Military history
Military history
Military history is the study of events, activities, and personalities connected with warfare, ranging from individual battles to long-term developments. Although over the centuries, the practice and focus of military history have been refined, as a discipline it has overall remained remarkably stable in its concerns and approaches. Military history naturally falls into four broad areas: traditional narrative, which presents the unfolding of military events over time; personal history, which includes biographies and autobiographies of significant military figures and memoirs of military service; academic studies, which focus on warfare as history, setting activities within the larger scope of society and culture; and professional military history, most notably the official histories that began during the latter nineteenth century and that are used by the armed forces to improve their operations and performance. At times, a single work of military history may include two or more of these areas. For example, Julius Caesar’s Comentarii de bello Gallico (51-52 b.c.e.; translated with Comentarii de bello civili, 45 b.c.e., as Commentaries, 1609), is a personal memoir, narrative, and semiofficial history.
Ancient History and the Classical World
The earliest military history is carved into the stone monuments and memorials of the ancient world, commemorating the triumphs of the Egyptian pharaohs, the Assyrian kings, and the Babylonian rulers. In addition to providing a lasting record, these monuments served as imposing, enduring works of propaganda, emphasizing the strength and power of their builders. This tradition was a permanent part of the ancient and classical world, as Rome’s triumphal arches and the Column of Trajan attest. This form of military history still exists in the modern world, ranging from imposing edifices such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to modest statues and plaques on hundreds of American Civil War battlefields.
Written military history, as opposed to epics of warfare such as Homer’s Iliad (c. 800 b.c.e.; English translation, 1616), begin with the Greeks. Herodotus wrote an account of the Greco-Persian Wars in Historiai Herodotou (c. 424 b.c.e.; The History, 1709), the first great prose work in European literature. This work is an extensive narrative of the struggle between the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire that also includes a broad-ranging, and sometimes fabulous, survey of the Mediterranean world of his times. Herodotus can claim the distinction of being the first known historian to make use of primary sources such as interviews with participants and a study of existing documents.
The first, and for many still the greatest, work of purely military history is Historia tou Peloponnesiacou polemou (431-404 b.c.e.; History of the Peloponnesian War, 1550), written by Thucydides. Thucydides was an Athenian commander during this long and devastating war between Athens and Sparta. Recognizing at the very outset that the war would be a decisive one, Thucydides at once began work on his history, continuing it even after he was exiled from Athens for his role in a disastrous naval defeat. History of the Peloponnesian War is remarkable for its depth, mastery of detail, and vivid narrative. Above all, Thucydides has a keen, penetrating insight into human character and the true motives for the actions of individuals and states. His most important contribution to military history was his insistence on strict objectivity in his research and presentation.
The very nature of the classical world forced any historian to be, at least in part, a military historian. An early and enduring military memoir was Kurou anabasis (c. fourth century b.c.e.; Anabasis, 1623; also known as Expedition of Cyrus and March Up Country), written by the Greek general Xenophon. Xenophon, who had been a student of the Athenian philosopher Socrates, had joined a contingent of Greek mercenaries fighting for Cyrus, a claimant to the Persian throne. When Cyrus was killed, the Greeks had to save themselves by marching across Asia Minor to the Black Sea. The Anabasis is the record of that march. It is also the forerunner of a long line of military memoirs.
Rome produced a number of excellent historians who dealt with military matters, including Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, but the most famous and influential was Julius Caesar. Between 58 and 51 b.c.e., Caesar conquered the huge territory of Gaul (modern France and Belgium) and recorded the conflict in his commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Each book of his commentaries covers a year and was written at the end of the campaigning season and sent to Rome partly as Caesar’s official report to the Roman Senate and partly as brilliant propaganda. When Caesar and his rival Pompey plunged into armed conflict, Caesar again recorded the events in his Comentarii de bello civili (45 b.c.e.; translated with Comentarii de bello Gallico, 51-52 b.c.e., as Commentaries, 1609) while the struggle was in progress. These volumes, translated together as Caesar’s Commentaries, are among the primary works of military history and world literature.
A Rebirth of Military History
Later classical historians such as Plutarch, Arrian, and Cassius Dio also touched on military matters, but as the Roman Empire declined in the west, the study of history shifted to the eastern Mediterranean. The Byzantine historian Procopius wrote extensively on campaigns against the Persians in the east and Goths in North Africa. The Arabic scholar Ibn Khaldun was a brilliant military historian who incorporated sociology, psychology, and political science into his studies of Muslim conquests in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
In the west, analytic history was replaced by a series of chronicles, such as that of Jean Froissart, which at best told an exciting story of heroic adventures but were often only a record of events as they happened—or as they were reported to the writers. It was not until the advent of authors such as the Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli and England’s Sir Walter Raleigh that a more refined, objective military history was restored.
During the eighteenth century, military history again languished as the military itself became peripheral to society. The methodical techniques of siege warfare and the highly stylized nature of land battles inspired no great histories or historians. It was not until the French Revolution (1789–1792) and the advent of “the nation in arms,” the precursor of modern “total war,” that outstanding military historians again emerged. The most interesting of these were soldiers writing military memoirs. Union general Ulysses S. Grant wrote Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (1885–1886) while dying of cancer to provide financial security for his family. The work is recognized as one of the finest pieces of U.S. military history.
The harrowing impact of World War I (1914–1918) produced a large number of outstanding memoirs. T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, recounted his part in the Arab revolt against the Turks in the remarkable Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922). Robert Graves, the prolific poet and novelist, wrote the searingly honest Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography (1929), the finest personal account of what it was actually like to fight on the western front.
Official and Professional Histories
During the nineteenth century, armed forces began to take a more professional approach to the craft of war; this included a greater emphasis on military history. In the United States, following the Civil War, the U.S. Army produced the seventy-volume work War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (1880–1901). Best known as the Official Records, this is the single most important reference on the American Civil War and was prepared by a handful of army officers in the U.S. War Department. In the latter part of the century, the Prussian army established itself as the first modern army, combining professionalism with technological advances. This rational approach to warfare included the development of the official military history, a study by an army of its campaigns to evaluate and improve its performance.
Such official histories, either written by members of the armed forces or prepared by commissioned scholars, soon became standard among armies in the United States, Europe, and Japan. However, there were serious flaws with many military histories, among them a tendency to present information in a fashion that supported existing military doctrine. The “lessons” learned by the official military historians might, in fact, be the wrong lessons. In addition, there was the inevitable but unfortunate inclination to shield the reputations and protect the feelings of commanders. After World War I, the British official history presented highly selective views of controversial battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele. Ideology and internal power struggles notoriously distorted official Soviet military studies.
However, official histories can be outstanding in their collection and explanation of dates and information. Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard historian and a navy officer, oversaw and largely wrote the U.S. Navy’s official history of its role in World War II. Morison later reduced this multivolume set to produce a more accessible work, The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (1963), which is a classic narrative, informative and well told.
At their best, modern professional historians have produced works of military history that have opened new perspectives on the subject. In Germany, Hans Delbruck’s studies of the Franco-Prussian war and especially his works on the wars of Frederick the Great forced a revision of the traditional views of those topics. Barbara Tuchman’s classic work The Guns of August (1962) brought military history to the attention of general readers in an accessible and intelligent fashion. English author John Keegan almost single-handedly revitalized popular attention to military history. Keegan was for many years senior lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Great Britain’s counterpart to West Point in the United States. In 1976, Keegan published The Face of Battle, a brilliant study of what actually happens during combat, and his A History of Warfare (1993) is regarded as a classic in its field.
Ten Great Works of Military History
Author | Title/Publication Date | Description |
Xenophon | Kurou anabasis (c. fourth century b.c.e.) Anabasis (1623) | A detailed and realistic account of the retreat under fire of the Greek mercenary troops in the fourth century b.c.e. |
Herodotus | Historiai Herodotou (c. 424 b.c.e.) The History (1709) | The first work of history in the Western world; recounts the decisive clash between the Greek city states and the immense Persian Empire |
Thucydides | Historia tou Peloponnesiacou polemou (431-404 b.c.e.) History of the Peloponnesian War (1550) | One of the first, and arguably still the best, histories of warfare ever composed; combines the objectivity of history with the power of Greek tragedy |
Julius Caesar | Comentarii de bello Gallico (51-52 b.c.e.) Comentarii de bello civili (45 b.c.e.) Translated together as Commentaries (1609) | Account of Caesar’s actions in his successful campaigns against the Gauls and his Roman rival, Pompey the Great |
Sir Edward Creasy | The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo (1851) | The volume that first popularized the concept of the “decisive battle” in military history |
Ulysses S. Grant | Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (1885–1886) | Grant’s memoirs; presents the general’s career clearly and powerfully |
T. E. Lawrence | Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) | The story of the Arabic revolt against Turkish rule during World War I; told by Lawrence of Arabia himself |
Robert Graves | Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography (1929) | An outstanding personal memoir of World War I; written by one of England’s most distinguished twentieth century poets |
Samuel Eliot Morison | The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (1963) | A distillation of Morison’s official history of the United States Navy during World War II; combines precision with passion |
John Keegan | The Face of Battle (1976) | A re-creation of what battle actually is—and has been—over the centuries |
Bibliography
Chaliand, Gerard. The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Cowley, Robert, and Geoffrey Parker, eds. The Reader’s Companion to Military History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
Delbruck, Hans. History and the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975–1985.
Fuller, J. F. C. A Military History of the Western World. New York: Da Capo Press, 1987.
Higham, Robin, ed. The Writing of Official Military History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Keegan, John. The Battle for History: Re-Fighting World War II. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Book of War: Twenty-five Centuries of Great War Writing. New York: Viking, 1999.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. A History of Warfare. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
McNeill, William. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since a.d. 1000. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982.
O’Connell, Robert. Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.