Warfare & Military history – Page 4

Medieval Warfare — Helen Nicholson

Published on December 29, 20111 Comment

Cover of Medieval Warfare

Medieval Warfare
Helen Nicholson
232 pages including index
published in 2004

Helen Nicholson’s Medieval Warfare is, as she puts it in her introduction, “intended to provide a point of entry tpo the subject of medieval warfare for students and others with an interest in the subject who are perplexed by the rapidly expanding body of scholarship in this area”. Which is just what I needed, as this is indeed a subject I’ve become interested in following on from my earlier readings in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Medieval Warfare is an ambitious book for trying to cover this whole period (300 to 1500 CE) even in overview in just 166 pages, excluding index. But Nicholson is a reader in history at Cardiff University who has written extensively on Medieval military matters and therefore is well suited to the task.

As any good historian should, she sets out how she will go about it in her preface. What she attempts to do is to look at the development of the main aspects of medieval warfare from just after the end of the (western) Roman Empire to the end of the Middle Ages, using concrete examples to illustrate these developments. She chose the period 300 to 1500 CE to emphasise the continuity between the military practises of the Late Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, with the latter date providing a convenient cutting off point between them and the Renaissance. The fourth century was chosen as a starting point because it was in the late fourth century that the Roman bureaucrat Vegetius wrote his manual on military strategy, a book that was hugely influential in European warfare until at least the sixteenth century. Geographically, Nicholson limits herself mostly to Europe, particularly France, Italy, England and Germany for her examples, though she does look to Eastern/Byzantine examples as well when appropriate.

Soviet Storm

Published on December 14, 2011Leave a comment

In between the reality show nonsense on the History Channel, one of the best documentary series on World War II has been shown recently. Unlike most of these series, Soviet Storm: WW2 in the East focuses exclusively on the Eastern Front and the Russian experiences in the war, which in itself is enough to recommend it to me. But it’s also very good in itself, giving a clear and honest picture of the war in the East, combining the big picture with quick sketches of what the war was like at the sharp end. Especially good is how CGI is used to enhance battle replays. It’s always clear that these are reconstructions, the CGI generated tanks and guns and such slightly plastic looking, probably deliberately, but still fairly realistic and convincing. Also counting in its favour is that it’s not too fetishist about the tanks and other weapons used in the war.

Soviet Storm was originally a Russian production, first broadcast in 2010 and this is noticeable, if only due to the Cyrillic letters shown on the maps. More seriously, it’s the way that the focus remains almost exclusively with the Soviet soldiers, showing the Germans only as the enemy, that shows its origins. Most western documentaries on the Eastern Front are shown from the German point of view, something which can minimise the very real accomplishments of the Red Army. Soviet Storm is a good corrective to this.

A lot of this series is available on Youtube; check it out.

Seventy years ago today

Published on June 22, 2011

Hitler made the biggest yet inevitable mistake of the war and started Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR. Though incredibly succesful at first, it turned out to be far from the cakewalk the Germans had expected. The tenacity and fighting power of the average Soviet fighting man (and woman) was far greater than anybody, including Stalin, had accounted for and the Russian defence might have been in disarray in the first few weeks, it never broke. The Germans needed to deliver a knocout blow and once they failed to do it, the outcome was inevitable.

Three short years later and the Russians launched Operation Bagration, swept the Germans out of their country and inflicted the worst German defeat in the entire war: it was this, rather than the Normandy Landings, that meant the end was near. In the west we have a tendency to airbrush the Soviet contributions to the defeat of Germany out of our history, but without them, we’d all be speaking German stilll..

The version of The Internationale above is sung by SWP activist and folk singer Alistair Hulett (best known for being in Roaring Jack) with backing by Jimmy Gregory. Sadly Alistair Hulett died early last year due to liver cancer.

Same as it ever was

Published on April 20, 2011

So it turns out the 101st Flying Keyboard Division is off all times, as Joseph Addison could already satirise their breed in 1709:

…More hard than that of the soldiers, considering that they have taken more towns, and fought more battles. They have been upon parties and skirmishes, when our armies have lain still; and given the general assault to many a place, when the besiegers were quiet in their trenches. They have made us masters of several strong towns many weeks before our generals could do it; and completed victories, when our greatest captains have been glad to come off with a drawn battle… It is impossible for this ingenious sort of men to subsist after a peace: every one remembers the shifts they were taken to in the reign of King Charles the Second, when they could not furnish out a single paper of news, without lightening up a comet in Germany, or a fire in Moscow.

As quoted in Brendan Simms’ Three Victories and a Defeat: the Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, a military/political history of Hanovarian Britain from the ascent of George I up to the defeat in the American Revolution. A good read so far, very traditional in its narrative and focus which unfortunately does mean a lot of “Britain is propping up Austria to counter France and so keep the Balance of Power in Europe but oh no, now Austria is too powerful and Britain needs to swing behind Spain to counter Austria and so keep the Balance of Power”.

Of course one unelected head of state will support another

Published on February 28, 20111 Comment

Queen Bea is supposed to go on a stat visit to Oman and Quatar this weekend. Trouble is, in both countries an unfortunate and badly timed enthusiasm for democracy has broken out which makes the visit of her majesty slightly awkward. Holland is after all supposed to be a beacon of democracy and human rights, a shining example to the rest of the world even if the silent partner of the current government would like to limit those rights to people with the right ~~skin colour~~ religion. We sort of miss the sangfroid of the French, never worried about the rights of those they do not do business with, or the fundamental hypocrisy of the British, able to lecture dictators on the need to allow a fair and transparant move towards democracy while selling them the weapons to prevent this. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean the queen won’t go or we wouldn’t sell them our leftover tanks: it’s just that we prefer to practise our own hypocrisy and complicity under cover of darkness and are not used to having to braze it out in the full glare of publicity.

Oh and of course we sold weapons to both Quatar and Oman, mostly helicopter (NH-90/Lynx) parts as well as radar, C3 and other electronic equipment, but also short range anti aircraft systems. Not to mention that a lot of foreign arms were shipped through Schiphol to those two countries as well. Holland’s gotta eat and if that means propping up undemocratic regimes by selling them weapons, as long as they are our allies, who cares?