This edited volume critically assesses emerging trends in contemporary warfare and international interventionism as exemplified by the 'local turn' in counterinsurgent warfare. It asks how contemporary counterinsurgency approaches work and are legitimized; what concrete effects they have within local settings, and what the implications are for how we can understand the means and ends of war and peace in our post 9/11 world. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding recent changes in global liberal governance as well as the growing convergence of military and seemingly non-military domains, discourses and practices in the contemporary making of global political order.

With an Introduction by Angus Calder. As Angus Calder states in his introduction to this edition, 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom is one of the major statements about the fighting experience of the First World War'. Lawrence's younger brothers, Frank and Will, had been killed on the Western Front in 1915. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, written between 1919 and 1926, tells of the vastly different campaign against the Turks in the Middle East - one which encompasses gross acts of cruelty and revenge and ends in a welter of stink and corpses in the disgusting 'hospital' in Damascus. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is no Boys Own Paper tale of Imperial triumph, but a complex work of high literary aspiration which stands in the tradition of Melville and Dostoevsky, and alongside the writings of Yeats, Eliot and Joyce.

The mechanized infantry is one of the least-studied components of the U.S. Army's combat arms, and its most visable piece of equipment, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, is one of the military's most controversial pieces of equipment. This study traces the idea of mechanized infantry from its roots in the early armored operations of World War I, through its fruition in World War II, to its drastic transformation in response to the threat of a nuclear, biological, and chemical battlefield. The U.S. Army's doctrinal migration from the idea of specialized "armored infantry" to that of more generalized "mechanized infantry" led to problematic consequences in training and equipping the force. Haworth explores the origins, conduct, and outcome of the Bradley controversy, along with its implications for Army institutional cultures, force designs, and doctrines. Challenging traditional partisan views of the Bradley program, Haworth goes to the roots of the issue. The author details the mechanized infantry's problematic status in the Army's traditional division of roles and missions between its Infantry and Armored branches. While new conditions demand new equipment, old institutions and current commitments inevitably complicate matters; thus, traditional infantry considerations have driven the Bradley's requirements. The raw capability of the vehicle and the fortitude and ingenuity of its users have to some extent compensated for the conflicting pressures in its design. However, the reluctance of the Army to see mechanized infantry as a specialty has led to the problem the vehicle has faced, as this book clearly shows.

For Karl Strecker the defeat at Stalingrad and his subsequent captivity were the climax of a lifetime of political and military frustration. At an early age Strecker dedicated his life to the service of his country, but during his lifetime his country underwent so many political changes that he often had trouble understanding what or whom he was serving. Strecker often found himself applying his hard-earned military skills in an undeclared civil war and in the successive world wars that destroyed German military power and ultimately led to a politically divided Germany. The battle of Stalingrad serves as the focal point of this story because, for Strecker, it represented the height of military futility.

For more than one hundred twenty-five years virtually every history book in print has contended that no white man survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Custer made his famous "last stand." This book provides compelling proof that at least one member of the Seventh Cavalry, a man named William Heath, did indeed escape. In this intriguing analysis of hitherto neglected historical documents, Vincent J. Genovese provides verifiable evidence that dispels the long-held myth that none of Custer's soldiers survived the massacre that took place in Montana on June 25, 1876.
Genovese chronicles the life of this "Lazarus of the Little Bighorn," who joined the army at age 27 after fleeing from Pennsylvania under threats on his life. Documents show that Billy Heath lived in a small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania and that he enlisted in the Seventh Cavalry in 1875, not long before the fateful battle. Further, U.S. Army records verify that he was one of the soldiers at the Little Bighorn. His name also appears on a list of those killed in action and is inscribed on the official monument that stands at the battle site.
What makes Genovese's contribution to the history of this famous event so interesting are public records that he here introduces, which show indisputably that William Heath lived on for fourteen more years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Birth records from his hometown in Schuylkill County, PA, indicate that he fathered seven children before dying in obscurity. His gravestone still exists in the local cemetery.
This is a unique and fascinating re-evaluation of a storied event in American history, which will surely provoke controversy.

This story is an account of the Santiago, Cuba, land campaign of the Spanish-American War, as conducted by General William R. Shafter's Fifth Army Corps. The narrative is based on firsthand information gathered from handwritten diaries, memoirs, and regimental and company histories of the men who participated in the campaign. These chronicles of frontline action paint an entirely different picture of what has been called "The Splendid Little War." The opponent, far from being the cowardly Spanish soldier of myth, is revealed to be a courageous, resourceful foe. Furthermore, the attack on the outer defenses of Santiago was totally mismanaged by William Shafter, the American General in command, and his incompetent staff. Only the U.S. Navy's victory over the Spanish squadron on July 3, 1898, rescued the army from disaster.

The functions of staff officers in U.S. military history have been largely ignored by historians who have preferred to focus on the role of the combat officer. This examination of the career of General Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his valuable contribution to Allied success, represents an effort to fill a void in the current historiography of U.S. participation in Europe in World War II. While specifically looking at Smith's military career from his entry into the Indiana National Guard on his sixteenth birthday to his retirement from the U.S. Army as a four-star general 39 years later, the volume is also a general investigation of the role of Chief of Staff and a critical study of the interwar U.S. Army and its participation in the campaigns of the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe during World War II. The institutional and attitudinal structure that produced the generation of American officers that commanded armies and manned higher headquarters is thoroughly evaluated in this volume. D.K.R. Crosswell concludes that the normative influences of the Army's advance schools conditioned the U.S. approach to war in Europe: Eisenhower and Smith's broad front strategy is seen as a product of their Leavenworth educations. Smith's relationships with Eisenhower and George C. Marshall are also seen as important formative influences.

Despite a paucity of personal papers and no prior book on Smith, Crosswell had access to a wealth of primary materials in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas and the resources of the Combat Studies Library at the Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth, Kansas. Substantial collections of materials at the federal research facilities in Washington, the U.S. Army Military History Institute holdings in Carlisle Barracks, Pa., and the George C. Marshall Library in Lexington, Va., were consulted. Personal interviews with surviving World War II officers and an examination of British sources were conducted to give the most complete picture of Smith to date. "The Chief of Staff" is divided into four major sections: Bedell Smith and Officership in the U.S. Army, 1917-1939; The Towering Figure: George C. Marshall; The First Campaign: The Mediterranean; Northwest Europe, and an epilogue which covers Smith's post-Army years. The 14 chapters present Smith as perhaps the best example of the World War II military manager. He emerges from these pages as a central figure of the period and his contributions within the Allied sphere proved fundamental to eventual battlefield success. Seven maps of World War II major theaters of operation from Morocco to Normandy and never-before-published archival photographs are included. Military history and World War II buffs won't want to miss this splendid read which will also appeal to academic military historians, libraries and research facilities, as well as current and retired military officers. The book is ideal supplemental reading for courses in U.S. military history.

Drawing on unique first-hand data from Russia's North Caucasus, this study is the first of its kind to detail the causes and contexts of individual disengagement of various types of militants: avengers, nationalists, and jihadists. It aims to considerably enhance our theoretical understanding of individual militants' incentives to abandon violence.

This is a systematic, comparative attitudinal study of the Soviet fighting man. The author interviewed emigre ex-Soviet servicemen from all branches and of all ranks to determine their feelings about their military experience. Each of the three major sections of the work addresses one branch of the service, detailing the answers of respondents to eighty-one questions. The resulting sets of data are divided into twelve categories dealing with various aspects of military service in the Soviet Union: general views of military service, military life, combat ability, training, quality of officers and NCOs, leadership, morale and discipline, ideology, unit cohesion, desertion and AWOL, alcohol use, and suicide. Gabriel's conclusions, as well as the data he presents, answer critical questions about Soviet military effectiveness and encourage further analysis of the psychology of the Soviet fighting man.

The front-line soldiers of the First World War endured appalling conditions in the trenches and suffered unprecedented slaughter in battle. Their morale, as much as the strategy of their commanders, played the crucial part in determining the outcome of `the war to end all wars'. J. G. Fuller examines the experience of the soldiers of the British and Dominion armies. How did the troops regard their plight? What did they think they were fighting for? Dr Fuller draws on a variety of contemporary sources, including over a hundred magazines produced by the soldiers themselves. This is the first scholarly analysis of the trench journalism which played an important role in the lives of the ordinary soldiers. Other themes explored include the nature of patriotism, discipline, living conditions, and leisure activities such as sport, concert parties, and the music hall. Dr Fuller's vivid and detailed study throws new light on the question of warfare, and in particular how the British and Dominion armies differed from those of their allies and opponents, which were wracked by mutiny or defeat as the war went on.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an extraordinary military leader and one of the most controversial figures in American history. An enormous amout of literature has accumulated about his career, which spanned most of the 20th century. General MacArthur is the subject of this first comprehensive assessment and survey of all of the writings by ad about him. Publication coincides and reflects the formal commemoration of the 50th anniversary of World War II. A short biographical essay and chronology set the stage for the historiographical critique, which is organized topically and into different time periods. This extensive historiographical narrative is cross-referenced to the annotated bibliography of 759 published and unpublished sources, both academic and popular, including film and fiction. Author and subject indexes complete the volume. This guide to the literature on MacArthur describes archival collections and research facilities; points to conflicting interpretations about the role of General MacArthur as Chief of Staff of the Army, in World War II, in the occupation of Japan, in the Korean War, and in the sensational recall from his position as Far Eastern Commander in 1951; and suggests areas for further research. The historiographical narrative and annotated bibliography cover the career of the general from his earliest years to his death in 1964. This easy-to-use research tool is designed for students, scholars, and readers at all levels; for use by all those concerned with recent U.S. and world history; and for special commemorations of World War II.

In a compact guide to essential sources, this bibliography covers the Soviet armed forces from the birth of the Red Army and the origins of the Soviet military system to the demise of the Soviet Union. The authors have selected over 1,400 titles that accommodate both wider interests and those of the specialist. Taking accessibility into account, they have provided a wealth of information on sources available in the West.

The bibliography opens with a section on reference sources and the imperial antecedents to the Soviet system. Part Two includes chapters on the Revolution and Civil War, the period from 1922-1940, and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. In the concluding section, the authors cover the postwar period. The final chapter, Breakthrough Books, includes those works that have radically influenced the perception and discussion of Soviet military affairs.

Kaufman examines the training and status of British military surgeons during the late 18th and 19th centuries. Their management of the sick and wounded during the wars with France leading up to and including the Peninsular War is also described. He concludes with an analysis of the medical problems associated with the Crimean War.

Using important contemporary texts, Kaufman describes the personalities who served in the British Army Medical Department during the late 18th and 19th centuries, when diseases caused a much higher mortality than injuries sustained in battle. Many military surgeons were only poorly trained, and the management of the sick and wounded only gradually improved over this period despite significant advances in medicine, surgery, and hygene. Government spending cuts after the Peninsular War greatly depleted the medical service of the army so that by the time of the Crimean War it was unable to cope with a European-style war. Deficiencies were recognized and, in the case of the medical services, this led to the establishment of the Army Medical School in 1860. This analysis should be of particular interest to serving military medical officers and to historians and other researchers interested in the management of 18th and 19th century armies in times of peace and war.

This illuminating study provides a unifying framework for understanding the daily lives of British soldiers past and present.How different were the men who fought at Blenheim and at Goose Green? Is there a human thread that connects the redcoat of 300 years ago with the British soldier today? What would they find in common if they found a shared foe?This book focuses on the people who make up the British Army and the very human interactions between them in their daily lives. It marries the academic disciplines of Social Anthropology and Military History to provide a novel way of looking at the anatomy of the army at unit level from an entirely human perspective. Concentrating on the attitudes, expectations and concerns expressed by the people involved, it sets out a social model of life at regimental duty that can be used to describe, analyze and explain their behaviours over the past 300 years.The book is grounded in what soldiers of all ranks have said, using the author's research interview material for the modern witnesses and memoirs, diaries and letters for earlier ones. These first-hand statements are analyzed using techniques from Social Anthropology and the emerging patterns are captured in the model."Birmingham War Studies" ("BWS") is a series of works of original historical research in the area of History and War Studies. The works will cover all aspects of war studies from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the present day.

The Rainbow Division (42nd Infantry Division) was the premier National Guard division to fight on the Western Front in the Great War. Made up of units from 26 states and the District of Columbia, the Rainbow was a unique attempt to combine units from every section of the nation and to get them to France as quickly as possible. The Rainbow arrived in France in December 1917, and served in every major battle the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) participated in. After the end of the war in November 1918, the Rainbow was selected to serve in the Army of Occupation, remaining in Germany until the spring of 1919. The division counted in its leadership Douglas MacArthur, William J. Wild Bill Donovan (later known for his service as the head of the OSS in World War II and for founding the CIA), soldier-poet Joyce Kilmer, Father Francis P. Duffy, plus future secretaries of the Army and the Air Force and two who would become Army Chiefs of Staff. George S. Patton's tanks supported The Rainbow Division during the St. Mihiel operations, the first time the legendary Patton planned for the use of tanks on the battlefield.

When the United States entered the Great War in April of 1917, there were few officers with any staff training, and none had actually served on large, complex staffs in combat. This work traces the development of the staff of the AEF and describes how Pershing found the generals to command those divisions that fought on the Western Front in World War I. Many of Pershing's generals had been colonels only a few months prior to assuming command of divisions. John J. Pershing's task was to mold a diverse group of men into effective staff officers and into general officers to face the rigors of modern combat. How he accomplished this task, and how well the AEF did, is the focus of this work on the AEF's command and staff structure.

Alarming levels of fear and suspicion developed in Australia following the German victories in Europe of 1940. It was believed the Nazis had prepared an army of subversives a Fifth Column to undermine the war effort. These suspicions plagued the Australian home front for much of the war.

Since the Revolution, Americans have debated what action the military should take toward civilians suspected of espionage, treason, or revolutionary activity. This important book-the first to present a comprehensive history of military surveillance in the United States-traces the evolution of America's internal security policy during the past two hundred years. Joan M. Jensen discusses how the federal government has used the army to intervene in domestic crises and how Americans have protested the violation of civil liberties and applied political pressure to limit military intervention in civil disputes. Although movements to expand and to constrain the military have each dominated during different periods in American history, says Jensen, the involvement of the army in internal security has increased steadily. Jensen describes a wide range of events and individuals connected to this process. These include Benedict Arnold's betrayal of West Point; the colonial wars in Cuba, where Lt. Andrew Rowan, the nation's first officer spy, won a medal for carrying a "Message for Garcia"; the development of "War Plans White" in the 1920s to guide the army's response in the event of domestic rebellion; the activities of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI in the 1950s and 1960s; the use of the National Guard in the South at the height of the civil rights movement; and the surveillance of and violence against protesters during the Vietnam War. Scrutinizing the historic workings of the American government at closer range than has ever been done before, Jensen creates a vivid picture of the growing invisible intelligence empire within the United States government and of the men who created it.

This book explores the ways in which democracies can win counterinsurgencies when they implement a proper strategy. At a time when the USA is retrenching from two bungled foreign wars that involved deadly insurgent uprisings, this is a particularly important argument. Succumbing to the trauma of those engagements and drawing the wrong conclusions about counterinsurgency can only lead to further defeat in the future. Rather than assuming that counterinsurgency is ineffective, it is crucial to understand that a conventional response to an insurgent challenge is likely to fail. Counterinsurgency must be applied from the beginning, and if done properly can be highly effective, even when used by democratic regimes. In fact, because such regimes are often wealthier; have more experience at institution-building and functional governance; are more pluralistic in nature and therefore enjoy higher levels of legitimacy than do autocracies, democracies may have considerable advantages in counterinsurgency warfare. Rather than give up in despair, democracies should learn to leverage these advantages and implement them against future insurgencies.

This reference book by a well-known historian is the very first to give a short history of the development of the field artillery from the Middle Ages to the present, along with biographical profiles of leading figures, and bibliographical essays about the most important writings on the subject. Dastrup defines the evolution of this combat force and weapons system in terms of technology, organization, tactics, and doctrine. This volume is designed for academic and professional library reference sections and for use in courses in military history and military technology. This guide is suitable for reference and text purposes, and made accessible for varied uses through internal cross-referencing, appendices, and a well-framed general index.

This is the story of the early struggles of an ill-equipped ragtag French force, among the first to pledge its loyalty to General de Gaulle. It fought a lonely, almost secret war against the numerically superior Italian troops deep in the wildest parts of the Sahara, hundreds of miles from the main campaigns along the African coast. These daring Free French raids with their long thirsty treks and small-scale oasis battles have been nearly forgotten, although their path is marked by the graves of many hundreds of French, Italian, and native soldiers. Bimberg details the exotic units that participated in this struggle, including the "Tirailleurs Senegalaise du T'chad" (African Infantry), the "Compagnies Sahariennes" (Saharan Camel Companies), and "the Groupe Nomade du Tibesti" (a tribal militia recruited in the Tibesti Mountain region of the great desert).

Despite antiquated equipment and some of the world's worst terrain, the Free French were among the most dedicated soldiers in the Allied camp. The backdrop to their fierce fighting includes the barely surveyed Tibesti Mountains with their 10,000 foot volcanic peaks, interspersed with treacherous shifting sands--terrain which would prove to be an enormous challenge to the worn out, patched-together motor vehicles of the Free French. Much of the action takes place in the most remote areas of Italian Libya, the desert province of Fezzan with its fortified oases of Mourzouk and Koufra, each strongly defended by the Italians. While these skirmishes were a sideshow to the epic battles of North Africa, they were immortalized by heroic acts by the French and African troops alike, efforts that ultimately led to success in this far corner of the world.

In April 1861, Dick and Tally Simpson, sons of South Carolina Congressman Richard F. Simpson, enlisted in Company A of the Third South Carolina Volunteers of the Confederate army. Their letters home--published here for the first time--read like a historical novel, complete with plot, romance, character, suspense, and tragedy. In their last year of college when the war broke out, Dick and Tally were hastily handed their diplomas so they could volunteer for military duty. Dick was twenty; Tally was twenty-two.
Well educated, intelligent, and thoughtful young men, Dick and Tally cared deeply for their country, their family, and their comrades-in-arms and wrote frequently to their loved ones in Pendleton, South Carolina, offering firsthand accounts of dramatic events from the battle of First Manassas in July 1861 to the battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. Their letters provide a picture of war as it was actually experienced at the time, not as it was remembered some twenty or thirty years later. It is a picture that neither glorifies war nor condemns it, but simply "tells it like it is." Written to a number of different people, the boys' letters home dealt with a number of different subjects. Letters to "Pa" went into great detail about military matters in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--troop movements, casualties, and how well particular units had fought; letters to "Ma" and sisters Anna and Mary were about camp life and family friends in the army and usually included requests for much-needed food and clothing; letters to Aunt Caroline and her daughter Carrie usually concerned affairs of the heart, for Aunt Caroline continued to be Dick and Tally's trusted confidante, even when they were "far, far from home."
The value of these letters lies not so much in the detailed information they provide as in the overall picture they convey--a picture of how one Southern family, for better or for worse, at home and at the front--coped with the experience of war. These are not wartime reminiscences, but wartime letters, written from the camp, the battlefield, the hospital bed, the picket line--wherever the boys happened to be when they found time to write home. It is a poignant picture of war as it was actually experienced in the South as the Civil War unfolded.

Friedrich Beck was the single most important figure in the transformation of the inept Habsburg military into the modern military state that would wage World War I. He correctly perceived that only an elite body of officers responsible for war planning and preparation could provide lasting security for the Austro-Hungarian empire. After firmly establishing the general staff as an institution, Beck led war planning to counter threats from Russia, Italy, and the Balkans; and spearheaded a vast rebuilding of the rail network. While his rise to power marked a return to the favorite system of military administration of the early Franz Joseph period, Beck proved himself a man with real military ability that revolutionized an army.

Faced with severe budgetary constraints, a radically reduced force structure, and a crippling intellectual dogmatism, the American Infantry struggled throughout the interwar years to modernize its doctrine. Finlayson examines these difficulties, beginning with an overview of the experiences of the primary combatants of the First World War, comparing their battlefield doctrines with that of the American Expeditionary Force. The brief American appearance on the battlefield did much to shape the convictions of those men assigned the task of developing doctrine after the war.

The findings of the post-World War I Superior Board provide valuable insight into how institutional conservatism and the dogmatic approach to new ideas that existed among senior Army leaders stymied possible doctrinal advances. The Army would suffer greatly in the post-war demobilization and the subsequent ravages of the Great Depression. With little money and few soldiers spread around far-flung posts, little advancement in terms of doctrinal development was possible. As the likelihood of war became more imminent in the 1930s, a concerted effort to modernize was made; however, the magnitude of the task made success virtually impossible-a situation that was evident in the Infantry's poor performance in the early battles of the war. The U.S. entry into World war II would, unfortunately, find the infantry branch only partially prepared for the battle field of 1942.