Research Paper on Military History

Introduction

Military history is a humanity subject within the entire historical documentation of military in the past events of humanity as well as its influence on the economy, culture and societies both locally and internationally. Military history focuses on armed conflict affairs that regarded main effects on the communities involved as well as the causes of those conflicts. Studying the history of military mainly focus on the causes of war, the cultural and social foundations, leadership, the logistics, military doctrines, tactics, strategies and the technology involved as well as the evolution of military aspect over time. Additionally, the principles of war discuss the moral perspectives of war and offer a comprehensive reality on the causes of warfare and seek to develop a doctrine of armed conflict ethics. The importance of studying military history seeks to rebuild the past mistakes and enhance the modern performance by instituting capability in military commanders to see historical parallels in warfare's so that they can focus more on the lessons they learned from the past mistakes. The study of military history is ever changing due to the establishment of subject areas in communities and the institutions that use this discipline. The dynamic aspect of this study is highly associated with rapid changes of military forces as well as the science and art of controlling these forces. On the other hand, technological advancement adopted in the industrial revolution era also attributes to the dynamics involved in the study of military history. This literature focuses on how the study of military history has evolved over the years from a traditionalist perspective to the post-modern view.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Traditionalist History

Based on the history of warfare, Keegan focuses more on the early warfare, the Iron Age warfare and the proliferation of Bronze Age. The author discusses the logistics, strategies and battle formations used in the traditional military perspective. Keegan discusses how the Arabs conquered many territories in the 7th century, the Mongols and later discussed the last of the horse people known as Tamerlane who are well known for unleashing intensive carnage and destruction. Keegan illustrates the introduction of money after the rise of medieval Europe where the foot soldiers were paid to construct castles used for destruction. The author explains how horsemen were gradually removed from the battlefields. During the First World War, there was an intensive introduction and use of modern weapons such as guns, mustard gas, grenades, and artillery. The introduction of these weapons led to massive killings of soldiers in Europe who were buried on the western front. The subsequent Second World War saw millions of soldiers killed on the Eastern Front following the principles of Adolf Hitler (the concept of living space). According to Keegan the idea of war is an expansion of political aspect, and he implies that warfare is conducted in a rational method following the conscious management of political class. The availability of warriors and armies distorts the nature of culture and politics, and at times it becomes the prevailing cultural formulation. According to traditionalist perspective warfare is eventually a catastrophic and irrational consequence of a failure of diplomacy and political understanding.

Logistics

The traditional history focused on the combination of domestic food supply and forage. Individual-containment in both services and hardware often appears as the logistics base for functions by the military of average size. Keegan illustrates that one of the most effective logistic structure ever used in the military history as the Mongol horsemen forces of the 13th century. The army's foundation was discipline, austerity, organization and careful planning. During normal motilities, the cavalry divided into many corps and stretched all over the country. The Mongol armies were escorted by trains of pack animals, herds of cattle and baggage carts. The cavalry was led by commanders who selected the camping sites and routes to be followed to access food crops and grazing fields. Forage and food were kept in advance along the routes followed and the camping sites. During the entry of the enemy's country, the forces abandoned their herds and baggage and regrouped into separate columns and later congregated upon the unaware enemy at a massive speed from various directions. The Mongol cavalry covered roughly 180 miles in one match approach which lasted for three days. Transport, remount and commissariat services were cautiously arranged. The seasoned and tough Mongol armies subsisted nearly indefinitely on curds and dried meat and complimented by sporadic game. On the other hand, Napoleon focused more on winning the battle and defeating the enemy by putting into considerations the logistic planning effects and the unity of attempts in logistics.

Strategies

The Western Front consisted mostly of the trench warfare. Particular operational, strategic and tactical decisions of the French army led to the shift in the arrangement capability as the French military tried to react to the daily wars and long-term operational and strategic issues. Specifically, multiple challenges faced by the French army made the commanders to restructure their command systems and establish diverse strategies and tactics to be used in the battle. Napoleon, I had expanded the French power in most parts of Europe through military prowess and diplomatic strategies. In the early 1850s, Bismarck (Prussian Chancellor) invented the structure of alliances, and the approach was objected to affirm the Prussian supremacy all over central Europe. After the defeat of the French army at Sedan, Bismarck befriended Austria-Hungary, Britain, Italy, and Russia as a way to ease the rivalry among the named nations. The French military utilized the approach of pre-war mobilization where young men at the age of 21 were inducted into the military and spent roughly three years in the active service. In this strategy, the young men would progress in other stages of service after living the active service, and each stage included a lower rate of commitment. On the other hand, the French commanders had developed efficient strategies on the arrangement of the army during the war. The French army was divided into foot soldiers (artillery) and the horsemen (cavalry). Additionally, the French army instituted a sense of responsibility on individuals by crowning them commanders-in-chief. These individuals were mandated to execute the concentration and mobilization plans. Later in the Western Front, the French army introduced the principle of grand strategy in which the management of resources of the whole state was concentrated towards the conduct of the war. In this concept, the military components were reduced to functional strategies which included the control and planning of big military divisions. As the number of forces and the size of military intensified and technological advancement to communicate enhanced, the disparity between grand strategy and military strategy contracted. The significance of the grand strategy was the use of diplomacy in which a state can forge an alliance with an objective to pressure another state to comply and finally, achieve victory without the involvement of war.

Battle Formations

Generally, the Western Front utilized the infantry formations to attack their enemies. According to Keegan line infantry was widely used and is comprised of the land armies beginning in the 17th century to 19th century. The infantry consisted of two to four categories of foot soldiers formed in a rigid alignment to optimize the influence of their firepower. Foot soldiers often utilized three main formations that included the line, the column and the square. In the middle of 17th century the war was subjugated by linear strategies where the foot soldiers were aligned in thin lines consisting of 2, 3 or 4 categories of militants. All the line attacked at once following the command rather than at will although it was less efficient in causing real victims as the attack was done as fast as the slowest man could. Apart from the encircling enemy horsemen, infantry quickly adopted the square formation to offer protection. Line infantry was often applied as stationary formation with soldiers moving in columns and later deployed line alignment at their destination. Columns formulations were mostly used during mobility and melee attacks. The majority of foot soldiers were the pikemen, and they formed the heaviest infantry. On the other hand, the Musketeers were the most important part of the foot soldier, and they did not use line strategies instead combating in open formulations. Linear foot soldiers were deployed as the main battle army while light foot soldiers offered fire support and provided cover to the movement units. The introduction of new weapons attributed to the failure of principle of line foot soldiers. Foot soldiers of many 21st century forces are still skilled on formation mobility and drill as a method of instilling unit cohesion and discipline.

The Postmodern View of Military History

Social, biographical and political dynamics enabled new drive for military service and new human resources strategies which after a great deal of trial and error resulted in transformations in the battalions operations, organization, and tactics. Originally, the fights were defensive even when they reinforced the left in the convention. Ancient French interest, as well as new ideological fervor, turned them into a battle of invasion. Rivals of the revolution were slow to distinguish the new that surfaced from the apparent confusion of the French forces. According to Bell, war grew from the enlightenment approach that battle should be eliminated. He stated that by wiping the slate clean through the total warfare, a new period could surface free from afflicting of war. Bell uses political, intellectual, and military history to make his unique idea that culture of war started in the 18th century that has implication today. Bell offers a fascinating thesis through a rational view of the French revolution and Napoleonic fights as well as their consequences on the European thinking and culture. The move towards modernity and the rise of modernism in the military forces is categorized well throughout and supported by looking at actions from Spain, Italy, and Prussia. Finally, Bell looks at the shift from seeing fights as a usual state of affairs to the approach that is going to battle is undesirable and abnormal.

Social Aspect

According to Bell, material resources and human efforts were mobilized with unparalleled comprehensiveness and intensity during first and second world wars. One of the obvious manifestations of both first and second world wars is that 5 and a quarter million males served in the British battalion. On the other hand, nearly 8 million males were mobilized in France. In 1914, female soldiers accounted for 23% of the British army. During the transition from traditionalist to postmodern military history, gender hindrances were dropped and responsibilities redefined as females upped apparatus in sacred halls of male physical labor in the military setting. Bell emphasizes the role the French revolution played in the civilian/military split, the rise of propaganda and the advent of the literate soldiers. The congregation debate on peace and war at the Manege underscore a severe move from the aristocratic idea of wars. French revolution urged the assurance that fight was a matter of morals and not patrician art or science. The origin of the total war was entire when the French battalion with latest leaders had to suppress external and internal threats. After the revolution, France's fresh l...