War and society

Türkiye, her iki dünya savaşı ertesi köklü dönüşümler geçirdi. İlki 600 yıllık Osmanlı hanedanına son verdi. İkincisi ise Tek Parti döneminin sonu oldu; Türkiye’de siyasi demokrasinin yolunu açtı. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Türkiye tarafsız kaldı. Ancak, savaşın tüm olumsuzluklarını bilfiil yaşadı. Tek Parti döneminin toplumsal dengeleri büyük ölçüde hasar gördü. Milli Korunma Kanunu, Varlık Vergisi, Toprak Mahsulleri
Vergisi, İş Mükellefiyeti gibi uygulamalar toplumsal katmanları iktidara karşı tavır almaya sevk etti. Devletin savaş içinde kararlarını hayata geçirme konusundaki zaafları belirginleşirken; kitlelerin gündelik yaşamda tepki ve direnişleri de çığ gibi arttı. Gerek çok partili sisteme geçişte, gerekse 1940’ların ikinci yarısında gündeme gelen sosyal politika alanındaki reformlarda toplum tabanında gözlenen yılgınlık ve
tepkiler önemli bir rol oynadı.
Murat Metinsoy’un kitabı işte bu zor yılların toplumsal öyküsünü gündeme getiriyor. Olaylar dizinini tabandan irdeleyerek; kitlelerin yaşam deneyimlerini, serzenişlerini, gündelik yaşamdaki direnişlerini vurgulayarak… Otoriter dönemlerde bile toplumun
gündelik mücadelelerinin ve taleplerinin siyasete etki edebileceğini
ortaya koyarak…
Zafer Toprak, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi

The tragic tale of Prince Andrei and Natasha Rostov that is the centerpiece of Tolstoy’s masterpiece is a brilliant depiction of the fallibility of life, sublimity of love and serenity in death. Andrei was a middle-aged widower and Natasha was still in her teens when love happened to them. While Natasha’s parents welcomed their romance, Andrei’s father was scornful about the match of that ‘chit of a girl’ from the family of no fortune or rank of consequence. However, he gives in subject to the condition that Andrei should put it off for a year and stay abroad during that period. “And then if your love or passion or obduracy – whatever you choose – is still as great, marry!” says the old man.

Published by the New Press in 2008, this volume collects a wide array of primary source documents that together provide a vivid cross-section of American intellectual, political, and cultural life during wartime. The documents span from the 1898 U.S. war against Spain through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s. Each has a brief introduction that provides historical context, making the volume an ideal text for the classroom.

This article surveys American eye prosthetics during the World Wars beginning with the shortage of glass eyes during the First World War. It also looks at attempts to address prosthetic eye needs in the Second World War through the acrylic eye program, the use of contact lenses, and a group of Americans seeking to show their patriotism by donating their own eyeballs to blinded veterans.

The Changi story is synonymous with suffering, hardship, and the Australian prisoner-of-war experience in the Second World War. It is also one of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and survival. Combining prisoners’ cartoons, paintings, photographs, and essays, The Changi Book provides a unique view of life in the camp: medical innovation; machinery and tools made from spare parts and scrap; black markets; sports and gambling; entertainment; a library and university. Seventy years after its planned publication, material for The Changi book was rediscovered in the Australian War Memorial archives and appears here for the first time along with insights from the Memorial’s experts, providing unique historical insights into some of the stories and characters behind its rich Changi collection.

Am Beispiel des Zweiten Weltkrieges beschäftigt sich das Proseminar mit der Entstehung von extremer Gewalt und den Auswirkungen, die diese auf Gesellschaften und Staaten, soziale Gemeinschaften und Individuen hat. Welche neuen Fragen und Erkenntnisse lassen sich gewinnen, wenn wir den Zweiten Weltkrieg aus globaler Perspektive (vergleichend, transregional oder transnational) betrachten, und dabei sowohl makro-als auch mikrogeschichtliche Ansätze verbinden? Das Seminar ist thematisch strukturiert und beschäftigt sich u.a. mit Fragen von Ideologie, extremer Gewalt und Brutalisierung; Okkupation, Kollaboration und Widerstand; Partisanenkrieg und Zivilbevölkerung; und Geschlecht und Gewalt. Beginnend in den späten 1930er Jahren liegt der Fokus des Seminars auf den Hauptkriegsschauplätzen in Europa und Asien, aber andere Weltregionen werden auch miteinbezogen. Das Proseminar endet in der Nachkriegszeit und fragt nach der Bedeutung von Strafrechtsprozessen, Vergangenheitspolitik und Kriegserinnerungen für soziale Gemeinschaften. Als Teil eines Feldforschungsprojektes (und mit Hilfe von Fotokameras) werden sich die Studierenden zudem im Berliner Stadtraum und Umland auf die visuellen Spuren des Zweiten Weltkrieges - ob groß oder klein, sichtbar oder verdeckt - machen.

In this latest addition to the acclaimed War & Conflict Through the Ages series, Brian Sandberg offers a truly global examination of the intersections between war, culture, and society in the early modern period. Sandberg traces the innovative military technologies and practices that emerged around 1500, then explores the different forms of warfare—including dynastic war, religious warfare, raiding warfare, and peasant revolt— that shaped conflicts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He explains how significant social, economic, and political developments transformed warfare on land and at sea at a time of global imperialism and growing mercantilism, forcing states and military systems to respond to rapidly changing situations.

Engaging and insightful, War and Conflict in the Early Modern World will interest scholars and students of world history, the early modern period, and the broader relationship between war and society.

War is a social activity. War shapes societies -what they value, how they see themselves, and how they interact with other societies. But societies also shape war: ideas about masculinity, gender, race, and class all inform military culture and practice on and off the battlefield. Conflict has indelibly marked societies across the globe. Studying war and its impact can provide new insights into the history of the 20 th century.

The Revolution Papers is a weekly newspaper that tells the story of the Irish revolution from 1916 to 1923 by reproducing newspapers covering key events in the period. As editor, I write a review of the newspapers in each issue. This review is from our first issue which was published on 28 December 2015. For further details, please visit http://therevolutionpapers.ie/

A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it uses the French and Savoyard invasion of Spanish Lombardy in 1636 to explore warfare through a neo-Darwinian lens. This emphasizes the universal features of human behavior and psychology as they relate to violence and war. Oxford University Press, January 2016, Paperback version 2018; Italian translation LEG 2018.

Mehmet Beşikçi, Osmanlı ordusunun Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nın gerektirdiği yoğun insan gücü seferberliğini nasıl yürüttüğünü, kapsamlı arşiv taramasını zengin bir süreli yayın ve anı-hatırat literatürüyle harmanlayarak araştırıyor. Seferberlik koşullarının devlet-toplum ilişkilerini yeniden şekillendirici bir etki yaptığını savunan Beşikçi, bu süreçte Osmanlı devleti bir yandan daha merkezî, otoriter ve milliyetçi bir eğilime girerken, diğer yandan toplumun seferberlik politikalarına karşı tepkiler verebileceği bir alanın da açıldığını gösteriyor. Zorunlu askerlik sisteminin savaş yıllarındaki sancılı ama pragmatik işleyişi, yurt cephesine nüfuz etmenin artan önemi ve yıpratıcı cephe koşullarında derinleşen firar meselesi kitapta masaya yatırılıyor. Gözden geçirilmiş yeni baskısıyla Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Osmanlı Seferberliği, yalnızca savaşın askerî ve sosyal tarihi literatürüne değil, aynı zamanda devlet-toplum ilişkileri, siyasal mobilizasyon ve milliyetçilik açısından Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e geçiş süreci tartışmalarına da önemli bir katkı.

The aim of this presentation is to give a brief overview of the nature and organisation of the German intelligence network in South Africa during the Second World War. I will first talk about the initial German contacts with South Africa, and in particular the Ossewabrandwag, between 1940 and 1941, whereafter I will use the case of Lothar Sittig to discuss the larger ambit of the maritime intelligence war waged in southern Africa. I will conclude with some general remarks on the effectiveness of the German intelligence network in South Africa during the Second World War. The erstwhile historian and archivist of the Ossewabrandwag , Piet van der Schyff, argued that two pertinent questions arise regarding the Ossewabrandwag and its possible contact with Nazi Germany during the war. First, was there definite contact between the Ossewabrandwag and Germany during the war? Second, if such contact existed, what was the nature and extent thereof? The answer to the first question is straightforward. The Ossewabrandwag maintained regular contact with Germany throughout the war. The second question, however, needs further investigation, especially as to how it related to the maritime intelligence war waged in southern Africa.

Bousquet’s landmark book examines the impact of key technologies and scientific ideas on the theory and practice of warfare and the handling of the perennial tension between order and chaos on the battlefield. Spanning the entire modern era, from the Scientific Revolution to the present, it offers a systematic account of modern warfare as the constitution of increasingly complex assemblages of bodies and machines whose integration rests upon a military assimilation of scientific thought.

Reflecting the pervasive influence of scientific conceptual frameworks upon warfare, modern armies have been successively organised by reference to the paradigmatic technologies of the clock, engine, computer, and network. Conversely, major scientific developments and technological breakthroughs have become intertwined with the experience of war, especially since the Second World War’s unprecedented mobilisation of scientific rationality and technical expertise. This increasingly tight symbiosis between science, technology, and war is at the heart of both the tremendous powers and enduring pathologies displayed by the contemporary military machine.

In this new and revised edition, Bousquet extends the analysis to encompass the latest developments in the scientific way of warfare in the midst of renewed great power competition and a wave of technological innovation in artificial intelligence and robotics.

El presente trabajo pretende responder a las cuestiones planteadas a partir de un supuesto hipotético que plantea diversos problemas legales relacionados con la aplicación de las normas del derecho internacional humanitario. Para ello se responde a tres preguntas que, parten de un supuesto práctico y se valen de fundamentos jurídicos y un razonamiento que lleva a la aplicación de dichas normas, ocupando una extensión de entre 5 y 10 páginas.

""""Known affectionately as ‘Padres’, chaplains have been integral to the Australian Army for a century.

From the legendary William ‘Fighting Mac’ McKenzie, whose friendships with Australian soldiers in the trenches of Gallipoli and France made him a national figure in 1918, to Harold Wardale-Greenwood, who died caring for the sick while a POW on the brutal Sandakan ‘death march’ in July 1945, this book assesses the contribution of chaplains in conflicts and peacekeeping missions, in barracks and among service families.

Drawing on a wealth of original archival material and little known published sources, Captains of the soul represents the first comprehensive account of Australian Army chaplains. It surveys their changing role and experience from the Great War of 1914–18 to Afghanistan; charts the evolution of the Royal Australian Army Chaplains’ Department across its first century; and addresses the significance of Army chaplaincy for Australia’s military, religious and cultural history since 1788. """"

'The fighting Gunditjmara' tells the story of the Gunditjmara people from western Victoria, who have fought for country and for nation, from frontier wars to world wars. The article looks at how Aboriginal servicemen and servicewomen serving in the Australian military forces have often spoke of being part of a long-standing, continuous warrior tradition that embodies deep respect for their forebears who fought for their traditional lands. Such sentiments were encapsulated by Captain Reg Saunders, a Gunditjmara man,  "I would have fought the war my forefathers fought because I think we were right. We were fighting for survival." One of the most famous Australian soldiers of the Second World War, Saunders was the first identifiable Aboriginal to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. He is from a long line of Gunditjmara men and women - who have earned the reputation 'the fighting Gunditjmara' - who have served in the Australian military.

An edition of an indictment roll of Chester county court during a crucial period of the county's, and country's, history. It begins with the period of the Hundred Years War when England was achieving stunning successes against France, and ends when things had begun to go badly wrong for England. The Chester county court was the supreme court of justice, in effect, for Cheshire, and so the rolls include crimes up to the most serious level. The earl of Chester, the ruler of the county, was in this period the Black Prince, who was deeply involved in the prosecution of the war.

In 2015, an intaglio gem was discovered in Pylos (Messenia, Greece) from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age with a scene of two warriors in combat. This representation is part of a group of similar images on seals. The analysis of these objects allows the suggestion that the scenes depicted on them are based on the same story/myth. This story helped to build the ideology of the Mycenaean elites based on, among other things,the use  time linking the Mycenaeans living in different parts of Greece, especially in Mycenae, Pylos and Vapheio. Perhaps it had an epic dimension similar to Homer’s much later work.

Scientific methods and concepts have been exerting a powerful influence on the exercising of armed force since the Scientific Revolution and the dawn of the modern era. In association with the respective technologies of the clock, engine and computer, the scientific theories of mechanism, thermodynamics, and cybernetics have all in turn been recruited to shape distinct approaches to the challenges of imposing order on the chaos of the battlefield. Today, it is on the basis of the new sciences of chaos and complexity that the latest regime of the scientific way of warfare is being erected. Chaoplexic warfare draws on the study of nonlinear phenomena of self-organization to propose a radical decentralization of armed forces through the adoption of the network form. For all its present flaws, network-centric warfare and its operational concepts of self-synchronization and swarming mark an important step on the path to chaoplexic warfare.

In late 1912 and early 1913, people all over Britain reported seeing airships in the night sky, yet there were none. It was widely assumed that these 'phantom airships' were German Zeppelins, testing British defenses in preparation for the next war. The public and press responses to the phantom airship sightings provide a glimpse of the way that aerial warfare was understood before it was ever experienced in Britain. Conservative newspapers and patriotic leagues used the sightings to argue for a massive expansion of Britain’s aerial forces, which were perceived to be completely out-classed by Germany’s in both number and power. In many ways this airship panic was analogous to the much better known 1909 dreadnought panic. The result was the perfect Edwardian panic: the simultaneous culmination of older fears about Germany and the threat of espionage, invasion, and, above all, the loss of Britain’s naval superiority. But, in reality, there was little understanding about the way that Zeppelins would be used against Britain in the First World War—not to attack its arsenals and dockyards, but to bomb its cities.

(graduate) Foundational course that explores the practice of military history as a discipline, striving to build solid research methodology in students pursuing their graduate work in either history or political science. Emphasizes comparisons between political science and historical methodologies through a series of projects where students create a battle history, a war and society paper, conduct an oral history, and produce a final research project. Discusses careers for military historians and alternate uses of military history outside of the academy. Sample syllabus attached.

An excellent survey of warfare during the period especially suitable for World History courses, offering a surprising blend of operational and war & society approaches. Commissioned, World History Connected. Completed Fall, 2015, pub. June 2016.

/Résumé analytique June 1940: The Italian Army and the Battle of the Alps Emanuele Sica This article focuses on the " Battle of the Alps " of June 1940, which pitted the Italian Regio Esercito against the French Armée des Alpes. Fearing that an early capitulation of France to the German invasion that had begun in May would prevent Italy from sharing the spoils of victory, Mussolini ordered an offensive against France on 15 June 1940. Despite the battle raging in the north, the French Army successfully repelled the attacking force and the Italian assault petered out after a few days, with no significant victories and few territorial gains. Aside from the difficulties of crossing the Alpine mountain range, a geographical feature the French had strongly fortified, the Italian campaign was hindered by poor strategy, ineffective tactics, an outdated military doctrine that failed to acknowledge the importance of combined arms warfare, and appallingly inadequate materiel owing to the erosion of the Italian military industrial base in the 1930s. In fact, the Battle of the Alps set the tone for the overall disappointing military campaign of the Regio Esercito in the Second World War, as the Italian army never fully recovered from its dismal start. Nous nous concentrons, dans cet article, sur la « Bataille des Alpes » de juin 1940, qui opposa la Regio Esercito italienne à l'Armée française des Alpes. Craignant qu'une capitulation anticipée de la France devant l'invasion allemande, qui avait déjà commencé en mai, empêcherait l'Italie d'avoir une part aux butins de guerre, Mussolini ordonna une attaque contre la France le 15 juin 1940. En dépit des combats qui faisaient rage plus au nord, l'armée française réussit à repousser l'ennemi et l'assaut ita-lien tourna court après quelques jours n'ayant remporté aucune victoire importante et reçu que peu de gains territoriaux. À part des difficultés encourues à travers la chaîne de montagnes des Alpes, un élément géographique que la France avait solidement fortifié, la campagne d'Italie fut entravée par une stratégie médiocre, des tactiques inefficaces, une doctrine militaire périmée qui négligea de re-connaître l'importance des forces alliées armées et du matériel épouvantablement inadéquat à cause de la dégradation de la base industrielle militaire de l'Italie dans les années 30. En fait, la Bataille des Alpes fut un présage pour la campagne militaire décevante en tout point du Regio Esercito durant la seconde guerre mondiale, car l'armée italienne ne se remit jamais de son départ lamentable.

This book is the first synthesis of European military history in several decades, embracing the greater part of the continent and the Mediterranean shores. It draws upon a wide range of international literature and contains much new material. Routledge ISBN 9781138368989

There is a regrettable lack of scholarly attention given to the Austro-Hungarian (K.u.k.) Army in World War I, particularly in the English language historiography. Consequently, the experiences of Habsburg soldiers have remained unexplored. It is the purpose of this paper to begin the discussion by focusing on the fundamental subjective and objective factors at work shaping their experiences as soldiers in the Great War. Languages, landscapes, and violence framed the day-to-day lives of front line soldiers and represent the principle external forces informing their interpretations of the war.

From ubiquitous surveillance to drone strikes that put “warheads onto foreheads,” we live in a world of globalized, individualized targeting. The perils are great. In The Eye of War, Antoine Bousquet provides both a sweeping historical overview of military perception technologies and a disquieting lens on a world that is, increasingly, one in which anything or anyone that can be perceived can be destroyed—in which to see is to destroy.

Arguing that modern-day global targeting is dissolving the conventionally bounded spaces of armed conflict, Bousquet shows that over several centuries, a logistical order of militarized perception has come into ascendancy, bringing perception and annihilation into ever-closer alignment. The efforts deployed to evade this deadly visibility have correspondingly intensified, yielding practices of radical concealment that presage a wholesale disappearance of the customary space of the battlefield. Beginning with the Renaissance’s fateful discovery of linear perspective, The Eye of War discloses the entanglement of the sciences and techniques of perception, representation, and localization in the modern era amid the perpetual quest for military superiority. In a survey that ranges from the telescope, aerial photograph, and gridded map to radar, digital imaging, and the geographic information system, Bousquet shows how successive technological systems have profoundly shaped the history of warfare and the experience of soldiering.

A work of grand historical sweep and remarkable analytical power, The Eye of War explores the implications of militarized perception for the character of war in the twenty-first century and the place of human subjects within its increasingly technical armature.

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

In post-World War II period, as France attempted to restore its colonial regime in Indochina, the country found itself stuck in another prolonged conflict against the same people who used to be France's colonial subjects. This time, the communist group Viet Minh was able to motivate the people to fight against colonialism by promoting nationalism, communism, and even racial hatred. The ability to mobilize the mass transformed the nature of the conflict from an insurgency war to a totalizing, "people's war" that eventually outweighed superior Western firepower.

The island of Bougainville in the South Pacific was the site of one of the largest and most gruelling campaigns fought by Australian forces during the Second World War. During the offensive against the Japanese from November 1944 to August 1945, more than 500 Australians were killed and two Victoria Crosses awarded. A veteran later described Bougainville as 'one long bloody hard slog'. Despite this, little is known about the campaign, which was dismissed as an unnecessary and costly operation. In the first major study of the Bougainville campaign since 1963, Karl James argues that it was in fact a justifiable use of Australia's military resources. Drawing on original archival research, including wartime reports and soldiers' letters and diaries, James illustrates the experience of Australian soldiers who fought. Generously illustrated with over forty photographs, this important book tells how this often overlooked battle played an important part in Australia's Second World War victory.

Warfare is increasingly considered to have been a major field of social activity in prehistoric societies, in
terms of the infrastructures supporting its conduct, the effects of its occurrence, and its role in symbolic
systems. In the Bronze Age many of the weapon forms that were to dominate battlefields for millennia
to come were first invented — shields and swords in particular. Using the case study of Ireland, developments
in Bronze Age warfare are traced from the Early to the Late Bronze Age. It is argued that
during this period there was a move from warfare that made use of projectiles and impact weapons to
warfare that used both defensive and cutting weapons. This formed the basis for a fundamental
reorganisation in combat systems. This in turn stimulated change in the social organisation of warfare,
including investment in material and training resources for warriors and the development of new
bodily techniques reflecting fundamental changes in martial art traditions. Metalwork analysis of
bronze weapons and experimental archaeology using replicas of these are used to support this position.
The article explores how developments in fighting techniques transformed the sociality of violence and
peer-relations among warriors and proposes that these warriors be regarded as a category of craft specialist
exerting significant social influence by the Late Bronze Age.

After J. C. Smuts (1870-1950) managed to unseat J.B.M. Hertzog (1866-1942) as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa it was clear that the country would enter the Second World War on the side of Great Britain. In spite of extensive changes and an increased budget the Union Defence Force (UDF) found itself in a state of war on 7 September 1939 with a Permanent Force of only 5400 men with limited training and antiquated equipment. While Hitler’s armies conquered Western Europe the Springboks prepared to go North and spite of trepidations about the might of Mussolini’s East African Empire the First South African Infantry Division set sail for East Africa in mid-July 1940.  In 5 short months Mussolini’s East African Empire had been torn to shreds. Victorious in every major engagement, the South Africans embarked for Egypt in June 1941. Here they encountered similar logistical problems as was prevalent before they embarked for East Africa. With two divisions in the field and a third in training UDF planners had a trying time marshalling enough motorised transport to enable the Springboks to keep pace with the increased mobility that was a hallmark of desert warfare. Expecting to build on their success over the Italians the South Africans confidently went into battle but by November 1941 the Fifth South African Infantry Brigade was annihilated and the victors of East Africa badly mauled. Fighting low-moraled Italian armies in the bush and mountains of Abyssinia was quite easy, beating the Germans in the desert would be a different story altogether.

Following South African entry into the Second World War on 6 September 1939, the Union Defence Force (UDF) transformed from an ageing peacetime defence force into a modern armed force capable of projecting offensive power. During the interwar period a certain state of melancholia had existed in the UDF in terms of military innovation, which resulted in muddled thinking in the UDF in terms of armoured warfare and mechanisation. The offensive potential of armoured forces was simply not understood by the South African defence planners, with the result that there was only a token armoured force in the UDF in September 1939. The South African entry into the war was the impetus for the development of a viable armoured force within the UDF, and the South African Tank Corps (SATC) was established in May 1940. Changes in both the nature and organisational structure of the South African defence establishment followed. The Italian presence in Abyssinia and Italian Somaliland was seen as a direct threat to the neighbouring British East African territories, and South Africa deployed to Kenya during June 1940, soon after the Italian declaration of war. The South African deployment to East Africa was the first deployment of the UDF in a situation of regular war since the First World War. Despite the doctrine that underpinned the South African deployment of armoured forces in East Africa, the SATC units soon learned that the accepted doctrine, borrowed from the British War Office during the interwar period, was but a mere guide to offensive employment. The story of the South African deployment to East Africa during the war is used as a lens through which to investigate the role and employment of both the UDF armoured cars and light tanks. By separately discussing the Allied offensives through Italian Somaliland and southern Abyssinia during 1940-1941, the tactical and operational employment of the South African armour during this time becomes paramount when evaluated against their successes and failures. The nature of the opposing Italian forces in East Africa, the ever-changing topography and climate of the theatre of operations, and the nature of the South African offensive operations throughout the campaign, all combined to shape the novel way in which the armoured cars and tanks of the SATC were employed throughout 1940-1941. The operational experiences that the UDF gained during the campaign in East Africa shaped the further deployments of South African armour to North Africa, Madagascar and Italy during the remainder of the war.

open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API Pro-Russian separatists stand guard at the site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash, near the village of Hrabove in Ukraine's Donetsk region. (Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

Italian aristocrats were surprisingly numerous in the armies of Catholic powers throughout the sixteenth and a good part of the seventeenth century, in numbers not hitherto suspected. The book charts their activity in the framework of the numerous wars from the Atlantic to the Middle East, in Flanders, Germany, Hungary, Italy and the Mediterranean. The precipitous decline in their numbers after about 1640 and their near-disappearance by the end of the 18th century constitutes one of the principal traits of Italian political life in modern times.

Entre la copiosa bibliografía sobre la contienda de Independencia americana no son frecuentes los estudios sobre los que en ella defendieron la causa del rey. Existen, naturalmente, buenos estudios parciales y el excelente de Julio Albi, Banderas olvidadas, de reciente aparición. Esté modesto trabajo viene a sumarse a ellos, esperando ser una llamada más de atención sobre un tema frecuentemente ignorado.
Sirva de homenaje a la memoria de los oficiales y soldados que defendieron la causa española en el Nuevo Mundo tan olvidados por la posteridad, a veces en beneficio de sus oponentes, y a los que la historia ha dado la razón en tantos aspectos. (...)
Partiendo de la base del general desconocimiento incluso de los acontecimientos más salientes de la contienda y del hecho, aparentemente paradójico, de que en España sean más conocidos los líderes independentistas que los que se opusieron a ellos, si hay un aspecto especialmente ignorado entre los que configuran el proceso de Independencia de las naciones hispanoamericanas, es el de la resistencia irregular de guerrillas y fuerzas populares de diverso carácter contra los ejércitos insurgentes en zonas ya dominadas por éstos, que se prolongó a veces durante mucho tiempo después de la consolidación de los regímenes independentistas.
Sin embargo, si consideramos detenidamente la cuestión, ningún fenómeno es mas lógico que éste. Repetimos, una vez más, el concepto básico que diferencia a esta contienda de otras similares: el de guerra civil entre conciudadanos, súbditos por igual, hasta poco antes, de la monarquía española y que ahora, por causas muy diversas, adoptan posturas contrarias sobre el destino de sus países, o al menos sobre la forma y circunstancias en que debe llegarse a ese destino. Lógicamente, en una guerra de este carácter, la aparición de fenómenos del tipo de los aludidos, actividad de fuerzas civiles irregulares, motines populares, etcétera, es obligada y, por supuesto, en ambas direcciones.
(...) Característica fundamental de la lucha es la de guerra civil entre realistas e insurgentes con independencia casi absoluta —nótese que decimos casi— del lugar de origen de sus protagonistas. Efectivamente, considerar a esta guerra como una lucha de la España europea de un lado y sus posesiones americanas en rebelión de otro es una simplificación perfectamente inaceptable, y de haberse producido en realidad, hubiera dado a la lucha un desarrollo radicalmente distinto del que tuvo.