Historical Resources on the Web

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Posted on September 26, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

Updated 18 February 2012

Below the fold is a list of historical sources on the internet, this includes both primary and secondary source collections. I am constantly updating this list when I run across useful sites. Please point me at sites I miss in the comments section.

I am trying to keep this blog mostly academic or at least reasonably scholarly while at the same time making most of my source material easily available. Therefore I thought it would be a good idea to put up a note about sources I use on the site. For the most part I will try to use online sources in my essays and blog posts for one main reason. There is tons of great information on the internet if you know where to look and how to search. I hope that by posting online sources it will point people to some of the many resources available online. Occasionally I will use books from my personal library to cite some items that I just cannot find an online source for.

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Sun-Tzu & Clausewitz: A Comparison

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

Both Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz have something to offer for the serious student of warfare. The biggest distinction between the two seems to be their different approaches to the art of war. Sun-Tzu advocates a more subtle and indirect approach to the art of war while Clausewitz advocates a more direct approach.

The essence of Sun-Tzu’s philosophy seems to be winning through superior generalship. He almost seems to advocate a type of warfare by superior maneuver similar to that practiced in Renaissance Italy. He preaches the avoidance of pitched battles unless the attacker is assured of winning. This view is summed up in chapter III verse 3: “For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”

Clausewitz, on the contrary says that in war the combat or battle is everything. He regards armies as tools to be used for their intended purpose, waging war. Clausewitz makes the argument that combat occurs even if the opposing armies don’t meet; if a general forces his opponent out of position through maneuver a combat has still occurred though only potentially. Clausewitz also makes a large distinction between tactics and strategy, a distinction that seems to be somewhat missing in the philosophy of Sun-Tzu.

Personally, I think the Clausewitzean model is more applicable to modern warfare though his theory is more limited to actual warfare than that of Sun-Tzu. Sun-Tzu presents a more unified theory, which takes more account of political and societal factors than Clausewitz does. The philosophy of Clausewitz seems truer to me because I believe, as he does, that the objective in war is to dominate your opponent and the only sure way to do that is to force him prostrate. I would say that my views reflect not only my European heritage but also my own combat experience and frustrations with the eastern way of war. It seems to me that the avoidance of combat unless on favorable terms is the weasels way of war, though recent American experiences in Asia over the last forty years have proven its effectiveness. While I think there are compelling lessons to be learned from the study of both philosophers, Clausewitz offers the more cohesive theory with a decisive conclusion.

Sun-Tzu, Clausewitz, and Naval Warfare

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

The work of neither Sun Tzu nor Clausewitz is adequate to describe naval warfare except in the most general terms. While it is true that until recent times warfare on both land and sea was largely two dimensional, there are factors at work in naval warfare that defy explanation in either Sun Tzu or Clausewitz. The vagaries of wind and weather played a much greater role in medieval naval warfare than on land. The weather was often a determining factor in whether an engagement happened at all. The naval commander was at the mercy of the weather during the age of sail, something that ground commanders did not have to reckon with.

Of either Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, the writings of Sun Tzu more closely approximate the strategy employed by Elizabeth during her reign. Sun Tzu advocates an indirect approach and matching ones strength against the weakness of the enemy. These are essentially the same principles that Elizabeth I followed in her conflict with Catholic Spain over the throne of England. She consistently sought to maintain English control of her home waters and supported an indirect assault upon the Spain of Philip II through her encouragement of commerce raiding. Even the battle fought against the Spanish armada of 15888 employed the strategy of Sun Tzu in which the smaller faster ships of England were able to devastate the heavy Spanish galleons through speed and firepower. The Spanish were unable to bring use the soldiers aboard their ships and instead had to fight ship to ship against the more heavily gunned English vessels. This is a classic example of Sun Tzu’s principle of “avoid strength, attack weakness”. The English capitalized on their advantages while avoiding the threat of Spanish boarders.

Of the two philosophers, Clausewitz deals best with the possibility of technological change. He acknowledges that technology may be a factor in success or defeat. Clausewitz witnessed the artillery revolution that occurred with the French mastery of gunnery in the eighteenth century and saw the difference in effectiveness between smoothbore and rifled weapons. He was therefore at least conversant with the concept of technological change. Sun Tzu lived at a time when technology was more static and change was not much of an issue. Clausewitz wrote just prior to the industrial age but the first glimmerings of the coming revolution were to be seen and he briefly discusses the effect of weapons on war. Neither author specifically addresses technological change but Clausewitz was more cognizant of the effects that change has on the conduct of war.

Book Review: The German Way of War by Robert M. Citino

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

This book is an interesting read to say the least, Dr. Citino makes the case that there is a specifically German “way of war”. That way, is what he calls operational maneuver. He traces the development of this “way of war” from the 17th century battles of the Frederick William I, the “Great Elector” of electoral Brandenburg and scion of the Hohenzollern Dynasty through to the end of World War II and the final defeat of Nazi Germany. I am not myself so convinced that the discussion should end there based on my experience talking to current German soldiers about war and battle during partnership exercises while I have been stationed in Germany. The current state of operational thought in the Bundeswehr is a topic for another post though. (Bing! Idea Grenade)
Dr. Citino also rightly points out in numerous places that the study of military history should not be a form of “armchair generalship”. He says that instead “The primary question for historians should not be what someone ought to have done, but why they did what they did.”, (original italics pg. 269)
While I generally agree with Dr. Citino’s assertion about Prussian/German war making methods, I am not so certain that it is possible to trace such a method back to the wars of the Great Elector as he has done except in a very vague way. I simply do not think it is possible to talk about the operational level of warfare when one is speaking of armies small enough for one man to personally command. In my opinion, the first time you can really start talking about an operational level of warfare, is the Napoleonic wars. That was the first time that a commander had no choice but to rely on subordinate commanders to maneuver and fight significant portions of his army without him being able to take personal control. This was a function of both the size and geographic distribution of the armies involved. There was no operational level involved when dealing with armies of 20-30,000 men that marched and fought as essentially a single unit, even when one wing was detached at the point of contact. Armies of 50,000 and more that marched as separate units and could fight independently or together are a different matter entirely.
I do think that Dr. Citino has hit on an overlooked part of the German “way of war” in his recognition of a German tradition of a preference for offensive operations and a culture of élan that was nurtured within the culture of German military leadership. It is this preference for offensive over defensive warfare that sets German military tradition apart from other armies. No other army has so consistently sought to achieve a rapid decision in war as the Germans. Dr. Citino is also right in citing first Brandenburg’s and later Prussia’s and Germany’s strategic situation for fostering the desire for rapid victory. The wonder as I see it is that Germany was so successful in achieving this over the years. That is one of the things that makes the study of Prussian military history so interesting, they have won many wars they should have lost because of their method of making war.
The German Way of War is one of those rare military history books that are accessible to the layman while being written for the academic community. It is unfortunate that so many histories are written in such a style that the average person cringes and puts the book down after only a few pages if they even hazard to pick the book up in the first place. This is not one of them. It is extremely well written with only a few editing mistakes that I saw and the most notable was the substitution of the name of the city of Königsberg in East Prussia instead of the Battle of Königgrätz in a list of major German 19th century victories on page 236 and some minor spelling errors and omissions of words. The books includes extensive notes and source citations, the bibliography alone runs to 27 pages and is a valuable guide to the available literature on German Military history all by itself. I highly recommend this book.

The German Way of War?

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

Is there such a thing? That question hit me this morning as I was reading a book review in an old copy of the Journal of Military History. The book in question was Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 (Modern War Studies), by Robert M. Citino and it was reviewed in the January 2009 issue of the Journal. The reviewer made mention that one of the prevalent theories about the German army is that in World War II they fought a completely different war than the one they were designed for and that goes far to explaining the ultimate German defeat.

The argument is that the German army was designed to fight short, sharp, decisive campaigns and not the types of slugging matches that the World Wars became. On the face of it that argument seems both instinctual and correct. This is especially so when you consider the German victories in the Wars of German Unification when they managed to defeat armies superior to them or equal with astonishing rapidity. The surface is only about as far as that analysis can really go in my opinion.

It is an oversimplification at best to claim that the Germans lost because they fought the wrong war. I definitely fall into the camp that blames the German military, especially its leadership, with a failure of courage. They knew they would be fighting the wrong war and could have but did not stop Hitler from taking control. What makes it all worse in my opinion is that after the war they got busy trying to make excuses for letting the Hitler and the Nazis do what they did. Instead, the officers retreated into a fantasy world of claiming that they had to keep their oaths of loyalty or do their duty. Even a cursory look would show that they signally failed to do their duty.

In the final analysis, it boils down to whether the military is duty bound to serve the nation or the regime. I know what I would argue but rather than go into that here, I don’t want to digress too far from my main point. Especially since the discussion of duty would rapidly devolve into a metaphysical navel-gazing contest.

Is there a German Way of War? If you look at the Prussian army, and the German army was really just an extension of Prussian methods and doctrine, then perhaps a Way of War can be perceived. The first part of any discussion of a German Way of War is to examine the history of the Hohenzollern state to even begin to understand the way the Prussians thought. then you must look at the German/Prussian strategic situation in relation to that of other nations. Next you have to examine the Prussian/German state itself to have an understanding of the logistical and manpower constraints within which the state and military operated. Next is looking at the military methods and strategy the Prussians/Germans thought most appropriate for both defending and expanding their frontiers.

All those things need to be looked at if a good appreciation of what, if anything is the German Way of War. This will be a multi-post series that I will try to complete over the next few weeks, the demands of real-life allowing.