War in History最新文献

{"title":"Book Review: A Woman’s Place: US Counterterrorism since 9/11 by Joana Cook","authors":"Hannah West","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401g","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401g","url":null,"abstract":"of India. Apparently, during the spring of 1947, Colonel Akbar Khan and other Muslim officers of the British Indian Army used to meet at Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s residence on Aurangzeb Road in Delhi to plan that clandestine incursion into Kashmir. The reference given is to a book, A Soldier Recalls, by Lieutenant General S. K. Sinha. I have not seen this event mentioned by other writers and its reliability is difficult to assess. But if true, it adds another dimension to the origins of the Kashmir dispute. The great strength of the book is that the overall political situation, the role of key players in civilian governments and of the generals, marshals and commanders are brought into the picture vividly and even-handedly when the wars are discussed. In doing so, the author evaluates the performances of the army, air force and navy and of the main weapons deployed during battles, while highlighting the levels and degrees of coordination of the three services. One gets a holistic, comprehensive overview of those wars. Arjun Subramaniam has undoubtedly produced a compendium on India’s military history, which the public as well as specialists and researchers will find an invaluable work of dedicated scholarship.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"876 - 877"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45356500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: Hitler’s Fatal Miscalculation: Why Germany Declared War on the United States by Klaus H. Schmider","authors":"Ian Johnson","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"865 - 866"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44464811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: British Expeditionary Warfare and The Defeat of Napoleon, 1793–1815 by Robert K. Sutcliffe","authors":"Aaron Graham","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401","url":null,"abstract":"Even in so crowded a field as the military history of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, there are still important and unexplored niches to be found. In looking at the history of the Transport Board between 1794 and 1815, Sutcliffe offers an important and effective study that does an excellent job of filling one of these niches. Founded shortly after the outbreak of war, the Board technically lay under the control of the Treasury and was intended to address the problems of hiring and coordinating the shipping of men and materiel that had dogged the separate departments of the British fiscal-military state during the American Revolutionary War. Viewing the wars from the perspective of the Board, Sutcliffe is sympathetic to its challenges and argues that it did the best job it could to balance the urgent calls on its scarce resources, enabling Britain to project military power in Europe and further afield. A number of thematic chapters examine administration, the shipping markets, amphibious operations and the use of naval ships as troops transports, and these are rounded off by several further chapters that adopt a chronological perspective and track the ebb and flow of business at the Board during the peak years of the Napoleonic Wars between 1805 and 1815. Sutcliffe, therefore, situates his book between the more administrative or institutional studies by David Syrett of naval transport earlier in the eighteenth century, and the more strategic focus adopted by Christopher Hall in his study of naval power during the Peninsular War, to suggest how these elements interacted. He argues that the Board had to juggle competing demands from commanders such as Wellington, and developed formidable bureaucratic resources to do so, not least the system of regular returns that enabled it to keep track of its transports and direct them most efficiently. Too often it faced problems because strategic planning by the Cabinet failed to take account of transport needs, and the Board lacked the political muscle to have an input into the planning process. To secure shipping the Board also had to cultivate good relations with the small clique of ship-brokers in London who could help assemble transports at short notice. Indeed, in one of the most effective and useful sections of the book, Sutcliffe reconstructs the state of the market for shipping in early 19th-century London. About 10,000 ships were registered in London in 1790 but Book Reviews","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"864 - 865"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42158535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: The British Way of War: Julian Corbett and the Battle for a National Strategy by Andrew Lambert","authors":"H. Strachan","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401b","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"867 - 870"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47532039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: The Development of British Naval Aviation, 1914-1918 by Alexander Howlett","authors":"J. Brooks","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401e","url":null,"abstract":"National Volunteer recruitment into the British army, via local parades, witnessed only in West Belfast, Derry City, and Enniskillen. This exclusion of a considered study of Irish Nationalism in Ulster looks decidedly odd, given that an entire chapter is devoted to the experience of the wider Irish diaspora, especially those in Australia and Canada. Gallagher rightly makes much of the importance of Irish newspapers in her study and the digitisation of many has made them an easily accessible source. However, the problem that all Irish historians face is that, as the events of 1918 were to show, the editorial policies of many were not in line with the political views of their readership. Inevitably, many of the primary sources used represent the views of middle-class men and women and the extent to which these can be seen as representative of Irish society as a whole is debatable. Extensive use has apparently been made of archival sources but newspaper sources seem to have been prioritised over these, for reasons which are not made clear. Indeed, there are remarkably few references to the minutes of local councils, boards of guardians, educational establishments, or charitable associations. With regard to historiography, some important works have been omitted. Fionnuala Walsh’s, Irish Women and the Great War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) obviously appeared too late to be considered in this work, but the PhD on which it was based was completed in 2015. Gallagher’s study of the response of the Irish in Canada, especially the tour of Ireland in 1917 by the Irish-Canadian Rangers, which she discusses in exhaustive detail (pp.113–129), needs to be contextualised with M. G. McGowan, The Imperial Irish: Canada’s Irish Catholics Fight the Great War, 1914–1918 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017). The brief chapter 2 on commemoration, contains no references to works by Nuala Johnson and Catherine Switzer. Patrick Callan’s rigorous work on Irish recruitment is absent from the footnotes and bibliography as is Stephen Sandford’s authoritative work on the 10th (Irish) Division. Some works appear but receive a little discussion. David Fitzpatrick’s many publications deserved more serious consideration, especially as his argument that men enlisted largely due to their membership of various ‘fraternities’, rather than due to their political or religious affiliations appears to be highly relevant to the concept of ‘civil society’. Similarly, Patrick Maume’s influential works on the demise of the Irish Parliamentary Party receive a very limited discussion. Gallagher concludes that ‘The Ireland of 1915, as well as wartime 1914, was much more united in a common purpose than it would be at any other point in the twentieth century’ (p.172). This, I think, is to rather overstate the case, as the limits of nationalist involvement in the British war effort, as witnessed through recruitment rates and activity by the Irish National Vol","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"873 - 875"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42630261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History by Niamh Gallagher","authors":"Timothy M. Bowman","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401d","url":null,"abstract":"also sheds light on the real questions and challenges of using them effectively. As with so much of early British intelligence history, the surviving archival record for codebreaking operations in this period is very limited and the narrative has been pieced together from a wide range of different sources. Larsen should be congratulated for this work, although some of his conclusions, particularly the extent of British reading of American messages and the degree to which it was used to impact policy, will likely be challenged. The revisionist nature of this book, and the tone in which it is written, will make it a contentious work among historians of the First World War. It is, however, an important study on a comparatively underexplored subject, and Larsen’s weaving of economic and intelligence threads into the broader political and diplomatic history adds real value. It is hoped that the book will spark further debate and scholarship on both peacemaking and Anglo-American relations during the First World War.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"872 - 873"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44506382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: India’s Wars: A Military History 1947 -1971 by Arjun Subramaniam","authors":"I. Ahmed","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401f","url":null,"abstract":"which the control system continued to evolve. The final version for the London Air Defence Area, with its plotting rooms and W/T communications with fighters, was the true precursor of Fighter Command’s system in the Second World War, though the RNAS did lay some of the groundwork. Zeppelins and, later, Gotha and Giant bombers approaching at high altitudes were difficult to intercept but they were more vulnerable on their return to RNAS fighters based on either side of the Narrow Seas. Howlett has ensured that this direct contribution of RNAS squadrons to home air defence will not be forgotten. As already indicated, some of Howlett’s conclusions seem contradictory or in need of significant qualification. A further case is the apparent criticism that: ‘The RNAS [technical] practitioners always seemed to be playing catch-up’ (p. 206). Yet surely, especially with conflicting wartime priorities, this was inevitable. Howlett has successfully revealed many aspects of RNAS organisation and administration, but he offers little insight into how critical priority decisions were reached. Nonetheless, his book will be a valuable reference source for further research into the history of the RNAS.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"17 10","pages":"875 - 876"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41261642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: Plotting for Peace: American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers and Britain at War, 1914–1917 by Daniel Larsen","authors":"R. Dunley","doi":"10.1177/09683445221130401c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221130401c","url":null,"abstract":"war was fought with renewed ferocity. The United States’ entry ended the debate on neutral rights, so tightening the blockade. American warships helped protect the sea lines of communication against U-boats long before American soldiers arrived in France. In short, Britain embraced both continental and maritime strategies, and it did so because it had little choice. Even Corbett’s ally at the heart of government, Maurice Hankey, although convinced that maritime strength would win the war in the end, knew that Britain might lose it in the short term if it did not also fight on land in support of its allies. There is, therefore, an unexpressed tragedy at the heart of Lambert’s book. Corbett’s influence depended on his relationship with Jackie Fisher as First Sea Lord, but Fisher himself undermined the maritime strategy which Corbett advocated. Despite Corbett’s wishes, he stoked the factionalism which divided the navy’s senior ranks. Corbett realised that the navy required its own staff but Fisher was determined to thwart its creation. Both before the war and, more importantly during it, Fisher refused to be sufficiently explicit about the Baltic plan which Lambert argues he and Corbett saw as the best option for a British maritime strategy. Fisher defended himself by saying that he did not trust the politicians not to talk to their wives. By not engaging in ‘conference’ as Corbett urged, the navy limited its own ability to shape strategy. Just as Corbett recognised the need to talk to statesmen, so he also acknowledged the need to talk to soldiers – including (as Lambert stresses) G.F.R Henderson, who taught the generals of the Great War at Camberley, where Corbett himself went to lecture. Fisher did not. Like Corbett, Fisher may have wanted to use the army as a projectile of the navy, but only after Fisher had left the Admiralty – and at the very last moment – did the navy begin to consider what vessels might be required for the conduct of amphibious operations. Both Lord Kitchener and Sir John French, the two most powerful army officers in August 1914, were as persuaded of the priority of army-navy cooperation and of the importance of long-term imperial security as Corbett was. If Fisher was so convinced of the rightness of what Corbett propounded, he did a bad job of selling it. Lambert describes Corbett’s final writings, the Naval Operations volumes of the official history, as the preliminary work for a new edition of Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. If, as he argues, Corbett realised that strategy is contingent, not constant, the FirstWorldWar left him with a lot of rethinking to do. By 1919 many of his fellow Liberal Imperialists had abandoned their faith in the British empire in favour of the United States as the main building block of a future global order. There is little sign that Corbett had done so – or that he appreciated how much maritime strategy had in fact contributed to the war’s final outcome.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"29 1","pages":"870 - 872"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42096355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing Emergencies for the Safeguarding of Cities of Art in Corrado Ricci's Correspondence: Ravenna, ‘Open City’ without Air Defences (1916–1918)","authors":"Eleonora Maria Stella","doi":"10.1177/09683445221111939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221111939","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the dramatic events which involved Ravenna and its historical pinewood from 1916, during the First World War. In that terrible year, the centre of the monumental city was for the first time targeted by Austrian bombs, which also threw civilian life into disorder. The emergency also affected Ravenna's ancient pinewood – a unique piece of natural heritage, rich with history – whose survival was threatened because of the decisions and military priorities of the Italian Supreme Command. These events must be seen in the completely new context of the operation to safeguard the Italian artistic and monumental heritage conducted by the state, with the support of the army.","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"63 6","pages":"38 - 59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41305944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book reviews","authors":"A. Kramer","doi":"10.1177/09683445221113612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09683445221113612","url":null,"abstract":"An examination of the origins of Gallipoli, or rather, the Dardanelles operation, is long overdue. Most Anglophone histories have focused on the fighting and dying on the beachheads, notably the Anzac experience, the failure of the campaign and its consequences. Although the planning of the operation has received some attention, its origin and motivations have seldom been analysed. This study by naval historian Nicholas Lambert is therefore welcome. Lambert’s book of 2012, Planning Armageddon, caused quite a splash in the calm waters of the history of British strategy. Many reviewers were fulsome in their praise. Some, however, raised serious doubts about the consistency of Lambert’s central thesis and his methodology. Above all, his argument that Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and the Admiralty believed that economic warfare would be a ‘fast-acting’ strategy to defeat Germany – a ‘British Schlieffen Plan’ – has come in for sustained criticism, not only for its lack of cogency, but also its lack of historical evidence. If such a plan for a lightning strike existed, no one in authority, such as the Prime Minister or the First Sea Lord, knew of it. Moreover, several arguments were flawed by internal contradictions, for example, in relation to policy towards neutral states, and misinterpretations based on misreading of sources. Portions of documents are quoted when they support his thesis; other portions of the same document that contradict it are omitted. The assertion that the","PeriodicalId":44606,"journal":{"name":"War in History","volume":"30 1","pages":"203 - 217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44330009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}