the french library

german and austrian legionaires in vietminh army

Heinz Schütte. Zwischen den Fronten: Deutsche und österreichische Überläufer zum Viet Minh. Berlin Logos Verlag Berlin, 2006. 371 pp., ISBN 978-3-8325-1312-2.


The Difficulties of Becoming Vietnamese

In Zwischen den Fronten, Heinz Schütte tells the fascinating story of three men—Austrian Ernst Frey and Germans Rudy Schröder and Erwin Borchers—who defected from the French Foreign Legion to fight with the Viet Minh under the names Nguyen Dan, Le Duc Nhan and Chien Si in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The biographies of the three men set them apart from the more than one thousand other deserters from the Foreign Legion during the First Indochina War (1946-54). While the typical deserter after 1945 was a German who had fought most recently for Adolf Hitler and deserted out of fatigue, Schütte’s protagonists were political exiles who had joined the Legion in 1940 in hopes of fighting against Germany and defected to the Viet Minh out of sincere dedication to the anticolonial cause. In retracing the route of three men from exile to the Foreign Legion to the Viet Minh and back to postwar Europe, Schütte provides a novel perspective on both the predicaments of direct European participation in anticolonial struggle and the international repercussions of the Second World War.

While Frey, Schröder and Borchers all hoped to fight Nazis in the Foreign Legion, none set out to help the Vietnamese win their independence. All three were German-speaking communists (two from Germany, one from Austria) who fled persecution in what they called “Hitler-Deutschland” in the 1930s to take refuge in France. Their proximate reasons for joining the Foreign Legion differed: Schröder hoped it would mean clemency for his interned wife and young son; Borchers had been rejected from the regular French Army because his (French) mother had married a German; and Frey was homeless and destitute. Their tactical alliance with the French in order to fight the Nazis turned on them when France came under German control and occupation in 1940. Having been shipped from Paris to North Africa, the three would-be antifascists now discovered themselves fighting on the side of their worst enemy.

To their good fortune, the Foreign Legion transferred all three to Indochina. Frey hoped that British forces would intercept the transport and he would have a chance to defect and take up the anti-Nazi fight alongside the English. After reaching Indochina without incident, the group founded an anti-Legion cell within their troop, adding an anarchist from Berlin and an athletic former member of the International Brigades from Austria. These five formed a cross-country team as a ruse, talking tactics on their training runs and attempting contact with potential recruits at track meets. Eventually, they made contact with a leader of the French Resistance in Indochina, who in turn connected them to representatives of the Viet Minh. After the defeat of the French, the imprisonment of the three as POWs, and the fall of the Japanese, the Viet Minh pulled the cell members from prison and welcomed them as allies. Viet Minh leaders commissioned them with writing propaganda to encourage defections from the Foreign Legion, and gave Frey, who had received officer’s training in North Africa, control over troops. They gave Schröder the task of creating a counter-Foreign Legion of European defectors, naming it the “Tell Regiment” after medieval Swiss anti-imperialist and legendary marksman William Tell.

The details of the three defectors’ stories are dense and startling. Schütte embraces the drama of their lives, weaving his own story into theirs by beginning the book with a lengthy account of the coincidences and chance encounters that led him to the project. The introduction sets the tone of the book, which is largely biographical and intent on reassembling the lives of its three subjects, a task made considerably easier by the thick memoirs that two of them left when they died. Beyond a limited number of interviews with former Vietnamese leaders and some use of the East German state archives, little corroborating documentary evidence survives, a fact that amplifies the literary quality of the narrative. In their memoirs, Schröder and Frey used literary (and frequently religious) tropes of sacrifice and redemption, and often return to the transition from the ecstasy of collective action to the suffering of the individual body. Schütte reinforces that literary tone and structure, titling consecutive chapters “The Time of Expectation,” “The Time of Disillusionment,” and (after a German idiomatic expression) “The Moor Has Performed his Duty: Return to the Unknown Old World.” Schütte’s choice of style, though usually effective, occasionally tips over into the affected. When he ruminates on writing and the status of the “border-crosser” in the introduction, he only narrowly avoids turning the three defectors into metaphors, an impulse inconsistent with the care with which he has reconstructed their lives.

Schütte’s analysis is sharpest when he works with the points that arise organically from the material. The central question with which the defectors wrestle is the dynamic between internationalism and nationalism. The radical disidentification of all three men with their own nations had attracted them to the Vietnamese cause from which, as Schütte writes, “they expected the universal values” abandoned by their own countries (p. 320). Frey, who was Jewish by birth but non-practicing, wrote starkly of the experience of estrangement from his own country: “as I saw my compatriots enter Nazi camps en masse in March 1938 and the way my wisp of a mother was seized by SA men to clean the sidewalks with a toothbrush, my connection to Austria vanished with a single blow. After 1945 [and the defection to the Viet Minh] I had found a new fatherland” (p. 282). Schröder, a protégé of Raymond Aron and frequent contributor to the journal of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research during his exile years in Paris, dreamt of a new form of community even before arriving in Indochina, writing to his wife in 1940 about his aspirations for “a universal-human, non-state existence” (p. 261).

Yet the defectors’ enthusiasm for the revolutionary community blinded them to the fact that the role they were intended to play in anticolonial struggle was, in part, to campaign for their own obsolescence. The goal of the revolutionary forces was to enable a previously dominated nation to begin making its own history, not to have Europeans continue making it for them. In believing they had accomplished a leap into pure internationalism, the defectors misapprehended the nature of belonging in postcolonial Vietnam, where the Vietnamese revolutionaries saw leadership positions as best occupied by Vietnamese. Though useful to the Viet Minh for a while, the European defectors became redundant after 1950, when the victorious Chinese Communist Party offered a ready source of foreign advisers. A long-standing suspicion of European defectors and their motivations led the Vietnamese to demote those who had been given responsibilities, like Schröder and Frey, and to begin the process of deporting the rest. By 1951, with only a few exceptions (one of whom was Borchers, who stayed in the country with his Vietnamese wife and family until 1966), the European defectors had returned to Europe.

The demotion came as a blow to these three, even though their zeal had not extended to learning anything beyond rudimentary Vietnamese, in Frey’s case, or any at all, in Schröder’s. When the Viet Minh removed them from meaningful positions in 1950, Frey and Schröder experienced existential crises. After a religious epiphany, Frey attempted a pilgrimage through the jungle in a feverish state, intent on convincing General Vo Nguyen Giap of the existence of God. For Schröder, the crisis was philosophical; his wife had sent him a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s recently published Being and Nothingness (1943), which greatly affected him as he read it in underfed isolation and plagued by chronic illness.

Skeptical of what he saw as the beginnings of restrictive groupthink in the Viet Minh leadership, Schröder had concluded by 1951 that the path to collaboration between western and Vietnamese political actors remained barred for material reasons. Months before his voluntary departure from Vietnam in 1951, he asked how Europeans would overcome their “necessary overcompensation” and Vietnamese their “inferiority complex,” considering “20 million Vietnamese could not be subjected to psychoanalysis” (p. 259). He answered: “Allow three consecutive generations to eat until they are full” (p. 259).

Schütte mentions Martiniquan psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon only in passing, but the relevance of his work to Schütte’s subject would have borne more consideration. In seeing a material basis for the seemingly unbridgeable gap between Europeans and Vietnamese, Schröder produced a kind of basic-needs version of Fanon: instead of the moment of violence, the experience of satiety becomes the route out of the psychological distortions of colonialism. The defectors’ experiences of humiliation and their desire for psychological release in post-independence Vietnam present a model of liberation that refracts Fanon’s insights at an oblique angle. Pariahs in their own insurgent Vietnam, only to be expelled again. At the end of The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Fanon calls for the creation of a “new man,” an expression usually read as an asymptotic and possibly messianic goal. In Schütte’s book, however, the lives of the three defectors suggest provocatively that perhaps the new man, or rather, the new human, is created occasionally for brief periods of time in moments of political euphoria, and then is snuffed out again. Schütte’s monograph makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing study of the oscillations between internationalist and nationalist forms of political imagination in action.
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James Sanders. Apartheid's Friends: The Rise and Fall of the South African Secret Services. London John Murray, 2006. 539 pp. , ISBN 978-0-7195-6675-2. Reviewed by Derek Catsam (University of Texas of the Permian Basin) Published on H-SAfrica (November, 2009) Commissioned by Lindsay F. Braun Uncovering Hidden Histories It is difficult to write histories of people who do not want their stories to be told. It is even more difficult to write histories of people whose job it was to keep their stories hidden, to misdirect observers to believe that the story is something else, and to keep those stories quiet by any necessary means, including enforcing silence by killing. These are the barriers inherent in writing the history of intelligence agencies. South Africa's intelligence services after 1948 had more reason than most to keep their stories silent. Apartheid made South Africa a polecat among nations, and by the end of the National Party's reign South Africa was a pariah state even among countries that were hardly squeamish about getting their hands dirty with the more nefarious elements of statecraft. When the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain's MI5 and MI6 think that your methods are contemptible, your methods are probably beyond contemptible. James Sanders faces these challenges admirably in his ambitious, richly detailed, and sometimes flawed (but always interestingly so) book _Apartheid's Friends_. Sanders takes as his mission a comprehensive treatment of what ends up as a relatively amorphous concept--South Africa's intelligence services, or, as his subtitle indicates, South Africa's Secret Service, a term perhaps more problematic than Sanders recognizes inasmuch as Sanders throughout the book does not define precisely what qualifies, and, indeed, is unclear as to just what fits within his ambit (and thus what does not). >From the outset, South Africa looked to Great Britain and the United States in setting up its own intelligence services. In the early Cold War world, it was clear that discovering the secrets of others and coveting the secrets of one's own would be a crucial factor in international relations. The Western powers had to bring their nascent intelligence services to maturity quickly, and they were happy to welcome South Africa within their penumbral shadow. The National Party's securocrats were more than willing to exploit the Cold War, both its legitimate concerns and its paranoia, in order to garner the support of Washington and Westminster. But while the United States and the United Kingdom were happy to help, they also saw South Africa as fertile terrain for competition. As the years progressed, both would compete for Pretoria's favor, with each gaining the upper hand for years at a time before the other managed to take the advantage. South Africa's intelligence services had the myriad responsibilities of any nation's cloak-and-dagger organizations, but one responsibility was first and foremost: protecting Apartheid from the supposed onslaught from within and without that was always supposed to be just around the corner. Naturally this creates a fine atmosphere for storytelling, and Sanders chases just about every anecdote, story, rumor, and legend. And with all of the mysterious figures who are central to the history of South African intelligence and the equally quirky, frightening, enchanting, addled, and messianic figures who flit in and out of the story, Sanders is able to conjure his inner Ian Fleming and John LeCarre. How could he not? The main spying agency for most of the Apartheid era was known by the ominous name of BOSS (though the organization was the Bureau FOR State Security, journalists and others transmogrified it into the Bureau OF State Security, much to the chagrin of the state). Among his cast of characters are legendary names in the South African intelligence world, such as Hendrik van den Bergh and Eschel Roodie, General P. W. van der Westhuizen and Neil Bernard, Gerard Ludi and Craig Williamson, and Mike Louw and Wouter Basson. There are also the members of the police forces, such as Dirk Coetzee and Eugene de Kock (nicknamed "Prime Evil") and Gideon Nieuwoudt ("The Angel of Death"). And as in any great spy story, there are the opposing agents. Sanders's book is largely about the Apartheid spy hierarchy, but he also devotes considerable space to the intelligence apparatus of the African National Congress (ANC) opposition, including such figures as Mo Shaik and Mac Maharaj. Sanders has plenty of anecdotes, though at times it seems that the anecdotes serve no larger purpose except that they are such good stories he could not possibly exclude them. Taken in toto the many tales of intrigue that Sanders tells creates an exhaustive picture of South African intelligence, but there are times when it appears that he is trying to draw a 1:1 scale map of the South African spying universe, and so it can be an exhausting picture as well. But in the end the accumulation of stories reaffirms that the Byzantine intelligence forces existed to bolster white supremacy, and their means of doing so were grim, seedy, and at times murderous. But even amid the dark and dangerous and foreboding tales, Sanders is adept at revealing that for all of the menace, and for all of the capacity to destroy the lives of black activists and other capriciously labeled enemies of the state, there was also a keystone cops element at work in the intelligence agencies during the Apartheid years. The intelligence services and the organizations that buttressed them could be scary, deadly, and effective. They could also be comically ineffective and corrupt. Buffoonery seemed to characterize the South African intelligence services as much as skullduggery. Furthermore, South Africa's intelligence services were almost always caught up in internecine struggles. The biggest of these conflicts took place between the intelligence services of the government--BOSS and the National Intelligence Service (NIS)--and the Military Intelligence Division (MID). Intelligence thus became contested territory, where prestige and access were often more important than doing the actual work of the state. In at least one instance, the incompetence and ham-handedness of the intelligence services and their deep connections with the government led to a scandal that nearly brought down the government. In the 1970s, Information Minister Connie Mulder and Secretary for Information Eschel Roodie convinced Prime Minister John Vorster to plant pro-government information in South African publications, and most notably to establish the pro-Apartheid English-language newspaper the _Citizen_. When the news of the propaganda campaign leaked, the main participants tried to cover their tracks. Ultimately the Information Scandal, or Muldergate as it came to be known for its proximity and loose similarity to the Watergate scandal in the United States, directly led to the resignation of Vorster as prime minister and state president and certainly cost Mulder any shot at becoming premier, a position that went to P. W. Botha. Sanders's treatment of the Information Scandal represents one of the strongest contributions of his book. Botha certainly did not learn from Muldergate the lessons of curbing the use of the intelligence services. If anything, during the 1980s, the interconnections between the security forces and the intelligence services became so blurred as to be indiscernible. Police operations, already dependent on secrecy, increasingly utilized the state intelligence apparatus. At the same time, pressure from within came in the form of a renewed anti-Apartheid struggle that sought to render South Africa ungovernable, and increasing pressure from without took the form of global condemnation and divestment. Both brought greater scrutiny to all of the actions of the Apartheid state. The transition to multiracial rule in South Africa did not end, and in some ways actually escalated, the sense of urgency in the intelligence services. There were efforts to undermine the negotiations. But there was also a great deal of self-serving behavior as members of the intelligence apparatus sought either to ensure their own positions in a new government or to find space within the public sector. After the eventual transition, the question became how to create an effective South African intelligence service free of the burdens of the past but capable of learning its lessons, in order to allow the ANC-led government to maintain the sort of intelligence gathering that any prominent state requires in an international diplomatic climate where gentlemen do read each other's mail. This effort included integrating former ANC intelligence and military operatives into the existing intelligence services, a transition that was not always easy and was made considerably more difficult by the fact that former operatives suddenly looked on the past as a golden age that the new dispensation could never equal, a largely ahistorical view that nonetheless allowed critics to maintain their racial and political views. This is not to say that the ANC government's intelligence efforts were always sterling. The growing pains in the intelligence agencies have been every bit as tender as those in other realms of the New South Africa. An additional factor that the National Party government rarely had to deal with was the rise of private security companies, many of which include intelligence operations within their ambit. The 1990s were an especially fruitful time for such organizations to emerge, which was a sometimes worrisome trend given that these mercenaries were not even nominally under the control of the government, could and would sell out to the highest bidder, and sometimes made overtures about trying to overthrow various governments, South Africa's included. In one well-known case, members of these private security services tried to stage a coup in 2004 against the government of Equatorial Guinea. The two main players in this largely farcical--but no less frightening--effort were Simon Mann, whose grandfather ran De Beers and who had been associated with the most far-reaching of the private "counterintelligence consultancy firms," Executive Outcomes, and Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister. The effort failed, but the threat that such renegade operations could pose became all the more clear. The greatest source of strength in _Apartheid's Friends_ is the incredible level of detail Sanders brings to his work. But that source of strength might also be the book's greatest weakness. There may well be too much detail, and especially too much detail in areas in which the connection with intelligence is dubious or at least unclear. South Africa during the decades after 1948 and until 1994 was a police state, and as a result, intelligence seemed to play a role in every element of daily life. Nonetheless, there are occasions when the level of detail causes Sanders somewhat to lose the plot. All but the most dedicated and knowledgeable readers will occasionally find themselves lost in a morass of names and organizations and events that do not always seem all that germane to the book's central themes. Security forces required intelligence, to be sure, but one wonders whether a tighter and perhaps more disciplined narrative might have improved the book. Around the turn of the current century, Jacob Zuma, once head of the ANC's intelligence wing, was caught up in a potentially explosive scandal in which he was accused of being part of a cabal within the ANC that was trying to stage a coup against President Thabo Mbeki. A dubious report that tried to bring the alleged conspiracy to light referred to Zuma's "legendary laziness and incompetence" and asserted that ANC intelligence had been compromised as far back as the mid-1980s (p. 393). Zuma, who had legendary clashes with Mbeki that resulted in Zuma wresting the ANC party presidency from Mbeki at the ANC's meeting at Polokwane in December 2007, is now president of South Africa. He is therefore ultimately responsible for intelligence today. He could do worse than to read Sanders's _Apartheid's Friends_ to get a sense of just what he is in for.
 
Charles A. Krohn. Lost Battalion of Tet: The Breakout of 2/12th Cavalry at Hue. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008. 210 pp. ISBN 978-1-59114-434-2.

Reviewed by Allen Reece
Published on H-War (October, 2009)


The Lessons Never Grow Old

Readers will enjoy this book by Charles Krohn, whose experiences as the intelligence officer for the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment (2/12th) during the Tet Offensive of 1968 provides the foundation for the work. Lost Battalion of Tet reveals an army unit’s struggles preparing for an impending battle. The author's first-hand account provides a tale of bravery that captures the reader’s imagination. Additionally, Krohn does a good job of identifying lessons learned that are based on his observations--lessons on the value of training, intelligence preparation of the battlefield, and planning. Each has solidified and improved our current doctrine. Charles Krohn is now on the staff of the American Battle Monuments Commission in Arlington, Virginia.

First published by Praeger Publishers in 1993, the original included statistics that many readers questioned. This revised version corrects the first edition with two new appendices containing the names of the men killed in action, and those receiving the Distinguished Service Cross. Of special note, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Leroy Gregory, the replacement commander for Lieutenant Colonel M. Collier Ross, is listed in both appendices.

The 2/12th Cavalry, typical of most cavalry units, was a hard-training organization that demonstrated discipline under extreme conditions. Motivating men to maintain a vigil for an event that might or might not occur is one of the military's great leadership challenges. The troops of the 2/12th were constantly improving their positions on the ground, and rehearsing procedures to ensure the highest standards when it came time for action. Gregory instilled this type of discipline into the men of the 2/12th Cavalry, enabling a strong and effective defense against the Tet Offensive. In addition to defensive operations, U.S. forces learned that when conducting search-and-destroy missions, it was critical to have artillery support because they could be ambushed at any time. Training with, and using artillery properly, can balance a fight. Krohn supports this point through his recollection of a platoon from C Company that used artillery to keep a numerically superior force from overrunning their positions until they could disengage.

Intelligence gathering was Krohn’s business. As the intelligence officer for the 2/12th, he had the task of getting inside the enemy’s decision cycle. Intelligence is a combat multiplier, and intelligence preparation of the battlefield is a critical part of the commander’s ability to visualize an impending combat action. Krohn illuminates this with information obtained from senior North Vietnamese army officers killed just prior to the beginning of Tet. This information allowed the battalion commander better to prepare his defenses for the impending attack, thus saving the lives of many of the soldiers involved in the operation.

Krohn points out a serious miscalculation by the United States concerning the enemy's tenacity. In many cases, U.S. forces did not view the North Vietnamese army as formidable. Therefore, commanders made mistakes in employing forces against an enemy who was extremely patient and dedicated. It is critical for planners to remember that war against an experienced enemy who is fighting on their own ground, without in-depth study of their culture as part of the planning process, can end badly. Reflecting on the past, Krohn concludes that arrogance and lack of respect for one's enemy is a shortcoming that can lead to protracted war.

From the early days of warfare, armies realized that they must sustain operations, whether while training, deploying, or in combat. Early in the book, Krohn discusses the abundance of equipment available to combat forces in Vietnam, and how quickly replacement equipment was provided. None of that, however, mattered if the plan for sustainment was not nested with the combat operation. One such concern developed as the 2/12th was preparing to move from Landing Zone Ross to Camp Evans. The unit lacked confidence that ammunition, along with other supplies, would be on the ground at the battalion’s new destination. Upon arrival, the 2/12th found that there was, in fact, no ammunition. Moreover, an overall poor movement plan for the entire division from Camp Evans to the north proved very dangerous. The lesson that Krohn illustrates is the importance of planning all aspects of an operation, and the role the commander must play to ensure trust between units in contact, and units sustaining the operation. The best way for this to occur is through planning, coordination, and proper execution.

In summary, Charles Krohn provides an accounting of the actions of the 2/12th Cavalry during the Tet Offensive of 1968. Krohn reinforces the lessons provided by the 2/12th's experience during Tet. First, train the force. There is no substitute for disciplined training focusing on the fundamentals that aid in survival. Second, the ability to take information from the battlefield and interpret it in a manner that allows the commander the ability to make decisions through visualization is a true combat multiplier. Finally, planning all aspects of an operation is vital for success, whether at the tactical or strategic level. Any young officer can learn valuable lessons from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry's experience.
 
Matthew H. Spring. With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. xxiii + 381 pp, ISBN 978-0-8061-3947-0.

Reviewed by Ian McCulloch (Canadian Forces College)


Zeal and Cold Steel

With the deftness and sureness of a bayonet stroke, British historian Matthew H. Spring's new book skewers the long-held, and largely Hollywood induced, portrayal of the British Army as a tactically inept force when faced by intrepid Patriots during the American War for Independence. Already a winner of the American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia's Thomas Fleming Book Award for the Outstanding Revolutionary War Era Book of 2008, I heartily recommend this book to all scholars, students, and enthusiasts of the period.

With Zeal and With Bayonets is, quite literally, a masterpiece of analysis, well researched, well argued, and well written. It is the first book I know of that truly captures the essence of the operational and tactical levels of war in the eighteenth century. Not only do I believe it to be an instant seminal classic, and required reading for any scholar contemplating writing campaign history or a battle monograph of the period in the future, but it is equally suitable as a case study on insurgency warfare for any modern day staff college pondering the challenges of conventional warfare versus asymmetric warfare. It is just that outstanding.

The book opens with a superb discussion and mission analysis of the strategic problems presented by the insurgency in America, and the three operational military objectives given to the British Army. The three objectives were: to defeat and disperse the rebels' conventional military forces; to encourage the populace to cease supporting Congress's war effort, and even to transpose that support to the Crown; and finally, to induce the rebel leadership to give up the armed struggle in favor of a political settlement.

In his analysis, Spring shows clearly that British military leadership understood that it was paramount to neutralize the rebels' military forces either by kinetic or non-kinetic action in order to: reestablish control over American territory, persuade the rebel leadership to abandon the goal of independence in favor of a negotiated political settlement, and encourage the colonial population at large to withdraw its support for the rebellion. The center of gravity was thus assessed to be overwhelming military success against the Continental Army. If the source of the insurgency's military power could be neutralized or destroyed, it was believed that all the operational objectives could be easily achieved and strategic victory assured.

Spring then examines a number of operational constraints that were imposed externally or inherent in the nature of the insurgency, thus limiting the operational capabilities of the British Army in its quest to bring the elusive Continental and militia troops to battle. Spring identifies five key factors that "made it extraordinarily difficult for British commanders in America to secure the kind of battlefield engagement in which they sought to neutralize the rebels' military forces" (p. 48). Each can be tied directly back to one, or all three, of the operational objectives.

First, the British had to cautiously avoid being beaten in tactical engagements by the rebels early on in the insurgency in order to avoid the operational effect of giving the rebel cause hope, and galvanizing recruitment and popular support. Second, their limited manpower resources prevented them from exposing their troops unnecessarily to extensive campaign hardships or wasteful attritional battles with frontal style tactics. Third, logistical considerations (particularly their dependence on the Royal Navy to supply them from water and efficient land convoys) in Spring's own words, "grievously limited their field armies' mobility" (p. 48). Fourth, the British Army had an inadequate intelligence picture with which to prosecute effective operations. That is, there were few accurate topographical maps, and obtaining accurate information on enemy movements and dispositions from a primarily hostile population was practically insurmountable. Finally, the terrain (the all important ground) was rugged and underdeveloped, with limited road systems. It favored the defense, and thus enabled rebel defenders to pick their ground, and to shun unwanted major decisive engagements.

Spring has fascinating follow-on chapters dealing with grand tactics, march and deployment, the advance, detailed discussions of morale and motivation, battalion command, firepower, the psychology of the bayonet charge, and the complexities of bush-fighting. Among the many interesting themes of this study to emerge is Spring's description of the almost Darwinian approach of Britain's "American Army" to adapt and evolve in order to survive the North American environment and fight the rebels on their own terms. For example, light infantry and bush-fighting skills that had been developed and refined by the British during the Seven Years' War were all but lost when these elite troops (best suited to act as a potent gendermarie on the fringes of a wild and unpredictable frontier) were disbanded.

By the middle of the war, however, the in-theater British light infantry had reinvented itself and, along with light cavalry, had become the equal or betters of the American sharpshooters and mounted infantry. Major General John F.C. Fuller wrote that "during the last three years of [the Revolution] the English had so well adapted themselves to its nature, that they were in no way inferior to their opponents."[1] Despite both sides developing a good light infantry capability, by contrast it was George Washington's Continental Army, assisted by French troops and the French Navy using standard European tactics and siege warfare of the day, that finally defeated the British Army strategically in North America.

To a large extent, the British tactical system of the 1770s, which conventionally favored mass and concentrated firepower in a European context, was replaced in America with an ad hoc system that emphasized maneuver and speed. While the credo of the modern infantry today remains "to close with and destroy the enemy," it could be said that such a maxim historically stems from the eighteenth-century tactical experience of the Redcoat in North America. Spring contends that the British Army's "American" attack doctrine stressed the indirect approach--maneuvering onto a flank and attacking with "zeal" and "cold steel"--rather than relying on the old stand-by of wearing down one's opponent with heavy volleys of fire until one side gave way. By utilizing open order formations, and crossing the last lethal fifty yards at the double, the British quickly found they could minimize casualties from an adversary who was usually covered by strong defensive positions, and particularly well entrenched. This type of agile maneuver, however, required highly fit, highly motivated, and well-trained men led by bright, dynamic leaders.

Using a wealth of primary sources, Spring shows us that indeed this was the case, his narrative studded with firsthand accounts of the British soldiery, officers and other ranks, that experienced the face of battle in tracts of forest-bordered fields or hilly terrain. The methods they devised to maximize their combat power and minimize casualties were honed to such a point that sometimes elite troops, such as light infantry and grenadier battalions, were the only portion of the main British force to engage the enemy before he gave way. Colonel David Dundas, writing a few years after the war, cautioned that the "loose and irregular system of [British] infantry" was only possible because of "the very small proportion of cavalry employed in the American wars."[2] If the Americans had had heavy cavalry typical of the European theater of war, the British, he acknowledged, would have been forced to move with more "concert and circumspection" (p. 138).

This ad hoc tactical system specific to America worked well initially, but typically, the rebels would choose the ground on which they were willing to fight, and would always have a secure escape route. Despite many tactical victories, the British Army in America was never able to engage decisively the American rebel forces, or effectively pursue them to prevent them from reforming and returning to the fray. This was an operational failure. By 1781, the Americans had perfected their own tactical system, which saw them protecting their flanks, and echeloning their firepower in depth in order to absorb and blunt the shock and "zeal" of the British troops. By the end of the war, the Continental Army's best soldiers could meet the king's regiments on the open battlefield on more or less equal terms.

This final tactical stalemate imposed on British field commanders soon had an impact on their operational constraint of minimizing casualties (manpower) and, coupled with the constraints they consistently faced with regard to operational level logistics and their limited intelligence capabilities, negated any chance British leaders ever had of achieving any of their operational objectives.

Simply stated, Spring's work is a tour de force with wide appeal to specialists, students, academics, and the general public alike. He is to be commended for producing what I think is, hands down, the finest and most fascinating study of the tactical evolution of the British Army during the American War of Independence to date. It is just that outstanding. If only another author would now commit to do the same thing for George Washington's Continental Army, explaining how it campaigned operationally in the field, better military history for this important insurgency of the eighteenth century would abound!

Notes

[1]. John F. C. Fuller, British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1925), 127-128.

[2]. Colonel David Dundas, Principles of Military Movements, Chiefly Applied to Infantry (London: T. Cadell, 1788), 12.
 
H.P. Willmott. The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War. Revised edition. Dulles Potomac Books, 2008. xiv + 505 pp., ISBN 978-1-59797-191-1.

Debunking of Myths?

The first edition of The Great Crusade (1989) was a fine, comprehensive, single-volume history of World War II. The revised edition is even better, though readers should be aware that this is a military history of the war that usually focuses on decision-making and activities at the operational level and above. The author sometimes speaks of individual fighting divisions, but almost never about individual soldiers. This work is thus not the place for the reader to discover the tales and yarns of individual soldiers. Those who hope to grasp what it was like to be a Marine storming the beach at Tarawa, or a German civilian in Dresden in February 1945, should look elsewhere. H.P. Willmott gives considerable attention to the broad political and economic motives of warring countries and ample time to the analysis of the thinking behind major military decisions. Nevertheless, individuals who view history through the lens of the trinity of race, class, and gender will also emerge disappointed. Race is considered as it applies to the Holocaust, German and Japanese expansion, and the occupation policies of those countries. But, class and gender hardly rate a mention. The bottom line: The Great Crusade is not a social history of the war. Similarly, Willmott makes no attempt to replicate the anecdotes and stories that leaven the contributions of historians such as John Keegan, or his one-time student, Antony Beevor. His concern lies with the overall sweep of events and their import, not with individual reactions and stories.

Willmott does have a few axes to grind, but he candidly enunciates them. He is critical of the "great men" theory of history; he believes it is important to provide the reader with a balance of perspectives held by the major participants and he states, "I must admit to a contempt for that popularly accepted by pernicious myth of German military excellence" (p. xi). He is not afraid to swim against the tide, either, especially in his analysis of the European theater. He takes issue with Gerhard Weinberg's view that the Russians deliberately halted on the outskirts of Warsaw in 1944, thereby condemning the Polish underground to destruction.[1] He argues that more German divisions (for example, those involved in the spring 1941 Balkans invasions) could not have been absorbed easily in the Germans' June 22, 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and hence would not have contributed to immediate increased German combat effectiveness. He opines that Germany's repulse in the Battle of Britain "had no effect upon Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union in 1941" (p. 110).

The Great Crusade seldom minces words. Willmott describes Pearl Harbor, when all things are considered, as a Japanese defeat. In his view, the Wehrmacht was consistently outfought and out-thought from Stalingrad to the end of the war. He argues that Erich von Manstein's famous 1943 riposte to the Soviets at Kharkov has been overly praised. Bernard Montgomery's tactics often imitated those of the Soviets in their reliance upon numerical and firepower superiority. The RAF was on the edge of defeat after its costly March 1944 Nuremberg raid. A de facto truce between the Japanese and both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Xedong persisted for long periods of time in China. With similar bravado, the author states that the Union's blockade and strangling of the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War is a direct analog to U.S. strategy vis-á-vis Japan in World War II. Japan and the United States both wished to end the war before the Soviets could enter, but couldn't get the job accomplished. Most of the war was fought after the outcome already had been determined. It is not possible to pick out a turning point in either the war in Europe, or in the Pacific. Such views (and there are many more) make this history both stimulating and sometimes challenging.

On occasion, Willmott offers conclusions that undermine his own position, as when he offers the judgment that the Wehrmacht exhibited "a technique, initiative and flair at both tactical and operational levels that enabled German ground formations to outfight consistently superior enemy forces--at least until 1944" (p. 136), even as he argues that German military excellence is a "pernicious myth" (p. xi). Apparently he discounts the work of Trevor N. DuPuy and others, which suggests that the typical German infantryman was approximately 25 percent more effective than the comparable British or American.[2] An apparent contradiction also emerges between his derogation of the "great men" thesis and his observation that "the European war outlasted its author by nine days" (p. 449).

Given Willmott's thesis concerning the absence of real turning points in the war, it is not surprising that his coverage of critical battles such as Moscow, Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Kiev is lighter than one sees in other comprehensive histories. He also asserts that economic strength ultimately was the critical factor in deciding the war, but does not even mention the work of Mark Harrison or Adam Tooze in his bibliography.[3]

Given these decided stances and the problems that some readers may find with them, we should ask what the work does accomplish especially well. First, Willmott makes one think and rethink one's views about what really happened in the war and why events occurred as they did. Second, drawing on the pathbreaking work of David M. Glantz and others, he gives significant attention to Soviet war thinking and Soviet military maturation over the duration of the war. His is not the Germanocentric view of events that frequently has colored histories of World War II. Third, he does supply "critical balance" (p. xi) to the perspectives of the combatants. Fourth, he elucidates important, but otherwise obscure, events such as the compromising capture of the SS Automedon in November 1941 and the prophetic Total War Research Institute study of August 1941 performed by the Japanese. Fifth, Willmott often buttresses his conclusions with generous data, more so than any comparable comprehensive history. Sixth, depending upon their tastes, of course, readers may find attractive his penchant for stating his assessments forthrightly. He seldom hedges his conclusions with probabilistic statements or counterfactual possibilities. By contrast, in his well-received 1,178-page history of the war, Weinberg sometimes proffers the view that more research is needed on a topic before we can reach a definitive conclusion.

I recommend The Great Crusade as a university textbook and I back this judgment by using it as my primary text when I teach a course on the history of World War II. True, Willmott serves up more than a few controversial points of view and he chooses not to cover several critical topics. Nevertheless, the book is highly readable, well documented, and provides an excellent springboard for discussion. Would that more prospective textbooks were able to fulfill the same criteria.

Notes

[1]. Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

[2]. Trevor N. Dupuy, Numbers, Predictions, and War (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1979).

[3]. Harrison Mark, ed., The Economics of World War II: Six Powers in International Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (New York: Viking, 2006).


Citation: James V. Koch. Review of Willmott, H.P., The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2010. URL:
 
Stephen M. Miller. Volunteers on the Veld: Britain's Citizen-Soldiers and the South African War, 1899-1902. Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. xii + 236 pp. , ISBN 978-0-8061-3864-0.

Reviewed by Anne Samson

An Irregular Take on the South African or Anglo-Boer War

Much has been published on the South African or Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, from descriptions of individual battles to general histories and the odd memoir, with most focusing on the period of conventional or set-piece battles. This short book breaks with the tradition by exploring the role of British volunteer or irregular troops, in particular the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers in the war. By implication, this moves the focus of the war to the period of guerrilla fighting and for someone brought up on both the British and South African myths of the war, this provides a refreshing and alternative insight.

The book starts with a description of the little-known Battle of Tweebosch of 1902 in which Lord Methuen was defeated and where the volunteer forces failed to prove themselves. After setting out reasons for the battle's obscurity, one of which is that irregular troops were used, Miller turns to the purpose of this book, namely, that charting the recruitment and use of these volunteers to provides an insight into the changing British imperial attitude during the Victorian era. As he notes, "While the Regular Army has received great attention, Britain's 'citizen' army, the Yeomanry, Volunteers, and Militia, have been almost completely overlooked" (p. 7). The use of these volunteers during the South African War, particularly after Black Week in December 1899, is significant for two reasons. Firstly, in 1900, Britain was the only imperial power not to have conscription. This was influenced by the "Blue Water School," which maintained that the navy was sufficient to protect Britain and the empire, yet the war of 1899-1902 was to show otherwise. Secondly, an enquiry into the performance of the more than one hundred thousand volunteers in the war resulted in a radical change to the military structure in 1907, seeing the transformation of the volunteer forces into the Expeditionary or Territorial Force and later the Territorial Army.

The first three chapters explore the origin of the irregular troops, the context in which they are sent to South Africa, and the issues surrounding their recruitment. Miller introduces many interesting aspects, such as the background to each of the three forces:, namely that the militia were recruited before 1850 as a counterbalance to the regular army and a possible dictatorship, whilst the yeomanry or mounted volunteers were recruited to suppress "riotous or tumultuous" Britons, and the volunteer movement enabled the middle class to participate politically and as a means of preventing conscription (p. 25).

Although from the middle of the Victorian era the reputation of the military was declining, from the 1870s the attitude towards the irregulars was improving. Miller tries to explain this by describing how education, religion, and business all started to promote the benefits of empire and the military. Boys' brigades grew in popularity with the migration of people to the towns and cities to find employment and the increase in leisure time. In addition, the volunteer forces required little funding from the central treasury, which appealed to the politicians who were preparing the country for potential conflicts on the continent and elsewhere. Miller points out that although the civilian War Office seemed to control military decisions, the country's heroes in the late Victorian era were all soldiers, such as Field Marshall Garnet Wolseley, General Charles Gordon, Major General Henry Havelock, and Lord Roberts of Kandahar. Songs, literature, and newspapers all extolled the virtues of the military and martial values, a point further taken on board by the church and missionaries. Although raising some valid points, Miller does not dwell much on the reasons underlying the change in attitude, which is a pity.

Miller goes onto explain the differences between the Boer and British troops, showing how evenly matched the two forces were and what weaknesses would play a role. The reluctance in Britain to prepare the military for action in southern Africa initially gave the Boers the upper hand, leading to what became known in Britain as "Black Week." The series of defeats during Black Week takes on greater significance when the reasons for British confidence in victory are set out, such as access to more sophisticated weapons and the presence of the engineering corps and specialist medical teams which the Boers did not have. Miller provides a breakdown of the number of troops available to each side, noting that Britain had approximately three times the number of troops to draw on than the Boers, despite the quality of some of the British troops, i.e., the volunteers and militia, not being up to standard, particularly in the area of leadership. Despite this shortcoming, many saw value in using volunteer troops and encouraged their recruitment. Unfortunately, the process of how this happened is a little vague as Miller sidetracks to home defense issues prior to 1899 and the unsuitability of the volunteer forces in their existing state for this purpose.

A complex set of regulations appears to have dictated where and when irregulars could be used and with the events leading up to the war, these came to the fore. Miller provides a broad overview of why the War Office sanctioned the recruitment of the army irregulars and relative detail on the social composition of the different groups. He suggests that the War Office was not completely happy with the composition of the volunteers based on the areas they came from, but why this was perceived to be an issue is not fully explored. The main reasons why men volunteered centered on class and patriotism, although the revisionist economic explanation which arose during the 1960s also receives coverage. In setting out his arguments around recruitment, Miller has paid close attention to available statistics to prove his point and to highlight differences between regions and the three irregular forces.

Chapters 4 through 6 focus on the experiences of the troops and make much use of memoirs and other personal accounts. Where little evidence exists, Miller puts it down to the commonness of the work and the proximity of the training bases to family and friends. Life on ship is accorded the same level of detail, with comments about the sighting of Los Palmas and Tenerife in particular. The time spent on board and in training was seen as important for building an esprit de corps which would be needed on the battlefield. The awareness of the officers in building this esprit, however, is juxtaposed by the accounts of what men were not trained or drilled in, such as putting up tents and hammocks. Special attention is also given to the time when the men realized what they had taken on: the moment of embarkation and the last sighting of UK territory.

Unlike the majority of histories of the South African War, which tend to focus on the action, Miller is quite comfortable, albeit through the experiences of others, sharing the mundane and tedious side of the war. What becomes evident in chapter 5 is the infrequency with which the volunteers encountered the enemy and the drain this had on morale, especially when the men were not aware of the bigger picture. Other highlights include accounts of being under fire for the first time, the subordinate role of the volunteers on the battlefield when set pieces were fought and, again, the inadequacy of their preparation, such as not being able to saddle a horse. Special attention is given to the City of London Imperial Volunteers (CIV) throughout the book which perhaps is of no great surprise considering that much was written about them at the time, too. The jealousies this gave rise to are also addressed in this book.

In dealing with the men's experiences of the war, Miller addresses the transition from traditional warfare to guerrilla war, but rather than from the tactical point of view, he explores the impact this had on the troops as their function changed to one of guarding prisoners and railway lines, killing animals, and burning farms. Again, there are diversions to explore the attitude towards and role of Black South Africans, of which over 30,000 fought on the side of the British, and the death of a French aristocrat, Comte de Villebois-Marueil, who was fighting on the side of the Boers. Dominating the correspondence is the British hatred of the Boers, negativity towards the war, and the growing restlessness amongst the troops towards those in command.

Chapter 7 sees a return to more traditional historical narrative with less use of memoir and diaries. The chapter is one of contrasts as Miller compares the different responses in the press to the send-off of the troops and the reception accorded their officers compared to that of the men. The chapter also deals with the pressure on the officers to return men home before the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed and the difficulty they faced in launching offensives with depleted forces, an example being that of Lord Methuen's column of thirteen hundred which was compiled of men from fourteen different units. The subsequent assessment of the auxiliaries and the tension faced between meeting the need for bodies on the battlefield versus training culminates in the defeat and capture of Lord Methuen at Tweebosch, with most blame being placed on the Imperial Yeomanry. Miller balances the criticisms with evidence of support for the irregulars, particularly for the yeomanry and again, the CIV. Although some of the auxiliaries did not perform as expected, the overall verdict regarding their contribution to the British victory is positive. Where the men failed, this was not due to their inadequacies but rather to a lack of training and organization.

The final chapter looks at the years following the end of the war and the restructuring of the armed forces through three secretaries of state for war, namely William Broderick, Hugh Arnold-Foster, and Richard Haldane. The changes introduced by Haldane were the most far-reaching, with the introduction of the Expeditionary Force and the change in focus from India to the continent as the last line of defense. Various reports were produced following enquiries of which the most prominent were the Elgin and Norfolk Commissions into the role of the auxiliaries and around the issue of conscription. Although the commissions pointed to weaknesses and concerns in the performance of the auxiliary troops, it was felt that these inadequacies were more to do with the organization of the troops and the paucity of preparation and thus the outcome was of the utmost praise for the men who rose to the call in Britain's time of need. Interspersed in the chapter is a discussion on the poor health of the volunteers noting that approximately a quarter were rejected for various reasons. Despite giving some space to Sir Frederick Maurice's views on the matter, Miller turns to the overriding theme of the day, namely, why men did not volunteer and the debate on whether conscription should be introduced.

This book is a valuable contribution to a war about which much has been written. In its attempt to reconcile the strategic or political approach with the experiences of the irregular troops, use has been made of personal and government sources, giving it appeal to a wider range of readers than would necessarily have been the case if only one aspect had been addressed. At times, it was a little difficult to follow the author's argument as he introduces asides and alternative explanations; however, this does not distract from the purpose of the book, which was to tell the story of the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers in the South African War of 1899-1902 and highlight the changing attitude towards the military during the late Victorian era. If anything, it serves to further highlight the complex feelings and attitudes towards war and its relationship with society and politics.
 
Stephen M. Miller. Volunteers on the Veld: Britain's Citizen-Soldiers and the South African War, 1899-1902. Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. xii + 236 pp. , ISBN 978-0-8061-3864-0.

Reviewed by Anne Samson

An Irregular Take on the South African or Anglo-Boer War

Much has been published on the South African or Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, from descriptions of individual battles to general histories and the odd memoir, with most focusing on the period of conventional or set-piece battles. This short book breaks with the tradition by exploring the role of British volunteer or irregular troops, in particular the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers in the war. By implication, this moves the focus of the war to the period of guerrilla fighting and for someone brought up on both the British and South African myths of the war, this provides a refreshing and alternative insight.

The book starts with a description of the little-known Battle of Tweebosch of 1902 in which Lord Methuen was defeated and where the volunteer forces failed to prove themselves. After setting out reasons for the battle's obscurity, one of which is that irregular troops were used, Miller turns to the purpose of this book, namely, that charting the recruitment and use of these volunteers to provides an insight into the changing British imperial attitude during the Victorian era. As he notes, "While the Regular Army has received great attention, Britain's 'citizen' army, the Yeomanry, Volunteers, and Militia, have been almost completely overlooked" (p. 7). The use of these volunteers during the South African War, particularly after Black Week in December 1899, is significant for two reasons. Firstly, in 1900, Britain was the only imperial power not to have conscription. This was influenced by the "Blue Water School," which maintained that the navy was sufficient to protect Britain and the empire, yet the war of 1899-1902 was to show otherwise. Secondly, an enquiry into the performance of the more than one hundred thousand volunteers in the war resulted in a radical change to the military structure in 1907, seeing the transformation of the volunteer forces into the Expeditionary or Territorial Force and later the Territorial Army.

The first three chapters explore the origin of the irregular troops, the context in which they are sent to South Africa, and the issues surrounding their recruitment. Miller introduces many interesting aspects, such as the background to each of the three forces:, namely that the militia were recruited before 1850 as a counterbalance to the regular army and a possible dictatorship, whilst the yeomanry or mounted volunteers were recruited to suppress "riotous or tumultuous" Britons, and the volunteer movement enabled the middle class to participate politically and as a means of preventing conscription (p. 25).

Although from the middle of the Victorian era the reputation of the military was declining, from the 1870s the attitude towards the irregulars was improving. Miller tries to explain this by describing how education, religion, and business all started to promote the benefits of empire and the military. Boys' brigades grew in popularity with the migration of people to the towns and cities to find employment and the increase in leisure time. In addition, the volunteer forces required little funding from the central treasury, which appealed to the politicians who were preparing the country for potential conflicts on the continent and elsewhere. Miller points out that although the civilian War Office seemed to control military decisions, the country's heroes in the late Victorian era were all soldiers, such as Field Marshall Garnet Wolseley, General Charles Gordon, Major General Henry Havelock, and Lord Roberts of Kandahar. Songs, literature, and newspapers all extolled the virtues of the military and martial values, a point further taken on board by the church and missionaries. Although raising some valid points, Miller does not dwell much on the reasons underlying the change in attitude, which is a pity.

Miller goes onto explain the differences between the Boer and British troops, showing how evenly matched the two forces were and what weaknesses would play a role. The reluctance in Britain to prepare the military for action in southern Africa initially gave the Boers the upper hand, leading to what became known in Britain as "Black Week." The series of defeats during Black Week takes on greater significance when the reasons for British confidence in victory are set out, such as access to more sophisticated weapons and the presence of the engineering corps and specialist medical teams which the Boers did not have. Miller provides a breakdown of the number of troops available to each side, noting that Britain had approximately three times the number of troops to draw on than the Boers, despite the quality of some of the British troops, i.e., the volunteers and militia, not being up to standard, particularly in the area of leadership. Despite this shortcoming, many saw value in using volunteer troops and encouraged their recruitment. Unfortunately, the process of how this happened is a little vague as Miller sidetracks to home defense issues prior to 1899 and the unsuitability of the volunteer forces in their existing state for this purpose.

A complex set of regulations appears to have dictated where and when irregulars could be used and with the events leading up to the war, these came to the fore. Miller provides a broad overview of why the War Office sanctioned the recruitment of the army irregulars and relative detail on the social composition of the different groups. He suggests that the War Office was not completely happy with the composition of the volunteers based on the areas they came from, but why this was perceived to be an issue is not fully explored. The main reasons why men volunteered centered on class and patriotism, although the revisionist economic explanation which arose during the 1960s also receives coverage. In setting out his arguments around recruitment, Miller has paid close attention to available statistics to prove his point and to highlight differences between regions and the three irregular forces.

Chapters 4 through 6 focus on the experiences of the troops and make much use of memoirs and other personal accounts. Where little evidence exists, Miller puts it down to the commonness of the work and the proximity of the training bases to family and friends. Life on ship is accorded the same level of detail, with comments about the sighting of Los Palmas and Tenerife in particular. The time spent on board and in training was seen as important for building an esprit de corps which would be needed on the battlefield. The awareness of the officers in building this esprit, however, is juxtaposed by the accounts of what men were not trained or drilled in, such as putting up tents and hammocks. Special attention is also given to the time when the men realized what they had taken on: the moment of embarkation and the last sighting of UK territory.

Unlike the majority of histories of the South African War, which tend to focus on the action, Miller is quite comfortable, albeit through the experiences of others, sharing the mundane and tedious side of the war. What becomes evident in chapter 5 is the infrequency with which the volunteers encountered the enemy and the drain this had on morale, especially when the men were not aware of the bigger picture. Other highlights include accounts of being under fire for the first time, the subordinate role of the volunteers on the battlefield when set pieces were fought and, again, the inadequacy of their preparation, such as not being able to saddle a horse. Special attention is given to the City of London Imperial Volunteers (CIV) throughout the book which perhaps is of no great surprise considering that much was written about them at the time, too. The jealousies this gave rise to are also addressed in this book.

In dealing with the men's experiences of the war, Miller addresses the transition from traditional warfare to guerrilla war, but rather than from the tactical point of view, he explores the impact this had on the troops as their function changed to one of guarding prisoners and railway lines, killing animals, and burning farms. Again, there are diversions to explore the attitude towards and role of Black South Africans, of which over 30,000 fought on the side of the British, and the death of a French aristocrat, Comte de Villebois-Marueil, who was fighting on the side of the Boers. Dominating the correspondence is the British hatred of the Boers, negativity towards the war, and the growing restlessness amongst the troops towards those in command.

Chapter 7 sees a return to more traditional historical narrative with less use of memoir and diaries. The chapter is one of contrasts as Miller compares the different responses in the press to the send-off of the troops and the reception accorded their officers compared to that of the men. The chapter also deals with the pressure on the officers to return men home before the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed and the difficulty they faced in launching offensives with depleted forces, an example being that of Lord Methuen's column of thirteen hundred which was compiled of men from fourteen different units. The subsequent assessment of the auxiliaries and the tension faced between meeting the need for bodies on the battlefield versus training culminates in the defeat and capture of Lord Methuen at Tweebosch, with most blame being placed on the Imperial Yeomanry. Miller balances the criticisms with evidence of support for the irregulars, particularly for the yeomanry and again, the CIV. Although some of the auxiliaries did not perform as expected, the overall verdict regarding their contribution to the British victory is positive. Where the men failed, this was not due to their inadequacies but rather to a lack of training and organization.

The final chapter looks at the years following the end of the war and the restructuring of the armed forces through three secretaries of state for war, namely William Broderick, Hugh Arnold-Foster, and Richard Haldane. The changes introduced by Haldane were the most far-reaching, with the introduction of the Expeditionary Force and the change in focus from India to the continent as the last line of defense. Various reports were produced following enquiries of which the most prominent were the Elgin and Norfolk Commissions into the role of the auxiliaries and around the issue of conscription. Although the commissions pointed to weaknesses and concerns in the performance of the auxiliary troops, it was felt that these inadequacies were more to do with the organization of the troops and the paucity of preparation and thus the outcome was of the utmost praise for the men who rose to the call in Britain's time of need. Interspersed in the chapter is a discussion on the poor health of the volunteers noting that approximately a quarter were rejected for various reasons. Despite giving some space to Sir Frederick Maurice's views on the matter, Miller turns to the overriding theme of the day, namely, why men did not volunteer and the debate on whether conscription should be introduced.

This book is a valuable contribution to a war about which much has been written. In its attempt to reconcile the strategic or political approach with the experiences of the irregular troops, use has been made of personal and government sources, giving it appeal to a wider range of readers than would necessarily have been the case if only one aspect had been addressed. At times, it was a little difficult to follow the author's argument as he introduces asides and alternative explanations; however, this does not distract from the purpose of the book, which was to tell the story of the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers in the South African War of 1899-1902 and highlight the changing attitude towards the military during the late Victorian era. If anything, it serves to further highlight the complex feelings and attitudes towards war and its relationship with society and politics.
 
Michael Howard. War in European History. New York, Oxford University Press, 2009. xii + 171 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-954619-0.

Reviewed by Brian G.H. Ditcham (Independent Scholar)
Published on H-German (February, 2010)


A Very Short (and Dated) Overview of European Warfare

This publication is somewhat curious. It is presented as an updated edition of a book first published in 1976, based on a series of lectures given by Michael Howard at the University of Warwick the year before. In fact, the core of the book (135 out of 144 pages of text) is, as far as one can judge, a barely amended reprint of the original book, supplemented by an epilogue that brings the story down to about 2004, and an updated set of notes for further reading. To a very considerable extent, therefore, one is looking at a book written in the mid-1970s--in the middle of major academic debates about the content and direction of military history as a subject (and, by pure coincidence, at the point when I was about to embark on my own postgraduate research).

It is fair to say that only the most muted echoes of these debates find their way into Howard's account, though arguably a very short overview study that seeks to cover virtually a thousand years of European warfare in 135 small pages of generous print size is not the place to expect serious historiographical discussion. Howard is inevitably obliged to paint with a very broad brush indeed, and one cannot criticize him too much for doing so. Potential readers (and particularly those who may be tempted to use this book in a teaching context) do, however, need to be aware that Howard's account of warfare in the Middle Ages (his "Wars of the Knights") was very dated even in the 1970s, as it looks back essentially to the rather dismissive early-twentieth-century views of writers like Sir Charles Oman and Hans Delbrück. His approach to warfare in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries does, on the other hand, betray the influence of the then-recent writings of Michael Roberts and other advocates of the concept of a "military revolution" in the early seventeenth century.

Overall, Howard's approach sits somewhere between the "traditional" military history focused on battles, tactics, and great commanders that was much decried by advocates of the "new military history" of the 1970s and the much more social history-based approaches that these scholars sought to advance, which were intended to be more attentive to the role of armies and the wars they fought as social and even cultural institutions. "Great Men" do play a prominent role in Howard's account, but they tend to be technicians like French artillery expert Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval or military administrators like Michel le Tellier rather than battlefield commanders. King Gustav Adolf Vasa of Sweden figures more as a military theoretician than a general, and it is revealing that the Prussian ruler who gets the most sustained attention in this account is Great Elector Frederick William rather than his great-grandson, Frederick the Great. The only figure whose generalship is subjected to much analysis is Napoleon Bonaparte. While this is not quite "military history with the fighting left out" (a common criticism made against the new military history), no battle is analyzed in real depth. A whiff of technological determinism rises from Howard's account of the interplay between weapons, tactics, and military organization.

Above all, this work offers an account of warfare made very much from the top down. The experience of the ordinary fighting man hardly figures; his female companions (an indispensable element in every European army up to at least the Napoleonic era) are completely invisible. The common soldier is viewed in the mass, whether brutalized and marginalized (Howard's view of the standing armies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) or the putatively patriotic conscript of the standing armies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The linkage between armies, states, and the societies that sustained them is sketched in sub-Marxian materialist terms, even if Howard devotes an unexpectedly lengthy passage to explaining how Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels got it wrong by underestimating the appeal of patriotism to the masses. Irregular warfare is barely mentioned--even the Spanish guerillas of the Napoleonic Wars fail to make a mark.

Inevitably in such a short book, choices on coverage have to be made. Howard's are (perhaps inadvertently) revealing. "Europe" in his presentation is basically the Europe of the European Community as it stood at the time he was writing, plus the Iberian peninsula and Switzerland (but only for the early modern period). Russia does not appear in the text until the Battle of Austerlitz (1806), and it is never entirely clear whether Howard regards Russia and later the Soviet Union as a European power or not. The Balkans are clearly non-European (even, implicitly, in the present day--the epilogue almost ignores the wars that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, which admittedly fits at best awkwardly with Howard's overall thesis that warfare within Europe has become unthinkable since 1945). Following his account, the Baltic lands are barely more European--while Sweden gets a brief mention in the seventeenth century (its role in Roberts' "military revolution" could hardly permit its exclusion), the region vanishes after Gustav Adolf's death, and Karl XII of Sweden--one of traditional military history's greatest commanders--is never mentioned. The lands that made up the Warsaw Pact powers in 1975 are also excluded from Europe (except to the extent that the then-GDR could be seen as heir to the Kingdom of Prussia). Thus, for instance, no mention is made in the medieval chapter of the Hussites and their devastatingly effective employment of artillery and field fortifications, which influenced warfare as far west as France. The Mediterranean is implicitly not a European sea--the rather patchy and poorly integrated sections on naval warfare focus entirely on "blue water," oceanic environments. In practice the core of the book concerns France and Germany, with England/Great Britain as a kind of licensed oddity on the fringes and other places dipping in and out as the traditional narrative of military development requires. Italy, with its complex relationship between state-building, nationalism, and military developments in the second half of the nineteenth century, would have provided an interesting counterpoint to the German-centered view, but Giuseppe Garibaldi does not rate a mention (though Giuseppe Mazzini does).

European imperial and colonial enterprises are almost literally pushed offshore for most of the book. The original text of 1975 included a section ("The War of the Merchants") that covered the naval aspects of European expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but had very little to say about what happened on shore in those faraway lands. Thereafter, colonial warfare is barely visible--until the final updating epilogue, which says more about the processes by which Britain, France, and the other European powers lost their empires than the original text did about how they came to acquire them in the first place. Given the importance of the colonial world to military careers in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe, this omission seems major.

The original text bears the marks of its origins in a set of lectures that were no doubt stimulating but did not necessarily transfer well to written form. The result is a rather fragmented presentation that sees coverage of major conflicts like the Thirty Years War and even the First World War split up between different chapters. Other conflicts, including even the Second World War, get rather scanty and superficial coverage. The text is also riddled with errors, what were probably citations from memory, and sometimes odd judgments. Howard talks of a "War of Investiture" in medieval Italy (p. 18)--presumably he means the Investiture Contest, which was as much a war of words as of weapons, and happened a couple of centuries before the implied date. He places the operations of the "Great Company" in Italy between 1338 and 1354 (p. 25); this depiction seriously oversimplifies a complex set of developments over a rather different time scale. Talking of Edward I's Welsh Wars as "more like hunting game than war between Christians" may just possibly reflect the views of the average English knight of the times (p. 11), though I am unaware of any contemporary who put matters in quite those terms, but suggests rather disturbing implications. Admittedly, these examples come from the early sections of the book, where Howard is furthest from his areas of competence, but similar issues arise even in the rather unsatisfactory updating epilogue. Osama bin Laden is not "an ayatollah ... from Saudi Arabia" (p. 142) since "ayatollah" is a formal clerical grade known only in Shi'a Islam and bin Laden is Sunni. The total omission of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan seems curious to say the least. The whole epilogue has a rather rushed and provisional feel and some of its judgments already look dated.

Michael Howard is undoubtedly one of Britain's most distinguished military historians, but this volumes by no means displays his best work. It is now mainly of historiographical interest in its demonstration of the ways in which the field of military history has changed in the past three decades.
 
C. Christine Fair, and Sumit Ganguly, eds. Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008. xii + 227, ISBN 978-0-19-534203-1, ISBN 978-0-19-534204-8.

Reviewed by Sinderpal Singh (National University of Singapore)


The Case of the State vs. Insurgents: Encounters in Sacred Spaces

The subject of counterinsurgency has an enduring interest for academics, military strategists, and political elites alike, who have given significant attention to earlier British operations in Malaya and Kenya, the Indian state's attempts to deal with various insurgent challenges that still fester today, and U.S. attempts to "win the peace" in both Afghanistan and Iraq. As such, this highly relevant as well as timely book touches on a subject that continues to attract widespread interest, both from a historical point of view as well as from contemporary global politics. The volume seeks to contribute to the voluminous counterinsurgency literature in a very specific manner. It identifies two types of counterinsurgency operations that the literature has not dealt with satisfactorily--urban area insurgency and insurgents who take over sacred places. The authors' contention is that in most cases these sacred places are located in urban areas and this conjunction presents a distinct type of counterinsurgency challenge.

The book is organized by chapters that look at specific cases in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The central point the book makes is that tactical and operational success may not always translate into strategic success in these types of counterinsurgency operations. Instead, the key is managing public perceptions and the resultant support the insurgents might derive from the local population and those further beyond who may identify with such insurgents. In short, the book makes the point that negotiating "sacrality" is key--tactical and operational methods/approaches need to be sensitive to this point.

Chapter 1 outlines some key definitions in understanding sacred spaces. It also outlines why insurgents use sacred spaces and how this offers them asymmetrical advantage against counterinsurgents (who are usually the representatives of the "state"). It stresses the need for "religious intelligence" and the role of religious authorities in negotiating such types of operations. This chapter also discuss the case of Palestinian gunmen occupying the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in order to escape capture by the Israeli military. Chapters 2 to 7 then take on the task of discussing specific case studies within the analytical framework set out in the introduction and definitional parameters set out in chapter 1.

Overall, this is a significant work. The authors are right to stress the importance of looking at counterinsurgency operations in sacred spaces as a specific type of operation, requiring a specific type of "intelligence." Another strength of this edited book is that the individual chapters (chapters 2 to 7 especially) work well as case studies, allowing the reader to quickly and clearly understand the important specifics of each case presented. It allows, in one volume, the reader the opportunity to receive a clearly presented range of different case studies, located across both time and space. The case studies also give a good sense, generally, of how and why certain sacred spaces come to be represented as "religious" and the importance of understanding such constructions of sacrality to this type of counterinsurgency effort.

However, one problem that this work encounters is that, as much as negotiating "sacrality" is a specific type of counterinsurgency endeavor, it is difficult to advance any genuinely and radically "new" way to conduct counterinsurgency. In the end, several of the policy options offered are either strikingly obvious to the informed reader (like the need to ensure no damage is done to the structures of sacred buildings) or largely similar to the standard mantra offered for all types of counterinsurgency work--"winning hearts and minds," and collecting "good, credible intelligence." The point made about the need to understand the important differences in approaching primary and secondary religious places though is well taken and needs to be highlighted.

Nevertheless, when it comes to general principles, the central mantra of all types of counterinsurgency is still the same--that the battle is over public perceptions. In this regard, this volume could have paid a bit more attention to not only the part of the public, both domestic and global, that may have sympathies with the insurgents but also the portion of the public which may strongly oppose such insurgents. The state needs to mediate the perceptions of the former, which this volume concentrates on, as well as the latter, on which this volume has little to say. The need for state elites not to appear "soft" or "weak" domestically, especially among those who oppose particular insurgents, in the face of challenges to state authority is central to understanding how counterinsurgency operations are approached and planned. There is thus more than one domestic constituency that the state has to cater to--and the perceptions of those opposing insurgents are as equally important to manage.

As outlined earlier, the individual chapters that serve as case studies are one of the book's major strengths. However, the chapter on Iraq, chapter 6, leaves the reader less than convinced about the author's central hypothesis. The author argues that the central reason for the difference in approach by U.S. forces in the two separate Najaf episodes (April and August 2004 respectively) is due to the fact that the second operation by U.S. forces was afforded the legitimacy of a nominated Iraqi government, with power concentrated (as the author himself admits) in the hands of Prime Minister Allawi. This contrasts, according to the author, the lack of legitimacy for U.S. troops when Paul Bremer III held complete power as administrator of the Coalition Administration Authority (during the time of the first, April, "episode"). It is difficult, however, to understand how an unelected Iraqi government, widely seen as totally dependent on U.S. military power for its existence and survival, could credibly afford to give enough legitimacy to an operation on a Muslim (especially Shia) holy city led by U.S. forces. From this otherwise very clear account, it does seem instead that "operational learning" factors might have been more important in explaining the differences in approach to the April and August episodes by U.S. forces.

Overall, as stated before, this is an important work and should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, contemporary military, and intelligence strategies as well as those just interested in the specific case studies covered in this volume.
 
Patrick Porter. Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes. New York, Columbia University Press, 2009. x + 263 pp, ISBN 978-0-231-15414-7.
Reviewed by Brian G.H. Ditcham (Independent Scholar)


At the Sharp End of Culture Wars?
It has to said at the outset that this is not an easy book for someone whose background lies in the field of historical studies to review adequately. Patrick Porter of the British Defence Academy at King’s College, University of London, is a man with a message. It is primarily directed at the political and military establishments of the United Kingdom and United States, though presumably those of any other country whose military forces might be engaged in conflicts with foes in faraway places could absorb it with profit. In order to convey his message, Porter has written a book which draws in turn on history, historiography, current affairs analysis, literary criticism, sociology, and anthropology. The time scale stretches from classical antiquity to the present day, the geographical coverage is global—and all of this in under two hundred pages of text. The result is at times slightly dizzying, especially as Porter also engages in sudden shifts of focus from the widest of angles to extreme close up.

Porter’s message, put simply, is that the employment of American and British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has encouraged a view that culture dictates ways of making war and that, in order to fight wars in such alien environments successfully, commanders and troops on the ground need thorough training in the cultural ways of the societies from which their opponents derive. Porter, however, argues that this “culturalist” approach is based on deeply flawed understandings of how cultures work, especially in times of conflict, and tends to create monolithic categories of “western” and “eastern” warfare.

To substantiate his argument, Porter’s opening two chapters seek to set a broad historic context of “western” military engagement with “eastern” foes at a range of levels: practical, theoretical, and even popular cultural. Despite the obvious nod to the works of Edward Said in the title, these are not discussed in detail, and the “military orientalism” Porter seeks to identify is a rather more complex creation than what one might describe as a “vulgar Saidian” discourse of western superiority and eastern subjection would suggest. Inevitably Porter has to be very selective in his arguments. On his own admission, he focuses almost exclusively on writings in English, while conceding that looking at, say, French-language material would have added nuance to the analysis. One might suggest that Russian/Soviet views would have been even more interesting, given Russia’s ambiguous position as both a self-consciously “western” imperial power pushing eastwards into the steppes and, in the eyes of its European enemies, an “Asiatic” power unleashing barbarian hordes against the West. He skips very lightly over lengthy periods of time. The Roman Empire gets much less coverage than classical Greece (though curiously Alexander of Macedon is hardly mentioned despite his obvious relevance for debates on cultural approaches to warfare in eastern lands), while the Middle Ages and Renaissance get very short shrift, with only one fleeting reference to the Crusades. Ottoman Turkey is rarely mentioned, despite its status as the predominant “Oriental” power with which Europeans had dealings for some five hundred years.

For all that, Porter makes some important points. Under the stress of confrontation and combat, “western” and “eastern” militaries have clearly borrowed liberally from each other and in many cases have come to institutionalize such borrowings in the long term—even if the Swiss might debate Porter’s claim that it was Ottoman Janissaries who persuaded European armies to have military bands and march in step. Success in colonial warfare was often crucially dependent on the collaboration of elements of “native” society with the European colonizer. Casting the foe as irredeemably barbarous could provide a convenient justification for the use of what would otherwise be unacceptably brutal methods (though this matter does pose questions about the “legitimate” boundaries of mutual borrowing that Porter might have engaged with in more detail). On a more theoretical level, Porter’s point that western Orientalizers were as likely to idealize the eternal Orient of their imaginations as denigrate it is a well-taken one, as is his contention that, at least from the late nineteenth century onwards, propagandists for “Oriental” causes like Japanese imperialism or Arab nationalism were very ready to promote organic and essentialist visions of their own cultures as ways of asserting their own innate superiority over a vulgar materialist West. Such assertions might in turn be employed by western cultural commentators at odds with the development of their own societies as a mirror for the alleged shortcomings of the latter. He has little difficulty showing that contemporary commentators who contrast a “western” way of war based on the writings of Carl von Clausewitz and an “eastern” one based on Sun Tzu (usually as a way of denigrating the former) are caricaturing both what Clausewitz actually said and the ways in which the supposedly “Clausewitzian” militaries of the “West” have in practice gone about fighting their wars. Intriguingly, he does not subject the Sun Tzu side of the equation to quite the same level of deconstruction, while observing that the actual practice of Asian militaries has also been strikingly at odds with Sun Tzu’s supposed lessons. While perhaps less original than he implies, his demonstration that groups like Al-Qaeda are products of a globalized, Internet-linked environment and are quite willing to engage in organizational, tactical, and even ideological borrowing from sources as diverse as published U.S. army manuals, Latin American urban guerilla theorists, and even American white supremacist writers is convincing. His mutual adaptation model perhaps begins to falter around this point, however; despite his best efforts to “normalize” suicide bombing as a technique of war, one suspects that this practice is extremely unlikely to be incorporated as a tactical option in manuals used at U.S. or British staff colleges in the foreseeable future.

One might however wonder just how “Orientalist” a lot of this discussion is. Porter’s historical “Orientals” include Zulus, Aztecs, Sioux, and even (briefly and by implication) the thoroughly European-model Mexican army that besieged the Alamo. As far as the contemporary world is concerned, Rwandan Hutus and the peoples of former Yugoslavia (especially the Serbs) join this group. The analysis thus poses a considerable danger of making the whole concept so generalized as to become meaningless. A thorough overview of the ways in which (say) European societies have viewed non-European foes encountered on the battlefield and how these views have shifted over time in the last three thousand years might well be a fascinating (if unwieldy) project. A genuinely comparative dimension would presumably include a look at how other literate societies saw their foes—and might well find more convergences than divergences. Early Arab chroniclers analyzed their forefathers’ Byzantine and Persian foes in terms of luxury and servitude, depicted the still-pagan Turks they encountered in Central Asia as violent barbarians, alternately cunning and stupid, and reacted with horrified incomprehension to the scorched-earth tactics employed by the Berber confederation whose revolt temporarily reversed the advance of the early Caliphates’ armies in North Africa—all recognizable “Orientalist” stereotypes.

Indeed, many similar points might be made with respect to hostilities between European societies. As Porter himself notes, an ongoing academic debate persists about the existence of a specifically “German” culture of war marked, amongst other things, by extreme violence against civilians, whether Herero or Belgian. It would not be difficult to map most of the cultural issues identified by Porter onto the ways in which German society and the armies it has produced have been analyzed by others, from the Roman writer Gaius Cornelius Tacitus’s use of what many modern writers would see as a largely imaginary picture of German society to criticize its contemporary Roman counterpart through a belief that Germans are “innately” warlike, to the idealization of Wehrmacht prowess by certain Cold War military theorists. If everybody is somebody else’s “Oriental,” are we perhaps looking at much deeper forces linked to issues of maintaining social cohesion, particularly in periods of crisis, and legitimizing conflict and conquest, whether the societies in question are “western” or “Oriental”? Much of Porter’s evidence would seem to tend in that direction, though it is not one in which he chooses to go very far.
The next four chapters narrow the field down dramatically, while going off in slightly unexpected directions. The first of these examines the reactions of a group of British army officers to Japan’s triumph in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. These were almost uncritically pro-Japanese, despite the implications which the victory of “yellow” Japan over “white” Russia is generally seen as having had for European imperial powers. (It would be interesting to know if there were any dissidents within the British military.) Despite visible racial prejudices, the officers in question were also generally astute observers of Japanese society; far from attributing Japan’s success to the successful adaptation of a timeless Japanese samurai culture to modern warfare, they were quick to note that the Japanese military they observed was the product of recent social developments, especially in education. As Porter notes, however, it is clear that the main purpose of their idealization of a Japan in which the education system was designed to produce fervently patriotic conscripts and where military decision-making was largely insulated from the influence of elected politicians was to provide a model that Britain should follow. In their view, an urbanized society ruled by liberal politicians in which patriotism appeared to be in terminal decline was an inferior social and political structure doomed to decline. Arguably, as the First World War was to show, the culture they failed to understand was their own.

The following chapter looks at the various ways in which the British military theorist Basil Liddell Hart sought to make use of the thirteenth-century Mongol armies as justifications and precedents for his own theories of how war should be waged. Porter has no difficulty showing just how slippery Liddell Hart could be in his use of history, rewriting his descriptions of how the Mongol forces operated to suit his shifting views of how the mobile warfare he championed should be organized (in particular to cover up his own misconceptions as these had been revealed by Second World War realities). Porter also notes Liddell Hart’s evasiveness about the sheer violence of Mongol warfare as it impacted the societies the Mongols attacked (and, by extension, the consequences of his own preferred ways of making war for civilian populations) and his writing of aspects such as siege warfare out of history altogether. While the picture of Liddell Hart which emerges is far from flattering, it is, however, fair to say that he can hardly be the only theorist, military or otherwise, to have been guilty of selectivity when invoking historical precedents for their preferred options.

Returning to the present day, Porter then examines “culturalist” approaches to the Afghan Taliban and how, in his view, these have failed to account adequately for realities on the ground by overstressing the supposedly irrational or tribalist nature of the movement. This argument involves going over some of the ground already traversed in earlier chapters, with much stress placed on the malleability of supposedly immutable tribal or religious cultures when confronted with serious external challenges (the adoption of suicide bombing, previously despised as cowardly), the tactical flexibility that even the most fundamentalist movements may display to rally support in time of war (shifting attitudes to opium cultivation or female education)—and the gap between the self-image such movements may choose to project to outsiders and the reality of their practice (glorification of “martyrdom” as against much more complex guerilla tactics). Again many of Porter’s points are well taken, though some of his analysis is inevitably based on sources that are not above suspicion—Porter’s own strictures on the alleged gullibility of western media in the face of manipulation by Taliban sources might equally apply to, say, the testimonies of Taliban defectors. Inevitably, this section of the book (written, it would seem from the endnote references, in the first half of 2008) already looks a little dated in the light of developments in the past eighteen months; while the role of Pakistan as a “safe haven” for the Afghan Taliban is noted, it is reasonable to assume that Pakistan and its internal conflicts would bulk a good deal larger if Porter was writing this section now, and one imagines also that issues surrounding the 2009 Afghan presidential election would have proved a fertile source for “culturalist” commentary of the kind he deplores.

The final chapter is an analysis of the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballa (Porter’s preferred spelling) in south Lebanon. By comparison with the other chapters, this one feels somewhat rushed and superficial. The Israeli High Command clearly underestimated the technical and military skills of its foes (as well as their ability to present a coherent media presentation of their side of the fight) and Israeli solders on the ground discovered that years of occupation duty in Palestinian territories had proved poor training for serious combat against a well-armed enemy prepared to stand his ground. No doubt a sense of cultural superiority undermined the Israeli effort as well, though Porter’s own implication that Iranian training and support meant that Hizballa forces were in some sense no longer “Arab” sits oddly with the main thrust of his book.

Ultimately a book of this type is presumably intended to exercise some influence over political and military decision-making. Given Porter’s own stress on the willingness of groups like Al-Qaeda or the Taliban to absorb external influences, one suspects he would not be surprised if copies turn up in remote parts of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. I therefore turned to the conclusions with anticipation. Was Porter going to say that the cultural turn in military affairs he detects was bunk and announce a new paradigm—”Armies do fighting, not culture,” for instance? Some points he made along the way seemed to point in that direction. While conceding in the introduction that the cultural turn had paid some dividends, a sense of damnation with faint praise hung in the air—especially when coupled with a recognition that cultural sensitivity training for soldiers is an expensive business in terms of time and money (with the additional complication—not mentioned by Porter—that years of training could be rendered useless overnight by a change in deployment). Cases where experts got things badly wrong appear throughout the book. In the end, though, Porter contents himself with a call not to abandon the cultural turn but to do it better. The problem, perhaps, is that “doing it better” is likely to mean stirring in even more variables and looking out for the kinds of selective use and modification of cultural characteristics that are only likely to emerge clearly with hindsight. At least some of Porter’s own arguments could be read, no doubt against his own intentions, as proving that basic military pragmatism will ultimately push cultures in predictable directions.

This is perhaps a rather downbeat note on which to end the review of a very rich and stimulating work that raises far more issues than can be addressed even in this excessively lengthy review. From a narrowly British perspective, Porter’s repeated snipes at contemporary British military thinking and performance raise interesting questions about how years of engagement in Northern Ireland (a conflict not mentioned by Porter) may have impacted the British Army’s ability to operate in combat situations. On a wider front, it is a pity that he did not engage more fully with what he describes as “democratic defeatism”—the belief that democratic states are by their very pluralist nature less able to fight “difficult” wars successfully—or take some rather different case studies (since the Balkans are part of Porter’s “Orient,” some comparative work on the Balkan wars of the 1910s and 90s might have repaid the effort). In the end, however, one cannot help feeling that any decision-maker, political or military, who reads this book will end up persuaded that culture is very important in military matters but little the wiser on how best to take that fact into account in practical policymaking.
 
From the US Army Combined Arms Research Library: http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/contentdm/home.htm

Introducing the Nafziger Collection of Orders of Battle

Looking for historical wargaming resources? The Combined Arms Research Library is pleased to announce the Nafziger Collection of Orders of Battle which contains a compilation of orders of battle from 1600 to 1945. Sources range from published works to primary archival documents. Most orders of battle break down to the regimental leveland many contain information regarding the availability of strength figuresand artillery equipment. The collection is available for searching at http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/nafziger.htm

Available also is a pdf index ofthe over 7900 orders of battle to assist in searching. Search for Nafziger in Google and you will see an explosion of interest inthis brand new, freely available resource, which was made possible by the generosity of George Nafziger.
 
Sarah-Jane Corke. U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53. Studies in Intelligence Series. London: Routledge, 2008. ix + 240 pp, ISBN 978-0-415-42077-8.

Reviewed by Mark Montesclaros
Published on H-War (April, 2010)

Lessons Not Learned

Sarah-Jane Corke provides new insight on policy and intelligence planning during the Truman administration, specifically in the area of covert operations and psychological warfare during the period 1945-53. Benefiting from the flood of documents recently declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the author examines in detail the inner workings of the Cold War-era Washington interagency, as it tried to come to grips with new threats and the means to combat them. In doing so, Corke makes some strong assertions that merit serious attention. Corke is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Corke’s primary contention is that under President Harry Truman, the United States had no overarching, coherent strategy for conducting its Cold War foreign policy. This, in turn, had a direct and largely negative impact on the planning and execution of covert operations, which, in turn, had an abysmal record of success, particularly in Eastern Europe. “Covert operations,” the subject of the author’s work, is an umbrella term used to describe U.S.-sponsored activities against adversaries or in support of friends for which U.S. government involvement is not evident to the general public, or which can be plausibly disclaimed. Corke also uses the terms “political warfare” and “psychological warfare” extensively, the former a more encompassing term while the latter may refer to more specific operations including propaganda, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and contact with underground groups in adversary territory. The author is careful to point out the nuances and contexts behind use of these terms, and explains their evolution effectively, as they came to be associated, at times, with a particular agency within the Washington national security bureaucracy.

The author argues her thesis by interweaving several themes, each of which is devoted a chapter in her work. Foremost is that Cold War policy under Truman was at best ambiguously stated and responsive primarily to internal vice external factors. Corke interestingly (and counterintuitively) maintains that Soviet policy was much more a result of U.S. domestic politics and bureaucratic infighting than it was based on Soviet action and American counteraction. In the vacuum of ambiguous policy, the various institutions charged with national security policy jockeyed for power and influence in the realm of covert operations and psychological warfare, and in doing so often operated at cross purposes, resulting in flawed policy and failed operations in the field.

Corke also contends that the key organizations involved in national security decision making--the National Security Council (NSC), State Department, Defense Department, and the CIA--largely ran amok and rudderless, all influenced by the relative inability of the Truman administration to corral them. The CIA, for example, was singularly influenced by the legacy of Wild Bill Donovan, its founder and soul. Donovan’s penchant for derring-do and initiative above all else produced a climate that rewarded action vice inaction, regardless of results on the ground.

Of course, Donovan was but one strong character in a narrative replete with larger-than-life personalities--including George Kennan, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Alan Dulles, Paul Nitze, James Forrestal, etc. It is no wonder that a single entity or personality was unable to harness the collective energy of the interagency, to include President Truman, and provide a single, unifying vision for U.S.-Soviet policy. In military parlance, what was lacking was unity of command and, perhaps more important, unity of purpose in interagency efforts at the time.

Interestingly, frequent and recurring administration attempts to give structure to covert operations and psychological warfare only resulted in further confusion and mismanagement. Corke maintains that such organizations as the Psychological Strategy Board, specifically designed to remove gaps between national policy and operations on the ground, only served to cause further interagency squabbles and confusion. In the end, nearly all of the interagency structures designed to improve the efficacy of covert operations were doomed to inefficiency based on the continuing failure to reconcile visions and agendas of the participating agencies and their heads. Thus, the fundamental strategic problem--getting the “ends” right, was never reconciled, leaving the “means”--caused psychological warfare and covert operations to flounder.

The magnitude of the tragedy in failed covert operations during the period will most likely never be known. The author uses as one case in point the curiously named Operation Valuable (later Project BGFIEND), a covert operation designed to destabilize the government of Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha between 1949 and 1954. Scores of commandos, consisting of Albanian refugees and Albanians of American descent, were inserted into the country to drum up popular support and initiate a potential overthrow of the Hoxha regime. Despite numerous failures and setbacks, CIA operations continued and were even expanded several times. Corke notes that between two hundred and one thousand people died during these unsuccessful operations, which accentuated “the complete breakdown between policy and operations that existed during these years” (p. 99).

Perhaps what readers will find most interesting about the book is the nuanced view of Cold War policy and strategy, along with their attendant national security documents. Those familiar primarily with the policy of containment and NSC-68 may be surprised to learn about the various policy gradations proposed, to include “liberation,” “rollback,” and “Titoism.” These competing strategic visions had their various political and interagency proponents throughout the period and addressed the seminal question of how to deal with Soviet aggression. Likewise, readers may be fascinated by Corke’s meticulous dissection of interagency bureaucratic politics and the policies they produced. The author does a thorough job of explaining how and why the interagency acted the way it did, and how competing personalities and visions resulted in ambiguous policy and multiple interpretations of what the United States was trying to accomplish. As a result, covert operations and psychological warfare continued to thrive, often without government oversight or checks and balances.

Corke’s work has obvious relevance in the modern context, as multiple government agencies struggle to define national security policy and outcomes in the post-9/11 world. It underscores that there is a difference between lessons and lessons learned; that is, national security policymakers must consciously decide whether to incorporate what is learned from the past or choose to ignore such knowledge. There has to be a formal mechanism for this to happen; otherwise, bureaucracies will continue to churn out flawed policies. Next, the author clearly demonstrates the impact of domestic considerations on the foreign policymaking process. As a teacher of the national security strategy making process, it is all too often the case that one focuses on external causes and events vice internal happenings to explain how and why policy is made. Corke clearly shows that Cold War-era policymaking was largely done in the context of domestic politics and bureaucratic infighting rather than as a response to Soviet actions.

Additionally, the author’s painstaking analysis of the interagency process during 1945-53 clearly demonstrates the difficulty in formulating national security policy in a democracy. The author presents a detailed and much more nuanced view of U.S. Cold War policy, one that goes far beyond well-known directives, such as the seminal NSC-68, and such personalities as Truman, Acheson, Kennan, and Nitze. Her explanation of the labyrinthine national security decision-making architecture under Truman is of great value to those studying the interagency process and anyone interested in how national security policy is formulated. Corke’s work makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of Cold War policymaking, adding insightful depth as well as breadth.
 
A. R. Azzam. Saladin. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2009. ix + 277 pp, ISBN 978-1-4058-0736-4.

Reviewed by Timothy May (North Georgia College & State University)
Published on H-War (January, 2010)


The Complete Saladin

Although Saladin, or more properly Salah al-Din, is one of the best-known figures from the era of the Crusades and indeed all of medieval Islamic history, surprisingly few scholarly biographies have been published on him. In 1972, Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz published his Saladin. Nineteen eighty-two saw the appearance of Malcolm Lyon and David Jackson’s Saladin: The Politics of Holy War, which was followed in 1983 by Philip Newby’s Saladin in His Time. Then in 2008, the English reading world received David S. Bachrach’s translation of Hannes Mohring’s Saladin: The Sultan and His Times, 1138-1193. Of course there have been numerous biographies targeted to the popular audience but of varied quality. A. R. Azzam’s Saladin is a panacea for all audiences.

While it is impossible to avoid the Crusades while discussing Saladin, Azzam does an excellent job of demonstrating that Saladin did many other things besides capture Jerusalem and fight Richard the Lionhearted. Indeed, Azzam’s prologue focuses on peeling away the myths surrounding Saladin so that the reader may gain a better understanding of the figure who is at some point cast as a symbol of jihad or the paragon of chivalry. He notes that in his discussions with various people who learned that he was writing about Saladin, most did not appreciate it when he pointed out that particular events were actually fables--something that I think most historians have encountered at one point or another. This section also contains a discussion of the authors of the most important sources on Saladin: al-Qadi al-Fadil, Imad al-din al-Isfahani, and Baha al-din Ibn Shaddad.

The first chapter has less to do with Saladin and more with the context of the Islamic world during the rise of Saladin. In this reviewer’s opinion, it is possibly the most significant chapter of the book and what sets it apart from other works on Saladin. Azzam convincingly demonstrates the importance of the great wazir of the Seljuk Empire, Nizam al-Mulk, and his influence on Saladin through the creation of the Nizamiyya madrasa network. Nizam al-Mulk’s primary goal through these schools was to revive Sunni orthopraxy and counter the growing influence of Shia Islam, particularly that of the Ismailis.

Chapters 2 and 3 continue this vein of thought by discussing the rise of Nur al-Din, the devout son of Zengi, atabeg of Mosul who had been the Seljuk’s primary military leader in their western domains. Here, Azzam continues to provide intellectual and geopolitical context for the life of Saladin. After a brief discussion of the arrival of the Crusaders, he then delves into the rise of Zengi and of Ayyub and Shirkuh (Saladin’s father and uncle respectively) in Zengid service. From there, Azzam discuss how Nur al-Din was pivotal to the spread of the Nizamiyya madrasas not only by being a patron but also by living the ideals espoused by the madrasa. Azzam argues that no matter what he did, Saladin had to live his life in the shadow of Nur al-Din.

In chapters 4 through 6, Azzam examines Saladin in Egypt--from the initial involvement of Nur al-Din in that country to counter the Crusader attempts to dominate the Fatimid Empire to Saladin’s eventual emergence as the ruler of Egypt. Of particular note is Azzam’s consideration of Saladin’s appointment as vizier of the Fatimid dynasty and then in chapter 6, of how Saladin established his authority over Egypt.

Azzam then considers Saladin’s relations with the successors of Nur al-Din as well as the religious elite in chapters 7 and 8. What is often overlooked in most studies of Saladin, with their emphasis on his fight against the Crusaders, is that many Muslim rulers did not trust Saladin. Azzam does a magnificent job of illustrating the difficulties of Saladin in maintaining his empire through a mix of conquest and cajoling while also maintaining his legitimacy in the eyes of the religious elite.

The second half of the book (chapters 9 through 15), like the second half of Saladin’s life, is connected to the Crusades. Azzam carefully considers the Arabic and Latin sources on Saladin’s encounters with various Crusader leaders and his dealings with his own relations and allies. It is this well-rounded approach that demonstrates the complexity of Saladin’s relations with his vassals and family. Indeed, it is also what makes this book so suitable for classroom use.

In the final analysis, Azzam has written a book that portrays Saladin as neither hero nor villain but rather a human being with faults and merits. It is an ideal biography as the reader not only learns about an individual but also gains a greater appreciation of the geopolitical milieu (a topic often covered in this genre) and the intellectual environment that shaped Saladin’s world view.
 
Stephen G. Fritz. Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995. x + 299 pp., ISBN 978-0-8131-1920-5.

Reviewed by Jay B. Lockenour (Franklin and Marshall College)
Published on H-War (December, 1995)

In Frontsoldaten, Stephen Fritz of East Tennessee State University has chosen to tackle the tendentious and complicated issue of the "everyday life" of German Wehrmacht soldiers during the Second World War. In so doing, Fritz has not only given us a powerful account of the misery and anxiety experienced by the common Landser, especially on the Eastern Front, but he has also made a significant contribution to our understanding of the ideological roots of the German soldiers' resiliency in defense of the National Socialist state. Following in the footsteps of Manfred Messerschmidt and Omer Bartov, Fritz concludes that the staying power of the Landser depended in large part on his conviction that the National Socialist state had "redeemed the failures of World War I and had restored, both individually and collectively, a uniquely German sense of identity" (p. 10).

Explaining that loyalty is not Fritz's only goal. Fritz's subject is also "the nature of men at war," and he does an admirable job of conveying the individual experience of war and the soldiers' sense of abandonment to a wretched fate. Successive chapters entitled "Living on Borrowed Time," "Withstanding the Strain," "Seasons of War," and "The Many Faces of War" outline the physical and emotional discomforts of war, perhaps shared by most soldiers in most wars.

"Living on Borrowed Time" portrays the battlefield as an excruciatingly lonely place in which chaos and fear reign supreme and only death or a serious wound provide an escape. Soldiers combatted their fears with the aid of medals, alcohol, music, jokes, religion, and sex, as outlined in Chapter 4, "Withstanding the Strain." Despite those palliatives, however, the soldier's life is depicted as one of almost inescapable misery, particularly on the Eastern Front, which soldiers described as "less a place than a series of natural disasters" (p. 119). In "Seasons of War," Fritz does a masterful job of placing the reader in the hip-deep mud of the Russian spring and fall, the scorching heat of the Russian summer, and the biting winds and disorienting whiteness of the dreaded Russian winter.

And yet Fritz is not "softhearted" in his treatment of the German Landser. The reader is never allowed to forget these men's dual role as suffering victims and cruel perpetrators. The chapter "The Many Faces of War" is devoted in part to expressions of a pronounced "delight in destruction" on the part of the common soldiers. Guy Sajer, one of Fritz's frequently recurring witnesses to the horrors of the Eastern Front, recalls his "almost drunken exhilaration" when in the midst of a battle (p. 149). The letters and diaries of many former soldiers are characterized not just by a nonchalance about death, but by a frankly expressed thrill in killing and in the sense of complete freedom from restraint (p.146).

The value of the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte) does not lie in its simple recounting of the experiences of the individual, however. Fritz himself reminds the reader, citing Detlev Peukert, that "everyday history has no object of its own but seeks to legitimize the independent experiences of its subjects, to mediate [emphasis added] between individual life experiences and impersonal historical analysis, and to provide a perspective on various life-styles and differing areas of social reality" (p. 7). It is the ability of Frontsoldaten to combine the individual experience with a sense of the "impersonal historical analysis" that makes it so interesting.

By focusing not only on the everyday experience of the soldiers but also their motivations and strategies for coping with suffering, Fritz is able to clarify the importance of National Socialist ideology in sustaining the morale of the Wehrmacht. One striking oversight in the book, however, is Fritz's seeming unwillingness directly to engage the work of other historians on the subject, especially the recent work of Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army (1991). Frontsoldaten is filled with implicit links to the more "impersonal" works of history that Hitler's Army typifies. In many ways, Fritz's book is much better than Bartov's, more gripping, colorful, and intense. I sympathize completely with Fritz's concern to make his work more than simply a review of Bartov's, but by responding more directly to Bartov's theses about the "demodernization of the front," the "destruction of the primary group," and the "perversion of discipline," Fritz could have provided precisely that "mediation" between "individual experiences and impersonal historical analysis" that is the (too often latent) strength of Alltagsgeschichte as a method.

In Hitler's Army, Bartov proposes that the extreme conditions at the front and the enormous casualties of the campaigns in the Soviet Union combined to prepare the Wehrmacht to be molded according to the demands of Hitler's racist and nationalist ideology. Since "primary group" loyalty and endless morale-boosting victories could no longer compensate German soldiers for their suffering after 1941, Wehrmacht officials substituted draconian punishments and liberal doses of National Socialist racist ideology in order to maintain the cohesion of their units. According to Bartov, discipline was "perverted" within the German military, so that atrocities against civilians and enemy soldiers went unpunished, whereas the slightest infractions against military regulations were liable to evoke truly homicidal responses from the military police. As a result, Bartov concludes, the common Landsers, unable to mitigate their suffering in any other way, lashed out in anger and frustration against the only targets within range, enemy soldiers and civilians, transforming the war, especially on the Eastern Front, into a horrific bloodbath.

Much of the evidence that Fritz provides supports Bartov's thesis regarding the reactions of the common soldier. Though he does not share Bartov's concern with proving intent on the part of the Wehrmacht leadership, Fritz does depict a front rapidly "demodernized" by a combination of weather and mechanized battle. Fritz too emphasizes the importance of comradeship in maintaining the cohesion of the German army, and the difficulties that soldiers faced when the tremendous casualties of the Russian campaigns so rapidly destroyed the "primary groups." Fritz also describes soldiers who delight in killing and who explicitly acknowledge the compensatory nature of such destruction in ways that none of Bartov's sources do.

Yet Fritz leaves these obvious connections undeveloped through at least the first two hundred pages of the book, using Bartov's work more often as a "primary" source (quoting passages from letters and diaries directly from Bartov's book) than as a useful foil for his own conclusions. In the concluding chapters of the book, Fritz does begin to engage Bartov especially, but not systematically or thoroughly enough for my taste. Fritz's work adds many nuances to Bartov's and corrects so many of Bartov's mistakes that a more complete analysis of the connections between Frontsoldaten and Hitler's Army would have been worthwhile.

Fritz goes beyond Bartov's account by providing better evidence, not only of the "negative" integrative effects of punishment, but also of the important "positive" effects of the National Socialist ideal of a Volksgemeinschaft in maintaining cohesion within the Wehrmacht. In Chapter 8, "Trying to Change the World," Fritz uncovers very strong evidence of the "responsive chord" that Nazi ideas struck within the army (p. 188). As even contemporary German soldiers acknowledged, negative ideas such as racism and draconian punishment were simply insufficient to explain the extraordinary resiliency of the German soldier. He required a "positive" ideal as well, something to fight for.

And that ideal was the supposedly classless, conflict-free society that was being created at the front and that would later follow the soldiers home to Germany itself. Certainly the "negative," racist and disciplinary elements were important. Russia in particular, Fritz argues, was the place "where many Landsers, previously sceptical of Nazi propaganda, confronted what they accepted as the reality of the Jewish-Bolshevik destruction of a whole nation" (p. 198). But in the "trenches" and on the battlefields of Russia, the Landser also believed that he was witnessing the positive transformation of German society into a classless one where burdens were shared by all.

There is certainly more to recommend this book, but there are also other problems with it. For example, Fritz uses letters, diaries, and memoirs more or less interchangeably to provide the reader with insights into the state of mind and motivations of the German soldier. Yet, although Fritz does occasionally refer to the implications of military censorship for his work, he leaves untouched the issue of the audiences for whom these letters and diaries and memoirs were written. Letters sent home from the front to loved ones must have been motivated by different emotions, different concerns, than a personal diary or (especially) a memoir written for public consumption. If Fritz did in fact notice a similarity among all three sources, this would have been remarkable, and it would have strengthened his argument to bring that fact more fully to the reader's attention.

Fritz even occasionally uses novels, such as Willi Heinrich's Cross of Iron (1988) and Curzio Malaparte's Kaputt (1982), with scarcely a mention of the methodological problems novels present as historical sources. Malaparte, without doubt an insightful observer of the Russian front, was not German, and his novel is full of literary devices and allegory, making Kaputt a very problematic source indeed. An over-reliance on a few published sources, notably the memoirs and letters of Guy Sajer, Karl Fuchs, and Hans W. Woltersdorf, also undermines Fritz's efforts to generalize his conclusions.

Stephen Fritz's Frontsoldaten is nevertheless a shining example of the possibilities of writing the "history of everyday life." Such history, as Fritz acknowledges, is too often "impressionistic and nonanalytical," and yet "it still touches our ability to comprehend social and historical reality.... It also says something about whether the theoretical abstractions with which historians of necessity operate are capable of grasping human phenomena made up of countless individual perceptions and actions" (p. 5).

Although he occasionally seems to hesitate in driving his "abstract" point home by actively engaging the "theoretical" work of other historians (especially Bartov), Fritz has indeed helped to explain how National Socialist ideology combined with the personal experience of war to create the conditions in which German soldiers perservered in defense of a criminal state. By establishing the link between the personal experience of war and the theoretical abstractions of historians, Fritz has fulfilled, at least in part, the promise of Alltagsgeschichte. And he has done so while telling the powerful personal story of soldiers who were both victims and perpetrators of a horrible war.
 
John Francis Guilmartin, Inc. NetLibrary. A very short war: the Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. xxi + 238 pp. ISBN 978-0-585-17507-2.

Reviewed by Adam B. Siegel (Center for Naval Analyses, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Published on H-War (June, 1996)

In A Very Short War, John Guilmartin provides a rich examination of the last episode of the U.S. war in Indochina--the multi-service operation to recover the merchant ship Mayaguez and her crew from the Khmer Rouge less than a month after the final U.S. evacuations from Phnom Penh and Saigon. Through a detailed operational-tactical study of this discrete political-military event, Guilmartin seeks to illuminate how the modern "communications revolution will create as many problems as it solves" (p. 29), rather than being an undiluted good as many may think.

In April and May 1975, the U.S. military conducted a series of three discrete military operations that put an end to the (U.S.) Vietnam War: Frequent Wind (the evacuation of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 12 April); Eagle Pull (the evacuation of Vietnamese and Americans from Saigon, South Vietnam, 29-30 April); and the Mayaguez recapture (12-15 May). Guilmartin opens the book with a discussion of Frequent Wind and Eagle Pull; then, after setting the scene, he turns to the events of the Mayaguez capture and the U.S. response to the Khmer actions. President Gerald Ford "quickly settled on three overlapping objectives: recover the ship and the crew; avoid...hostage negotiations; and mount a demonstrative use of US force to bolster America's international credibility" (p. 38). The interaction of these three objectives created a time imperative and determined the forces to be used: U.S. Air Force helicopters from Thailand to carry Marines airlifted from Okinawa to recapture the ship and rescue the crew; air support from Air Force aircraft operating from Thailand and Navy aircraft from the aircraft carrier Coral Sea conducting retaliatory strikes against the Cambodian mainland. In the intense operations over the next three days, U.S. forces killed perhaps a hundred Cambodians and bombed a variety of Khmer facilities. This came at a high price, with fifteen Americans killed in action, three more missing in action, and fifty wounded; four helicopters shot down; and another helicopter crashed with twenty-three killed (p. 28).

The Mayaguez operation raises many points to consider in regard to the "communications revolution" in a period when at least some in the U.S. military believe that the "information revolution" might allow total knowledge at higher command. President Ford and others in Washington certainly had reason to believe they had (nearly) perfect information for decision-making. As one of the earliest actions during the crisis, a U-2 strategic reconnaissance plane was put in the air to act as a communications relay between forces on the scene and higher headquarters. Despite (or because of) these efforts to have improved communications, White House attempts to control the tactical situation caused near disaster on at least two occasions during the operation.

-- At one point, the White House had issued orders to sink anything coming off Koh Tang Island. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger stalled for time, unsure of the propriety of this sort of tactical control. His delay perhaps prevented an attack on a Cambodian fishing boat carrying the Mayaguez crew from the island to the mainland (pp. 55-56).

-- As soon as the White House learned that the Mayaguez crew had been released, orders went out to cease all offensive operations and "to disengage and withdraw all forces...as soon as possible." This order almost prevented a reinforcement of the forces on the island that was crucial to ensure the withdrawal from Koh Tang (p. 107).

As these examples suggest, the realities of this Very Short War should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone expecting that the increased communications capabilities are an unadulterated good.

Within this book are many other fascinating insights into the U.S. military in the waning days of Vietnam involvement (and, perhaps, militaries in general). For example, Guilmartin discusses the changes occurring in the training and tactics of the helicopter squadrons as they moved from a wartime environment. Not surprisingly--but perhaps dismaying--even by 1975 USAF helicopter training was constrained by peacetime restrictions. Guilmartin's emphasis on the differences between specific units suggests the point that these differences might be opaque to higher headquarters and the civilian leadership not familiar with "tactical" details that are crucial for making tactical decisions.

Guilmartin, then a U.S. Air Force officer, was a "participant-observer" in this operation, handling maintenance for one of the two USAF helicopter squadrons. Although this book is published twenty years after the event, Guilmartin brings an immediacy to the work that only someone so close to it could. Guilmartin was not, however, simply a participant in the events discussed in this book. In 1975, he had just returned to the operating forces after three years at Princeton University completing his Ph.D. dissertation [1], followed by four years teaching at the Air Force Academy. Thus, Guilmartin was a trained historian and data gatherer, as well as a decorated rescue pilot with 119 combat missions in Southeast Asia. With his academic background, Guilmartin began gathering information as the operation proceeded and began interviewing with the idea of helping preserve (and, in part, create) a historical record of the operation that provides a key basis for this book.

This aspect of the work is one that fascinates. As Guilmartin phrased his approach, "Even before the smoke cleared, I was automatically trying to find out what had gone wrong and why" (p. xvi). This near-participation in the actual events allows him to provide a much richer context than archival material or (with more modern events) interviews alone can offer.

In a way, Guilmartin's strengths create the basis for some of the shortcomings of A Very Short War. After finishing the book, readers will feel confident that they have a deep understanding of the U.S. Air Force's helicopter forces involved in the Mayaguez affair, and a long appendix on the principal helicopter involved (the H-53) provides important technical background. When Guilmartin moves on to other USAF elements and other services, however, the depth of description and, therefore, understanding decrease. For example, Guilmartin describes the differences between the two involved helicopter squadrons--one a special operations and the other a rescue squadron--and how their H-53 helicopters were equipped, how their tactics differed, how peacetime training rules since the end of the war in Vietnam had affected their readiness, and their differing philosophies to life and combat.

In contrast to the treatment of the USAF helicopter forces, A Very Short War contains almost no similar details about the Marines who were, after all, the principal combat troops on the ground and who suffered the majority of the casualties. We learn little of their weapons, of their training background, or of how the Vietnam experience affected their approach to the battle on Koh Tang.[2] There is a table listing USAF tactical assets in Thailand (p. 49), but nothing similar for the other services. In a footnote, Guilmartin states that U.S. Navy aircraft did not provide air support to the battle on Koh Tang because "carrier-based A-7Es and A-6s were not equipped with radios capable of communicating with the Marines on the beach" (pp. 211-12, text on p. 99). In contrast to the detail on the H-53s, Guilmartin does not explain why U.S. Navy aircraft did not have the capability to support Marine Corps operations in 1975 when, after all, this had been a principal role for U.S. Navy aircraft during the Vietnam War and remained, at least on paper, one of the principal tasks for all naval aviators. In another example, while we learn the names of many of the H-53 pilots, almost none of the involved fighter or reconnaissance pilots receive the same attention. Somewhat in line with the focus on the rescue pilots, A Very Short War has only the briefest references to the strike missions into the Cambodian mainland that occurred in conjunction with the rescue operation.

Less applicable to the substance are some shortcomings in the notes and bibliography, some suggestive of editorial lapses. For example, several works cited in the footnotes never have full citations. Guilmartin refers to a General Accounting Office study on the Mayaguez published in 1976, yet cites it oly through another source and never directly.[3] In some cases, the citations are not strong. In addition to the detailed discussion of the Mayaguez incident, Guilmartin discusses other, frequently rather poorly known, U.S. military operations, such as Operation Babylift--an evacuation of orphans from Vietnam. The key study for "Babylift" (a Military Airlift Command monograph) does not make the footnotes.[4] For Operation Urgent Fury (the invasion of Grenada), the citation is to a 1990 Wall Street Journal article, rather than to any of the numerous books and monographs on the operation.[5]

Thus, A Very Short War is not a perfect work, but it is a very good one. In combination with Christopher Jon Lamb's Belief Systems and Decision Making in the Mayaguez Crisis (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1989), A Very Short War provides a history of the Mayaguez incident that should satisfy all but those with the most profound interest, and the footnotes and bibliography will provide the basis for further reading. In addition, Guilmartin provides enough detail and context for non-participants to gain an understanding into some of the complexities of modern warfare and how Clausewitz's nineteenth-century concept of friction can emerge in a twentieth-century battle.

A Very Short War should be on the reading list of those interested in the command and control of military operations, in the interaction of policy and tactical military activity, and in the modern U.S. military in general. Any library with a collection interest in the modern (U.S.) military should have this on their purchase list. John Guilmartin is an excellent writer with a keen insight into a crucial part of this operation--anyone with the slightest interest will find his book fascinating and worthwhile reading.

Notes

[1] John Francis Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleons: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1974). This study of naval developments in the sixteenth century remains one of the most impressive historical studies I have ever read.

[2] For a USMC-focused discussion of the operation, see Maj. George R. Dunham and Col. David A Quinlan, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 1973-1975 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1990), pp. 237-265.

[3] Comptroller General, "The Seizure of the Mayaguez: A Case Study of Crisis Management," a report to the Subcommittee on International Political and Military Affairs, House Committee on International Relations, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976).

[4] Coy F. Cross II, MAC and Operation Babylift: Air Transport in Support of Noncombatant Evacuation Operations (Scott Air Force Base, Ill.: Military Airlift Command, Office of History, Nov. 1989).

[5] There is a wide range of literature on Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury), which I will not attempt to recreate here. In addition to the footnoting problem, Guilmartin comments on "Urgent Fury" that "Published accounts suggest that inadequate intelligence and the lack of adequate maps were--as with the MAYAGUEZ affair--a major cause of embarrassment" (p. 158). I think that this understates the importance of these problems, as one can point to the lack of adequate maps (for example, no joint maps with gridded squares) as one of the potential causes for some of the friendly fire incidents that occurred during "Urgent Fury."
 
Michael K. Jerryson, Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. Buddhist Warfare. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010. xi + 257 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-539483-2;, ISBN 978-0-19-539484-9.

Reviewed by Vladimir Tikhonov (University of Oslo)


The Myth of "Nonviolent Buddhism" - Demolished Once Again
Given the frequency with which stories of religious violence appear in the news--be it terrorist atrocities perpetrated by fundamentalist groups, or religiously tinged communal strife--the thesis that religion has an intrinsic potential for violence that time and again erupts in bloodshed seems to be self-evident. However, compared to all other global religions, Buddhism tends to be the one least associated with warfare, even while the Sri Lankan state, constitutionally bound to "foster and protect Buddhism," was conducting a brutally efficient elimination campaign against Tamil insurgency, with the enthusiastic support of its Buddhist community. In fact, "Buddhist warfare" was not unknown to Western observers prior to this--the first works on Japan's militant monks were published already in the late nineteenth century. The myth of "nonviolent Buddhism" persisted, however, owing much to the pacifist leanings of Western Buddhist converts who tended to "see no evil" in their adopted religion, as well as to the widespread tendency to apply "positive Orientalist" stereotypes to Tibet, often seen as a peaceful Shangri-La of sorts in the apologetic writings of Western supporters of its charismatic Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

The new collection edited by Michael Jerryson (Eckerd College, Florida) and Mark Juergensmeyer (University of California, Santa Barbara) will hopefully contribute significantly to demolishing the "nonviolent Buddhism" myth, at least at the level of academic discussion. It persuasively argues that even though in theory Buddhism highlights the inescapably insalubrious karmic consequences of any violence, in practice it functions pretty much like any other religion: From its inception, Buddhism was integrated into a complicated web of power relations; it always attempted to accommodate itself with the pre-existent power hierarchies while preserving a degree of internal autonomy; and it inevitably came to acknowledge, willingly or otherwise, that the powers-that-be use violence to achieve their objectives, which often overlap with those of the Buddhist monastic community. In many cases, the passive acknowledgement of the inexorableness of state violence further developed into active collaboration with state war-making or internal pacification--as long as state bloodletting was seen as also serving Buddhist religious interests.

The collection opens with an introduction by Michael Jerryson which provides a masterfully written outline of Buddhism's ambiguous relations with state violence throughout the course of its history. The gist of its argument is that early Buddhism's dichotomous view of society gave Buddhists little reason to take risks by actively promoting antiwar views certain to alienate state rulers. While the autonomous communities of full-time Buddhist practitioners (_sangha_) were supposed to eschew violence, the mundane world was seen as inherently chaotic and thus in need of "those who administer torture and maiming" (_Vinaya_)--that is, kings. Never tired of admonishing kings to rule in a benevolent way which would render royal violence unnecessary, Buddha tacitly accepted, however, the reality of dog-eat-dog interstate competition--the_ _quid pro quo being what Jerryson justly defines as "monks' immunity to state rules" (p. 11).
These patterns of Buddhist collaboration with state powers were eventually cemented with the incipience of modern nationalism, as whole nations (Śrī Lanka, Thailand, etc.) were seen now as "Buddhist," their warfare being inescapably legitimized in religious terms. The _sangha_-state dualism, in other words, developed, in the end, into its own negation.

Jerryson's introduction is followed by another, much longer outline on the issue of Buddhism's relation to warfare, Paul Demiéville's (1894-1979) well-known 1957 text, _Buddhism and War_, translated into English by Michelle Kendall (University of California, Santa Barbara). Originally a postscript to a study on the Japanese "warrior monks" (_sōhei_), Demiéville's incisive text highlights the issue of violence in the Japanese Mahāyāna tradition and especially emphasizes the theoretical platform which makes even active monastic participation in violence permissible. As Demiéville makes clear, Buddhism tends to reject the existence of any essential existence of things (_svabhāva_) as such, and Mahāyāna philosophy accordingly privileges "mind"/"consciousness," the questions of the "relative" existence of matter being hotly debated by a variety of theoretical traditions. Thus, in the matter of killing, it is the _intention_ and not the act in itself that is focused upon. As some of the most influential Mahāyāna _sūtra_s (_Ratnakūta Sūtra_, _Yogācārabhūmi,_ etc.) suggest, "killing" is simply a meaningless misconception from an "enlightened" viewpoint (since neither the killer nor the killed have any independent existence) and may be undertaken if intended to prevent a worse misfortune, and done with the best objectives in mind. Demiéville, in effect, points to the dangers inherent in the Buddhist relativizing of the objective world in the situation when Buddhist monks themselves are strongly influenced by conflicting worldly interests. It is a pity, however, that the article's translator left intact Demiéville's use of the antiquated system devised by Séraphin Couvreur (1835-1919) for transcribing Chinese (which used to be in vogue primarily in France), instead of re-transcribing Chinese words into Pinyin (which is used by the other contributors to this collection).

The next article, Stephen Jenkins's (Humboldt State University) research on the Mahāyānist _Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyavi__ṣaya-vikurvaṇa-nirdeśa Sūtra_ (the title is translated by Jenkins as _The Noble Teachings through Manifestations on the Subject of Skilful Means in the Bodhisattva's Field of Activity_), contextualizes the teachings of the _sūtra_ in question and further buttresses Demiéville's argument that the Buddhist emphasis on "good intention" opened the door for a broad spectrum of violence legitimization, including both war and in criminal justice. The _sūtra _Jenkins analyzes justifies both torture if done with the intention to prevent criminality, and war as _ultima ratio regum_ if conducted with the intention to protect noncombatants. Unfortunately, however, Jenkins does not elaborate in more detail what sort of influence the Chinese and Tibetan translations of this _sūtra_ exerted on Buddhism's political views and activities in Central and East Asia. Buddhist justifications for warfare in supposedly "pacifist" Tibet are dealt with in the following article by Derek Maher (East Carolina University). Focusing on the writings of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-82) in which the Gelug-pa (Yellow Hat sect) leader glorifies his mundane patron, Gushri Khan (1582-1655)--the Khoshut Mongol ruler who effectively established the domination of Gelug-pa's Dalai Lamas over Tibet through a series of wars against competing sects and potentates--Maher shows how the supposedly "Dharma [Buddhist law]-protecting" violence was rationalized as not sinning againstexplicit Buddhist disciplinarian norms. Without ever clearly arguing in favor of violence as such, the Dalai Lama subtly leads his readers to think that once violence is perpetrated by a venerable religious warrior with a clear intention to protect Dharma, then it is justifiable. As the next article, by Oxford University's Vesna Wallace, argues, a very similar logic was also applied to the cruelest forms of criminal justice utilized by secular rulers in Mongolian society after the conversion to Gelug-pa Buddhism in late sixteenth century. Executions by spine-breaking and slicing into pieces, and tortures by clubbing or crushing hands and feet were all justified as long as they were conducted by "Dharma-protecting" authorities with the "compassionate" intention of purifying society. Violence ended up being justified as long as it was seen as the best way of realizing rulers' good intentions in what was perceived as an inherently violent world. While identifying belligerent Gushri Khan as the compassionate bodhisattva Vajrapāni was rarely problematic for supposedly "nonviolent" Tibetan Buddhism, it does prove problematic for many contemporary Western Buddhists, many of whom view their Buddhist faith as an extension of their pacifist convictions. Their voice is represented in the collection by Brian Daizen Victoria (Antioch University), whose article, critically dealing with the appropriation of Zen Buddhism by Japanese militarism forcefully argues that acquiescence to violence completely contradicts the spirit of Buddha's Dharma. The argument is fully plausible, since the emphasis on the inauspicious karmic_ _consequences of violent acts, thought, or speech is more than clear, especially in the early Buddhistliterature. However, if Victoria is to criticize Japanese Buddhists' wartime collaboration with their state, he--as Bernard Faure (Columbia University) persuasively suggests in his "Afterthoughts" probably would have to ultimately extend his criticism to the historical Buddha and his disciples, since it was exactly their attitude of tacitly acknowledging state violence and accepting sponsorship from ruling-class personages directly or indirectly implicated in all sorts of violence that laid the foundation for what Victoria describes as Buddhism's "self-prostitution" in the service of the state (p. 128). Taking this historical background into consideration, the pattern of "mutually beneficial" relations between the Buddhist monastic community and the early Maoist state in China, as described in Xue Yu's (Chinese University of Hong Kong) article on Chinese Buddhists during the 1950-53 Korean War, does not look like a deviation, but rather like a continuation of a time-honored patter strongly rooted in the _habitus_ of the monkhood. The pattern shows regional variations, of course: While donating airplanes to and personally enlisting in the Chinese "volunteer" army "fighting crazy American criminals in Korea" (p. 146) was not seen as problematic for Chinese Mahāyānic monks, the Theravādin Sri Lankan monks, asDaniel Kent (University of Virginia) shows in his contribution, even eschew direct encouragement to kill in their sermons to soldiers (not to mention abstaining from any personal participation in killing), preferring to emphasize instead that the fighting men should kill and die "without unwholesome intentions," so as not to suffer karmic consequences from their "Dharma-protecting war" against Tamil rebels. But, as Michael Jerryson makes clear in his piece on monks' participation in the Thai state's suppression of a Muslim insurgency in the south, it is a sort of "public secret" in Thai society that some monks become ordained while still on military duty and some monasteries house military garrisons in the insurgency-ridden areas. As long as the Thai state is considered a "Buddhist nation," this sort of Buddhist response to the threats facing it makes perfectly logical sense, all the doctrinal skepticism towards violence notwithstanding.

All in all, Jerryson, Juergensmeyer and their co-authors have produced an extremely valuable, edifying collection which seriously challenges the images of "peacefulness" that Western Buddhists have tended to project onto the religion of their choice. A reader feels persuaded to conclude, as Faure suggests in his "Afterthoughts," that a religion which does not question the (inherently violent) hierarchies of power in the mundane world; which promotes interiorized violence in the form of ascetic practices; and which systematically discriminates against women and habitually demonizes outsiders and rivals, should, in fact, be expected to be violent. What remains to be desired--from Jerryson, Juergensmeyer and their collaborators, as well as other specialists working in this field--is a broader and stronger contextualization of Buddhist violence as part and parcel of a more general tendency of practically all religions to be violent. Religions are symbolic systems that organize the universe in such a way as to make themselves central and powerful--and closing the distance between "power" and "violence" is only a question of time, however "compassionate" the axiology of a given religion might originally have been. The present collection shows us very clearly the dangers inherent in privileging one religion--even a most "compassionate"-looking one--in relation to others.
 
Thomas J. Craughwell. The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History: How Genghis Khan's Mongols Almost Conquered the World. Beverly: Fair Winds Press, 2010. Illustrations. 272 pp., ISBN 978-1-59233-398-1.

Reviewed by Timothy May (North Georgia College & State University)


Long Titles and Lavish Illustrations

As one might gather from the title of Thomas J. Craughwell’s book on the Mongol Empire, it is intended for the general public. Indeed, from a scholarly perspective there is little to recommend--there are no new interpretations of events or analysis. While the sources are fairly up to date, the author relies on equal parts popular works as to scholarly books. Also, the book has numerous errors. So why is it being reviewed? Other than the fact that I was asked to review it, the book must be judged for its merits. Furthermore, it is a book such as this that first awakened my interest (and I suspect others’) in the Mongol Empire, and for that reason alone it should receive some attention.

The book is organized in sixteen chapters. The first eleven deal with the life and conquest of Chinggis Khan. Craughwell uses the “G-word,” or Genghis Khan. I assume he makes this choice because the popular audience might be more familiar with this name or rather title and would become confused with the more proper Chinggis Khan. Why the publishing industry perpetuates this is beyond me: how many famous Mongolians do they think the American public knows? The second half of the book discusses the reign of Ögödei, Güÿük, and Möngke, using many of the now standard tropes for chapters, such as the title of chapter 13, “How One Man’s Death Saved Europe from Destruction.” The final two chapters then focus on Kublai Khan and Mongol rule in China, with little to no attention given to the rest of the Mongol Empire after 1260. The book itself is lavishly illustrated using artwork from the period as well as latter woodcuts, lithographs, and old maps. Thus it is colorful and eye-catching. Readers will be drawn to it for this reason. It also has useful sidebars that provide information on tangential aspects of the empire, such as the role of shaman.

Unfortunately, the book is, as stated earlier, rife with errors. Indeed, because of the lack of footnotes, it is difficult to determine from where the author derived his errors--did he misread the sources, come to his own conclusions, or simply repeat another’s error? Part of the problem arises from the attempt to summarize a complicated series of events while also focusing on a few key figures. For instance, the author discusses the conflict between Chinggis Khan and his blood-brother and rival, Jamukha. In Craughwell’s book this conflict is continual, but he neglects to include that after 1201, Jamukha was only a bit player in the affairs of Mongolia and the conflict was between Chinggis Khan and more powerful polities (pp. 75-77).

Other more factual errors also occur. He has Senggüm, a Kereit prince, dying in the Gobi Desert instead of in the kingdom of Xixia (p. 80). Craughwell also indicates that Ögödei was selected heir because Chaghadai and Jochi (all were sons of Chinggis Khan) quarreled after Chinggis Khan died in 1227. Although it is true that Ögödei was chosen due to the quarrelling of Jochi and Chaghadai, the problem is that Jochi died before Chinggis Khan did (probably in 1225) and that Ögödei was named the successor as early as 1219. Another factual error is that Craughwell has Chinggis Khan stopping at his capital of Karakorum, although the city was built during the later reign of Ögödei (p. 158).

Craughwell’s interpretations of events are also a bit disconcerting. In discussing the Mongol invasions of Georgia, he mentions that the initial invasion by Subotai in 1220 not only was undertaken as part of the pursuit of the Kharazmian Shah and as a reconnaissance, but was also done to gather intelligence for an invasion of Europe (p. 167). While the Mongols certainly did gather intelligence, this was standard operating procedure. Although this may seem a minor issue, Craughwell’s assertion gives the impression that the Mongols intended to invade Europe as early in 1220. There is no indication of this anywhere in the documentary sources or from an evaluation of Mongol actions. Furthermore, intelligence gathered in Georgia had very little practical use in Hungary or Poland (both targets of the Mongol invasion twenty years later).

So, what value does the book have? As I mentioned, the illustrations alone make the book worth a perusal. My criticisms come from being a specialist on the Mongol Empire, but for a sixteen-year-old or a casual reader, it is unlikely to alter their perception of the Mongols. Craughwell writes well enough and is likely to engage the interest of a reader so that they then read a book or two listed in his bibliography. And then, perhaps when the high school student is in college he or she will take a course on the Mongols or if that person is an adult, perhaps they will read a more scholarly work. Thus, while I would never assign the book to a class, for a person who has an interest in the Mongol Empire, this book will suffice as an introduction as it is well written, nicely illustrated, and has the general flow of events correct even though some of the facts and interpretations are misleading on close inspection.
 
Sarah-Jane Corke. U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53. Studies in Intelligence Series. London: Routledge, 2008. ix + 240 pp., ISBN 978-0-415-42077-8.

Reviewed by Mark Montesclaros


Lessons Not Learned

Sarah-Jane Corke provides new insight on policy and intelligence planning during the Truman administration, specifically in the area of covert operations and psychological warfare during the period 1945-53. Benefiting from the flood of documents recently declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the author examines in detail the inner workings of the Cold War-era Washington interagency, as it tried to come to grips with new threats and the means to combat them. In doing so, Corke makes some strong assertions that merit serious attention. Corke is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Corke’s primary contention is that under President Harry Truman, the United States had no overarching, coherent strategy for conducting its Cold War foreign policy. This, in turn, had a direct and largely negative impact on the planning and execution of covert operations, which, in turn, had an abysmal record of success, particularly in Eastern Europe. “Covert operations,” the subject of the author’s work, is an umbrella term used to describe U.S.-sponsored activities against adversaries or in support of friends for which U.S. government involvement is not evident to the general public, or which can be plausibly disclaimed. Corke also uses the terms “political warfare” and “psychological warfare” extensively, the former a more encompassing term while the latter may refer to more specific operations including propaganda, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and contact with underground groups in adversary territory. The author is careful to point out the nuances and contexts behind use of these terms, and explains their evolution effectively, as they came to be associated, at times, with a particular agency within the Washington national security bureaucracy.

The author argues her thesis by interweaving several themes, each of which is devoted a chapter in her work. Foremost is that Cold War policy under Truman was at best ambiguously stated and responsive primarily to internal vice external factors. Corke interestingly (and counterintuitively) maintains that Soviet policy was much more a result of U.S. domestic politics and bureaucratic infighting than it was based on Soviet action and American counteraction. In the vacuum of ambiguous policy, the various institutions charged with national security policy jockeyed for power and influence in the realm of covert operations and psychological warfare, and in doing so often operated at cross purposes, resulting in flawed policy and failed operations in the field.

Corke also contends that the key organizations involved in national security decision making--the National Security Council (NSC), State Department, Defense Department, and the CIA--largely ran amok and rudderless, all influenced by the relative inability of the Truman administration to corral them. The CIA, for example, was singularly influenced by the legacy of Wild Bill Donovan, its founder and soul. Donovan’s penchant for derring-do and initiative above all else produced a climate that rewarded action vice inaction, regardless of results on the ground.

Of course, Donovan was but one strong character in a narrative replete with larger-than-life personalities--including George Kennan, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Alan Dulles, Paul Nitze, James Forrestal, etc. It is no wonder that a single entity or personality was unable to harness the collective energy of the interagency, to include President Truman, and provide a single, unifying vision for U.S.-Soviet policy. In military parlance, what was lacking was unity of command and, perhaps more important, unity of purpose in interagency efforts at the time.

Interestingly, frequent and recurring administration attempts to give structure to covert operations and psychological warfare only resulted in further confusion and mismanagement. Corke maintains that such organizations as the Psychological Strategy Board, specifically designed to remove gaps between national policy and operations on the ground, only served to cause further interagency squabbles and confusion. In the end, nearly all of the interagency structures designed to improve the efficacy of covert operations were doomed to inefficiency based on the continuing failure to reconcile visions and agendas of the participating agencies and their heads. Thus, the fundamental strategic problem--getting the “ends” right, was never reconciled, leaving the “means”--caused psychological warfare and covert operations to flounder.

The magnitude of the tragedy in failed covert operations during the period will most likely never be known. The author uses as one case in point the curiously named Operation Valuable (later Project BGFIEND), a covert operation designed to destabilize the government of Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha between 1949 and 1954. Scores of commandos, consisting of Albanian refugees and Albanians of American descent, were inserted into the country to drum up popular support and initiate a potential overthrow of the Hoxha regime. Despite numerous failures and setbacks, CIA operations continued and were even expanded several times. Corke notes that between two hundred and one thousand people died during these unsuccessful operations, which accentuated “the complete breakdown between policy and operations that existed during these years” (p. 99).

Perhaps what readers will find most interesting about the book is the nuanced view of Cold War policy and strategy, along with their attendant national security documents. Those familiar primarily with the policy of containment and NSC-68 may be surprised to learn about the various policy gradations proposed, to include “liberation,” “rollback,” and “Titoism.” These competing strategic visions had their various political and interagency proponents throughout the period and addressed the seminal question of how to deal with Soviet aggression. Likewise, readers may be fascinated by Corke’s meticulous dissection of interagency bureaucratic politics and the policies they produced. The author does a thorough job of explaining how and why the interagency acted the way it did, and how competing personalities and visions resulted in ambiguous policy and multiple interpretations of what the United States was trying to accomplish. As a result, covert operations and psychological warfare continued to thrive, often without government oversight or checks and balances.

Corke’s work has obvious relevance in the modern context, as multiple government agencies struggle to define national security policy and outcomes in the post-9/11 world. It underscores that there is a difference between lessons and lessons learned; that is, national security policymakers must consciously decide whether to incorporate what is learned from the past or choose to ignore such knowledge. There has to be a formal mechanism for this to happen; otherwise, bureaucracies will continue to churn out flawed policies. Next, the author clearly demonstrates the impact of domestic considerations on the foreign policymaking process. As a teacher of the national security strategy making process, it is all too often the case that one focuses on external causes and events vice internal happenings to explain how and why policy is made. Corke clearly shows that Cold War-era policymaking was largely done in the context of domestic politics and bureaucratic infighting rather than as a response to Soviet actions.

Additionally, the author’s painstaking analysis of the interagency process during 1945-53 clearly demonstrates the difficulty in formulating national security policy in a democracy. The author presents a detailed and much more nuanced view of U.S. Cold War policy, one that goes far beyond well-known directives, such as the seminal NSC-68, and such personalities as Truman, Acheson, Kennan, and Nitze. Her explanation of the labyrinthine national security decision-making architecture under Truman is of great value to those studying the interagency process and anyone interested in how national security policy is formulated. Corke’s work makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of Cold War policymaking, adding insightful depth as well as breadth.
 
Gilberto N. Villahermosa. Honor and Fidelity: The 65th Infantry in Korea, 1950-1953. Washington DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 2009. xv + 329 pp., ISBN 978-0-16-083324-3.
Reviewed by Thomas E. Hanson


The Borinqueneers in Korea
Honor and Fidelity joins an ever-growing list of regimental histories covering twentieth-century American military history. What sets it apart from many recent offerings is its role in expanding our understanding of organizational evolution during long-term commitment to combat operations. Author Gilbert N. Villahermosa, a serving army officer, has done a masterful job detailing the experiences of a unique outfit in the post-World War II U.S. Army. Through archival research, exhaustive interviews with surviving participants, and an engaging narrative, Villahermosa forcefully argues that the devolution of the 65th Infantry Regiment's combat effectiveness and cohesion resulted from both internal and external factors, the cumulative effects of which led directly to the mass combat refusals seen in late fall 1952.
The 65th Infantry was a typical Regular Army unit in 1950, in that it lacked a significant percentage of authorized personnel, equipment of all types, and adequate training areas. It was atypical, however, in that it was one of only two segregated regiments remaining in the Regular Army, the other being the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment on occupation duty in Japan. Although the army had no policy restricting assignment of Hispanics in general or Puerto Ricans in particular, the 65th had always been explicitly Puerto Rican. During the first year of the regiment's service in Korea, this was, in the author's view, a source of strength. Villahermosa argues that the ethnic ties among soldiers and a deep sense of trust and respect between leaders and the led allowed the unit to fight effectively even under the hellish conditions prevailing in northern Korea in December 1950. As time passed, however, and attrition and rotation brought new infusions of manpower into the regiment, this trust and respect eroded as more non-English-speaking soldiers from Puerto Rico filled the ranks of the regiment while fewer and fewer Spanish-speaking noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and officers were assigned.
Villahermosa ably depicts this devolution of effectiveness in the chapters covering the regiment's defeat at Outpost Kelly in late summer of 1952, and the mass combat refusals that followed at Jackson Heights in October. Following a long period in corps reserve, the lackluster regimental commander Colonel Juan C. Cordero-Davila failed to make adequate plans or provide adequate supervision during the attack to seize Outpost Kelly, resulting in piecemeal defeats by the Chinese that reduced the number of combat-experienced leaders at the company level and lowered the morale of the soldiers. The fact that all parties continued to believe that Puerto Rican soldiers should be segregated into their own regiment exacerbated the disconnect between the soldiers and their leaders. By late 1952, there were few NCOs or officers in the Puerto Rican National Guard who had not already served in Korea; Major General Robert L. Dulaney's calls for more Puerto Rican leaders remained unanswered. Although Puerto Rican soldiers continued to fill the 65th's ranks, fewer and fewer spoke any English. Because several of the officers both spoke no Spanish and appeared disdainful of Puerto Rican cultural sensitivities, by late 1952 a gap of catastrophic proportions had opened between platoon leaders and company commanders on the one hand and the soldiers and even NCOs whom they led on the other hand. Following the regiment's humiliation at Outpost Kelly, a Continental officer replaced Cordero-Davila as regimental commander. Although Colonel Chester B. DeGavre had served with the 65th prior to World War II and spoke Spanish, one of his first orders prohibited his men from wearing mustaches "until they proved their manhood" (p. 239). Predictably, DeGavre's order had the opposite effect from what was intended. And because few of the leaders could adequately explain the purpose of orders issued to their non-English-speaking soldiers, almost no one outside of DeGavre's command group understood that his emphasis on discipline and appearance resulted directly from his fears that the regiment would be inactivated or otherwise discorporated as a Puerto Rican unit if their combat effectiveness did not improve. Unfortunately for DeGavre and the regiment, events at Jackson Heights seemed to validate prejudices of some members of the 3d Division and IX Corps staffs. Not only was the regiment unable to retain possession of the outpost, but repeated counterattacks also failed when substantial numbers of Puerto Rican soldiers disobeyed the orders of their officers and refused to fight.
Villahermosa concludes that the regiment's decline over the course of its years in Korea is directly attributable to three primary factors. First, the army's insistence on maintaining the 65th as a "segregated" regiment meant that there would never be a pool of experienced officers and NCOs of sufficient size to sustain a high level of combat effectiveness over the long term. And because the army had never restricted assignment of Hispanic soldiers the way it had for black soldiers, there was no guarantee that individual Puerto Rican replacements would be assigned to the 65th Infantry Regiment. Second, senior leaders at the division and corps level ignored the widespread inability of most replacement Puerto Rican soldiers to speak English, as demonstrated by the complete lack of any guidance issued to the 65th or 3d Infantry Division to remedy the problem. Major General Dulaney could not have been ignorant of the near-universal use of Spanish by members of the 65th Infantry Regiment during his almost daily visits to the regimental command post. But rather than scour the ranks of his division for combat-experienced bilingual officers and NCOs, the only program that received any emphasis was the accelerated promotion to sergeant of junior enlisted soldiers already in the regiment--a program that did nothing to address the continuing inability of most platoon leaders and company commanders to communicate orders effectively in battle. Third and most important, the decision to place Colonel Cordero-Davila in command of the regiment and Major General Dulaney's failure to mentor that officer once his leadership deficiencies became apparent directly led to the lax discipline that allowed the Chinese to overrun Outpost Kelly. Not only did Cordero-Davila demonstrate an ignorance bordering on stupidity in the face of numerous indicators of a major Chinese attack, but he also displayed a crippling indecisiveness long after it was apparent that a robust counterattack was necessary to restore the outpost line. Instead, Dulaney failed to issue any directives to his less-experienced subordinate and he continued to underwrite Cordero-Davila's poor performance until he was himself replaced.
Villahermosa's work provides an outstanding examination of the effects of sustained combat at both the macro and micro level. The work is firmly based on archival research from both the National Archives and the U.S. Army Military History Institute, augmented by numerous interviews with veterans from all three phases of the 65th's participation in the Korean War. The themes Villahermosa highlights in this work--organizational policy, leadership, arguments over the wisdom of ethnic identity as a basis for combat effectiveness, and the impact of politics on army policy--will resonate with scholars, professional soldiers, and the general public. This work has a place in a number of academic programs and should be required reading for all military pre-commissioning programs.
 

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