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Notes on Contributors

2009-09-15

'It Still Makes Me Shudder': Memories of Massacres and Atrocities during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Dwyer, P. G. — 2009-09-15

This article looks at a number of French testimonies of massacres during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars committed by combatants, for the most part against civilians. Much of what we know about massacres is based on personal testimonies that are invariably from the perspective of the perpetrator, in this case, troops of the Grande Armée. Just as important as understanding why massacres occurred is to understand how they were represented, recalled and remembered by those who witnessed them. In this, memoirs become an indispensable tool for what they tell us about how the killings were justified, either from the individual or the state’s point of view, and for the insights one can glean into the minds of those that either committed or witnessed the atrocities taking place. Descriptions of massacres are commonly used to highlight the horror of war rather than the horror of the event itself. Massacre was also a means of underlining the difficulties encountered by the French in conquering, that is, in ‘civilizing’, Europe. Massacre, the article concludes, was an accepted if not an acceptable part of eighteenth-century European warfare. This, however, did not attenuate the horror; it was something that many veterans had difficulty recalling, even decades after the events described.

'To Check . . . the Very Worst and Meanest of Our Passions': Common Sense, 'Cobbon Sense', and the Socialization of Cadets at Antebellum West Point

Rafuse, E. S. — 2009-09-15

This essay adds to a growing body of scholarship that challenges the image of the United States Military Academy at West Point and US Army officer corps as institutions that were isolated in the nineteenth century from developments in civilian society. It does so by calling attention to parallels between the ideas that shaped the antebellum military academy‘s approach to cadet education and socialization and those of the Scottish-American ‘common sense’ school of moral philosophy that was popular among members of America’s emerging middle class before the Civil War. It describes these parallels, how they reflected a common cultural milieu that shaped the outlook of the common sense philosophers, their adherents and education theorists in antebellum America, and the authorities at West Point, and identifies traits that distinguished how many West Point graduates conducted themselves during the American Civil War that are suggestive of these parallels.

Britain and the Resale of Argentine Cruisers to Japan before the Russo-Japanese War

Yabuki, H. — 2009-09-15

In late 1903 Britain bought Chilean battleships, whereas Japan bought Argentine cruisers in the face of Russian counter-bidding. Previous scholarship has considered this arms trade as a case in which Britain showed its sympathy, or rather gave assistance, to Japan. However, this paper, based on multi-archival research in both Japan and Britain, argues that there was no sign of any such sympathy. The resale and transfer of the Argentine cruisers also shed light on the strategic views of the British government and the actual state of Anglo-Japanese relations just before the Russo-Japanese War.

Atrocities, Conscience, and Unrestricted Warfare: US Submarines during the Second World War

Sturma, M. — 2009-09-15

This article explores the meanings of ‘unrestricted warfare’ as practised by US submarines in the Pacific during the Second World War. The submarine war in the Pacific is typically represented as a series of torpedo attacks that devastated Japanese warships, freighters, and tankers. There was also, however, a less familiar submarine war fought on the surface with deck guns. Particularly in the later stages of the war, submarines attacked hundreds of small craft of questionable military value. Drawing on comparisons with Allied aerial bombing campaigns, it is argued that, while the submarine war involved a similar blurring of combat and atrocity, submariners frequently acted on their consciences in encounters with the enemy and civilians.

The Indian Army, Partition, and the Punjab Boundary Force, 1945--1947

Marston, D. P. — 2009-09-15

How effective was the Indian Army in serving as aid to the civil power in the chaotic period leading up to the independence and partition of India in 1947? This article attempts to shed fresh light, by examining recent scholarship and newly available archival materials, on the performance of the Indian Army, as embodied in the Punjab Boundary Force, in countering and containing the communal violence that rocked India during the momentous events of 1947. The Indian Army’s challenges and achievements during this testing period provide valuable lessons for every army faced with political upheaval and communal violence.

Review Article: British Society and the First World War: The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War. By Adrian Gregory. Cambridge University Press. 2008. Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print: Women's Literary Responses to the Great War 1914--1918. By Jane Potter. Clarendon. 2005. Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory and the First World War in Britain. By Janet S.K. Watson. Cambridge University Press. 2004. British Popular Culture and the First World War. Edited by Jessica Meyer. Brill. 2008. Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914--1919. Volume 2. A Cultural History. Edited by Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert. Cambridge University Press. 2007

Pennell, C. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Organizational History of Field Artillery, 1775--2003. By Janice E. McKenney. US Army Center of Military History. 2007. 394 pp. US$64.00. ISBN 978 0 16 077114 9

Gudmundsson, B. I. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Fighting Newfoundlander: A History of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. By Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson. McGill-Queen's University Press. 2006. 545 pp. Maps and appendices. ISBN 978 0 7735 3133 8

Boire, M. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction. By Mark E. Neely. Harvard University Press. 2007. 277 pp. US$27.95. ISBN 978 0 674 02658 2

Quigley, P. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: More Than a Contest between Armies: Essays on the Civil War Era. Edited by James Marten and A. Kirsten Foster. Kent State University Press. 2008. xii + 310 pp. {pound}33.50. ISBN 978 0 87338 912 9

Grant, S.-M. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Late Victorian Navy: The Pre-Dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World War. By Roger Parkinson. Boydell. 2008. xii + 323 pp. {pound}75 boards. ISBN 978 1 84383 372 7

Hamilton, C.I. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914--1918. By Richard S. Fogarty. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. viii + 374 pp. US$60.00. ISBN 978 0 8018 8824 3

Lunn, J. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Embattled Self: French Soldiers' Testimony of the Great War. By Leonard V. Smith. Cornell University Press. 2007. xi + 214 pp. US$39.95, {pound}20.50 boards. ISBN 978 0 8014 4523 1

Philpott, W. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Brusilov Offensive. By Timothy C. Dowling. Indiana University Press. 2008. 208 pp. {pound}18.99 boards. ISBN 978 0 253 35130 2

Marshall, A. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: Americans and the Wars of the Twentieth Century. By Jenel Virden. Palgrave Macmillan. 2008. x + 203 pp. US$31.95, paper. ISBN 978 0 333 72661

Sweeney, J. K. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: The Forsaken. From the Great Depression to the Gulags: Hope and Betrayal in Stalin's Russia. By Tim Tzouliadis. Little, Brown. 2008. 472 pp. {pound}20.00 boards. ISBN 978 0 316 72724 2

Marshall, A. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution. By Ian Kershaw. Yale University Press. 2008. {pound}16.99 paper. ISBN 978 0 300 15127 5

Steinberg, J. — 2009-09-15

Book Review: War in the Empty Air: Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans. By Dagmar Barnouw. Indiana University Press. 2005. 320 pp. US$21.95. ISBN 978 0 253 22040 0

Mulligan, W. — 2009-09-15