This is a much more nuanced view of the state of the military history field than earlier efforts
The work, which has received both glowing praise and sharp criticism from other historians in the United States and Europe, is the most striking of the revisionist accounts to emerge from a new science of military history. The new accounts tend to be not only more quantitative but also more attuned to political, cultural and technological factors, and focus more on the experience of the common soldier than on grand strategies and heroic deeds.
More, it actually connects that new form of history (traditionally identified as the “New Military History” and starting with John Keegan’s The Face of Battle) with larger issues, both historical and present. If I was being particularly tetchy, I might note that the article is behind the times–Keegan’s book came out in the 1970s–and that military history is now pushing past the “New Military History” into what some have facetiously referred to as the “New New Military History.” That would be petulant of me, however, so I will simply be glad to see a sophisticated account of the topic.
The Edge of the American West 
31 comments
October 24, 2009 at 3:28 pm
TF Smith
So was Thucydides the “Old Old Military History”?
All kidding aside, it seems like quite a bit of published military history throughout, well, history, has gone beyond the battlefield and looked at the human, economic, and political elements, among others…
Thucydides, for example.
October 24, 2009 at 3:52 pm
mr earl
I’m sure these new historically-informed manuals serve their purpose well. However, when we have to get down to the sharp end of the business, I’ll reach for the Crispin’s Day Speech.
October 24, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Charlieford
Xenophon’s Anabasis was hardly short on the human element, either.
October 24, 2009 at 4:40 pm
silbey
All fair points, and the break that New Military History represented has always been somewhat overstated, just like there was social history in the history before social history, and cultural history in the history before cultural history.
October 24, 2009 at 5:30 pm
TF Smith
How does “New Military History” concept tie in with the underlying question of when did military history become a recognized field within the discipline? I.e., did the “Old Military History” begin with Delbruck or Mahan?
Or, for the classically inclined, Thucydides and Xenophon?
And what about the theoreticians? Sun Tzu and Macchiavelli, for example … Can strategic theory be seen as a field of inquiry absent military history?
October 25, 2009 at 6:05 am
silbey
TF, it’s an interesting question. The development of military history as a subfield I would date back fairly far. The development of military history as a field with academic practitioners who specialize in it seems quite recent. So the “New Military History” might actually only be the second wave of practitioners.
October 25, 2009 at 9:05 am
dave
Always worth remembering that one has to distinguish the dominance contest that is being played out in the naming, boosting and dismissing of such ‘new’ this and that from the actual content of any books and articles that might happen to be being written at the time.
On occasions like this, I remind people to reread the first few paragraphs of Herodotus, wherein they will find a gendered history of the formation of national myths, leavened with a little wit, or misogyny, according to taste…
“Now as for the carrying off of women, it is the deed, they say, of a rogue: but to make a stir about such as are carried off, argues a man a fool. Men of sense care nothing for such women, since it is plain that without their own consent they would never be forced away. “
October 25, 2009 at 10:42 am
Erik Lund
Another way of looking at it is that military history has as strong an internalist component as legal history. There are masses of military history in eighteenth century archives that come out of proto-general staffs. The same era produces numerous campaign histories based directly on war diaries, often with campaign proposal pitches and other planning documents incorporated into the text.
When you’ve taken Nis and are at a loss as what to do next, why not dig up the records of what Markgraf Ludwig of Baden did when he was in the exact same position, 50 years before?
This is a neglected history precisely because it is ful of useful information –marching routes, camp locations and wagon allocations. If there’s one thing the bestseller lists have established, people want to hear about battles, not about General v. Schmettau’s bold decision to supply each company with an extra packhorse to carry blankets, because new recruits get cold at night.
October 25, 2009 at 11:41 am
TF Smith
Dr. Silbey – Those seem like useable definitions/observations; maybe an article? The History and Historiography of an Academic Discipline, maybe? –
And what do you think about the strategic theory angle? Do you see Sun and/or Macchiavelli as military historians? Or Clausewitz?
Erik –
Somewhere in Once an Eagle, Anton Myrer has one of his characters assigned to the South Pacific making a joke about how much easier it is for a peer in a similar billet in NW Europe to gather intelligence, since “every crossroads, hill, and privy between Metz and the Rhine has had a monograph written about it.”
Of course, one can run into the “Battles and Leaders” conundrum, where it appears at times that the POV of the correspondents is such that it appears they were not in the same war, much less the same battle…the back and forth on the 1862-63 Kentucky campaign in Vol. III comes to mind.
Best
October 25, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Ahistoricality
Am I the only one who bristled at “science of military history”? It bespeaks a fundamental misunderstanding of both military affairs and history that infuses much of the rest of the article.
October 25, 2009 at 8:17 pm
TF Smith
Maybe the author meant the history of military science? (of which the later two words were the ROTC course title, back in the day)…
October 26, 2009 at 4:52 am
silbey
Dr. Silbey – Those seem like useable definitions/observations; maybe an article? The History and Historiography of an Academic Discipline, maybe? –
I think something like that’s brewing in the back of my head, definitely. _When_ I will find time to write it, I don’t know.
And what do you think about the strategic theory angle? Do you see Sun and/or Macchiavelli as military historians? Or Clausewitz?
Would they self-identify as such? I don’t know. It strikes me that there’s a difference between using history solely (or largely) as a tool to inform current practices and studying history for its own sake.
October 26, 2009 at 11:47 am
Lurker
I’ve always understood the “traditional” military history as a professional subject, where the idea is to learn military tactics (and sometimes, strategy) from the older generations’ examples. In fact, I would venture to say that the traditional (German-type) European professional military education has focussed very heavily on military history and other subject that might classify as humanities or social (tactics, strategy, military pedagogy, military administration).
The US military has followed a more scientific route, and the US service academies have been rather scientifically oriented. This, I understand, stems from the French tradition.
However, just because military history is a professional subject, its study from the military professional point of view is somewhat moot. This is because a civilian will never have the opportunity to apply the lessons learned in real life. Then, instead of an experience of professonial growth, the study of military history becomes an empty dream of battles fought long ago, which leads the historian to glorify generals and to forget all grimy details of suffering. At best, military history by civilians is like the study of heart surgery by a medical lay-man: an interesting, but ultimately futile effort.
Thus, if one wishes to study military history as a civilian, one must choose an approach of social history, focussing on parts which are not necessary for a military professional. Then, one may get something new from the subject. This, in my mind has been done by some great historians, e.g. the Swede, Peter Englund.
October 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm
serofriend
It strikes me that there’s a difference between using history solely (or largely) as a tool to inform current practices and studying history for its own sake
There’s definitely a difference, but (depending on your definition of “largely”) I admire historians who strive to accomplish both goals.
October 26, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Ralph Hitchens
Having read both Anne Curry’s book and the most recent scholarly work from the traditional perspective (Juliet Barker’s _Agincourt_) I think this is a most interesting and timely debate. Curry has certainly thrown down the gauntlet and has yet to be convincingly refuted. Still, even with her retelling the odds were against the English — on paper, at least. But they had a cohesive army with proven troops and leaders under one of the greatest medieval soldier-kings, Henry V. Curry is less impressed with him than most other historians, giving him too little credit for his previous campaigns in Wales, among other things. I think she’s wrong in this respect, and no doubt she will accrue scholarly challenges as time goes by.
Count me with those who are unimpressed with most of the “new military history” (going back to the overrated John Keegan). The field needs to be multi-disciplinary, but operations must remain at the heart of it, if it is to have any meaning or utility.
October 26, 2009 at 1:47 pm
silbey
The field needs to be multi-disciplinary, but operations must remain at the heart of it, if it is to have any meaning or utility
Why?
October 26, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Doctor Science
Count *me* as one whose view of military history and warfare was transformed by John Keegan, especially “The Face of Battle”.
I was but a young ‘un then, but I’d already read enough Old Military History (and conventional history in general) to agree with Catherine in Northanger Abbey:
It was much reading of “New”-style military history that led me to conclude from the start that the Iraq War was phenomenally ill-conceived and would bear terrible fruit. What continues to boggle me is how many military historians — including Keegan himself — did not reach the same conclusion.
I think learning about “operations” is the *least* of benefits from military history. In the first place, operations and tactics are likely to be most dependent on changing technology, so the lessons of the past are more likely to be obsolete — or the people you’re arguing with will *say* they’re obsolete.
The most important lessons of military history IMHO are on the highest level, and on the lowest. The highest level is grand-strategic, where war and politics shade into each other. This is the level where people like me have to make decisions about, for instance, whether to support or argue or act for or against a war, whether a given war or military activity is likely to produce the advertized result.
In his latest book, The Limits of Power, Andrew Bacevich argues that the American military has had notably mediocre highest-level officers (generals, admirals, etc) in the past few decades, and I suspect it’s because officers are reluctant to go from strategy to grand strategy, to face the fact strategy can win or lose a battle, but winning — or losing — a war is essentially political, a matter of human relations not abstract “forces”.
Conversely, the lowest level is that of the individual soldier or civilian, and we citizens need to know how war affects the people we deal with: the vets or refugees or victims we’ll get back from a war, the scars it will leave on our societies and ourselves.
October 27, 2009 at 8:41 am
Chris
Amateurs continue to study tactics. Film at 11.
Really, the only surprising thing is that anyone takes them seriously.
But then, I guess in peacetime, all your officers *are* amateurs, even in a career military. Without the pressures of an actual war, they can be tempted to engage in the kind of puerile power fantasies the neocons were slinging around. Professional militaries try to create a culture that’s resistant to that sort of thing, but it looks like they have mixed success at best.
October 27, 2009 at 9:09 am
dave
I suppose in your world tactical acumen just happens? The rest of your assertions are merely unpleasant.
October 27, 2009 at 10:11 am
elblot
Interesting article Dave – thanks for pointing it out.
October 27, 2009 at 11:35 am
Erik Lund
On the other hand, I think operations are potentially a powerful tool for recovering the details of everyday life, thus for social history more generally. Correlli Barnett is a goof, but an “audit of war” is still a useful notion. Campaigns are detailed in our sources in the way that, say, harvesting a field is not. Whatever the context, this is a past society doing a job of work with a documented detail we will never get elsewhere. The real risk lies in getting distracted by a battle narrative –in studying strategy, not tactics, rather than logistics.
October 27, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Anderson
the American military has had notably mediocre highest-level officers (generals, admirals, etc) in the past few decades
Mediocrity, by definition, is widespread, in and out of the military. It’s the exception, not the rule, for a George Marshall to roil the ranks. And how successful was even he, when we look at a study like Eisenhower’s Lieutenants?
October 27, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Ralph Hitchens
Erik, Correlli Barnett has done some good stuff as well as a lot of schlock. His long chapter on Jellicoe and the Battle of Jutland in _The Swordbearers_ is a small masterpiece of military history, interdisciplinary yet anchored in the mechanics of what happened.
Dr. Science, I admire Bacevich but he’s a bit too harsh on contemporary US general & flag officers. Fact is without a large-scale war we really have no way of seeing who’s mediocre and who’s not. Since World War II we haven’t really been tested. Abrams arguably proved himself in Vietnam, at least in retrospect, but it’s difficult to compare anyone in that context with the great captains of history’s great struggles.
October 27, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Doctor Science
Fact is without a large-scale war we really have no way of seeing who’s mediocre and who’s not
Afghanistan and Iraq have dragged on for *years*. Vietnam dragged on for *years and years*. These are the wars we’re actually fighting — if we’re not able to figure out who’s better than mediocre to do the job we’re actually doing, then *we’re doing it wrong*. And I think that is what Bacevich is arguing: the system is not designed to create generals who can effectively fight the kind of wars we actually have to fight: it’s designed, not just to fight the last war, but to fight the Big War that everyone assumes we won’t actually have to fight.
Bacevich also makes the point that the truly great US generals — Washington, Grant (& Sherman), Eisenhower, for instance — were able to think and act on the grand-strategic, political level. In many ways I think Washington was the greatest US general of them all, because he always understood the difference between winning the battle and winning the war.
October 27, 2009 at 7:31 pm
TF Smith
Eisenhower’s Lieutenants? Really?
Given that Weigley accepted SLA Marshall’s alleged quantitative studies of infantry combat engagement without question, I have a hard time accepting his judgment on almost anything about the WW II US Army…
Marshall built an army of 8 million plus out of a regular force of roughly 200,000 when he took over from Malin Craig; that same army was able to shatter anything the Axis offered up in three theaters simultaneously, at distances never before contemplated by any combatant. Seems like he did something right…
October 28, 2009 at 5:33 am
silbey
Bacevich’s history is not as solid as I would like. For some cogent (if heated) critiques, see:
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/44330.html
and
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/53480.html
October 28, 2009 at 6:54 am
Anderson
Given that Weigley accepted SLA Marshall’s alleged quantitative studies of infantry combat engagement without question, I have a hard time accepting his judgment on almost anything about the WW II US Army
Now *that’s* a bit of a leap to a conclusion. And I thought we were talking about officer quality, not the overall combat efficacy of the U.S. armed forces (against their exhausted, overextended Axis opponents, ahem).
October 28, 2009 at 7:40 am
Anderson
… Re: Marshall, it seems to be the consensus that his information was conjectural at best, but a great many people besides Weigley bought Men Against Fire‘s conclusions at the time, including the U.S. Army — wasn’t his book one of the main reasons for going to the M-16, finally favoring automatic fire in the face of the Army’s traditional stress on marksmanship?
Less clear to me is whether anyone’s demonstrated that Marshall was actually *wrong*. Mendel fudged *his* data, but was right nonetheless. Marshall’s defects of character don’t answer the question.
October 28, 2009 at 10:47 am
Erik Lund
Ralph Hitchens:
I could rant at length, but suffice it to say that I do not share your high opinion of the Jutland chapter of “Swordbearers.” It is questionable on events, and an offence against the praxis of history of technology.
Fortunately, we now have this: http://books.google.ca/books?id=SHxpXZTHsC0C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=naval+gunnery+jutland&source=bl&ots=hqsYGsME6q&sig=QfaKnZOjBKg-PE8CV6mQjMHtStc&hl=en&ei=L4PoSrSQGIrusgOfwcyaBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=naval%20gunnery%20jutland&f=false
Holy crap, what an URL. Me gots to learn HTML markup!
October 28, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Anderson
Erik:
[a href=”longassURL”]text of the link[/a]
where the brackets are replaced by their corresponding pointy brackets.
Easy once you’ve done it a couple of times.
November 2, 2009 at 11:04 am
Doctor Science
Speaking of Keegan and the New Old Military History:
silbey, you should do a post on McPherson’s evisceration of Keegan’s new book on the US Civil War and how/why Keegan fell to this point.