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Espionage, Counterintelligence, and Naval Observation in the Middle of the Atlantic: A Case Study of US Intelligence in the Canary Islands (1939–1945) War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Marta García Cabrera
From 1939 to 1945, the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands became an alternative battleground for the intelligence services of the warring powers. US intelligence operated through diplomatic, military, and strategic channels such as consulates, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Office of Strategic Services. The archipelago was integrated into the US intelligence network in Spain but was
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Know Thy Enemy and Know Yourself – The Role of Operational Data in Managing the Mines and Booby Trap Threat in Vietnam, 1965–73 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Roland Evans, Tracey Temple, Liz Nelson
Victim operated explosive devices (VOEDs) such as mines and booby traps, have been an enduring problem since their large-scale use started in the 1940s. While the overall problem is often known about in general terms, the real complexion of the problem was not necessarily fully appreciated. Eventually the need to understand the problem and the response to it was partially identified and acted upon
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The Transformation of Cattle Feet to Torpedo Oil: A Case Study in Nazi German Wartime Recycling War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-05-07 Chad B. Denton
In January 1940, the Wehrmacht had only a two-month supply of torpedo oil, an irreplaceable lubricant derived solely from the feet and shinbones of slaughtered cattle. The Wehrmacht resolved this s...
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The Emergence of Maritime Polity in Goa (Tenth Century to Fifteenth Century CE ) War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-04-11 Nagendra Rao
Scholars, who studied the nature of the Goa Kadamba polity, did not comprehend the fact that the Goa Kadambas exhibited the features of not only coastal polity but also maritime polity. At the same...
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Crucial but Overlooked: The Italian Naval Contribution to the Conquest of Sevastopol War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-03-29 Massimiliano Fiore
Axis land forces overran most of the Crimea in October 1941, but were unable to capture Sevastopol. Realizing that sea power was now necessary, Hitler ordered that light boats be transferred to the...
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A Single Imperial Army? The Development of Australian Army Staff Training in an Imperial Context, 1919–19391 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-03-07 Iain Farquharson
This article examines the development of Australian staff training across the interwar period. Focussing on the establishment of the Australian Command and Staff School in Sydney in 1938, this arti...
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“Extremely Depressed with a Hopeless Outlook”: The Experiences of Psychologically Traumatized Nursing Sisters During and After the First World War War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-03-05 Lyndsay Rosenthal
During the First World War, 2,845 women served as nursing sisters with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Although the majority of those who enlisted had pre-war training, these experiences did not p...
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‘Enough to be Seen to be Onside but Hardly Substantial?’: RAF Bomber Command and Operation Husky War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-02-14 Richard J. Worrall
This article considers the operations of RAF Bomber Command in support of Operation Husky. Earmarked to play a considerable supporting role, the piece goes on to examine how valid operational diffi...
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Improvising Language Capability: The British Army's Corps of Interpreters, 1914–1915 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2023-01-18 Jim Beach, James Bruce
This article examines the British army's short-lived Corps of Interpreters on the Western Front during the early stages of the First World War. It begins by establishing a benchmark for the regular...
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‘First Essentials of Survival’: Ensuring the Support and Compliance of Civilians in the Guerrilla Conflict with Japan on Panay, 1942–1945 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-12-05 Kelly Maddox
This article offers a detailed examination of the strategies employed by the resistance leadership in Panay to mobilize and, if necessary, coerce civilians into supporting them in their guerrilla c...
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Absence, Agency and Empire: Desertion from the French Army During the First World War War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-12-05 Claire Eldridge
An estimated 66,678 men deserted from the French Army between 1914 and 1918. Using conseil de guerre (military tribunal) evidence, including interviews with captured deserters, this article shifts ...
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Managing Emergencies for the Safeguarding of Cities of Art in Corrado Ricci's Correspondence: Ravenna, ‘Open City’ without Air Defences (1916–1918) War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-09-25 Eleonora Maria Stella
This paper intends to examine 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 ...
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Enslaved by the Uniform: Contemporary Descriptions of Eighteenth-Century Soldiering War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-07-18 Jennine Hurl-Eamon
A wide variety of eighteenth-century authors made comparisons to soldiering and slavery in newspapers, pamphlets and books. The analogy tended to be applied to highlight the lack of personal autono...
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Two Weeks in Summer Soldiers and Others in Occupied Hesse-Kassel, 14–28 July 1625 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-07-11 Lucian Staiano-Daniels
The occupation of Hesse-Kassel during the Thirty Years War has been discussed by historians like John Thiebault. This paper revisits this topic with an analysis of letters exchanged between ordinar...
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Rethinking Lines of Operations: Jomini's Contribution to the Conceptualization of Strategy in the Early 19th Century War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-07-06 Ami-Jacques Rapin
The changes in the conduct of military operations during the wars of the French Revolution were the basis for the theory of lines of operation formulated by Jomini in his Traité de grande tactique....
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French Military and Civil Deployment in Ottoman Istanbul During the Crimean War (1853–1856) War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-06-13 Saltuk Duran
Based mainly on original French archival sources, this paper discusses the conduct and extent of French military and civil activities in Ottoman Istanbul during the Crimean War. Using both qualitative and quantitative indicators, the paper shows how the necessities generated by the war, promoted an unprecedented growth in the French military and civil presence in Istanbul. Through this approach, the
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Britain and the Protection of the Gulf During the Second World War: The Ad hoc Defence of a Peripheral Theatre War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-06-12 Ash Rossiter, Athol Yates
The Gulf, a little-studied theatre of the Second World War, grew in importance to the area's leading power, Britain, as well as the Allies, as war progressed. All three Axis powers at one time or another tested Britain's ability to discharge its defence obligations, which included the protection of tiny Arab shaikhdoms and guarding nearby waters. With Britain's strategic imperatives lying elsewhere
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The Representation of the Rhodesian Security Forces in the Propaganda of ZANU and ZAPU, 1965–1980 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-06-06 Hugh Pattenden
This article considers in detail the ways in which ZANU and ZAPU sought to present the Rhodesian Security Forces in their propaganda during the UDI period. The Rhodesian Bush War was fought as much in the arena of public opinion as it was on the battlefield, a fact not lost on the guerrilla forces, who sought to delegitimize the RSF in a variety of ways. It argues that ZANU and ZAPU had to balance
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Clausewitz and the Personality Characteristics of the Battlefield Commander in British and German Military Doctrine, 1918–1941 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-05-18 Martin Samuels
Even after the First World War, the British and German armies remained strongly influenced by Clausewitz, for whom personality rather than mass was the best means to reduce friction. This article explores how this was reflected in their military doctrine between the two world wars. The German regulations showed a clear alignment with Clausewitz's thinking. The British tended to focus on the characteristics
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Discussing Maritime Defence Programmes During the Interwar Period: Argentine Navy Officers and the Lessons of the First World War (1919-1924) War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-05-18 Agustín Daniel Desiderato
This article focuses on the Argentine Navy’s situation during the years after the Great War. It explores some of the issues discussed within the institution and their connection to the national and international political context of the time. The technological backwardness and material obsolescence of the Navy was the focus of criticisms and claims made by some of its officers. The experience of the
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A War of Information: Spanish Naval Intelligence During the American Revolutionary War (1775–83) War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Pablo Ortega-del-Cerro
Early-Modern war absorbed large material resources, including manpower, warships, guns, ammunition and supplies, but there was one key element of warfare that was quite immaterial: information. This article analyses Spanish naval intelligence and deals with the production, collection, and management of information within and through the navy. To examine this complex issue this paper will focus on the
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Massacre at Tambach: American War Criminals and the Limits of Military Justice, 1945 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Benjamin M. Schneider
In April of 1945, members of the U.S. army massacred twenty unarmed prisoners near Tambach, Germany. This paper examines the army's response, and why despite abundant evidence and multiple confessions the military justice system failed to convict anyone for the crime. The system faltered due to an incomplete shift in the nature of military justice, one that sought to turn it from a disciplinary tool
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The trench of death: What’s in a name, 1914-1918 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Jan Van der Fraenen
During the Great War, hundreds of kilometres of trenches were indicated on maps. The names are extremely diverse and some of them can be more easily explained than others. The name of the most famous Belgian trench, the Trench of Death, has never been examined. It is generally accepted that the name reflects the large number of lives lost in the trench. Research reveals that the name appeared in June
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‘Moral Factors’ in British military thought and doctrine, 1856–1899 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Martin Samuels
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the introduction of new weaponry dramatically changed the balance between moral factors and technology on the battlefield. Yet, this shift was widely met by a renewed emphasis on the importance of the human element. This article explores the development of thinking on this issue in the British Army during the period from 1856 to 1899. This reveals three
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Franco-British military co-operation in the Great Gas War 1915-1918 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Hanene Zoghlami
Because the Anglophone historiography has tended to marginalize the French contribution to the allied chemical war during the Great War 1914-1918, this study has attempted to re-balance the historical narrative by emphasizing the collective nature and importance of this joint Franco-British enterprise. By interrogating a raft of under-utilized primary evidence in the French and British archives, elements
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‘Fuzzy Wuzzy’ soldiers: Race and Papua New Guinean soldiers in the Australian Army, 1940–60 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Tristan Moss
This article examines the most militarily important indigenous units formed by Australia, arguing that racially based assumptions played a central role in how Papua New Guinean soldiers were conceptualized and used by the Australian Army during the 1940s and 1950s. Equally, while the perception of Papua New Guinean soldiers was heavily racialized, there was no construction of a martial race myth by
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‘A kind of useless man’? An evaluation of AIF cooks and cookery, 1914–1918 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Daniel Reynaud, Emanuela Reynaud
While the Australian Imperial Force of 1914–1918 experienced a significant shift from amateurism to professionalism over the course of the war in most areas, one crucial role not yet examined in the literature on the Australian Imperial Force is that of army cook. This article argues that their role was not taken sufficiently seriously during the Great War, leaving them effectively still amateurs at
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‘The termination of the long immunity from air raids’: The bombing of Berlin under Operation Tannenberg, August 1942–March 1943 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Richard John Worrall
Arthur Harris infamously pursued the Battle of Berlin in winter 1943/1944 in the face of an increasingly sceptical Air Staff and a disinterested prime minister. The irony was that originally the C-in-C Bomber Command was lukewarm about bombing Berlin. Instead, it was Churchill who continually pressed for attacking the German Capital under Operation Tannenberg, which went ahead in mid-January 1943,
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Book Review: Another Kind of War: The Nature and History of Terrorism by John A. Lynn II War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Silke Zoller
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Book Review: The 1945 Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army by Raymond A. Callahan and Daniel Marston War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Alexander Wilson
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Book Review: France’s Wars in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa by Nathaniel K. Powell War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Roel Van Der Velde
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Book Review: Strange Allies: Britain, France and the Dilemmas of Disarmament and Security, 1929–1933 by Andrew Webster War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Joseph Maiolo
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Book Review: The United States Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775–1903 by Robert Wooster War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Wayne E. Lee
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Book Review: Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present by Donald Stoker War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 William Thomas Allison
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Book Review: Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Evan Mawdsley
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Book Review: Rough Draft: Cold War Military Manpower Policy and the Origins of Vietnam-Era Draft Resistance by Amy J. Rutenberg War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Megan Threlkeld
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Book Review: Divided Armies: Inequality & Battlefield Performance in Modern War by Jason Lyall War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Patrick Finnegan
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Book Review: British Battles 493–937. Mount Badon to Brunanburh by Andrew Breeze War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Guy Halsall
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Book Review: The EOKA Cause. Nationalism and the Failure of Cypriot Enosis by Andrew R. Novo War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 David French
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The Navy and Newport News: A Case Study of a Monopoly-Monopsony Duet War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-03-11 David Ress
The U.S. Navy and Newport News Shipbuilding have between them created an unusual – probably unique – monopoly-monopsony duet, in this case for construction and refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers. Monopoly-monopsony dynamics captured a modest amount of theoretical attention, beginning with Francis Y. Edgeworth in the late 19th century. These analyses generally agreed such markets required a kind
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‘Mass Anywhere on Sea or Land’: Catholicism and the Royal Navy, 1901–1906 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-24 Matthew S. Seligmann
Before the First World War, the law stated that only Anglican clergy could perform religious services aboard British warships; clergy of other denominations were, other than in exceptional circumstances, barred from undertaking this role. For a brief period at the start of the twentieth century an informal and unpublicized attempt was made to circumvent this requirement and provide Catholic sailors
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Dennis Showalter and the study of the First World War War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Michael Neiberg
Dennis Showalter’s influence on the scholarship of the First World War is unmatched among American historians. His work is especially important for two reasons. First, it studies the German Army using primary sources and original research, a particularly valuable contribution given the mythic and just plain false associations that many amateur scholars place on the German military. Second, Dennis’s
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Dennis Showalter and the history of armour during Second World War War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Kaushik Roy
Whenever one thinks of the World War II, the image of dark menacing panzers cutting deep swathes into enemy forces comes up to the mind. No amount of interpretation and overinterpretation can belittle the extraordinary role-played by the panzers in World War II. Similarly, despite the presence of numerous good works by various historians and introduction of exotic methodologies, Professor Dennis Showalter’s
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A transitory phenomenon: German commanders and chiefs of staff, 1866–1918 War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Richard L DiNardo
This article examines the relationship between commanders and chiefs of staff during the period of the Wars of German Unification and the entirety of the Kaiserreich. The practice of pairing up a commander and a chief of staff was one that was specific to Germany. Traditional scholarship holds that in many cases, it was really the chief of staff who did all the thinking, while the commander was nothing
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Scharnhorst and Showalter: A tale of two enlightened scholars War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Charles E White
Gerhard von Scharnhorst was the intellectual father of the Prussian and later German armies. Professor Dennis E. Showalter was a noted scholar of German, American, and military history. Both mentored countless students and authored a number of seminal works in military history. Both demonstrated the enduring importance of military history in the minds of policy makers, military personnel, and the public
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Introduction to special issue honouring Dennis Showalter War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Mary Kathryn Barbie
This volume is dedicated to Dennis Showalter – scholar, mentor, and friend. Along with Hew Strachan, Dennis created War in History, a journal that has become one of the leading journals to publish articles related to all aspects of conflict. A renowned scholar, Dennis made his mark on the profession and had an impact on countless students – undergraduates at Colorado College, where he taught for 47
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Where does theory go in military history? War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Jeremy Black
This article presents a critique of Whiggish approaches to military history. It begins with this quotation from Dennis Showalter – ‘military history is arguably the last stronghold of what historiographers call the “Whig interpretation”’ – and notes that Showalter’s assessment was a reflection on both the general absence of theory and the linked poverty of the fallback theoretical basket of the subject
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Operation Devon, Termoli 1943: ‘A catalogue of errors’? War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Amy Muschamp
The little-known World War II battle for Termoli, code named Operation Devon, took place in early October 1943 and began with the only Allied amphibious landing on Italy’s Adriatic coast. It was a joint operation between newly formed elite groups and regular units of the Allied armed forces. A brigade made up of two units of commandos and the 1st Special Air Service, known during this operation as
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Book Review: Full Spectrum Dominance: Irregular Warfare and the War on Terror by Maria Ryan War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Christian Tripodi
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Book Review: Rethinking American Grand Strategy by Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 S.C.M. Paine
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Book Review: Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century by Anthony King War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Jonathan Boff
groups or deprive more established elements their freedom of operation. Almost inevitably the seductive promises offered by this turn to irregular warfare remained largely illusory. In the southern Philippines, the conflation of the local Islamic extremist Abu Sayaf Group (ASG) with a broader Al-Qaeda-inspired global insurgency obscured the far more relevant and parochial explanation of a lengthy tradition
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Book Review: India, Empire and First World War Culture by Santanu Das War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Gavin Rand
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Book Review: The Zulu-Boer War, 1837-40 by Michał Leśniewski War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Ian F. W. Beckett
choices are costly, so the absolute costs are no criticism, only the relative costs, requiring a counterfactual analysis of the alternatives. The chapters offer competing definitions of grand strategy. Here is mine: the grandness of the strategy comes not from the scale of the project, the greatness of purpose or a country’s size, but from the multiplicity of instruments integrated to achieve intended
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Book Review: Allied Communication to the Public during the Second World War by Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Marta García Cabrera
by coincidence, connected to one or more of the others. The lack of a clear and explicit overarching train of thought underscores the fragmented nature and complexity of the topic, but it might also leave a less academically inclined reader puzzled as to the book’s message. In a similar vein, the term ‘total war’ in the title appears to be little more than a catchphrase. The book could have achieved
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Book Review: Total War: An Emotional History by Claire Langhamer, Lucy Noakes, and Claudia Siebrecht War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Birgit Schneider
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Transnational Soldiers vs Resistance National Accounts: The Legend of la Nueve and the “Spanish” Liberation of Paris War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2021-12-13 Diego Gaspar Celaya
The reconstruction of the History of the Resistance in France, the memories of former combatants and their relatives, and an important culture industry have all been developed within a national context, thereby hiding the transnational character of this resistance over the years. This paper shows first how the French State came to “Frenchify” this Resistance and, decades later, civil society and that
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Homeward bound: mapping Clandestine transportation into France during the Second World War War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2021-11-25 David Arthur Foulk
The defeat of France in June 1940 came as a ‘violent shock to many hundreds of thousands of French men and women’.1 According to Maurice Buckmaster, the head of the Special Operations Executive ‘F’ Section, one of the two branches of S.O.E. who were involved in organising clandestine operations in France, the shock gave way to resentment and bitterness which evolved to become acts of sabotage, propaganda
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Book Review: The Coolie's Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict, 1914-1921 by Radhika Singha War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Kate Imy
specifically British approach to war, one rooted in her particular geography, culture, and strategy. This notion of a ‘British way in warfare’ has most commonly been associated with theorists of maritime warfare, or at least those who viewed seapower as fundamental to British strategic thought. In a series of much less well-known contributions, Callwell also intervened in this area, promulgating a
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Book Review: The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire by A. Wess Mitchell War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 John Scott
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Book Review: Environmental Histories of the First World War by Richard P. Tucker, Tait Keller, J.R. McNeill, and Martin Schmid War in History (IF 0.171) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Alex Souchen
in a book acceptable to a modern publisher, means that the elaboration of some of the ideas and motivations for key actors is not developed as much as some might like. History is about people and if the fullness and richness of those people and their interactions is not present something is lost in a discourse concerning race and culture. This issue regarding development of key and ancillary actors