Military Tradition Research Articles

ПЕРЕДУМОВИ ЗАРОДЖЕННЯ НА ПОЧАТКУ XX СТОЛІТТЯ МУЗЕЇВ ВІЙСЬКОВИХ ЧАСТИН ТА УКРАЇНСЬКА СКЛАДОВА В ПОЛКОВИХ МУЗЕЯХ АРМІЇ РОСІЙСЬКОЇ ІМПЕРІЇ

On the basis of the study, the author describes the history of the birth and development of the main forms of activity of the officer assemblies of the Russian Army. The article deals with the peculiarities of the organization of the work of military clubs (assemblies) and the creation of officers' meetings of the Russian Army. When working on the article the author used new sources and literature on the topic of this study, a significant part of which is a message on the pages of the periodical press. The development of military museumry is shown on the example of the study of the preconditions for the formation, functioning and contribution of the military affairs museums to the military units of the so-called «military» units. the regimental museums of the Russian Empire. The activity of the museums of separate regiments of Ukrainian descent was analyzed. The author considers one of the military traditions of the army of the Russian Empire on an example of the existence of military units of regimental museums, which originally had officers' libraries, and eventually became an integral part of each military unit. It was established that the analysis of historiographic material from the military museum of the regiments of the Russian Empire testifies to the predominant interest of Russian researchers in the issues of military history and the theory of military-museum affairs. A separate annex to the article is the handbook of the military units of the Russian Empire, which had military museums and analyzed of the existence of museums in military units of the Russian Empire, who were of Ukrainian descent. The study found that in the army of the Russian Empire was 24 percent of the total number of so-called. regimental museums in military units that were or were formed on the territory of Ukraine, that is Ukrainian origin.

History of partisan movement in Civil War 1861-1865 in the contemporary American historiography

В запропонованій статті автор висвітлює тлумачення феномену партизанської боротьби у США та обґрунтовує її вплив на хід подій війни. У дослідженні проаналізовано бібліографічний доробок та охарактеризовано основні аспекти питань, які розглядалися у публікаціях.

DESCENDANTS OF THE NOBILITY ARE LEADERS OF THE UKRAINIAN ARMED FORMATIONS OF GALICIA OF THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

From the beginning of its historical existence, the people of Ukraine-Ruthenia appear as a people with weapons: preparing for campaigns, organizing the defense of their land, carrying out colonization measures in the reconquered territories and creating state structures that are intended to organize the socio-military potential of the people. The state structures are based on the military structure. For centuries, the socio-political elite of our people has naturally been of military origin. Thousands of years ago, for the Ruthenian warlord, as later - for the Ruthenian nobility, the Cossacks, the soldiers of the UNR army, and the Galician army, the basic life priorities were concentrated around such concepts as military glory, honor, dignity, courage, etc. Sudden death on the battlefield opened the way to immortality before the fallen warrior - to Vyrii-paradise. Over the centuries, the persistent threat from different sides, first of all, from the nomadic steppe, dictated the military character of different social groups, not excluding the clergy. When, for some reason, the old upper classes were no longer able to perform the military-political task, it was replaced by a new militarized elite who, with renewed vigor and energy, assumed the defense functions. The Ukrainian land gave birth to elites who were capable of holding weapons. The phenomenon of social mobility existed during the Middle Ages, manifested itself in the years of national liberation competitions 1917-1920s. The armed struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence and unity of the First World War and the post-war revolutionary events was one of the most striking pages. This was marked by the rise of national consciousness, a powerful explosion of liberation energy. In terms of the social scale and political importance, the Ukrainian National Democratic Revolution has been a phenomenon of European history, taking a prominent place in the liberation-making processes of Eastern Europe. Objective knowledge of national history is an important task not only for the modern professionals of young Ukrainians but also for Ukrainian citizens in general. Long decades of information blockade and historical fraud, which continued in the east and south of Ukraine in the years of independence, created a distorted, even anti-national, idea of ​​Ukrainians' liberation struggles. The millennial history of peoples and the state testify that their existence was determined by the presence of two significant factors: political leadership and capable armed forces. Naturally, the army has always occupied high levels among public institutions. At the same time, history eloquently testifies that no army, however well-armed, can defeat without professional commanders. The generality and the officer corps determine the army - the army's backbone, which concentrates and embodies the historical military experience, national military traditions, preserves the continuity of generations. The names of the active contributors to the development of the Armed Forces during the first quarter of the 20th century, including nearly five hundred generals and at least three thousand colonels, remain white patches of national historiography. This article is not about a purely military elite, but about the military as the offspring of the nobility - people who were formed in the aura of education, culture, traditionalism, and social constructivism. In numerous examples, the descendants of the Ukrainian nobility were the very resource of the nation- and state-building that survived in times of statelessness and denationalization. Keywords Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, publishing, book, periodical.

Beast Warriors in Indo-European Traditional Culture (Review of the Monograph by A. Bondarenko “Cult of the Wolf in Military Traditions of Old Ukraine”)

Beast Warriors in Indo-European Traditional Culture (Review of the Monograph by A. Bondarenko “Cult of the Wolf in Military Traditions of Old Ukraine”)

Role and importance of military-pedagogical traditions at the present stage of domestic military education system development

The paper deals with the issues concerning the role and importance of military pedagogical traditions at the present stage of national military education system development. The author studies the concepts traditions, pedagogical traditions, military traditions, offers his own interpretation of the notion military pedagogical traditions. A study of the military-pedagogical traditions is organized in conjunction with the achievements of the military pedagogic thought of the previous periods and modern problems of military pedagogy. The author analyzes the reasons for the reform and modernization ongoing in the military education system, which is caused by need of compliance with European quality standards and new requirements of existing Russian legislation. In conditions of a multilevel system of education and a competence approach in training special attention, in the authors opinion, should be paid to special forms, methods and means of training, based on the best achievements of the military pedagogic thought, both traditional and complemented with innovative components. The author considers existing military-pedagogical traditions as well as traditions generated at the present time, taking into account present problems and challenges.

Manly Sikhs and Loyal Citizens: Physical Education and Sport in Khalsa College, Amritsar, 1914–47

ABSTRACTThis article looks at Khalsa College, the first college specifically aimed at the Sikh community in late colonial India, and its schemes for and ideals of physical culture. Despite Sikh communal and Indian national aspirations, as well as a robust transnational discourse on ‘scientific’ physical culture that was being increasingly articulated in the inter-war period, Khalsa College remained remarkably devoted to ‘modernised’ physical exercise schemes focusing on British ‘manly games’ such as football, hockey and cricket. The essay locates the reasons behind the college management's staunch loyalty to Britain and opposition to newer, radical Sikh politics; its use of images of Sikh military traditions and ‘martial manliness’, often used to demarcate Sikhism from an ‘effeminate’ Hinduism; and its specific interest—shared by the colonial authorities—in keeping the students fit for military service.

‘Young men like these … ’: The Volunteer Corps and the Emergence of the Settler Community in Colonial Natal

In his description of the men of Natal's volunteer corps who fought against the Hlubi at Bushman's Pass in 1873, Jeff Guy contended that Natal's volunteers attempted ‘to demonstrate their abilities as men of the frontier and […] to defend the more vulnerable’. This paper will attempt to clarify Guy's argument that volunteering was ‘a feature of settler society’. Acting as a continuation of the military traditions and systems that were gaining popularity in Britain, volunteering became a means through which the white citizens of Natal were able to take part in the protection of the colony while remaining viable members of the colonial civilian community. Because of their consistent and sizable place within the white colonial community and the growing concerns for colonial violence in Natal, the volunteers became the idealised form of white everyman's contributions to the protection of the colonial state. The defence and security of the colonial state, in the eyes of many within Natal, rested on the ‘gallant’ men of the volunteer corps. However, the practicality of this assumption, though largely unfounded, still resulted in the volunteer corps holding an important place within the colonial settler consciousness.

Tatarzy z Bohonik i Kruszynian. Tożsamość, asymilacja, współczesne wyzwania

Tatarzy osiedleni w Bohonikach i Kruszynianach przeszli długi proces asymilacji, zachowując pewne cechy kultury swych przodków i przyswajając wiele elementów kultury miejscowej. Wielowiekowe tradycje wojskowe pogłębiły ich więź z Polską, która jest dla nich jedyną ojczyzną. Podczas badań przeprowadzonych w 2015 roku zostały postawione na nowo pytania o ich tożsamość etniczną, której kluczowymi elementami są wyznawany islam oraz wspólne pochodzenie. Skupiono się również na aktualnych problemach, z jakimi musiała zmierzyć się społeczność tatarska. Artykuł wskazuje równocześnie na charakterystyczne i unikatowe cechy tatarskiego islamu, przesiąkniętego wpływami lokalnymi.

Life in a Forgotten Scottish Gulag: Punishment and Social Regulation in HM Peterhead Convict Prison

AbstractThis paper contributes to filling a lacuna in our knowledge of penal history in Scotland by examining the voices of convicts through records of prisoners experiencing Penal Servitude during the period 1897–1942. The sources utilized are the archived files of thirty‐two male convict prisoners in Scotland's Convict Prison at Peterhead. These files give insights about life in this remote prison as conveyed through records of punishment, prisoners' requests, and prisoners' letters. Prison Rules about convict correspondence highlight penal letters as a distinctive genre of communication: political and personal boundaries were enforced on all exchanges. The convict prison, like nineteenth‐century British labour colonies, imposed workhouse conditions at the extreme; it was a place of exclusion, dominated by religious and social sentiment and suppositions about criminal psychology and containment. The extent of the curtailment of convicts' liberty and the aim of re‐socialization is refracted in penal practices fostering convict dependency. The ethos of Scotland's convict colony was immersed in military traditions of training, subservience to authority and generalized gloom.

The birth of the legend: The odyssey of the cruiser Emden as presented by German daily newspapers, 1914–1915

From August to early November 1914, the effectiveness of a lone German commerce-raider, the light cruiser Emden eventually brought the bulk of Allied cargo-shipping in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean to a virtual halt, thus hampering their war effort in Europe. Although the Emden was finally destroyed at the battle of the Cocos Islands, the press were able to continue the story relating the daring escape of some of her crew. The escapees got away from Direction Island in the Cocos in a requisitioned sailing schooner, the Ayesha. What followed were several months of dangerous and arduous progress first through the Indian Ocean, then through Arabia, finally reaching Constantinople and thence to Germany. Theirs was the only German military unit that returned home from overseas and their story was a gift for German propagandists. Scanning the contemporary German newspapers it becomes clear that they were determined to make the most of this story. It was about German seafarers whose courage and chivalrous attitude towards their enemies should be publicly recognised. It was likewise appreciated by the British. During 1914 and 1915, the German daily press kept the public regularly informed about the Emden whenever there was any news. The legend steadily grew to become a permanent and indisputably positive element of the German collective memory and military tradition. Because the news only came intermittently it became all the more exciting for their readers to follow. The press material is stored as a collection of clippings in the Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv) in Berlin, which clearly shows how the narrative unfolded. It was soon taken up by the German propaganda machine to boost the morale of the German people. Reading the articles it is clear that the editors seized upon this as a story of heroic deeds, allowing them to present their countrymen as super-men who proved the superiority of the German fighting man.

Resultados parciais e expectativas frustradas: os Cunha Mattos sob as reformas de Lippe

Resumo Proponho analisar alguns desdobramentos das ações de Conde de Lippe em Portugal (1762-1777) nas trajetórias de três militares da família Cunha Mattos. O texto busca mostrar como as reformas militares adotadas pelo Conde de Oeiras foram credenciais para o então brigadeiro do Exército brasileiro na década de 1820, José da Cunha Mattos, retratar-se em suas Memórias como participante de certa tradição militar inaugurada pelo comandante prussiano. As menções das carreiras de seu avô e de seu pai presentes em suas Memórias permitem vislumbrar alguns desdobramentos de tais reformas na vida do baixo oficialato e o modo como foram ressignificadas no contexto do Brasil independente.

Revolution and Counterrevolution

The following article deals with Russian Army officers’ participation in the Revolution and the Civil War in Russia. We analyze officers’ motivation in their political choices and behavior in the course of a coup d’etat and the development of civil conflict. Some conclusions are drawn concerning the peculiarities of the continuity in military traditions during revolutionary changes in the state and society.

The Southern Military Tradition

Throughout the history of the United States, the South has had higher levels of military service than other regions of the country. Scholars regularly refer to this phenomenon as a “Southern military tradition.” The reasons behind this overrepresentation are not completely understood. Do Southern sociodemographic characteristics make it a preferred recruiting area or is there something distinctive about the cultural legacy of Southern history that encourages and supports military service? Using a unique data set that includes county-level active duty army enlistments and sociodemographic information, we show that Southern counties have significantly higher enlistment rates than counties in the Northeast and Midwest. These differences disappear when sociodemographic factors, such as fewer college graduates and a prominent presence of Evangelical Christians, are taken into account. These findings suggest that population characteristics may be a stronger driver of current regional disparities in military service than an inherited Southern military tradition.

Medieval Islamic Fire Grenades

Some fragments of broken sphero-conical vessels were found in one of the southern Towers of the Citadel of Damascus. Though not unusual in themselves, these fragments are of particular interest because they formed part of a cache of Islamic military equipment dating from the 13th and 14th centuries. Such an association might lend weight to the theory that such vessels had a military function; for example being used as incendiary or even semi-explosive grenades. This article considers such a possibility and compares the fragments with others found across a large part of the medieval Islamic world, and indeed beyond. The article also offers a survey of historical, archaeological and iconographic evidence for the use of incendiary grenades within medieval Islamic military tradition and technology.

Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa by Michelle R. Moyd

Reviewed by: Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa by Michelle R. Moyd Martin Kalb Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa. By Michelle R. Moyd. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014. Pp. xxi + 212. Paper $32.95. ISBN 978-0821420898. “Who were the askari, the African men who fought for the German colonial army during the East African campaign of World War I?” (xi). This question is at the heart of historian Michelle R. Moyd’s volume Violent Intermediaries. In her detailed study of everyday colonialism in German East Africa, Moyd captures underlying complexities when trying to explain the askari’s willingness to fight for the German imperial government. More precisely, she “illuminates microprocesses involved in the making of colonialism and empire from the vantage point of the African soldiers and agents of colonialism who carried them out” (4). Moyd’s focus on daily interactions ultimately exposes the myth of askari loyalty toward the German imperial government as utilized by colonial revisionists to be fundamentally flawed given the complexities of everyday colonial encounters and roles. Moyd begins by exploring precolonial dynamics and continually includes the needed context throughout. The author skillfully traces “socio-cultural histories and geographical origins of men who became askari to their sites of recruitment in disparate African locations” (32). She argues that a variety of circumstances steered young men toward becoming askari, referencing the importance of “‘Sudanese’ qualities” and “identifiable military traditions” (40–41) for the recruitment process. Specific examples grounded in European and non-European sources illustrate how “askari set themselves apart from those they consider washenzi, or uncivilized people” (60). Moyd then discusses “military training and socialization” (88), including the importance of [End Page 212] “emotional bonds,” “military show,” and uniforms (92–105). Moyd eventually explores “The Askari Way of War” with regards to both the Maji Maji war and World War I. For instance, senior askari Sol Mabruk helped restore order once the leadership skills of Schutztruppe colonial-troops lieutenant Johannes proved insufficient—something he pointed out to Johannes’s superior Weinberger directly. Such soldierly experience and comfort within the hierarchies “amplified the organization and technological advantages the Schutztruppe columns brought to bear in East African warfare in the 1890s and later” (121). She also offers an interesting microhistorical study of askari station life and the intermediary roles these locations played within colonialism. Here, Moyd sheds light onto “the social complexities of being a member of a boma [military and administrative] community” (160). The author vividly describes everyday colonialism as it takes shape in courtyards, villages, veteran settlements, and numerous others spaces; she also discusses economics, religious frameworks, and gendered dynamics. Her final chapter most clearly identifies askari power as agents of German colonialism, including their roles as tax collectors. A rather short conclusion makes connections to global dynamics while underlining the limits of the askari myth overall. Moyd is ultimately successful in her attempts to illustrate that it is “important to study agents of state authority like the askari within their everyday contexts, as people with aspirations and projects that, in all their complexities, shaped everyday decisions and actions” (206). A focus on the everyday indeed helps illuminate “how quotidian actions and complicities produce the institutions and practices that often discipline societies in diverse historical contexts” (31). Her use of a variety of sources from Germany, Britain, and Tanzania give her claims the needed substance; it also illustrates how detailed archival work—in combination with the use of oral histories, life stories, and epic poetry—makes an intricate representation of the askari and their complex “subjectivities as colonial agents, soldiers, householders, and community members” (23) possible. Whereas such efforts already make this volume a worthwhile read for scholars of numerous disciplines, the author also helps her audience to see much broader connections. In fact, the author mentions the power of myth-making in her conclusion and comments on the historic role of veterans—both discussions that raise important avenues for future inquiry. Moyd could have discussed Alltagsgeschichte as a sensible framework for other colonial spaces more broadly, namely because her study illustrates such possibilities so impressively. [End Page 213] Martin Kalb Bridgewater...

Exploring the Dynamics of Social Composition and Recruitment Procedures of Madras Army, 1807–61

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of research on the history of the colonial armies in South Asia in general and the Madras Presidency in particular. This has been further accentuated with the emergence of the new military history that explicates the social composition and the diverse recruitment procedures of the Madras Army, hitherto unexplored under the East India Company around the first half of the nineteenth century in India. In fact, the very concept of raising an army battalion in the subcontinent underwent change to meet the potential challenges of the other European authorities, which existed during that time. The very composition of the Madras Army and its diverse recruiting policies made the presidency army capable of handling the emerging threat and maintaining the trading interests in the subcontinent of the East India Company. The Madras Army looked upon the epitome of disciplined military tradition since its inception. This article argues how the social composition and recruiting procedures came to be conglomerated to form a distinct military establishment in south India under the company rule.

Riding for the Lone Star: Frontier Cavalry and the Texas Way of War, 1822–1865. American Military Studies Series. By Nathan A. Jennings

Riding for the Lone Star: Frontier Cavalry and the Texas Way of War, 1822–1865 . American Military Studies Series. By Nathan A. Jennings. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2016. vi + 402 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $32.95, cloth; $26.36, e-book.) The martial history of Texas is not a new topic for historians to explore, especially Texans’ predilection for cavalry service. Despite the numerous books examining Texas, Nathan A. Jennings finally and definitely answers some of our basic understandings of early Texas military history. He is the first to take what historians already suspected about the uniquely cavalry military tradition of Texas and researched it to definitively explain for the first time why Texans typically fought from horseback. Jennings starts his book with Moses and Stephen F. Austin and the settlers they eventually brought onto the Mexican frontier. The geography, great distances between settlements, … charles.grear{at}ctcd.edu

Chinese Military History and the Qing Dynasty, 1644–1911: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Empire

Over the past twenty years, historical research has re-evaluated Chinese historical use of military power and political control. From 1644 to 1911, the Qing Empire was unquestionably a successful state, ruling a massive area extending from the Sea of Japan to Central Asia and the borders of India. Recent scholarship has focused on the explicitly “imperial” nature of the Qing Empire and the conflicted territorial and ethnic legacies of this last Chinese dynasty. In addition, historians have reevaluated the role of the Qing ruling military elite, drawn from the Manchu people, with tenuous cultural connections to their ethnically Han subjects, in an attempts to clarify patterns of “Chinese” imperialism and determine if the Manchu goals and practices are part of a broader Chinese military tradition. Despite the challenges of understanding the complex nature of the Qing Empire, the undeniable skill in military conquest redrew territorial boundaries, re-located ethnic groups and developed patterns of military and political power that continue to resonate throughout Asia.

Воспитание курсантов военных вузов на воинских традициях офицерского корпуса

Воспитание курсантов военных вузов на воинских традициях офицерского корпуса

Всероссийская научно-практическая конференция «Война и воинские традиции в культурах народов Юга России» (V Токаревские чтения) (г. Ростов-на-Дону, 6–7 мая 2016 г.)

Всероссийская научно-практическая конференция «Война и воинские традиции в культурах народов Юга России» (V Токаревские чтения) (г. Ростов-на-Дону, 6–7 мая 2016 г.)