Professional Documents
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A historiography
GUNNAR ARTUS
It should be stated at once that this article encompasses only Western historiography, which means that e.g. Arabic and Chinese history-writing have been unaccounted for. This is, needless to say, highly regrettable but has been enforced by circumstances. The present writer, being illiterate in non-European languages, has elected to say nothing rather than something, which is not really well-informed, about the writing of military history in Africa and Asia.
Terminology
Military history (Militrgeschichte/histoire militaire) is the most commonly used term for the subject of this article. We must, however, also deal with the partly competing term history of war (Kriegsgeschichte/histoire de la guerre), which was the older term and always has been scholarly accepted and in many countries even preferredand, as it seems, nowadays is experiencing something of a renaissance. There is considerable consensus among military/war historians about the meaning of the terms of relevance here. Still, the consensus could certainly be broader, and even within it we can easily observe deficiencies as regards consistency and clarity in the use of the terms. One consequence of thisand not necessarily an unfortunate oneis that this article cannot confine itself simply to describing asomewhat confusedstate of affairs but must, with light touches, try to put the relevant terminology into somewhat better order. It should, however, be noted that this attempt does not aim at any kind of theoretical innovation but merely at giving the reader a clearer and more systematic picture of the various major sub-fields of work of the practising military/war historians (most of whom would certainly recognise and accept this picture, immediately or on consideration). Military history is generally used as a wider term than history of war. It includes, as commonly defined, three major sub-fields: military life (military institutions, customs, and artefacts), the relationship between military and society (with its much cultivated speciality: the military in politics) and the history of war. It could, however, be argued (and few historians would object) that the 20th century transformation of war history from a sub-field of general history to a sub-field of military history is less the result of conscious scholarly thought than of a civilising mental process in Western society: the horror of the 20th century wars made even the word war socially incorrect (cf. the institutional replacement of the term war with that of defence wherever possible). The gist of this argument is that the term military is much too confining or narrow for the immense historical subject of war. Similarly, it could be argued that the relationship between military and society is a more natural sub-field of social or societal than of military history. This being said, the article will nevertheless organise its description of the subject after the received 20th century model, meaning that neither history of war nor history-writing on military and society will be out-defined but dealt with as sub-fields of military history. After all: encyclopaedias are inconvenient places for revolutions, and substance is more important than words.
One other term requires comment here: history of warfare. Warfare, which should be understood as the conduct (organising, directing, methods, etc.) of war, is obviously an integral and fundamental part of war itself. We can distinguish several kinds of warfare: military (strategic, operational, and tactical), economic, technological, etc. The history of military warfare will, for strong practical reasons, be treated here in connection with war history, whereas history-writing on warfare, economy, and technologya new specialitywill be given a section of its own.
Methodology
As part of the large but fairly homogeneous family of historical scholarship, military history professes and endeavours to apply the same basic principles of methodology. There are, however, some important differences pertaining to the sub-field history of war/warfare. When Hans Delbrck (18481929) during the last decades of the 19th centuryas it has rightly been saidalmost single-handedly transformed the writing of war/warfare history from story-telling to a science, what he primarily did was to introduce and very effectively use a method which he labelled Sachkritik (factual criticism) as a complement to the established method of source criticism. We should be careful to note, however, that the Delbrckian revolution was effected not only by Sachkritik, the spectacular element, but also by a much stricter and far more ruthless application of source criticism than was common among contemporary European historians. Now, what did Delbrck mean by the concept of Sachkritik? Described very simply, it means that all historical facts (data), even if they have passed the most rigorous test of source criticism, mustin order to be scientifically acceptablebe tested as well against reality, that is in relation to the questions: is it possible, and at the same time credible that a certain fact has actually occurred, or that it really could have been such as it is rendered by the sources? The correctives available in this process are provided by (1) the laws (condensed historical experience) of the theory of war (Kriegstheorie/thorie de la guerre), by (2) historically unchanged topo-geographic conditions, and by (3) what we know is physiologically or technically possible. Delbrcks application of his Sachkritik was instrumental in demolishing or radically altering several established truths about major battles or characteristics of classical and medieval warfare. This method of factual criticism soon became, and has remained, a conspicuous part of the normal approach of historians of warfare to their objects of study. It is, however, not entirely unquestioned among historians outside the branch. Delbrcks use of war theory in his work as a warfare historian was not really original. It had been advocated by several 18th century military theorists, and in particular by Carl von Clausewitz (17801831) and Antoine-Henri Jomini (17791869), the overshadowing war theorists of Delbrcks own time. There was an important difference, though. Whereas Delbrck regarded such theory mainly as a corrective to what the sources told us, Clausewitz and Jomini saw it primarily as a stock of models for explaining what had happened in historical warfare. Their view became the dominant, or paradigmatic, one in moulding the practice of writing warfare history. This was, in the opinion of this author, a two-edged legacy to war/warfare history. The positive element was that it created a synergetic relationship between theory and empirical research long before this became the case in most other branches of history-writing. The negative consequence was that it strongly contributed to shaping a rather cavalier attitude among many war/warfare historians to the results of empirical research, if those results did not serve to illuminate or exemplify some dogma of theory. This development was also promoted by the fact that many military/war historians had didactic functions professionally, mostly as teachers at military institutions: propounding tenets of warfare tended to be seen by
them as more vital than grappling with the uncertainties and elusiveness of past reality. This pragmatic attitude to knowledge has over the years discredited the whole branch considerably in academic circles. During the last decades, however, a rise in its academic status is distinctly visible. This appears to be due indirectly to a growing interest among university historians in the study of war, and more directly to the consequential extended use of inductivethough theory-relatedmethods, as opposed to more deductive ones, within the branch.
Second World War enhanced the importance of this research field, which now gradually started to flourish with excellent scholarship, as exemplified by Alan S. Milwards War, Economy, and Society, 19391945 (1977); the studies by Fritz Redlich (19641965) and Jan Glete (1993) of the warfare, economy, and technology problematique as it could present itself in various pre-industrial contexts; and William McNeills attempt at a historical synthesis of the problematique (1983).
unknowns in the domestic history of imperial Sweden and in the dynamic history of 17th century Denmark The study of militarization in politics (military rule or pervasive military influence) has always attracted scholars, and never so much as during the last half-century. Here, however, a dividing line is discernible between the academic disciplines engaged. The sociologists and political scientists (Samuel P. Huntington, Morris Janowitz, Samuel E. Finer, and others) have concentrated almost exclusively on the contemporary world, and there mainly on the US and the developing states. The historians, on their side, have been more interested in Europe and, of course, older periods; and one of them (Gordon A. Craig) has produced the beaconing work on the military in politics: The Politics of the Prussian Army (1955). Research on historical processes and structures of social and mental militarization (the exaltation of the profession of arms and the military values in social life and in the minds of people) is a comparatively recent activity. The pioneer was Alfred Vagts with his work A History of Militarism in 1937. The book exerted little influence until the 1950s (new ed. 1959), however; and valuable as it was and is, it was more journalistic than scholarly in character. Studies in depth by professional historians or sociologists were late in coming: two on Prussia/Germany by Otto Bsch and Karl Demeter, respectively, appeared in the 1960s; one by Andr Corvisier on early modem Europe, particularly France, in 1976; and one on 18th century Sweden by Gunnar Artus in 1982. The importance of this research field has now become widely recognised, however, and is manifested, e.g. by some new journals and in the recently published series of books on War and Society, edited by Geoffrey Best and authored by some of the most prominent British historians.
Bibliography
Artus, Gunnar: Krigsteori och historisk frklaring [Theory of War and Historical Explanation]. 2 vols. University of Gothenburg, Gteborg 19701972. With summaries in English. Artus, Gunnar: Krigsmakt och samhlle i frihetstidens Sverige [Military and Society in Sweden during the Liberty era (171972)]. Militrhistoriska frlaget, Stockholm 1982. With an extensive summary in English. Bsch, Otto: Militrsystem und Sozialleben im alten Preussen, 17131807. Die Anfnge der sozialen Militarisierung der preussisch-deutschen Gesellschaft. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1962. Corvisier, Andr: Armes et socits en Europe de 1494 1789. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1976. Craig, Gordon A.: The Politics of the Prussian Army 16401945. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955. van Creveld, Martin L.: Supplying War. Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge University Press, 1977. van Creveld, Martin L.: Command in War. Harvard University Press, Cambridge & London 1985. Delbrck, Hans: Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege. Zwei combinierte kriegsgeschichtliche Studien nebst einem Anhang ber die rmische Manipular-Taktik. Verlag Walther & Apolant, Berlin 1887. Delbrck, Hans: Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte. 4 vols. Verlag von Georg Stilke, Berlin 19001920. Demeter, Karl: Das deutsche Offizierkorps in Gesellschaft und Staat 16501945. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1962. Freeman, Douglas Southall: Lees Lieutenants. A Study in Command. 3 vols. C Scribners Sons, New York 19421944. Glete, Jan: Navies and Nations. Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America, 15001860. 2 vols. Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm 1993. Keegan, John: The Face of Battle. Jonathan Cape, London 1976. McNeill, William H.: The Pursuit of Power. Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000. Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1983. Mahan, Alfred Thayer: The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 16601783. Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1890. Milward, Alan S.: War, Economy and Society. 19391945. University of California Press, Berkeley 1977. Redlich, Fritz: The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force. A Study in European Economic and Social History. 2 vols. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 19641965.
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