War Horse Research Articles

Remembering the war horses that served in France

The new film War Horse, telling the story of the unbreakable bond between a boy and a horse sent to battle in the First World War, is taking the world by storm.

Horse, Wheel, and Saddle

Military revolutions are a normal consequence of the central role of military institutions in complex societies. They have everywhere occurred regularly, if infrequently; they are scarcely limited to Western Europe, or even to the modern world. This essay discusses recent writings on two military revolutions in the ancient world, both centered on the military horse: first, its domestication and its role in pulling war chariots; second, the transition from horse driving to horse riding in battle. The chariot revolution of the second millennium BC profoundly reshaped warfare and transformed polities all across Eurasia. The cavalry revolution of the first millennium BC proved equally transformative and far longer lasting. Despite the controversy that has come to surround the concept of military revolution, it may still be fruitfully applied to important aspects of the large-scale historical interactions between societies and their armed forces.

Situating opera: period, genre, reception

Prologue. Why opera? Why (how, where) situate? 1. Anatomy of a war horse: Il trovatore from A to Z 2. On opera and society (assuming a relationship) 3. Opera and the novel: antithetical or complementary? 4. Opera by other means 5. Opera and/as lyric 6. From separatism to unity: aesthetic theorizing from Reynolds to Wagner 7. Toward a characterization of modernist opera 8. Anti-theatricality in twentieth-century opera 9. A brief consumer's history of opera Epilogue. Why (what, how, if) opera studies? Works cited.

Handspring Puppet Company (review)

Reviewed by: Handspring Puppet Company Loren Kruger Handspring Puppet Company. Edited by Jane Taylor. Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing, 2009; pp. 280. $85.00 cloth, $55.00 paper. Although Handspring Puppet Company has toured internationally since the 1980s, they first came to the United States in 1994, when Woyzeck on the Highveld, the first of several collaborations with the animator-artist-designer-director William Kentridge, appeared at the International Festival of Puppet Theatre in Chicago. Since then, Faustus in Africa (1995), Ubu and the Truth Commission (1996), Il Ritorno d'Ulisse (1998), and Zeno at 4am (2000) have featured the combined talents of Handspring and Kentridge, while The Chimp Project (2000, with late writer and graphic designer Peter Esterhuysen), The Tall Horse (2004, with the Sogolon Puppet Troupe of Mali), and War Horse (2007, with the British National Theatre) have elevated Handspring's evocative animation of animal figures juxtaposed with human actors to new heights. Handspring Puppet Company is published by David Krut, a press with a reputation for beautiful books on South African artistry, including Light on a Hill, on the art and architecture of the Constitutional Court, and William Kentridge: The Magic Flute, documenting the artist's adaptation of Mozart's opera and showcasing the work of editor Law-Viljoen and designer Papciak-Rose. This present book dazzles the eye with pictures of puppets in performance (many by South Africa's premier theatre photographer Ruphin Coudyzer) and images, sketches, and photographs of puppets in the making (many by Hodgkiss, this book's photographic consultant). These images are more than mere illustrations; in addition to documenting the evolution of the company's work, they provide crucial insight into the processes of imagining, constructing, and executing the puppet as performer, highlighting the puppeteers and designers as co-creators of the work in performance. Although the textual contributions do not quite add up to the blurb's promise to be a comprehensive survey of Handspring's work, the best essays use the accompanying images as analytical evidence that is as illuminating as the verbal argument. [End Page 148] The strongest essays are by Handspring's founders, master designer-puppeteer Adrian Kohler and his partner, manager-puppeteer Basil Jones. Kohler's long, detailed account in "Thinking Through Puppets" of works from Easter Rising (1985) and Mid-summer Night's Dream (1988) to War Horse delivers the promised survey single-handedly while also, as its title suggests, reflecting on the power of puppets to embody meaning and to generate thought. This idea also animates Jones's contribution "Puppetry and Authorship." His twofold argument—"that puppetry in design and performance is a form of authorship" (253), and that this authorship rests on the authority forged by puppeteer and puppet together in the "performance of life" (254)—highlights the importance of the puppeteer to make visible "ideas that are incommensurate with script and script-writing" (266, emphasis in original) in the course of creating a performance. As he suggests, "the life and credibility of the puppet depend … on the vigilance of the puppeteer. The audience will take the puppet seriously only so long as they believe in this life" (254). Those familiar with, for instance, Bread and Puppet Theatre (whose activity overlapped with Handspring through the 1990s—well beyond the 1970s to which Taylor's introduction consigns them), as well as with the research of John Bell (Bread and Puppet alumnus and performance historian) would agree. Comparing Bread and Puppet Theatre and Handspring also highlights an important distinction: while Bread and Puppet performers were usually completely hidden by the puppets' robes and often dwarfed by the figures' massive heads designed to capture attention in large outside venues, Handspring puppeteers typically remain visible and visibly engaged (emotionally as well as physically) throughout, drawing the audience into their intimate familiarity with their charges. In Ubu and the Truth Commission, for instance, the puppeteers not only animated figures representing survivors and witnesses, but also showed the processes of that animation and, in their facial expressions, anticipated and reflected the audience's emotional response to this testimony. Because it presents the case for Handspring's originality, as well as guidelines and pitfalls for would-be puppeteers, Jones's essay ought...

Prevalence of Ocular Disorders in an Indian Population of Horses

The objective of this clinical study was to report the prevalence of ocular disorders in a large population of horses from the Indian army. Both eyes of 500 horses were examined using a direct ophthalmoscope and by a transillumination procedure. Intraocular pressures were measured in several study horses. Fluorescein dye, Schirmer tear test, and menace testing were performed when indicated. Corneal culture swabs were collected from horses affected with corneal ulcers found on ophthalmoscopic examination. A total of 100 horses were found to be affected with some form of ocular disorder. The eye problems recorded were congenital eye lid disorders (2%) and included a subcutaneous cyst in the lower eye lid and slit in upper eye lid; conjunctivitis (12%); chronic interstitial keratitis (30%); a parasite in the anterior chamber (1%), which was however not removed for genus and species identification; phthisis bulbi (1%); uveitis (24%); glaucoma (13%); cataracts (3%); unilateral retinal hemorrhage (1%); luxation of cataractous lens (3%); posterior synechia (2%); and corneal ulceration (8%). Pseudomonas spp was the most common bacteria identified in horses affected with corneal ulceration. Vision-threatening ocular disorders are high in Indian army horses; this is a cause of major concern for the rider and the horse and, therefore, it is important to include ocular examination in horses as part of a routine and complete physical examination.

Horses in the South African War, c. 1899-1902

AbstractThis essay discusses the role of horses in war through the lens of their mortality in the South African War (1899-1902). This conflict was the biggest and most modern of the numerous precolonial and colonial wars that raged across the southern African subcontinent in the late nineteenth century. Aside from the human cost, the theater of war carried a heavy environmental toll, with the scorched-earth policy shattering the rural economy. The environmental charge extended to animals. Both sides relied on mounted troops, and the casualties suffered by these animals were on a massive scale. This is widely regarded as proportionally the most devastating waste of horseflesh in military history up until that time. This paper looks at the material context of—and reasons for—equine casualties and discusses the cultural dimension of equine mortality and how combatants on both sides were affected by this intimate loss.

Changes in the Tohoku Horse-breeding Industry and Inter-war Policy concerning the Maintenance of Military Horses : Farmers' Demands to Improve Income from Horse Breeding

Changes in the Tohoku Horse-breeding Industry and Inter-war Policy concerning the Maintenance of Military Horses : Farmers' Demands to Improve Income from Horse Breeding

Greek and Chinese Horse Medicine: Déjà vu All Over Again

The Chinese have always had mixed feelings about the horse. It was a source of great pride for them during such periods of national greatness as the Han 3| (206 BC-220 AD) and Tang 0 (618-906); the former with its magical Ferghana horses known from literary descrip tions and tomb art; the latter with pedigree dancing horses celebrated by the poets of the time.2 But at the same time the horse was also a symbol of weakness even during the periods when it was most celebrated. The Chinese have, for much of their history, lacked adequate horse pasture to keep their horses, no matter how esteemed, healthy and active. Alfalfa a hay crop in much of the world, and the most ancient recorded feed given to horses, was an early introduction, but it was never grown widely enough nor was it suitable for cultivation everywhere. Other feeds were even rarer. Oats, for example, often the feed of choice for war horses in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, were completely unavailable in old China.3 There was an added issue in so far as the Chinese caring for their horses: veterinary medicine was little studied and little developed. In this respect China lagged far behind the contemporary West, the Middle East and India. Much of the veterinary medicine that they did have, it will be suggested, was apparently imported. The many military problems of the Song Dynasty 5fc (960-1279), particularly Southern Song (1125-1279), reflect the difficulties the Chinese had in maintaining and caring for horses. The Song mobilized far larger and technologically better equipped armies than their Mongol rivals but was defeated again and again as they tried to defend fixed fortresses against a highly mobile enemy.4 Part of the problem was a physical lack of horses, but Song attitudes towards the kind of specialized knowledge represented by horse managers and horse veterinarians were also an issue. After the failure of the reforms of Wang Anshi ^ iS (1021-1086) and his allies, the only knowledge that truly mattered was Confucian. All military knowledge, including veterinary knowledge used for the care of battle horses, was suspect. Also, bold cavalry or other movements were not a part of Song strategy. Thus, Song horses were neglected and of little use to its embattled armies. In this paper we will explore one aspect of China's veterinary history, its key horse medi cine, and some of the ideological issues associated with it, and we will suggest some of the

War Horse: A History of the Military Horse and Rider (review)

War Horse: A History of the Military Horse and Rider (review)

Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800–1920 (review)

Reviewed by: Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800–1920 Max Foran Margaret E. Derry . Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800–1920. University of Toronto Press. vii, 302. $60.00 This book does more than its title suggests. It traces the history of purebred horse breeding and links it with technological change and scientific developments. In so doing, Margaret Derry integrates the role of the horse into the rapidly developing European and North American societies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Derry explores several themes. First she shows the evolution of the purebred horse as embracing two foundational structures. She skilfully weaves the pedigree and progeny-testing traditions to show how they coalesced to produce modern purebred breeding methods. In discussing the evolution of the light horse, the heavy draft horse, and the farmer's horse Derry conveys more than the intricacies of breeding. The American preference for driving over riding produced the long-backed Standardbred as compared to the shorter-backed Thoroughbred, dominant in Britain, where riding was more popular. The American demands for pedigree in Clydesdales changed breeding practices in Britain and led to the demise of what Derry thought was the best draft horse, the Clydesdale/Shire cross. Disagreement over what was the best horse for a farm, or for a farmer to breed, for that matter, meant that there was no preferred breed. Thus, farm horses were chosen for type rather than breed. In discussing the heavy horse, Derry makes several important observations. Their rise in popularity in the late nineteenth century was not due to increasing agricultural demands as might be imagined, [End Page 263] but to locomotion needs associated with urban and industrial activity. The widespread presence of the steam train enhanced short-haulage needs and further popularized the heavy draft horse. It was the arrival of the truck that shifted the emphasis on the heavy horse, to the farm, where it endured as the main legacy of the working horse world. The remount or military horse is a major focus for Derry. First she shows that, despite mechanization in warfare, the horse continued to play a major role. She discusses British and European breeding programs and how the Boer War and the First World War created a substantial market for horses in North America and especially the United States. She makes the very interesting point that remounts ultimately came to favour Arabian blood in war horses and that subsequent breeding practices helped lay the groundwork for a much later international pleasure-horse industry based on the Arabian. Derry's discussion on government involvement in horse breeding centres on stallion legislation, which she sees as an elitist tool that did little to reduce unsoundness in horses. One of the book's main strengths lies in the way Derry is able to relate horse breeding to international trade. Market preference primarily in the United States influenced breeding practices internationally. For example, tremendous pressure was put on French breeders to establish a stud book for Percherons. Similarly difference in opinion on the proper role of pedigrees and herd books in Canada and the United States led to tensions, embargoes, and tariff disputes between the two countries. It was the American demand for pure breeding with valid pedigrees that forced Canadian breeders to change their breeding and recording habits. Derry's focus is sometimes too narrow. For example, she pays little attention to western Canada, where a distinct horse culture developed in the ranching areas of the foothills. She makes no mention of George Lane, who built up the biggest purebred Percheron operation in the world on the Bar U Ranch at Longview southwest of Calgary. Strangely too she ignores Belgians in her heavy horse discussion. Though not as prominent as the other three breeds, Belgians were in Canada as early as 1902 and were gaining increased prominence by the end of the period under discussion. In 1917, for example, the Belgian stallion Farceur brought $47, 500, the highest price ever paid for a draft horse in North America. These omissions, however, do not detract from the book's overall merit. Derry has made a...

The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 (review)

Reviewed by: The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 Carroll W. Pursell (bio) The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900. By David Edgerton . New York: Oxford University Press, 2007 Pp. xviii+270. $26. On 2 May 2007, CNN.com carried the headline "Train Carrying Shuttle Rockets Derails." Such a juxtaposition of Robert Stephenson and Robert Goddard would probably appeal to David Edgerton. In his important and convincing book The Shock of the Old, Edgerton attempts to undermine simplistic understandings of technology and the way it changes by looking at what technologies are actually being used (and by whom) at any one time. An obsession with "innovation" leads to a tidy timeline of progress, focusing on iconic machines, but an investigation of "technology in use" reveals that some "things" appear, disappear, and reappear—often resulting in hybrid forms which he calls "Creole" technologies. The CNN.com headline nicely illustrates this coming and going. Here we see the workings of the "space age" depending on a technology that had long ago "disappeared," at least from the standard accounts of the history of technology. Everyone knows, of course, that trains still operate and are in many ways as important as ever. That common knowledge, however, sits comfortably alongside the cultural knowledge that the "railroad era" belongs to the nineteenth century, and has long since been displaced by the "space age." By looking at what things people actually use, however, we can study technology in all its myriad forms and in all parts of the world. Edgerton's first chapter is titled "Significance," as in, "is the condom more significant than the aeroplane?" (p. 1). The next seven chapters take up "Time," then "Production," then "Maintenance," from which Edgerton turns to "Nations," followed by "War," then "Killing," and finally "Invention." "Time" deftly undermines the neat chronologies and expectations into which we too easily fall. The rickshaw spread from Japan to the rest of Asia only in the twentieth century and the German army used more horses in World War II than the British did in World War I. By looking at the entire [End Page 237] world rather than just the West, we discover that "old" technologies often "acquire a new lease of life" in what Edgerton prefers to call the "poor" (rather than third or developing) world: carrier pigeons were introduced into the police services in Orissa, India, in 1946. What he calls "retro" and "Creole" technologies present not a timeline, but a tangle of time. In "Production" Edgerton looks at automobiles, of course, but also at small farms, agriculture in general, and domestic production. In what he calls the "long boom"—that is, the decades after World War II—he finds that "inflexions of the same technological and industrial revolution" (p. 74) happened in succession rather than each being a distinct advance in its own right. In "War" Edgerton dismisses the easy notion that this activity has been utterly changed by the more powerful and exotic of new weapons, and he argues instead for the continued primacy of the foot soldier with a rifle (now automatic) combined with the reappearance of such old techniques as systematic, and research-based, torture (including by American forces). In "Killing" he looks at pesticides and herbicides, as well as whaling, slaughterhouses, and capital punishment by lethal injection. With his novel arguments and striking examples, Edgerton wants nothing less than that we should take up this "novel way of looking at the technological world" (p. 209) with a view to adopting more realistic and helpful attitudes and policies toward the subject of technological change. Most change, he asserts, "is taking place by the transfer of techniques from place to place" (p. 209), rather than through science-driven invention and innovation. To facilitate this new understanding, he calls for a redirection of much of the traditional effort in the field of the history of technology. Indeed, that very phrase, "the history of technology," is a part of the problem. Instead of a history of technology, which has tempted us to focus on invention and innovation, and has produced what he calls "the history of technology . . . for boys of all...

Farmers' Responses to the Maintenance of Military Horses in the Inter-war Period

Farmers' Responses to the Maintenance of Military Horses in the Inter-war Period

John Ford's Westerns: A Thematic Analysis, with a Filmography (review)

Reviewed by: John Ford’s Westerns: A Thematic Analysis, with a Filmography Bowdoin Van Riperbvanriper@bellsouth.net John Ford’s Westerns: A Thematic Analysis, with a Filmography William Darby . McFarland, 2006. 317 pages; $35.00. Works of Art Unlike his contemporary and rival Howard Hawks, who directed significant films in every major Hollywood genre, John Ford is remembered largely for his Westerns. They include Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962): titles that marked the beginning, zenith, and end of the classic era of Hollywood Westerns. Even the least of the dozen films—The Horse Soldiers (1959), for example—are superior genre pictures, distinguished by a high level of craftsmanship. John Ford's Westerns explores twelve sound-era titles in enough depth and detail to satisfy even the most devoted Ford fan. William Darby brings the tools of a literary critic to bear on the films, exhaustively cataloging and extensively analyzing plot devices, characters, thematic elements, and musical motifs as well as strictly cinematic elements such as framing, camera angles, and pacing. It is hard to imagine a more detailed study of Ford's Westerns as works of art. Darby's analysis is sure-footed and often leads in surprising directions. His critique of Stagecoach and the "cavalry trilogy"—Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950)—in relation to their literary source material is particularly compelling. Even more striking is Darby's ability to draw detailed comparisons between films that are thematically similar, though not obviously so. These comparisons take up the last half of the book: six chapters, each juxtaposing two photodramas. Some pairings are obvious: My Darling Clementine (1946) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence both deal with making unruly towns safe for "good people" and civilized life. Others are less so: the optimistic Three Godfathers (1948) and the relentlessly dark The Searchers, or the conventionally heroic Stagecoach and the moody, elegiac Cheyenne Autumn (1964). Serious students of Westerns or Ford's career are well served by Darby's wide-ranging, fine-grained analysis. Casual fans of the genre or the director, on the other hand, are likely to find it frustratingly inaccessible. Darby—who clearly knows Ford's Westerns inside and out—assumes the same depth of knowledge on the part of his readers. None of the motion pictures are introduced with even a brief overview or plot summary; the analysis jumps freely back and forth between films and between sections of a single title, and the reader is simply expected to know the plots well enough to follow along. The lack of concessions to the reader is particularly problematic with the cavalry trilogy, with their many similar (and often similarly named) characters. Readers unfamiliar with the history of the Western are equally ill served by the book's almost total lack of context. The opening chapter devotes only three pages to the history of the Western from 1930 to 1993, and five more to the work of other directors, all of whom Darby quickly dismisses as inferior to Ford. The genre changed profoundly in the quarter-century between Stagecoach (1939) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964), but John Ford's Westerns makes no attempt to relate Ford's films to those changes. Lacking even a brief chronological survey of Ford's career, readers are left to work out for themselves how the cavalry-as-family themes of Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon relate to the alienated loner-heroes in Anthony Mann's films from the same era, or whether The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and Cheyenne Autumn are early examples of the "revisionism" that Darby otherwise deplores. The production values of John Ford's Westerns are adequate, but no more. The movie stills used as illustrations are grainy, with so little contrast that a key image from Sergeant Rutledge—an army lawyer's white-gloved hand pointing, from off screen, at defendant Woody Strode's dark face—is stripped of its visual impact. Minor copyediting errors ("adverse" for "averse") are unobtrusive, but frequent. The notes are sparse, the bibliography nonexistent, and the index limited to a basic listing of names and...

Hitler's Ambivalent Attaché: Lt. Gen. Friedrich von Boetticher in America, 1933-1941 (review)

Reviewed by: Hitler’s Ambivalent Attaché: Lt. Gen. Friedrich von Boetticher in America, 1933–1941 Uwe Lübken Hitler’s Ambivalent Attaché: Lt. Gen. Friedrich von Boetticher in America, 1933–1941. By Alfred M. Beck. Washington: Potomac Books, 2005. ISBN 1-57488-877-3. Photographs. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 322. $35.00. When Friedrich von Boetticher arrived in New York harbor on 14 April 1933, to assume his office as German military attaché in the United States, he was greeted not only by the local press but also by some members of the New York branch of the Stahlhelm. At the pier, the representatives of the German veterans' organization displayed two banners. One of them bore the American flag, the other one showed the swastika. This episode is telling of von Boetticher's time in the United States insofar as "the presence of the swastika itself," as Alfred M. Beck writes in his thoroughly researched and well-written book, "opened the question of how German representation in America was to proceed under the new political auspices of home" (p. 52). Von Boetticher had already spent thirty-three years in the army before he came to the New World. Born on 14 October 1881, in a small town near Dresden, he was the son of a physician and amateur historian father and an American-born mother who had been raised in Britain. After having received a classical education at a Gymnasium in Bautzen, he joined the 28th Saxon Field Artillery Regiment at Pirna in 1900. Ten years later, von Boetticher was accepted at the Prussian Kriegsakademie in Berlin. His first posting was to the Railway Directorate of the Great General Staff. After World War I, he became chief of T-3, the German army intelligence unit and, in 1929, head of the German Army's Artillery School at Jüterbog. As Nazi Germany's military attaché to the United States, von Boetticher was very successful in establishing good relations with members of the American military establishment. So close was von Boetticher to some U. S. generals that he even turned over secret operational material to them. Convinced of an "identity between the United States and Germany," he saw himself as a missionary and "as the bridge between the two" (p. 71). In a striking [End Page 251] contrast to his predecessors, von Boetticher refrained from promoting his cause by covert means. "His chosen method of influencing what opinion he could was entirely inconsistent with the risks of clandestine intelligence and espionage" (p. 70). Beck makes perfectly clear from the outset that von Boetticher was a "secondary figure" (p. x) and at no point in the book does he give in to the temptation to overestimate the influence of his subject. Von Boetticher was important, however, in contributing to the German perception of U.S. military strength and preparedness. He wrote home hundreds of reports on almost "everything from aerial signal flares and cavalry horses being readied for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games to national defense strategy and industrial mobilization plans" (p. 72). These reports were also often full of anti-Semitic remarks and allusions. While von Boetticher recognized the vast military potential of the United States, he frequently reported to Berlin that American aid to the Allies would not and could not be a decisive factor in the European theatre before mid-1941. With this constant reminder as to the probable limits of U.S. intervention, he might even have influenced "timetables in Berlin" (p. 150). In sum, Beck's book can be read not only as a thoughtful political biography of Nazi Germany's military attaché in the United States, it also skillfully illuminates the major issues of military history in the interwar period. Uwe Lübken German Historical Institute Washington, D.C. Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History

Editor's Note

Editor’s Note Bruce Vandervort Conventional wisdom holds that one of the salient developments in twentieth-century military history was the final disappearance of horse cavalry from the order of battle of Western armies. That demise had been long predicted (and awaited) in certain circles, virtually from that long ago St. Crispin's Day when English archers demolished the flower of French chivalry on the field of Agincourt. But the mounted arm had proved remarkably resilient, surviving encounters with the pike and shot formations of the Early Modern "Military Revolution" to reemerge, in the form of the armored cuirassier, as the breakthrough arm par excellence of Napoleonic warfare. Although banned from the armed forces of the nascent American republic as a suspected redoubt of antidemocratic sentiment, great distances and the extreme mobility of its enemies quickly brought back the horse soldiers as the privileged fighting arm of the U.S. military in "the winning of the West." As the contributors to this special section of the January 2007 issue of The Journal of Military History observe, however, in the eyes of its detractors the cavalry was deemed to finally have been put out to pasture in the face of the greatly increased lethality of the battlefields of the twentieth century. And yet, critics lamented, the cavalrymen persisted in believing that charges with the arme blanche—sword or lance—remained battle-deciding tactics. Worse, the men who continued to follow this anachronistic line of reasoning were put in charge of armies during the First World War. The well-born "donkeys" who led the proletarian "lions" of the British Expeditionary Force, for example. That there were some cavalry officers who set their faces resolutely against the future is borne out in Alexander Bielakowski's account below of the heels-dug-in resistance to change of Gen. Hamilton S. Hawkins of the U.S. Cavalry—not so surprising, perhaps, given the "long twilight of the Indian fighting army" (as one historian has put it). For the most part, however, according to our other contributors, cavalry leaders at the dawn of the twentieth century were as aware of the changes occurring in weaponry and ways of war as the rest of the military and were no less creative in finding ways to adjust to them. Gervase Phillips, in a comprehensive historiographical survey of the subject, seeks to document the extent [End Page 35] to which the cavalry has been made the twentieth-century Western military's "scapegoat arm," and its supposedly reactionary leaders—one thinks here of Sir Douglas Haig—blamed for the long casualty lists of the First World War and the slow progress toward mechanization in the interwar years. Stephen Badsey sets out to rescue British cavalry leaders from the charge that they were still dreaming of Waterloo during the 1899–1902 Second Boer War and were forced to adopt the dismounted tactics of their Boer enemies in a desperate attempt to catch up. He shows that a cavalry reform movement in the direction of training cavalrymen for dismounted action, led by, among others, Douglas Haig, was underway well before the war began and that the problems faced by British cavalry in South Africa tended to be logistical, not tactical, in origin. Jean Bou argues that, in spite of the epitaphs being written at the time and echoed since, horse soldiers made an important contribution to Allied victory in the First World War. His focus is on the remarkable success of the traditional shock tactics employed by the Australian Light Horse in the Palestine Campaign of 1916–18. But, surely this was the mounted arm's last hurrah. Not so, say our contributors, citing, for example, the success of Red Army horse cavalry against the Nazi invader in World War II. And, more recently, if you were watching closely you might have seen U.S. Special Operations troops on horseback during the 2002 rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan, surrounded by indigenous fighters who seemed to have stepped out of the pages of Rudyard Kipling's Kim. As Gervase Phillips puts it, "The story of cavalry rides on into the twenty-first century." Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History

Tradition, Innovation Starring on Broadway

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article APA InstituteFull AccessTradition, Innovation Starring on BroadwayKen HausmanKen HausmanSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Sep 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.41.17.0035At the core of the Big Apple is its astounding array of theater offerings from comedies to drama, from classical to cutting edge, and from intimate to spectacular.But what many visitors can't wait to sample is New york's unmatched contribution to theater around the world—the Broadway musical. Visitors to New york during the Institute on Psychiatric Services, which meets from october 5 to 8 at the Marriott Marquis, will be able to select from an eclectic mix of long-running blockbusters and newer shows that will probably not play in their hometowns for years.Among the shows that have generated considerable buzz—and multiple Tony awards—in the last few years is “Avenue Q,” a funny and often touching musical about accepting and embracing people's differences. The show is sung by a collection of puppet-like “monsters” and real-life actors, all of whom are in their 20s and live in a downscale Brooklyn apartment building where each is trying to find his or her purpose in life. The definitely for-adults-only show received Tony awards in 2004 for best musical, best score, and best book of a musical.The clever and inventive comedy “The Drowsy Chaperone” opened earlier this year. It's actually a musical, a fantasized one, inside a musical. The male lead plays a recording of his favorite musical, the eponymous, old-fashioned one that opened in 1928 about an up-and-coming Broadway starlet who prefers marriage to stardom and the Machiavellian producer who plots to keep her nuptials from occurring. In best Broadway tradition, the old musical that the modern-day fan is listening to miraculously begins to unfold in his living room, which is of course our stage.Great and not-so-great Hollywood films have also presented considerable fodder for hit musicals in recent years, probably because the audience is already familiar with them. Among the enduring ones that will likely still be playing in October are “Spamalot,” based on “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”; “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”;“ Hairspray”; and “The Lion King.” Joining the roster this year was “The Color Purple,” based on Steven Spielberg's 1985 film, which was in turn based on a story by Alice Walker.“A Chorus Line” will make its way to the Great White Way this fall. Paul KolnikMany Broadway aficionados are eagerly anticipating the revival of one of Broadway's groundbreaking musicals, “A Chorus Line,” scheduled to open on October 5. The show, in which more than a dozen dancers at an audition use song, and of course, dance, to reveal the pain and joy they have endured in their lives, held the record for the longest-running Broadway show until the era of blockbuster spectacles in the 1980s.Also to be revived by fall is that musical war horse “Les Misérables.”“The Times They Are a-Changin',” a dance musical based on songs by Bob Dylan and choreographed by Twyla Tharp, begins previews on September 25, though its formal opening is October 26. Tharp had a major success a few years ago when she choreographed “Movin' out,” a show based on songs by Billy Joel.And by the way, that famous chandelier is still plummeting to the stage in“ Phantom of the Opera,” the producers of “Springtime for Hitler” are still hoping for a tax-dodging flop, it's still hard to be green in “Wicked,” and mama mia, that collection of goodtimey ABBA songs just won't go away.Tickets to all of the shows noted above can be ordered online at<www.ticketmaster.com/broadway/showlistings?tm_link=tm_bdwy_moreshowslink1>.▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Avaliação de dietas para eqüinos de uso militar em atividade física moderada

Objetivou-se, com o presente trabalho, avaliar dietas de cavalos de uso militar em atividade física moderada. O experimento foi realizado no Regimento Escola de Cavalaria do Exército Brasileiro, onde foram avaliadas as dietas dos eqüinos do Esquadrão de Cerimonial. No ensaio de desempenho, foi utilizado delineamento experimental em blocos casualizados, compostos de três tratamentos, sendo o bloco a idade dos animais e os tratamentos, as dietas experimentais. Na dieta I, quinze animais receberam dietas com ração comercial com feno de alfafa e coastcross incorporados ao pelete; na dieta II, quinze animais receberam ração comercial peletizada e, na dieta III, quatorze animais receberam ração comercial peletizada semelhante à dieta II, acrescida de 3,0 kg de aveia hidropônica. Em todas as dietas, foram adicionados 3,0 kg de feno de coastcross. Em seguida, foi conduzido o ensaio de digestão em delineamento inteiramente casualizado, com os três tratamentos supracitados e quatro repetições, além da coleta total de fezes, para avaliação da digestibilidade dos nutrientes das dietas experimentais. Os valores obtidos foram submetidos à análise de variância e as médias, comparadas pelo teste de Tukey, a 5% de probabilidade. Os animais alimentados com as dietas experimentais tiveram o peso vivo e escore corporal inalterados pelas variações dos conteúdos de nutrientes das mesmas. Os coeficientes de digestibilidade foram afetados pela dietas experimentais e, de acordo com os resultados observados, a dieta contendo ração comercial com feno incorporado ao pelete, mostrou-se mais digestível. O consumo de energia e proteína digestível nas dietas avaliadas foi adequado às atividades militares e o consumo de fibra dietética (expressa em FDN e FDA) foi adequado às recomendações mínimas necessárias para os eqüinos.

The Cambridge Companion to Debussy (review)

Cambridge Companion to Debussy. Edited by Simon Trezise. (Cambridge Companions to Music.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. [xxviii, 326. ISBN 0-521-65478-5. $70 (hbk.); ISBN 0-521-65478-5. $26 (pbk.).] Music examples, analytical charts, bibliography, index. As a publishing concept, the Cambridge Companion series of music handbooks presents an editorial challenge. Seeking on the one hand to relate basic biographical and historical information about the subject under study (topics thus far include composers, instruments, genres, and institutions) and to offer a review of the literature, it provides on the other hand a forum for new research and new critical perspectives -including those that might, in the dialectical nature of scholarship, stand at odds with established opinion. Caught, in short, between conflicting urges to summarize and innovate, the series runs the risk of falling between two stools and disappointing generalists and specialists alike. Happily, the new Cambridge Companion to edited by Simon Trezise, avoids this pitfall. scholars appear to be in basic agreement about the nature of the composer's achievement, with the result that even new research tends to reinforce received judgments. Such is certainly the case here, where the most novel items constitute refinements of, rather than challenges to, existing viewpoints. Not that contributors offer no difference of opinion. unusual historical position on the cusp of nineteenth-century traditionalism and twentieth-century modernism effectively ensures that any consensus is itself somewhat elastic; accordingly, we find considerable variation over such questions as artistic influence (impressionism, symbolism, or art nouveau?) and stylislic orientation (traditionalist or modernist?). Such a range of opinion, testifying to protean nature and appeal, lends the book a synoptic quality and makes it a useful introduction to the composer. volume is divided into four parts. Part 1 (Man, Musician and Culture) offers an introduction to the composer and his times, and begins with an admirable biographical overview, Debussy the Man, by Robert Orledge. Traversing well-known primary and secondary sources, Orledge emphasizes the dark side of personality and makes a persuasive case for the sinister undercurrents thai lurk beneath [the music's] surface, and which contribute so much to its mystery and profundity (p. 23). Barbara Kelly's essay, Debussy's Parisian Affiliations, sets up an opposition between the radical symbolist poets and the conservative musical establishment (the Conservatoire, the Societe Nationale), and proposes that involvement with both embodied a tension never completely resolved, perhaps, until his championship of early French music later in his career. suggestion meshes well with Deirdre Donnellon's Debussy as Musician and Critic, a survey of the prose writings and published interviews, not least because both investigations demonstrate, to a degree rarely discussed, the importance of French nationalism to aesthetic and to his critical reception. Part 2 (Musical Explorations) constitutes a loose group of essays on different aspects of music and career. David Grayson's Debussy on Stage discusses the composer's many dramatic projects, finished and unfinished, and usefully describes forgotten works like Zuleima and Rodrigue et Chimene in detail. Better-known works like L'enfant prodigue are engagingly placed in context-the politics surrounding the Prix de Rome are particularly interesting -and even that old war horse Pelleas et Melisande is given a fresh reading. Roger Nichols's essay, The Prosaic Debussy, considers the nine settings of nonmetrical texts that the composer made in the 1890s, possibly as a tune-up for Pelleas, and concludes that such verse inspired him to write freer vocal lines but also, as a counterbalancing measure, to provide less rhythmically adventurous piano parts. …

Fiction as Fact: "The Horse Soldiers" and Popular Memory (review)

Fiction as Fact: "The Horse Soldiers" and Popular Memory (review)

Ahmadou Kourouma and Ivoirian Crises

Click for larger view Figure 1 Ahmadou Kourouma. Photo by Jean Ouédraogo. [End Page iv] Paying tribute to Ahmadou Kourouma (1927-2003) is not an easy task when measuring the stir created by his work, from Les soleils des indépendances (The Suns of Independence) to the shockwaves of Allah n'est pas obligé (2000). While nothing in his background as an actuary predisposed him to writing, the child of Boundiali, the soldier in spite of himself in Indochina, gave us more than one surprise. With a certain brio and a sense of renewal, the author Kourouma forced himself on the African literary scene and won over, with each passing work, a francophone readership that paid him more and more attention. Indeed, many were surprised by the narrative forms, the irregularity, the diversity, and especially the density of his oeuvre. Whatever the crossroads of their initial encounter with him, Les soleils des indépendances (1968/1970),Le diseur de vérité (1972/1998), Monnè, outrage et défis (1990), or even En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages, the author's indelible marks compelled his audience to make the journey with him—sometimes after a long break, sometimes in a backaward move to retrace earlier steps—all the way to the summit: Allah n'est pas obligé (2000). The man's vocation was to provoke discussion, to invite the master speakers, the fine talkers, the professional flatterers (griots, sora, djéli, interpreters, politicians), to join in these debates on the great evils where neither coarse words nor words of wisdom and beauty would be lacking. For as Djéliba says in Le desieur de vérité, "[T]out est dans le dire. Une chose bien dite c'est une chose plus vraie, une chose mieux faite" 'It's all in the telling. A thing well said is a thing that is truer, a thing that's better made' (Act 1, scene 2, p. 20), from which all the privileged people conclude: "Diarra tu parles le mieux, tu gagnes. Tu es toujours le diseur de vérité" 'Diarra, you speak the best, so you win. You are still the teller of truth' (Act 1, scene 3, p. 28). It was in reaction to this political situation characterized by lies erected into a form of governance that Kourouma sharpened his literary weapons to combat evil through [End Page 1] words. Thus he chose denunciation, testimony, and demythification as his war horse, his modus vivendi. Quite early on, he was among the very first to sound discordant, dissonant notes in the literary concert where "good" French was the currency, leading us along and putting us under the spell, in the threnody of his four novels and one play. Those who had initially resisted this surplus of creativity and linguistic improvisation in the end joined in the acclaim and placed him at the head of the line of incorrigible francophones. Whether the Prix de Francité (1968), the prizes of the French Academy or the Royal Belgian Academy (1970), the Prix des Nouveaux Droits de l'Homme, the Grand Prix de l'Afrique Noire, the prize from the Association of Francophone Television and Radio Journalists (1990) awarded for Les soleils des indépendances and for Monnè, outrages et défis, or even the crescendo of recognition, extending from the Prix des Tropiques (1998), the Prix de France-Inter (1999), and the Grand Prix des gens de lettres de France (1999) to the Prix Renaudot and the Prix Goncourt des lycéens, which accompanied En attendant . . . and Allah n'est pas obligé, the author's numerous distinctions testify to his courage as well as to his talent as a highly accomplished storyteller. Carrol F. Coates is indeed correct, in giving the repertory Ahmadou Kourouma's prizes and honorary titles, when he speaks of the honored bilakoro (see Coates). A francophone in his own way, he inscribed in the minds of young Africans and...