Upcoming Conference - 1918 - The Genesis of Modern Warfare: The Birth of the Royal Air Force and the Hundred Days Campaign

I know Dan Todman has already noted this but I have been asked to spread the word as it were so here is the annoucement for the above conference. The programme looks very promising and I am dissapointed that work will stop me from attending. There will, however, be a book of the conference so not all is lost.

Here is the announcement:

2008 is the ninetieth anniversary of two landmark events in the history of the British armed forces: the creation of the Royal Air Force, the world’s first independent air service, from the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service; and the ‘Hundred Days’ campaign, the greatest series of land victories in British military history. This conference marks these anniversaries. Papers will address land, air and maritime topics, including technology; tactics, operations and strategy; logistics; organisation; command; doctrine; the media; culture; and the legacy of 1918.

There are a limited number of slots available for early-stage scholars to give papers. Please contact Professor Gary Sheffield with offers of presentations.

Organised by the Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham
Defence Studies (Army); Defence Studies (Royal Air Force); Defence Studies (Royal Navy)

Speakers include:
Gary Sheffield, Sebastian Cox, Stephen Badsey

For more information visit the conference website.

Blogging the Second World War

I have just gotten involved with a new project led by Jeff Demers called Blogging the Second World War. It was announced on H-War last November and I am pleased to be getting involved with this new venture in Second World War history. It is a new way of promoting scholarly debate and discussion and should be supported by both academic and non-academics alike. Many of us run blogs but unfortunately they are sideshows to our main research. However, this blog is being funded and supported, which is a very positive sign. The first post should be going up very soon.

Jeff has stated that:

The goal of the project will be to create an on-line community (and presence) that promotes the study of the war and tracks the latest trends in research. The website will feature book, film and journal reviews, insights into ongoing scholarly debates, explorations of contributors’ research, and general commentary on a whole host of issues relevant to the study of the war.

RAF Historical Society Journal - Online

In Britain one of the leading societies dealing with the history of air power is the Royal Air Force Historical Society.

The society aims to:

…to mount three annual events, two seminars, usually hosted by the RAF Museum at Hendon (although other venues are used occasionally), and an AGM held in London. Each seminar explores a specific theme and takes the form of papers read by interested parties, ranging from academic historians to veterans recalling their personal experiences. It is some indication of the calibre of speakers that the society can attract that participants have included serving and former Chiefs of the Air Staff, Lord Healey, Sir Michael Quinlan, Dr Alfred Price, Air Cdre Henry Probert (a former Head of the AHB) and Prof Peter Hennessy.

Its journal, which is produced three times a year is full of useful information on RAF airpower and should be read by anyone interested in the history of the RAF. They have started putting back issues of their journal up on the RAF museum website. There is a lot of interesting information contained in these volumes. Topics in the journal range from intelligence in war to leadership. Some very useful stuff for any serious air power historian.

The Falklands War - 25 Years On

The Falklands War in Perspective: 25 Years On

Centre for First World War Studies

Saturday 23rd June saw another day school at the Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham. The theme for this year’s school centred on the Falklands War in respect of that conflicts 25th anniversary, which was commemorated this year. Being the first day school I have attended I was pleasantly surprised with a good turn out at the event even though Dr John Bourne, the Centre’s director, did note it was not as high as usual and that this was probably because the content was not about the First World War though after listening to Dr Bob Bushaway’s lecture you could have been forgiven for thinking that you were but more on that later.

The event was opened by Dr Bourne explaining the reasons for the subject, quite self – explanatory given the anniversary, and his reasons for not giving a lecture. Traditionally the day schools are a Bourne – Bushaway event. I think Dr Bourne is giving his voice a rest after twenty years of public speaking. Throughout the day Dr Bourne did an excellent job of introducing each of the distinguished speakers. The speakers for the day were Dr Stephen Badsey, Dr Bob Bushaway, Air Commodore Peter Grey and Lieutenant General Sir Hew Pike, the latter two having served during the war.

The first lecture was given by Dr Stephen Badsey who gave the audience an overview of the political and strategic aspects of the war and some of the problems that the British faced in this sphere. The first point Dr Badsey made was that in the years since the war its definition has changed significantly. To contemporaries the war referred to as a crisis and in the intervening year it became known as a conflict but now we are quite safe in defining it as a war. This shows how opinions change over time. It makes one wonder what we shall call the current crisis in Iraq in twenty five years time. His next point linked to this was how the war was viewed at the time. It was at the time believed to be an aberration, something out the norm. It was not east – west and was conventional in nature. It was possible a colonial campaign, the Falklands being a British dependency, but was being fought against an invader. Now, as Dr Badsey noted, the war is seen as the first war of the coming cold war era. The lecture then covered some of the key political issue that affected the nature of the campaign and provided its context and conduct. Britain in the late 70’s and early 80’s was undoubtedly in a dire situation with unemployment running high and with the new Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher unable to deal with this issue. The war was also fought on the backdrop of Sir John Nott’s defence review held in 1981, which sought to re – align Britain’s priority towards NATO and the central front. For Britain’s armed forces this was to mean the eventual loss of an out of area and expeditionary capability and as noted by Dr Badsey if Argentina held waited just another year the situation could have been very different. We were then presented with the argentine situation and their actions leading up to the war. The situation then presented surrounding some of legal issues that caused problems for Britain’s prosecution of the war. Notable amongst these was the attempts by the UN to bring an end to the conflict. This provides an interesting context to the operations conducted by the military and the strains placed upon them. The audience was then presented with an interesting talk as to were research in the future should take historians as Dr Badsey asserted that despite the fact that the official records are still closed for a further five years there is probably not much more to add to the British account of the war. This, therefore, points the historian to argentine accounts of the war and exploring the role the certain countries played in the conflict most notable America, France and Chile. Chile was a country that continued to crop up throughout the day as answers were sought about there role in the war. It will probably be an answer that may never be found as the question of sources is most pressing. Chilean records are either closed or may not even exist considering that countries problems in the past twenty five year and British records may be placed under further restrictions and may well not come to light for many years to come. The final and one of the most interesting of the day was Dr Badsey’s opinion of the recently published Official History as written by Sir Lawrence Freedman. He noted that this was probably the last top down history that will be written. This implies that in the future any official histories that will be written may well be from the perspective of the soldiers and not from that of Whitehall and the Generals. This probably a reflection of where the study of military history is going at present and the impact and influence the media has had on our perception of war as presented via the various forms of mass media.

The day then moved on to look at the operational aspects of the campaign and to start with we were treated with a most unorthodox, and interesting analysis of the amphibious aspects of the war. This was presented by Dr Bob Bushaway and as mentioned earlier you could be forgiven for thinking that the lecture was about First World War amphibious operations as much of the lecture was dedicated to a discussion of the lesson learnt from the Gallipoli operation of 1915. As Dr Bushaway noted all British amphibious, and latterly combined, operations have been conducted under the spectre of the Gallipoli disaster. Dr Bushaway then argued, quite convincingly, that until the success of OVERLORD in 1944 British operations were designed to ensure that similar failure did not occur. Therefore, CORPORATE can be both seen as a British operations being conducted under the ghost of Gallipoli but analysis of its success is seen through the prism of Normandy. Also for Dr Bushaway CORPORATE is an expression of the British way of warfare and this is best represented in the next major theme of his discussion. This was an excellent overview of the importance of one of the seminal pieces military theory, Sir Julian Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. Corbett in his work argued that Britain, as the world’s pre – eminent maritime power had the ability to project power ashore using her navy and was then able to guarantee her sea lines of communications. It was, as noted by Dr Badsey, this ability that was to be lost to the Royal Navy in the wake of Nott’s defence review in 1981. Dr Bushaway’s lecture pushed this idea of the British way in war as the doctrine for amphibious operations and that it is this context that the effectiveness of Commodore Clapp’s task group should and must be analysed. Given all of the problems facing the amphibious task group Dr Bushaway concluded that the force performed beyond all expectation and maintained the great British tradition of well executed amphibious operations. That was the first half of the day. The second half will appear soon.

Military History in the United Kingdom

Mark Grimsley over on Blog them out of the Stone Age has bemoaned the death of Military History in American universities with some interesting posts on the ongoing debate on the place of the subject in academia. In particular Mark has posted links to some very interesting articles on the subject and he has them filled on his blog under The Future of Academic Military History. However, in this post I intend to give you my impression of the growth of the subject here in the United Kingdom. As I think that in the past six years the subject has grown greatly within UK universities.Firstly, I think I must qualify my comments by admitting that I do not believe that Military History can be studied in isolation as a historical subject and must be framed within a subject of its own. Here in the UK that subject is War Studies and it is this aspect that I will be discussing. War Studies by its very nature combines many disciplines that all relate to the effective study of war. This includes Military History, Strategic Studies, International Relations, Politics, Philosophy and the list could go on.

When I began my undergraduate studies back in 2001 there were few institution that offered courses that covered Military History to any degree. In actual fact there were only two universities offering War Studies, King’s College and the University of Wolverhampton, the latter being where I studied. The University of Salford also offered degree in Military History. The only of its kind at undergraduate level at this time.

However, in the intervening years there has been a growth in courses offered in War Studies at UK institutions. There are arguably many reasons for this ranging from the effect of 9/11 and subsequent actions to the growing acceptance and success of the various War Studies courses already in existence. The department at King’s has always been a centre of excellence since its foundation in the early 1960’s under Sir Michael Howard. Thus now the following institutions will be offering courses in War Studies/Military History from the 2008 academic year:

1. University of Birmingham

2. University of Kent

3. King’s College

4. Liverpool Hope University College

5. University of Reading

6. University of Salford

7. University of Wales, Swansea

8. University of Westminster

9. University of Wolverhampton

10. University of Wales, Aberystwyth We can add to this several institutions, which are known to offer content on military history at undergraduate level:

1. University College London

2. University of Leeds

3. University of Newcastle

4. University of Glasgow

5. University of Exeter

6. University of Edinburgh

To this we can add related subjects such as Defence Studies, Peace Studies and Conflict Studies, which are offered by the following institutions:

1. University of Bradford

2. London Metropolitan University

3. Leeds Metropolitan University

4. Lancaster University

Thus, at undergraduate level the study of war in all its facets seems quite healthy here in the UK. The same is true at postgraduate level with the following institutions offering taught postgraduate qualification and research supervision:

1. King’s College

2. University of Wolverhampton

3. University of Birmingham

4. University of Exeter

5. University of Leeds

6. University of Wales, Aberystwyth

7. University of Wales, Swansea

8. University of Chester

9. Brunel University

10. University of Glasgow

11. University of Essex

12. University of Edinburgh

13. University of Salford

14. University of Northampton

Again it can be seen that here in the UK the study of war can be seen alive and well. Also the last few years have seen an increase in research centres in universities relating to the study of war, such as Centre for Second World War Studies and the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham. The University of Exeter also recently launched as research centre for the study of war, Centre for the Study of War, State and Society. Scotland also has two research centre dedicated to war, one at the University of Glasgow, The Scottish Centre for War Studies, and the other at the University of Edinburgh, The Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars. As such the study of war here in the UK is going through something of a renaissance and I think this has been because lecturers here have been willing to diversify there subject matter and cooperate with other subject areas in order offer something, which is both unique and also looks at the subject as a whole rather than in isolation. Therefore, in my opinion, American Military Historians should try and broaden their horizons and look to expand rather than working in isolation in a History department. Think of the wider implication of war and seek to build on this. It appears to have worked here in the UK and may work in the US.

New Sites

Gavin at Investigations of a Dog has found a new blog by Mike Ingram called War in the Mediterranean. This is an interesting looking site concentrating on the Mediterranean theatre of WW2. It is also good to see another student from the Birmingham University here on the blogosphere. Mike is, like myself studying at the Centre for Second World War Studies. From the Centre for First World War Studies we already have Alistair Hollington and his Historic Battlefields blog. This a positive feature from these two research centre’s showing that postgraduate students are starting to use blogs to help with their research.

I have also been in the process of setting up another blog and a website. One of my hobbies is military modelling and drawing. I think most of us who are interested in military history have at some point built an airfix kit. Well I still do it. I thought I would put a blog on the net of my work and here it is; Military Modelling and Art. I am also a member of a local club and have developed there website, which can be seen here; Cornish Scale Modellers.

New Blog

Thanks to Gavin Robinson I have just found another new and interesting blog on military history. Alistair Hollington’s blog concentrates on the First World War and this is understandable as Alistair is studying for a MA in British First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for First World War Studies. So far the contents of the site a very interesting with a good review of Peter and Dan Snows new series on Twentieth Century Battlefields. From a personal, and professional, point of view it is great to see another Birmingham University student join us here on the blogosphere. Gary Smailes notes that when he was doing his MA he wishes blogging was around and I have to agree that it is a useful tool. In general blogs are very useful for Masters and PhD students to discuss their research and to place initial thoughts out there. So I hope to see more coming around soon.