading history, to me, was far more than a romantic adventure. It was solid instruction and wise teaching which I somehow felt that I . . . needed . . . It seemed to me that if I could understand the true facts about the . . . development of the United States Government and could know the details of the lives of . . . its political leaders, I would be getting for myself a valuable . . . education . . . I know of no surer way to get a solid foundation in political science and public administration than to study the histories of past administrations of the world's most successful system of government.[2] Because the military is a "practical" profession geared much of the time to problem-solving, soldiers--like engineers and scientists--tend to be pragmatic about what is meant by the word "practicable." History is "practicable" if it yields lessons, especially exemplary lessons in tactics and strategy that can be directly applied to some current situation. History is "useful" in illustrating points of doctrine, in instilling in the young officer the proper military values or an appreciation for our military heritage. The "practical" man often scans the past for some magical formula that may ensure success in war, like Field Marshal von Schlieffen's theory of envelopment, or Captain B. H. Liddell Hart's strategy of indirect approach.

Such assumptions inevitably determine the way military history is taught. Because an important duty of the officer in peacetime is to teach, and because in the Army teaching usually involves explaining, it is often assumed that history, to be taught, must be explained. The emphasis therefore is on organizing and presenting information in a lucid, often lavishly illustrated lecture, in which tidy answers outrank nagging questions in the minds of everyone involved. The inference on the part of most students, if not the instructor, is that a person who remembers the lecture will somehow have learned history. It's a mistaken assumption we all make. It is also true that no other field of history is under as much pressure as military history to provide "practical" answers to some current problem. If military history cannot provide such answers, why study it? The specialist in Renaissance diplomacy is rarely solicited for his views on foreign policy but, rather, is left alone to concentrate his thoughts on the cold war with the Turks in the 15th century. Nor is the scholar who has spent a lifetime studying the ramifications of the French Revolution apt to be consulted when news breaks of still another palace coup in some Latin American banana republic. But let a historian or journalist prowl around in some remote corner in the field of military history and often he will be expected, even tempted, to function as a current-affairs military analyst. Perhaps we think this way because, as a society, we are largely ignorant about both the facts and the nature of history. In high school, European history no longer is required, having been replaced by something called "Western Civilization." We know astonishingly little about the history of other societies, and most of us, unfortunately, care even less. Students voting with their feet in colleges and universities across the nation have caused enrollments in history courses to plummet as they turn to "more practical" subjects such as economics, psychology, biology, engineering, and business administration. In the Army's schools, history has become a casualty of the Vietnam War, clearly the emphasis now is upon training. Even at the Military Academy, the required course in the military art was severely curtailed several years ago and only recently has been restored to its logical place in the curriculum. For that matter, how many officers who have invested off-duty hours to work toward an advanced degree have taken it in history? In the officer corps of today, the subject is rarely considered "practicable." More to the point, is the Army as an institution as historical-minded as it was in the past? For without even a rudimentary understanding of history and its processes, there is no way that the past can be made to offer object lessons for the future. Professor Pieter Geyl, a distinguished Dutch historian, reminds us that it is useless to talk about "the lessons of history" when the historian "is after all only a man sitting at his desk."[3] The lessons that we would learn are his--the fruits of his labors, the creation of his imagination, perhaps the idea

that he is to sell to the reader. For, as a German general asserted a hundred years ago, "it is well known that military history, when superficially studied, will furnish arguments in support of any theory or opinion."[4] Common Fallacies Perhaps the most frequent error in the abuse of history is to take historical examples out of context. Once removed from its historical context, which is always unique, a battle or a campaign ceases to offer meaningful lessons from history. According to Napoleon, "old Frederick laughed in his sleeve at the parades of Potsdam when he perceived young officers, French, English, and Austrian, so infatuated with the manoeuvre of the oblique order, which (in itself) was fit for nothing but to gain a few adjutant-majors a reputation." Napoleon appreciated that the secret of Frederick's successes was not the oblique order, but Frederick. "Genius acts through inspiration," Napoleon concluded. "What is good in one case is bad in another."[5] One of Frederick's own soldiers demonstrated that in another environment even Frederick's maneuver's might fail. When Baron von Steuben, who had served in the Prussian Army throughout the Seven Years' War, was trying to make soldiers out of Washington's shivering, half-starved volunteers at Valley Forge, he knew better than to waste precious time teaching those complex maneuvers he had mastered under Frederick. Instead he selected only those that were essential to meet the unique conditions that prevailed in America, where volunteers had only a few months instead of years to master the intricacies of Frederick's drill, and where officers had to learn to lead by example instead of relying upon the severity of the Prussian system. Soldiers, Frederick repeatedly had warned, "can be held in check only through fear" and should therefore be made to "fear their officers more than all the dangers to which they are exposed. . . . Good will can never induce the common soldier to stand up to such dangers; he will only do so through fear."[6] Whatever may have motivated Washington's amateur soldiers at Valley Forge, most certainly it was not fear. If there is a lesson here for us, it is simply that solutions to problems are not to be viewed as interchangeable parts. Even the Germans in World War II apparently failed to heed this lesson in drawing conclusions from their own war experiences. In addition to displaying a tendency to generalize from personal or limited experience, they often indiscriminately applied the experiences of one situation to entirely different circumstances. Thus the German Supreme Command "applied the experiences acquired on the Western Front in 1940, unchanged, to the war against Russia" despite the "greater tenacity" of the Russian soldier, his "insensibility against threatening the flanks," the scarcity of roads, and the vast space involved "giving . . . the opponent the possibility of avoiding decision." In the words of one German

general, not only did this misapplication of experience influence the operational plan against Russia, it also "contributed to the final disappointment."[7] It is also a distortion to compress the past into distinctive patterns, for it is as true of history as it is of nature that "each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood."[8] History responds generously to the adage "seek and ye shall find."At the turn of the century the Chief of the German General Stall, Count Alfred von Schlieffen, was faced with the need to plan for a war on two fronts. His solution was to point toward a quick victory on one front in order to avoid ultimate defeat on both, and his inspiration for the battle of annihilation essential to a quick victory came, at least in part, from reading the first volume of Hans Delbruck'sGeschichte der Kriegskunst, which was published in 1900. Delbruck's treatment of the battle of Cannae in 216 B.C. convinced Schlieffen that Hannibal had won his lopsided victory by deliberately weakening his center and attacking with full force from both flanks. The much publicized Schlieffen Plan was an adaptation of this idea. Having thus discovered the "key," Schlieffen turned in his writings to the idea of envelopment to unlock the secrets of Frederick the Great and Napoleon, both of whom, he claimed, had always attempted to envelop the enemy. Similarly, Captain B. H. Liddell Hart was to discover from his research for a biography of Sherman that the key to Sherman's success lay in a strategy of indirect approach. When he turned to history at large for confirmation, of course he "discovered" that nearly all successful generals, whether they had been aware of it or not, had employed something akin to the strategy of indirect approach. The future British field marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, who always found Liddell Hart's ideas stimulating whether he agreed with them or not, once slyly suggested to the captain: "With your knowledge and brains and command of the pen, you could have written just as convincing a book called the `Strategy of the Direct Approach.'"[9] Wavell appreciated that it was Liddell Hart and not the muse of history who preached this attractive doctrine. Moreover, nothing is necessarily proven by citing examples from history. There are many works on military theory that provide examples of bad argument from analogy or authority; such faulty use of historical examples, according to Karl von Clausewitz, "not only leaves the reader dissatisfied but even irritates his intelligence." The mere citation of historical examples provides only the semblance of proof, although the reader who understands little about the nature of history may set aside his book convinced of the essential truth of some new theory, and the audience exposed to a wellorganized and seemingly cogent lecture sprinkled with examples from history is equally vulnerable. "There are occasions," Clausewitz noted,

where nothing will be proven by a dozen examples. . . . If anyone lists a dozen defeats in which the losing side attacked with divided columns, I can list a dozen victories in which that very tactic was employed. Obviously this is no way to reach a conclusion. And if the author or lecturer has never mastered the events he describes, "such superficial, irresponsible handling of history leads to hundreds of wrong ideas and bogus theorizing."[10] Perhaps the greatest disservice to history and its lessons comes from its frequent association with a given set of military principles of doctrine, and here the celebrated Swiss theorist Baron de Jomini may have had an unfortunate influence. Drawing upon an exhaustive examination of 30 campaigns of Frederick and Napoleon, Jomini deduced certain fixed maxims and principles which he claimed were both eternal and universal in their application. If such maxims would not produce great generals they would "at least make generals sufficiently skillful to hold the second rank among the great captains" and would thus serve as "the true school for generals."[11] To future generations of young officers, Jomini said, in effect: "Gentlemen, I have not found a single instance where my principles, correctly applied, did not lead to success. They are based upon my unrivaled knowledge of the campaigns of Napoleon, much of it acquired at first hand, and of the basic works of Thiers, Napier, Lloyd, Tempelhof, Foy, and the Archduke Charles. Thanks to my labors you need not invest years of your own time in scrutinizing these voluminous histories. Did not Napoleon himself confess: `I have studied history a great deal, and often, for want of a guide, have been forced to lose considerable time in useless reading'? You have only to study my principles and apply them faithfully, for `there exists a fundamental principle of all the operations of war' which you neglect at your peril."[12] Jomini had many prominent disciples, and their books were nearly all written on the assumption that battles and campaigns, ancient as well as modern, have succeeded or failed to the degree that they adhered to the principles of war as explained by Jomini and could be confirmed by the "constant teachings of history." But where Jomini read history, many of his followers read primarily Jomini and thus were one step removed from history and its processes. The emergence of doctrine (as late as the American Civil War there were only drill manuals) and the introduction of historical sections on most European general staffs after the Prussian victories in 1866 and 1870 meant that increasingly, in the eyes of professional soldiers at least, military history was linked to doctrine and more specifically, to the principles of war as these principles were rediscovered and refined. Since World War I it has become

fashionable to use history to illustrate the official principles of war as they are variously defined. There are three dangers inherent in this approach. In the first place, pressed into service in this way history can only illustrate something already perceived as being true; it cannot prove its validity or lead to new discoveries. This is probably the terrain on which most soldiers first encounter the subject, and they would do well to heed the warning of Clausewitz that if "some historical event is being presented in order to demonstrate a general truth, care must be taken that every aspect bearing on the truth at issue is fully and circumstantially developed--carefully assembled . . . before the reader's eyes." In other words, the theorist ought to be a pretty good historian. Clausewitz goes so far as to suggest that, even though historical examples have the advantage of "being more realistic and of bringing the idea they are illustrating to life," if the purpose of history is really to explain doctrine, "an imaginary case would do as well."[13] Moreover, to use history primarily to illustrate accepted principles is really to put the cart before the horse. If one starts with what is perceived as truth and searches history for confirmation or illustrations, there can be no "lessons learned." How can there be? A second weakness in linking history to doctrine is the natural tendency to let doctrine sit in judgment of historical events. Sir William Napier, who had a healthy respect for Jomini's theories, used his maxims as a basis for rendering historical judgment on the generalship of French and British leaders in his classic History of the War in the Peninsula. Similarly, Major General Sir Patrick MacDougall "discovered" that these maxims could also serve as criteria for judging the generalship of Hannibal, and Matthew F. Steele's American Campaigns, which was published in 1909 and endured as a text at the Military Academy and other Army schools even beyond World War II, used the maxims of Jomini, von der Goltz, and other late 19th-century theorists to form the basis for historical commentary on the generalship of individual American commanders. Most serious of all is the ease and frequency with which faith in doctrine has actually distorted history. This was happening frequently by the end of the 19th century as each army in Europe developed and became committed to its own doctrine. It is the primary reason why the tactical and strategical lessons of the Civil War, which in many respects was the first modern war, went unheeded.[14] Even the elaborate German General Staff histories on the wars of Frederick the Great and the wars of liberation against Napoleon never failed to drive home the soundness of current German doctrine,[15] and the German official histories of the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War similarly serve to demonstrate above all else the continuing validity of German doctrine. The Boers had applied that doctrine and therefore usually won, at least in the earlier battles before the weight of numbers alone could

determine the outcome. British doctrine was faulty, if indeed the British yet had a doctrine, and therefore the British suffered repeated defeats. The Germans had trained the Japanese Army and the Japanese had won in 190405, "proving" again the superiority of German doctrine. Had a trained historian instead of an officer serving a tour with the Military History section analyzed the same campaigns, surely he would have asked some searching questions about the differences in the discipline, morale, and leadership of the two armies. Did the Japanese cavalry win, for example, because of superior doctrine based on shock tactics or because it was better disciplined and led? To the officer corps of the day, the results demonstrated the weakness of the Russian Army's mounted infantry concepts in the face of shock tactics, whereas 10 years later, in a war that, at the outset, was strikingly similar in the conditions prevailing on the battlefield, shock tactics did not prevail anywhere for long. Thus military history distilled by Jomini and his disciples ultimately found itself shaped by a commitment to doctrine, and the instinct of most professional soldiers before World War I was to explain away exceptions to the official rules rather than to use history as a means of testing and refining them. Facts in History Although it is not always evident in a lecture or a textbook, we can never be completely certain--and therefore in agreement--about what actually happened in history. Frederick and Napoleon knew this well. Skeptical both of the historian's motives and of the reliability of his facts, they evinced a healthy skepticism about the ability of the human mind ever to recreate an event as it actually had happened. "The true truths are very difficult to ascertain," Napoleon complained. "There are so many truths!"[16] Historical fact . . . is often a mere word; it cannot be ascertained when events actually occur, in the heat of contrary passions; and if, later on, there is a consensus, this is only because there is no one left contradict. . . . What is . . . historical truth? . . . An agreed upon fiction. . . . There are facts that remain in eternal litigation.[17] A Union staff officer whose corps bore the brunt of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg put it a different way: A full account of the battle as it was will never, can never, be made. Who could sketch the charges, the constant fighting of the bloody panorama! It is not possible. The official reports may give results as to losses, with statements

of attacks and repulses; they may also note the means by which results were attained . . . but the connection between means and results, the mode, the battle proper, these reports touch lightly. Two prominent reasons . . . account for the general inadequacy of these official reports . . . the literary infirmity of the reporters, and their not seeing themselves and their commands as others would have seen them. And factions, and parties, and politics . . . are already putting in their unreasonable demands. . . . Of this battle greater than Waterloo, a history, just, comprehensive, complete, will never be written. Byand-by, out of the chaos of trash and falsehood that newspapers hold, out of the disjointed mass of reports, out of the traditions and tales that come down from the field, some eye that never saw the battle will select, and some pen will write what will be named the history. With that the world will be, and if we are alive we must be, content.[18] This writer intuitively understood that as soon as the historian begins to impose order on something as chaotic as a battle, he distorts. If his narrative is to mean anything at all to the reader he must simplify and organize the "disjointed mass of reports." He must, for lack of space, omit incidents that did not contribute to the final result. He must resolve controversies, not merely report them, and he must recognize that not every general is candid, every report complete, every description accurate. Orders are not always executed; not every order is even relevant to the situation. At Gettysburg, the watches in the two armies were set 20 minutes apart, and after the battle Lee had some of his subordinates rewrite their after-action reports to avoid unnecessary dissension. Well may it be said that "on the actual day of battle naked truths may be picked up for the asking; by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms."[19] During World War I, German General Max Hoffman confided to his diary: "For the first time in my life I have seen `History' at close quarters, and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to posterity."[20] Plutarch Lied is the descriptive title of an impassioned indictment of the French military leadership on the other side of no-man's land: Men who yesterday seemed destined to oblivion have, today, acquired immortality. Has some new virtue been instilled in them, has some magician touched them with his wand?. . . Civilian historians have studied historical events from a point of view which is exclusively military. Far from trusting to their judgment, they have not considered it respectful to exercise their critical faculties on the facts as guaranteed by a body of specialists. An idolatrous admiration for everything which concerns the army has conferred upon them the favour of having eyes which do not see and memories which are oblivious of their own experiences. . . . An incredible conspiracy exists in France at this very moment. No one dares to write the truth.[21]

Even with the best of intentions and an impartial mind, it is difficult to reconstruct what actually happened in history. This truth was given eloquent expression by a French pilot on a reconnaissance flight to Arras in May 1940 as he reflected on the chaos engulfing a dying society 30,000 feet below. Ah, the blueprint that historians will draft of all this! The angles they will plot to lend shape to this mess! They will take the word of a cabinet minister, the decision of a general, the discussion of a committee, and out of that parade of ghosts they will build historic conversations in which they will discern farsighted views and weighty responsibilities. They will invent agreements, resistances, attitudinous pleas, cowardices. . . . Historians will forget reality. They will invent thinking men, joined by mysterious fibers to an intelligible universe, possessed of sound far-sighted views and pondering grave decisions according to the purest laws of Cartesian logic.[22] Even where there can be agreement on facts, there will be disagreements among historians. "To expect from history those final conclusions which may perhaps be obtained in other disciplines is . . . to misunderstand its nature." Something akin to the scientific method helps to establish facts, but the function of the historian is also to explain, to interpret, and to discriminate, and here "the personal element can no longer be ruled out. . . . Truth, though for God it may be One, assumes many shapes to men."[23] This explains the oft-quoted statement of Henry Adams, the famous American historian: "I have written too much history to believe in it. So if anyone wants to differ from me, I am prepared to agree with him."[24] No one who does not understand something about history could possibly know what Adams meant by this apparently cynical statement. Certainly he did not intend to imply that history, because it lacked unerring objectivity and precision, is of no practicable use to us. Quite the contrary. To recognize the frail structure of history is the first essential step toward understanding, which is far more important in putting history to work than blind faith in the validity of isolated facts. History tends to inspire more questions than answers, and the questions one asks of it determine the extent to which the subject may be considered practicable. Making History Instructive What, then, can the professional soldier expect to learn from history? If it can offer no abstract lessons to be applied indiscriminately or universally, if it cannot substantiate some cherished principles or official doctrine, if the subject itself is liable to endless bickering and interpretation, what is the point of looking at history at all?

Here Napoleon, whose writings and campaigns formed the basis of study for every principal military theorist for a hundred years after his death,[25] provides a useful answer in his first major campaign. When he assumed command of the French army in Italy in 1796, he took with him a history of a campaign conducted in the same theater by Marshal Maillebois half a century before, and more than one authority has noted the similarity in the two campaigns. "In both cases the object was to separate the allies and beat them in detail; in both cases the same passes through the maritime Alps were utilized, and in both cases the first objectives were the same."[26] In 1806, when he sent his cavalry commander, Murat, to reconnoiter the Bohemian frontier, he recommenced that Murat take with him a history of the campaign that the French had waged there in 1741, and three years later Napoleon approved the location of pontoon bridges at Linz because Marshal Saxe had successfully constructed two bridges there in 1740. In 1813 he sent one of his marshals "an account of the battle fought by Gustavus Adolphus in positions similar to those which you occupy."[27] Obviously history served Napoleon not so much because it provided a model to be slavishly followed, but because if offered ways to capitalize on what others before him had experienced. History, Liddell Hart reminds us, is universal experience--infinitely longer, wider, and more varied than ally individual's experience. How often do we hear people claim knowledge of the world and of life because they are sixty or seventy years old? . . There is no excuse for any literate person if he is less than three thousand years old in mind.[28] By this standard Patton was at least 900 years old after studying the Norman conquest of Sicily. Napoleon also proposed, in 1807, the establishment of a special school of history at the College of France that would have practical application for officers. Trained historians would teach the military student how to make sound historical judgments, for Napoleon understood that "the correct way to read history is a real science in itself." He regarded the wars of the French Revolution as "fertile in useful lessons," yet apparently there had been no systematic effort to retrieve them. This too "would be an important function of the professors in the special school of history." For similar reasons Napoleon ordered his War Minister in 1811 to have the Depot of War prepare comprehensive records of the sieges and attacks of the fortified towns captured by the French armies in Germany, not for publication but for ready reference. And he did not discourage the printing of a similar volume on the sieges in Spain.[29]

Napoleon thus conceived of history as serving a purpose similar to that of the publications of the Old Historical Division and its ultimate successor, the Center of Military History. He would have applauded the appearance of theGuide to the Study and Uses of Military History,[30] for some way had to be found to steer the military student through the "veritable labyrinth" of campaign studies, technical treatises, and memoirs. Like Frederick, who viewed history as "a magazine of military ideas,"[31] Napoleon would have been delighted with the official histories of the campaigns of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and with the extensive monographs on specialized subjects such as mobilization, logistics, and medical services. On St. Helena Napoleon spoke of the need to publish manuscripts in the Imperial Library as a way of establishing a solid foundation for historical studies. Probably one of the first proposals of its kind, it anticipated by half a century the decision of the US War Department to publish in 128 meaty volumes The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, a unique compilation of the after-action reports and official correspondence of Union and Confederate leaders. Napoleon also gave the first impetus to official military history when he created a historical section of the General Staff and named Baron Jomini to head it.[32] His most enduring suggestion, however, was the deathbed advice he offered to his son: "Let him read and meditate upon the wars of the great captains: it is the only way to learn the art of war."[33] Because Napoleon occasionally mentioned certain "principles of the art of war," he is often thought to have meant that the study of the Great Captains is valuable because it leads to the discovery of enduring principles or illustrates their successful application in the hands of genius. While acknowledging that these Great Captains had "succeeded only by conforming to the principles" and thus had made war "a true science," Napoleon offered more compelling reasons for studying the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, and Frederick: Tactics, the evolutions, the science of the engineer and the artillerist can be learned in treatises much like geometry, but the knowledge of the higher spheres of war is only acquired through the study of the wars and battles of the Great Captains and by experience. It has no precise, fixed rules. Everything depends on the character that nature has given to the general, on his qualities, on his faults, on the nature of the troops, on the range of weapons, on the season and on a thousand circumstances which are never the same. The Great Captains must therefore serve as "our great models." Only by imitating them, by understanding the bases for their decisions, and by

studying the reasons for their success could modern officers "hope to approach them."[34] Napoleon agreed with Frederick, who considered history "the school of princes"--princes, that is, who are destined to command armies--and who wrote his own candid memoirs in order that his successors might know "the true situation of affairs . . . the reasons that impelled me to act; what were my means, what the snares of our enemies" so that they might benefit from his own mistakes "in order to shun them." And both would have endorsed Liddell Hart's observation that "history is a catalogue of mistakes. It is our duty to profit by them."[35] Whereas Jomini concentrated upon maxims, Frederick and Napoleon focused their attention on men. They stressed the need for a commander to view a military situation from the vantage point of his opponent, and for the military student to become privy to the thinking process of successful commanders. This was the advice Prince Eugene, Marlborough's sidekick and the greatest commander who ever served the Hapsburgs, gave to young Frederick when, as the heir to the Prussian throne, Frederick accompanied the Prussian contingent serving with the Imperial Army along the Rhine in 1734. After he had become the foremost general of his day, Frederick urged his own officers, when studying the campaigns of Prince Eugene, not to be content merely to memorize the details of his exploits but "to examine thoroughly his overall views and particularly to learn how to think in the same way."[36] This is still the best way to make military history practicable. "The purpose of history," Patton wrote shortly before his death, is to learn how human beings react when exposed to the danger of wounds or death, and how high ranking individuals react when submitted to the onerous responsibility of conducting war or the preparations for war. The acquisition of knowledge concerning the dates or places on which certain events transpired is immaterial . . . .[37] The future Field Marshal Earl Wavell gave similar advice to a class at the British Staff College shortly before World War II: The real way to get value out of the study of military history is to take particular situations, and as far as possible get inside the skin of the man who made a decision and then see in what way you could have improved upon it. "For heaven's sake," Wavell warned, don't treat the so-called principles of war as holy writ, like the Ten Commandments, to be learned by heart, and as having by their repetition some magic, like the incantations of savage priests. They are merely a set of common sense maxims, like `cut your coat according

to your cloth.' `a rolling stone gathers no moss,' `honesty is the best policy,' and so forth. Merely to memorize the maxim "cut your coat according to your cloth" does not instruct one how to be a tailor, and Wavell reminded his listeners that no two theorists espoused exactly the same set of principles, which, he contended, "are all simply common sense and . . . instinctive to the properly trained soldier." To learn that Napoleon in 1796 and 20,000 men beat combined forces of 30,000 by something called `economy of force' or `operating on interior lines' is a mere waste of time. If you can understand how a young, unknown man inspired a half-starved, ragged, rather Bolshie crowd; how he filled their bellies, how he out-marched, out-witted, out-bluffed, and defeated men who had studied war all their lives and waged it according to the text books of the time, you will have learnt something worth knowing. But the soldier will not learn it from military texts.[38] Sometimes military history is treated, in books and lectures alike, as though it exists primarily for the future field commander. Frederick might have assumed something of the sort in his own writings, but he wrote more about such practical subjects as feeding and drilling an army, the gathering and evaluation of intelligence, and how to treat friendly and hostile populations than he did about strategy. Likewise, Napoleon was concerned about military education at every level, and his advice to his son on studying the decisions of the Great Captains should not obscure the fact that he believed strongly in military history in his officers' schools and also as a practical subject for research. History can be made practicable at any level. The future field marshal Erwin Rommel did not have future corps commanders necessarily in mind when he wrote Infantry Attacks in 1937. His lessons, deduced from the experiences of his battalion in World War I, could indeed have been of value to any company or field grade officer. For example, describing the events he witnessed in September 1914, Rommel concluded: War makes extremely heavy demands on the soldiers strength and nerves. For this reason make heavy demands on your men in peacetime exercises. It is difficult to maintain contact in fog. . . . Advances through fog by means of a compass must be practiced, since smoke will frequently be employed. In a meeting engagement in the fog, the side capable of developing a maximum fire power on contact will get the upper hand; therefore, keep the machine guns ready for action at all times during the advance.

All units of the group must provide for their own security. This is especially true in close terrain and when faced with a highly mobile enemy. Too much spade work is better than too little. Sweat saves blood. Command posts must be dispersed . . . . Do not choose a conspicuous hill for their location. In forest lighting, the personal example of the commander is effective only on those troops in his immediate vicinity. The rain favored the attack.[39] Rommel drew his own conclusions from his experiences, but a discriminating reader could probably have extracted them for himself. These observations were not lost on Patton, who probably shared similar experiences and had been involved in training troops. During the Saar campaign in early 1945, Patton confided to his diary: Woke up at 0300 and it was raining like hell. I actually got nervous and got up and read Rommel's book, Infantry Attacks. It was most helpful, as he described all the rains he had in September 1914 and also the fact that, in spite of the heavy rains, the Germans got along.[40] And so, shortly, did the Third Army. Another book of this genre is Infantry in Battle, which was prepared at the Infantry School in 1934 under the direction of then Colonel George C. Marshall and revised four years later. Written on the assumption that "combat situations cannot be solved by rule," contributors to this book fell back upon numerous examples from World War I to introduce the reader to "the realities of war and the extremely difficult and highly disconcerting conditions under which tactical problems must be solved in the face of the enemy."[41] Military history has also been used to test the ability of military students. In 1891 a British colonel published a tactical study of the battle of Spicheren, fought 20 years earlier. In the introduction he explained: To gain from a relation of events the same abiding impressions as were stamped on the minds of those who played a part in them--and it is such impressions that create instinct--it is necessary to examine the situations developed during the operations so closely as to have a clear picture of the whole scene in our minds eye; to assume, in imagination, the responsibilities of the leaders who were called upon to meet those situations; to come to a definite decision and to test the soundness of that decision by the actual event. [42] Learning from History

What Frederick, Napoleon, Rommel, Patton, Wavell, and many others referred to here have shared in common can be summed in one word: reading. An English general in the 18th century urged young officers to devote every spare minute to reading military history, "the most instructive of all reading."[43] "Books!" an anonymous old soldier during the Napoleonic wars pretended to snort. "And what are they but the dreams of pedants? They may make a Mack, but have they ever made a Xenophon, a Caesar, a Saxe, a Frederick, or a Bonapart? Who would not laugh to hear the cobbler of Athens lecturing Hannibal on the art of war?" "True," is his own rejoinder, "but as you are not Hannibal, listen to the cobbler."[44] Since the great majority of today's officers are college graduates, with a healthy percentage of them having studied for advanced degrees, they have probably long since passed the stage at which they can actually benefit from a conventional lecture on history, with the emphasis on factual content and the expectation of a clear conclusion. The leading question therefore becomes: How do we teach them to learn from history? J. F. C. Fuller, coauthor of the concept that later became known as blitzkrieg, had this problem in mind when he addressed a class at the British Staff College a few years after World War I. "Until you learn how to teach yourselves," he told the students, "you will never be taunt by others."[45] Fuller did not specify how this was to be accomplished, but he probably would insist that to teach the officer how to teach himself should be avowed objective of every course in military history. Certainly he would agree that no course in military history can really do much good if the officer is exposed every half dozen years throughout his career to no more than a structured course of only a few months' duration, especially if in the process he has gained little understanding of history as a discipline or a scant appreciation for how it can be used and abused. Assuredly such a voracious reader as Fuller-who at age 83 confessed to having recently sold off all of the books in his library that he could not read within the next 10 years--would argue that there would be no point to any history course whatever if the student is not stimulated to spend some time afterwards poking around the field a bit on his own. "Books," Fuller once wrote, "have always been my truest companions."[46] Any student of history must learn to identify with the men and events he reads about, seeking above all to understand their problems and to accept the past on its own terms. The student must also learn to ask questions, not of the instructor necessarily, but of his material and especially of himself. Historians

usually worry more about asking the right questions than finding definitive answers, for they know from experience that no document or book can answer a question that is never asked. Had Patton read Rommel's book when the sun was shining, for example, and all was going well, chances are he would never have paid any attention to the casual observation that rain seemed to favor the attack. Cannae was an important battle to Schlieffen because the double envelopment achieved by Hannibal suggested a method by which a battle of annihilation might be fought in a war against France and Russia. But to Colonel Ardant du Picq, the foremost French military theorist of the 1860s, Hannibal was a great general for a quite different reason--"his admirable comprehension of the morale of combat, of the morale of the soldier."[47] The two men were searching for solutions to different kinds of problems, and in reading about Cannae each responded to his individual interests. In the old Army, when there was enough leisure time for reading, riding, or a regular game of golf, it was probably understood that the burden of learning from military history must rest primarily upon the individual officer. The annual historical ride to the Civil War battlefields--which had been preserved by Act of Congress "for historical and professional military study"[48]-directly involved students from the Army War College in the unending dialogue between past and present. Students were frequently asked on location how they would have handled some problem in tactics or command and control that had confronted a commander during battle. "It is not desirable to have the question answered," the instructions specified. "Some will know the answer, but all who do not will ask themselves the question."[49] This is the only way to learn from history. The textbook or the instructor can organize information, but only the student can put it to work. "Mere swallowing of either food or opinions," Fuller reminds us, "does not of necessity carry with it digestion, and without digestion swallowing is but labour lost and food wasted."[50] Today there is a shortage of both "labour and food," as other budgetary priorities and manpower shortages have forced severe cutbacks in history courses throughout the Army. But in a sense this blinds us to the real problem, for it does not necessarily follow that more money and instructors must be the solution. A formal course in military history, however desirable, is not the only way and may, in fact, not be the best way to teach students how to teach themselves history, which is the goal. George C. Marshall, as future Chief of Staff, regarded his two years at the Army Staff College is 1906-08 as having been "immensely instructive," but not because of the quality of the courses there. "The association with the officers. the reading we did and the discussion . . . had a

tremendous effect. . . . I learned little I could use," Marshall wrote, but "I learned how to learn. . . . My habits of thought were being trained."[51] Marshall's words touch upon the essence of practicability. Military history may be of indeterminate value for the immediate future (if World War III were to be fought next week, for example), but among the captains in the career courses today are the Army's top administrators and leaders of tomorrow, and not all graduates of the war colleges in June will retire in the next six or eight years. Those that remain are bound to benefit from anything that can heighten their understanding of society, of other armies, of the political process, of leadership, of the nature of war, of the evolution of doctrine, and of a dozen similar areas of human activity in which history, pursued by an intelligent and inquisitive reader, can still be strikingly practicable to the modern soldier. To any set of military maxims, whatever their origin, perhaps the following literary maxims should be added:[52] The history that lies inert in unread books does no work in the world. If you want a new idea, read an old book. `Tis the good reader that makes the good book. A book is like a mirror. If an ass looks in, no prophet can peer out. Notes 1. As quoted in Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers, Vol. II: 19401945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), p. 283. 2. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. I: Years of Decision (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1955), p. 119. 3. Pieter Geyl, Napoleon For and Against (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1963), p. 15. 4. As quoted in Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe-lngelfingen, Letters on Artillery, 2d Ed. (London: Edward Stanford, 1890), p. 108. 5. Memoirs of the History of France during the reign of Napoleon, dictated by the Emperor at Saint Helena . . . (7 Vols.; London: Henry Colburn and Company, 1828), VI, 18-27; Ernest Picard, Preceptes et jugements de Napoleon (Paris: Berger-Leurault, 1913), pp. 405-06. 6. Frederick the Great on the Art of War, Ed. and Trans. by Jay Luvaas (New York: The Free Press, 1966), pp. 77-78.

7. Lothar Rendulic, "Mistakes in Deducing War Experiences," Historical Division, European Command, 10 October 1951. Italics added. 8. Herman Melville, as quoted in John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 14th Ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 698. 9. Wavell to Liddell Hart, 15 March 1934, Liddell Hart Papers, States House, Medmenham, England. 10. Karl von Clausewitz, On War, Ed. and Trans by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), pp. 170, 172-73. 11. Baron de Jomini, Summary of the Art of War . . . (New York: Greenwood Press, 1954), p. 329. 12. The quote from Napoleon is found in his "Observations on a plan to establish a special school of literature and history at the College of France," 19 April 1807, Correspondance de Napoleon Ier (32 Vols.; Paris: Imprimerie Imperiale, 1858-70), XV, 107-10. 13. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 171-72. 14. See Jay Luvaas, Military Legacy of the Civil War (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 119-69 passim. 15. See Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism Rev. Ed. (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), p. 26; A. L. Conger's remarks in "Proceedings of the Conference on Military History," Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1912 (Washington: GPO, 1914), pp. 162-74. 16. As quoted in J. Christopher Herold, The Mind of Napoleon (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1955), p. 50. 17. Ibid. 18. Frank L. Byrne and Andrew T. Weaver, Eds., Haskell of Gettysburg (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1970), pp. 20001. 19. Ian Hamilton, A Staff Officer's is Scrap-Book during the Russo-Japanese War (2 Vols; London: E. Arnold, 1906), I, v. 20. B. H. Liddell Hart, Through the Fog of War (London: Faber and Faber, 1938), p. 227.

21. Jean de Peirrefeu, Plutarch Lied (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924), pp. 10, 23. 22. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Flight to Arras (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1942), pp. 133-35. 23. Geyl, pp. 15-16. 24. As quoted in B. H. Liddell Hart, Why Don't We Learn From History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1946), p. 10. 25. Our basic principles of war first appeared in their modern form in the early writings of J. F. C. Fuller, who in turn had deduced them from his reading of the printed Correspondance of Napoleon. J. F. C. Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (London: Hutchinson & Co.,n.d.),pp. 13-14. 26. J. Holland Rose, The Personality of Napoleon (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912), pp. 95-97. 27. Camon, Pour Apprendre l'art de 1a Guerre (Paris: Berger-Leurault, n.d.), p. 4. 28. Liddell Hart, Why Don't We Learn from History, pp. 7-8. 29. Napoleon, Correspondance, XV, 107-10, XXI, 378-79. 30. John E. Jessup, Jr., and Robert W. Coakley, Eds., A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History (Washington: US Army, Center of Military History, 1979). 31. Frederick, The History of the Seven Years War (2 Vols.; London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1789), I, xii. 32. Rose, p. 244; S. J. Watson, By Command of the Emperor: A Life of Marshal Berthier (London: The Bodley Head, 1957), p. 185. Napoleon may in fact have been the first to distort the official history of a campaign by applying pressure on the historian to twist his narrative to suit his own ends. See General Camon, Genie et Metier chez Napoleon (Paris: Berger-Leurault, 1930), pp. 33-44 passim. 33. HeroId, pp. 255-56. 34. Napoleon, Correspondance, XXXI, 365.

35. Frederick, The History of My Own Times (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1789), ix: Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War (London: Faber and Faber, 1944), p. 138. 36. Frederick the Great on the Art of War, p. 50. Italics added. 37. Blumenson, II, 750. 38. As quoted in John Connell, Wavell: Scholar and Soldier (2 Vols.;London: Collins, 1964), I, 161. 39. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Attacks (Vienna, Va.: Athena Press, 1979), pp. 16-60 passim. 40. Blumenson, II, 571. Italics added. 41. US Army, Infantry in Battle (Washington: US Army, 1939), introduction. 42. G. F. R. Henderson, The Battle of Spicheren. . . , 2d Ed. (London: Gale & Polden, 1909), pp. vi-vii. 43. A Series of Letters recently written by a General Officer to his Son, on his entering the Army. . ., 1st American Ed. (Salem: Cushing and Appleton, n.d.), I, v. 44. Hints to Young Generals, by an old soldier (John Armstrong) (Kingston: J. Buel, 1812), pp. 7-8. 45. J. F. C. Fuller, Memoirs of an Unconventional Soldier (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1936). pp. 417-18. 46. J. F. C. Fuller, The Last of the Gentlemen's Wars. . . . (London: Faber and Faber, 1937), p. 112. In 1961 Fuller told the writer that he was unloading the books he could not hope to read during the next 10 years. 47. Ardant du Picq, Battle Studies. Ancient and Modern Battle (Harrisburg: Military Service Publishing Co., 1947), p. 68. 48. Ronald F. Lee, The Origin and Evolution of the National Military Park Idea (Washington: Office of Park Historic Preservation, 1973), pp. 33-35. 49. US Army War College, "Memorandum: Instructions for students designated to be present on Historical Ride," Fort Humphreys DC, 4 May 1937. 50. Fuller, Memoirs of an Unconventional Soldier, p. 417.

51. Quoted in Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope 19391942 (New York: Viking Press, 1966), p. 101. 52. The "maxims" quoted come from Clark Becker, Lord Lytton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Georg Lichtenberg.
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M ILITARY S TUDIES
Si vis pacem, para bellum

AT

RSIS

Why Study Military History

October 14, 2009 by rsismilitarystudies

Military history as an academic discipline can, if wrongly understood, be seen as an interesting but irrelevant exercise, something for the realm of fetishists. The discipline, however, is fundamentally important to all modern military organizations, since it is central to how military organizations train and prepare their military commanders for the rigours of war. It is a commonplace that military organisations typically prepare for the next war with the last war in mind, only to find out that the next war will be nothing like the last. This commonplace points to a fundamental misconception of what military history is and what it does for military organisations. What value does military history bring to the military enterprise? Does the military commander want to hear more about how Mahan or Liddell Hart would advocate? Or, for that matter, what Patton, or Napoleon, or Attila the Hun, would have done in similar circumstances? Surely these are irrelevant past thinkers and practitioners, in a different time and place from the context in which we currently live. The Nature of Military History First of all, let us be clear about what military history is not. Three observations are germane. One, military history is not just the study of military/strategic thought; although military/strategic thought is a crucial element. Nor is it just the study of military campaigns of the past, although, again, campaign history is part of the academic discipline. Nor is it

purely the study of the great commanders, although yet again the history of great commanders is part of the discipline. It is really the integration of all three aspects that forms the academic discipline we call military history. Two, the typical misconception of military history is really nothing more than an excuse for fetishism, obsessing on the endless (but admittedly fascinating) minutiae of military campaigns the deployment and disposition of military forces, the weapons and tactics used. In reality, military history focuses less on what thinkers said, how campaigns were waged, or the battlefield actions of the great commanders. If we think of military history in such terms, the standard (but misplaced) criticism of military history holds true these thinkers and strategists existed in different times, with different geopolitical conditions and technological capabilities, and their applicability to modern conditions is limited at best. The military officer who slavishly quotes the great strategic thinkers, or mindlessly mimics his favourite great commander, is foolish at the very least, if not being outright dangerous to his military organisation and his state. Three, the real focus of military history is the rationales that led thinkers or great commanders to say or do what they did. It seeks to provide an admittedly imperfect glimpse into the mind of the strategist or the commander. In other words, military history focuses not on the who or what or when questions, but rather the why question. It offers a glimpse into the strategic mind of these actors, it gives a sense of the calculations of strategic logic and rationality (whether successful or otherwise) of these actors. The Logic of Strategy To come back to the question, what value then does military history offer the modern military organisation? One answer is strategic logic and rationality. More precisely what I mean by this is the ability to think strategically and logically and rationally, all three of which are more or less equivalent. Strategy is merely the process by which political objectives and scarce military resources are prioritised and rationalised. Furthermore, strategy is not immune to the laws of logic validity and soundness. Ones strategic choices ought to lead inexorably towards the objectives one seeks to attain; otherwise ones actions are neither logically valid nor sound. Strategy is rational inasmuch there is a clear relationship between means and ends; inasmuch as one seeks objectives that are beyond ones capacity, then ones objectives and resultant actions become irrational.

Where does military history fit in this? The commander who justifies his strategic choices based on the examples of past commanders or military thinkers is committing a logical fallacy the appeal to authority. What someone else in a different time and place did is poor justification for ones own strategic choices at the very least. This is not the understanding of military history that seeks to answer the why question. Military History and the Development of Strategic Judgement Secondly, and this derives from the emphasis on the why question, military history provides the military commander with a method by which strategic judgement can be developed. Strategic judgement is a critical military skill for commanders, because it is likely that no military commander will ever be able to make decisions with perfect awareness of all the possible aspects of a particular military operation or campaign. Rather, all commanders have to make decisions based on imperfect knowledge, in extremely tense situations, under conditions of extreme pressure. Judgement is the only way by which commanders can make choices under such conditions. There is no substitute for actual experience as the basis for the development of strategic judgement. However that entails combat experience, and the experience of combat comes necessarily with such unpleasant side effects as death and destruction. Short of actually sending ones military out to battle so as to allow ones commanders to develop their sense of strategic judgement, there has to be some other non-lethal manner in which strategic judgement can be developed, even if imperfectly. This is where military history proves its ultimate utility to military organisations. In asking the why questions, the study of military history attempts to provide the military commander with clues as to how he, when placed in analogous situations, might be able to make the right strategic choices. The study of military history, in asking the why questions, seeks to provide a vicarious experience of combat. All military training, one has to remember, revolves around the practice of learning through secondary experience, learning through living vicariously. One cannot know for certain (unless and until one actually experiences battle) whether or not ones strategic choices will succeed or fail. And in war, the cost of failure can sometimes be catastrophic. But as noted earlier, one can never know with absolutely certainty that ones strategic choices made in peacetime will survive the ultimate test of combat. All the commander can ever hope to do is to hone his (or, increasingly applicable, her) judgment through such instances of vicarious learning. It is not entirely dissimilar to the experience of a pubescent teenager, hormones raging, wanting to learn of the pleasures of sex by resorting to pornography. Those of us who know can say

with absolutely certainty that pornography in no way approximates the real pleasures of sex, but to the pubescent teenager, painfully shy and awkward in the presence of members of the opposite sex, it is the best available solution. In the same way, unless we test all our military students in the fires of combat (and expect the usual attrition rates), military history is as good as it gets for military education.

2 Responses
1.
on October 27, 2009 at 2:50 pm | ReplyRally Once Again: The Embattled Future of

Academic Military History

[...] Once Again: The Embattled Future of Academic Military History Following the earlier post on the usefulness of military history, I thought Id post this hilarious speech delivered in [...]

2.

on October 27, 2009 at 8:53 pm | ReplyEvan

Surely those who has studied or at least touch on issues dealing with the military, or any defense establishment for that matter, could appreciate on some level the importance of military history. And sure, as has been pointed out, military history plays an indispensable role in shaping our strategic logic and hone our strategic judgement. But what how do you know which military history to study? Sure, the first step is to learn your own, but what if your countrys military history is so caught up on stupid, grandiose self-aggrandizement manipulations that you simply cant tell between the useful and useless?

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Xeric
Think Tank: Vice-Chairman

Why do we need to study Military History Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI45VYP5 Throughout history, modernists have questioned the relevance of military history. With the rapid evolution of technological change in the post-industrial era and the emergence of new missions for military professionals, the question of relevance is more salient than ever. This thread will examine the argument that technology may have reduced or obviated the utility of military history; in short, do we as of today still require to read an analyses battles that took place centuries ago? Prelude The utility of the study of military history to the military profession is an open question that has been asked for centuries. However, the question is even more relevant today with the advent of the nuclear age, the explosion of information technology, and the emergence of new threats (and, therefore, new missions) to the members of the military profession. Many theoreticians believe that the history of warfare will provide no glimpse into the future because of the unprecedented pace of change in the post-Cold War era. On the other hand, there are many who believe that the only way to accurately predict the future is to study the past. Recently, a retired US Army colonel-cum lobbyist on Capitol Hill lamented that the newest catch phrase in the Pentagon had become thinking outside of the box. He mused, ironically, that he retired after more than twenty years of service because he couldnt think inside the box. What this new catch phrase apparently refers to is an ability to visualize the future of warfare while being able to discard old, seemingly useless paradigms about past wars. In an environment that rewards military professionals who seek new solutions to new problems, does the study of military history still have utility? If so, how useful is it? In this thread we will attempt to examine if the study of military history has lost its relevance in the modern era of warfare. It will also examine the utility of military history to the military profession as it tackles new problems posed by an increasing number of actors on a chaotic world stage. These new problems fall outside of the normal definition of war and include nonlinear threats such as terrorism, information warfare and international crime. Winston Churchill once stated that military historians could do something that even God cant do: they can change history. He then equipped that this was the only reason that God tolerated their existence.

So with this quotation in mind, i open the floor to the members to put in their thoughts regarding the topic. As in any debate, they can go for or against the topic, but i would suggest that whereas your thoughts are respected, please refrain from copy/pasting irrelevant info. Original and well researched data will be welcomed. Trolling, off-topic posts and bringing in India and Pakistan in every post will be dealt with servery. Thanks. Prelude paraphrased from an article by Captain David B Snodgrass, US Army (Published by Nepalese Army Command and Staff College, Shivapuri, Kathmandu and Defence Services Command and Staff College, Mirpur (Dhaka) Bangladesh) Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI4ATkry Re: Why do we need to study Military History For those who are against the teaching of MH, here's an heads up: Those who argue against placing emphasis on military history in teaching modern warfare are concerned that old paradigms will be obsolete on the battlefields of the future. The basis of their argument is that modern technological advances have outpaced conventional thought processes relating to warfare. In other words, those military professionals who are still studying how to win the last war will be overcome by the sweeping tide of technological changes in the next war. Proponents of this view often cite the works of Alvin and Heidi Toffler. The Tofflers argue in Third Wave and War and Anti-War that revolutionary change in technology creates waves of societal change that, in turn, define how wars are fought. Ryan Henry and Edward C Peartree, writing in Parameters, the US Army War College quarterly, provide a concise explanation on the implications of this hypothesis: Successful pre-industrial war was generally predicated on the seizure of territorial assets, control of them, or both. Successful industrial age war was about reducing the means of production and out-manufacturing ones opponent dubbed schlacht material by the Germans during World War I. If the analogy holds, the advance guard of Pentagon theorists and defence analysts contend, future war will be waged for control of data, information, and knowledge assets. These same theorists would also contend that new force structures and doctrine would be required in the information age. Furthermore, many of them would argue that conceptual models of future warfare and computer war games will have more utility than the study of military history. Just as machine guns, tanks, iron-clad ships and aircraft heralded the second wave of industrial age warfare, many believe that precision-guided munitions, or smart bombs, like the ones used in Desert Storm, are heralding in the third wave of information age warfare. For these theorists, the study of the Persian Gulf War would have some utility, but the World Wars and all that came before would have little or no utility. In other words: Schwarzkopf is in, Hannibal is out. Similarly, Clausewitz will have less utility than Toffler and other prognosticators of future war. While we can question whether or not modern weapons will render past history lessons

obsolete, there can be no doubt that they will have a revolutionary effect on how wars are fought. Battlefield tracking and warning systems such as AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) and JSTARS (Joint Surveillance and Target Radar Systems) will allow commanders to attack targets well beyond the line of sight. The system used by Gulf War commanders to transmit messages could move 2400 bits of information per second. The current system transmits 23 million bits per second into Bosnia. Space-based satellite sensors are capable of providing real time intelligence with resolution up to one metre. In military parlance, these information systems offer a promise that anything that can be seen can be hit. In addition to technological advances in information warfare, firepower systems are also achieving greater lethality, accuracy, and range than ever before. These technological advances are also taking place at an astonishingly fast pace. Tests at the US Armys National Training Centre and elsewhere show that digitized platoons are three to five times more lethal than the tank platoons that smashed Iraqs best forces during the Gulf War. Systems such as the Tomahawk Cruise Missile can allow technologically advanced forces to deliver precision firepower from platforms remote from conflict areas. The implications of this new technology could be that old paradigms emphasizing numerical superiority and manoeuvre of forces would be replaced by new paradigms emphasizing technological superiority and firepower. The technological advances described in preceding paragraphs have led many observers to believe that what Clausewitz called the fog of war can be lifted. According to one Washington consultant, What the (Military Technical Revolution) promises, more than precision attacks and laser beams, is .. to imbue the information loop with near perfect clarity. These new technologies, many believe, will allow the application of military force to be reduced to a science. Military history, by contrast, is a discipline that focuses on warfare primarily as an art, not science. To many in the advance guard of military theory, military history would have almost no relevance in the teaching of modern warfare. Ibid. Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI4Nmc8t Re: Why do we need to study Military History As much as I agree that the advent of technologies, especially in the last 50 year or so, has brought about what could be described as a paradigmatic shift of sorts, I don't buy into the argument that a study of historical battles has been made redundant. Sure studying how 'archer formations' operated & how 'a sniper squad' should may not be the most fruitful of exercises but the recognition of how much of a 'tactical advantage' marksmen (whether sniper or archers) provide is still very relevant. Think of how, in the past, archers were positioned at strategic locations or even in the midst of the infantry to try to take out the enemy 'Captains' to disrupt their chain of command ! Trying to study the effect it has on the overall efficacy of the 'formation' under question - Their ability to improvise, to continue on unhampered, to not loose discipline & organization, to not witness a plummet in morale or to not choke at the more critical junctures or the ability to replenish their officer ranks in the midst of battle to keep the momentum going etc. *I'm sure the more informed readers can come up with much more* could indeed be a fruitful exercise. I'm sure past battles would provide an invaluable insights to devise a response & a counter-response to many 'threats/opportunities' under question. I'm sure a study of 'military history' would lend furthermore invaluable insights on both a strategic & tactical level many of which may find

their use outside the vicinity of the immediate battle e.g logistics for one. That said, I'm sure none of us are expecting a cent-for-cent copy paste of the tactics of past to any probable situation we may find ourselves in, in the now. But that whereas the operational execution part may be drastically different owing to the different paradigms we find ourselves & the different capabilities & threats we have at our disposal & are subjected to respectively, learning involves 'inspiration' not 'copying' & I'm sure there is a lot that we could still look into the past that could give us that for the present scenarios that we may find ourselves in. P.S I know next to nothing about Military History so I do apologize if the above comes across as a load of rhetoric filled BS ! ARMSTRONG Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI4ey1in For those in defence of teaching/learning from MH: Foremost among these, of course, are military historians. Historians, however are not the best defenders of their craft. Their arguments are sure to arouse some skepticism, much like the arguments of the air force arguing for more airplanes. The most compelling arguments for the utility of military history come from those who made it, particularly the great captains. There is perhaps no greater endorsement of the utility of military history than Napoleons advice to his son from his deathbed: Let him need and meditate upon the wars of the great captains: it is the only way to learn the art of war. Napoleon was renowned for his use of history. When he assumed command of the French Army in Italy in 1796, he took with him a history of a campaign conducted in the same theatre by Marshal Maillebois half a century before. In 1806, when he sent his cavalry commander, Murat, to reconnoiter the Bohemian frontier, he recommended that Murat take with him a history of the campaign that the French had waged there in 1741. Napoleon also proposed establishment of a special school of history at the College of France that would have practical application for officers. Modernists, of course, will argue that Napoleons endorsement is not as important in this modern age. Thus, to illustrate a more modern leaders thoughts on the utility of military history, let us examine a recent article by US Army Chief of Staff General Dennis Reimer. General Reimer tells of a recent visit to the American Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. One of the lessons brought out during his visit related to the issue of technological change. Springfields and Henry were two different types of rifles available in 1863, the year the Battle of Gettysburg was fought. Both belligerent sides used the muzzle-loading Springfield rifles which fired about three rounds a minute. Either side or both could have used the Henry repeating rifle that had a 15-round magazine. If either side had availed themselves of the new technology, the outcome of the battle and perhaps the war, could have changed dramatically. After the war, the US Army decided to stick with the tried and true Springfield rifles and made a few minor improvements. A decade later General George Custers forces were completely annihilated at the Battle of Little Big horn by Indians who had acquired repeating rifles. The historical lesson, according to General Reimer is that armies must know when and what to change. His article also suggests that technology and military history need not be incompatible. In other words, it is

possible to embrace technological change and learn from history at the same time. In many ways, military history can be considered relevant because it is the history of change itself. In the teaching of modern warfare, military history may be of little use in learning how to acquire or employ a specific space age technological innovation. However, military history is likely to be very relevant in learning how to help military organizations adapt to the changes that such new technologies bring. By drawing analogies from past innovations and their effects, leaders can avoid repeating mistakes of history. As an example, West Point teaches its cadets to change in warfare using threads of continuity. Threads of continuity that are part of the military profession include tactics, strategy, logistics and administration, military theory and doctrine, military professionalism and generalship. Threads of continuity can provide the student of military history with a way of obtaining information, and serve as a lens through which events can be examined and placed in perspective. Studying the threads of continuity can help the student to seek and find the relevance of past events to the present situation. If viewed in this always, it argued, history will always be relevant. Ibid. Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI4oJfGo Re: Why do we need to study Military History Certainly technology changes the tactical situation. One cannot imagine a brigade entrenched behind a ditch and an outer fence of sharpened wooden stakes, awaiting an attack by the other side's armoured brigade. It is far more likely that the armoured brigade should have gone up in flames under a barrage of missiles fired from tank destroyers, attack helicopters and ground support aircraft, and that the mobile battle group, not a brigade, should be prepared to sweep forward towards other enemy concentrations located and identified through a combination of satellite surveillance and battlefield UAV patrolling. But what India should do when faced by an enemy with a fearsome combination of superior terrain, better logistics infrastructure, greater military expenditures, a firmly rooted indigenisation campaign resulting in well-balanced equipment levels, and a politico-military leadership answerable to nobody but itself,can be evaluated and decided only by reference to the lessons of the past. The lessons of the past are increasingly valuable as they are studied in the larger scope of things. They may not be valid at tactical level, they are still valid at the level of global strategy. History is the only possible resource for creating comparable situations and testing them out for various combinations of actions and thinking through the possibilities. Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI4wM700 Though i agree with you but what about those cases in the history that bears no resemblance to the battles of today? The case in point is the Non-Linear threats that we face today i.e humanitarian operations, terrorism and peacekeeping operations. But do we find examples in the history which can be helpful in teaching us as how to counter this 'new' menace? If not, then of what use is MH to us? As of today technologically advanced countries of the world are increasingly faced with

such threats or operations, even in the developing world, militaries are being asked to perform a variety of tasks such as nation-building activities, disaster relief and internal law and order - tasks that have no precedence in history. In these kind of operations mental agility, fluidity in thinking and unorthodox methods are probably the only way to overcome such versatile missions. The question is, does the study of military history can teach us to improve upon the qualities that i have mentioned above? Like for example, in the US Armed Forces, operational requirements have increased threefold since the end of the Cold War in 1989. The increase is due primarily to non-linear threats in the arena of peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. These include missions in Bangladesh (disaster relief), Liberia and Zaire (noncombatant evacuation), Rwanda and Somalia (humanitarian operations), and Haiti and Bosnia-Herzegovina (peacekeeping). In addition, soldiers have been utilised to fight forest fires, to provide hurricane relief and to help administer the Olympic Games within their own shores. Finally, US Armed Forces have participated in two medium- to-high-intensity conflicts in Southwest Asia and Panama. The same is also true for our (Pakistani, Indian, Bangladesh etc) militaries. They have been fighting insurgencies within their own borders, providing relief during earthquakes and floods, have been carrying out protective duties and most important have been called in in Aid of Civil Power like never before. So, do you think this MH, which spreads over 3500 years (In the nearly 3500 years of recorded history, only 283 years have seen no war) really have something to offer for military professionals? Joe and Armstrong sir, any suggestions? Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-studymilitary-history.html#ixzz2FI51zI2e

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