The Importance of Military History

[Yui108]

While I was flipping through some of the books and websites I read when I was younger, I noticed a tremendously greater focus on military history than in the more "academic" books. Topics like the "100 Most Important Battles," "25 Greatest Generals", and so on abound. Now obviously any attempt at "ranking" battles or generals is considerably less sophisticated or serious than a lot of the scholarly material or even what people here try to do. However, there seems to be an inordinate lack of focus on military history. I first thought we could attribute this to a historical focus on the grand-scale of history, not minutiae such as battles and tactics. Yet often a history will focus on smaller-scale actions of leaders, or the economic issues facing a minor region. What does the forum think account for what seems to me to be a lack of interest in military events and figures, or does it even exist?

 

[Phrossack]

I've never noticed any lack of interest in or coverage of the topic.

 

[Dachs]

The academy - in sharp contrast to the 'popular' history market - actually doesn't care much about military history, and approaches to the subject are pretty fringe. There's definitely a sense of marginalization.

I'd speculate about why this is, but most of the speculation would involve various pejoratives and violent epithets.

 

[Glassfan]

I think Military History is very important and interesting - "Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it" (GS) - and all that. Also, " It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it" (REL).

And yet in a liberal democracy possessing a free Press, so much trivia and gossip holds the attention of the masses, that relatively important things (war, genocides, etc.) are put aside. Perhaps due to a sense that war is bad. Perhaps escapism.

CNN is my home page so I can catch up on the news when I go online. Across the top you see buttons for US, World, Politics, Entertainment, Sports and so on - no Military! And this in the most powerful nation on earth! Likewise in newspapers - sections for fashion, real estate, finance, sports, comics and so on - but no military. During peacetime, military events are reported in the general news - usually some sex scandal or cost overrun. During war, it's usually about today's casualties. No deep reporting, and experts are shopped - Anthony Cordesman or some retired general.

There is indeed a substantial military history and military science bookshelf for those interested, amounting to literally hundreds of thousands of books, articles and dissertations, but who reads books these days?

War is like a pot quietly simmering on the stove - unwatched until it boils over.

 

[History_Buff]

Surely I'm not the only one who doesn't really think military is all that important. It's certainly key to understand the wars of history, and why they happened, but when I hear military history, I think of the size of armies raised, who commanded them, where they marched, and how individual battles played out. And in the grand scheme of things, most of that can be safely ignored by most folks.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'd speculate about why this is, but most of the speculation would involve various pejoratives and violent epithets.

I'm at a loss as to what is stopping you then...

 

[Dreadnought]

History as a profession started for military and political history. Ever since, the scholars have been alternating between escaping "the tower of Thucydides" and returning to it.

 

[Glassfan]

Surely I'm not the only one who doesn't really think military is all that important. It's certainly key to understand the wars of history, and why they happened, but when I hear military history, I think of the size of armies raised, who commanded them, where they marched, and how individual battles played out. And in the grand scheme of things, most of that can be safely ignored by most folks.

You're certainly not the only one. But a few of us do find it interesting. Especially in the causes and consequences. I suppose it's a matter of taste.

 

[Dachs]

Surely I'm not the only one who doesn't really think military is all that important. It's certainly key to understand the wars of history, and why they happened, but when I hear military history, I think of the size of armies raised, who commanded them, where they marched, and how individual battles played out. And in the grand scheme of things, most of that can be safely ignored by most folks.

Pft. You can say that about anything. And be equally wrong.

Societies in general and states in particular organized themselves almost exclusively around the ability to prosecute warfare for most of human history. It's literally why they existed. Take a look at any of the budget estimates for, say, the Roman Empire; military expenses took up some 90%, give or take a few percentage points. This hardly changed in later years; look at the North German Confederation, for instance, which devoted 98% of its funds to the federal army. (A unique case, to be sure. But still: other nineteenth-century states, like Austria and Russia, devoted the majority of their finances towards their armies, and the British spent a similar proportion on their navy.) Later on, when states assumed alternative functions, war became more 'total' - per the cliche - and its effects became nearly all-pervasive.

Being as polite as possible, I would say that this (relatively) recent notion of warfare being a relatively insignificant part of societal interaction is due to the connotations that the study of warfare implies. If you are willing to research such things, goes the prejudice, you must therefore approve of them. Every American professor of history that I have met who has produced any sort of scholarly work on warfare, especially post-medieval warfare, has felt compelled to make it clear that the study of institutionalized violence does not imply one's endorsement of it: a disclaimer, one would think, well practiced in front of colleagues at department meetings and conferences. (Ironically, more than a few of them actively find their association with military history distasteful, but due to their MA thesis or doctoral dissertation on their advisors' chosen subjects, they have little choice in the matter.)

At least military history has the enduring interest of the pop history market to lean on. Academic economic history doesn't even have that. It's shunned in turn by historians - especially the more doctrinaire Marxists - who think the whole thing to be voodoo, and by nonacademics, who consider the subject to be boring, tedious, and irrelevant. Few economists have the appropriate training to handle the subject, and most would rather deal with modern matters anyway.

I'm at a loss as to what is stopping you then...

The forum rules, and a bottle of bourbon, not in that order.

<==quiet drunk

 

[Yui108]

Surely I'm not the only one who doesn't really think military is all that important. It's certainly key to understand the wars of history, and why they happened, but when I hear military history, I think of the size of armies raised, who commanded them, where they marched, and how individual battles played out. And in the grand scheme of things, most of that can be safely ignored by most folks.

But doesn't that come dangerously close to ignoring the role of contingency in history?

and @dachs, I think the line from Schroeder A History of European Diplomacy 1763-1848 applies when he tells us something to the effect of "and thus here in the mid-18th century we witness a shift in the eternal primary focus of the state from warfare, to trade" (or the economy, can't remember which)

 

[Dachs]

and @dachs, I think the line from Schroeder A History of European Diplomacy 1763-1848 applies when he tells us something to the effect of "and thus here in the mid-18th century we witness a shift in the eternal primary focus of the state from warfare, to trade" (or the economy, can't remember which)

Hmm. Only thing I can find from a few quick scans is "[After 1815,] trade and economic activity became more important in international affairs than ever; the old calculations of state power strictly on the basis of revenues, population, territory, strategic frontiers, and armed forces expanded to include economic and technological development, commerce, natural resources, and political stability." (p. 579) I freely admit, however, that I did not reread the book in toto to find a quote more similar to that one, even though I remember one vaguely like it from before.

 

[History_Buff]

You're certainly not the only one. But a few of us do find it interesting. Especially in the causes and consequences. I suppose it's a matter of taste.

Oh it's certainly interesting. I'm definitely not contesting that.

Pft. You can say that about anything. And be equally wrong.

Societies in general and states in particular organized themselves almost exclusively around the ability to prosecute warfare for most of human history. It's literally why they existed. Take a look at any of the budget estimates for, say, the Roman Empire; military expenses took up some 90%, give or take a few percentage points. This hardly changed in later years; look at the North German Confederation, for instance, which devoted 98% of its funds to the federal army. (A unique case, to be sure. But still: other nineteenth-century states, like Austria and Russia, devoted the majority of their finances towards their armies, and the British spent a similar proportion on their navy.) Later on, when states assumed alternative functions, war became more 'total' - per the cliche - and its effects became nearly all-pervasive.

Well it depends on your definition of military history then. All of the logistics and economics of raising, using and maintaining an army is clearly of critical importance, and quite obviously defines the course of nations.

I was speaking in the much narrower sense of generals marching to and fro, and the specifics of particular campaigns and battles. I suppose it's the difference between amateur and professional historians in their field. For instance, I'd say it's fairly important to know how Octavian won at Actium, as well as why he was fighting there, and how he got there. But I couldn't care less about how he actually fought the battle.

 

[Lord Baal]

But in many cases, how the battle was fought is what determines the direction of the state from that point on. For example, Napoleon's arrival at Toulon led directly to the British withdrawal from that city, as Napoleon issued orders for a realignment of the artillery there, as well as suggesting that a certain hill be occupied. This forced the British to withdraw their fleet to protect it, which led directly to the fall of Toulon to the Revolutionaries.

If Napoleon's suggestions were ignored, Toulon doesn't fall - at least not as quickly - and Napoleon doesn't make his name as a talented young commander. The knock-on effects of that one incident are many and vastly important. And history abounds with battlefield decisions of similar import; Hannibal's less-successful-than-people-think encirclement of the Romans at Cannae, for instance.

 

[Yui108]

Hmm. Only thing I can find from a few quick scans is "[After 1815,] trade and economic activity became more important in international affairs than ever; the old calculations of state power strictly on the basis of revenues, population, territory, strategic frontiers, and armed forces expanded to include economic and technological development, commerce, natural resources, and political stability." (p. 579) I freely admit, however, that I did not reread the book in toto to find a quote more similar to that one, even though I remember one vaguely like it from before.

Yeah I'm gonna comb through it when I get home. Also, it was mid-19th century, my bad.

 

[Dachs]

Well it depends on your definition of military history then. All of the logistics and economics of raising, using and maintaining an army is clearly of critical importance, and quite obviously defines the course of nations.

I was speaking in the much narrower sense of generals marching to and fro, and the specifics of particular campaigns and battles. I suppose it's the difference between amateur and professional historians in their field. For instance, I'd say it's fairly important to know how Octavian won at Actium, as well as why he was fighting there, and how he got there. But I couldn't care less about how he actually fought the battle.

ITT: micro-historians confused with amateur historians

I think that a military historian concerned with the minutiae of the actions of, say, the 2nd US Sharpshooters at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 can absolutely be a "professional" ("professional" and "amateur" aren't really useful distinctions here though). It's hardly a different situation to any micro-historical case study from any other discipline, like an extensive archaeological survey of one ship known to have carried goods down the Rome-Carthage trade spine, or the lives of eighteenth century sheep-herding families in the Ogaden.

Whether you're interested in it or not, the actions taken in a given war, campaign, or battle are important because they create the narrative framework for anything that happens. Institutional studies are meaningless without the narrative. An army may serve many other purposes than war-fighting, but combat has always been their primary focus. (Nobody ever goes out and says, "How can we build a military that can't fight worth a damn?") The fact that, almost invariably, the actions of wars almost always have direct impacts on the lives of many if not most people living in a given state is almost just icing on the cake.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Every American professor of history that I have met who has produced any sort of scholarly work on warfare, especially post-medieval warfare, has felt compelled to make it clear that the study of institutionalized violence does not imply one's endorsement of it: a disclaimer, one would think, well practiced in front of colleagues at department meetings and conferences.

Meh, ideological historians have it worse, in that regard.

 

[Dachs]

Meh, ideological historians have it worse, in that regard.

Perhaps they do! Never actually had to deal with them much, though. I'm not trying to paint some sort of picture of military historians as the most downtrodden group of academia or some such.

 

[History_Buff]

Well, you folks all do make pretty convincing arguments. I suppose I've been affected too heavily with Paradox Interactive's simplistic warfare models, where the only thing that really matters is who gets assigned Win/Loss.

 

[North King]

Actually, History_Buff, I'd tend to agree with you, with the caveat that sure, military history is quite important in the history of states, but that in the history of societies or populations or whatever else have you, it's not the be-all and end-all. The deemphasis of military history stems from the deemphasis on state-centered or politically-centered histories in general.

And while to focus exclusively or even primarily on non-state actors is not inherently a Good Thing, it is a very valid and extremely useful tool of history, especially given the state-centric view that pervaded the literature for a very long time.

 

[Glassfan]

... Every American professor of history that I have met who has produced any sort of scholarly work on warfare, especially post-medieval warfare, has felt compelled to make it clear that the study of institutionalized violence does not imply one's endorsement of it: a disclaimer, one would think, well practiced in front of colleagues at department meetings and conferences.

I've seen this myself. I was even directed away from my intended thesis topic. As if, by studying medicine, colleagues might think one approves of disease.

But while Military History might be distasteful to a Western audience, it is yet crucial, since we continue to engage in war.

War, as a the continuance of policy by other means (CvC), would seem to have a greater effect than mere politics. A state can pass a law, it can try to improve its' economics, may adopt new technology, establish "Rights" - but if it's invaded, conquered and pillaged, all it's accomplishments are flushed down the toilet. And it will have failed in it's most important function, the defense of its' people.

Let's see - I must study politics and war so that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy (JA).