National War Research Articles

The Role of Ideology in Shaping the Postcolonial Era in the Arab World

The article analyzes the role of ideology in building a postcolonial order in the Arab world. Ideology traditionally plays a significant role in the formation of public policy, both foreign and domestic. The formation of the ideological system and its subsequent influence on political processes began after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. The intensified pan-Islamic and pan-Arab tendencies led to national liberation wars and the formation of sovereign states. However, the actual colonial dependence of the countries of the Arab world on the West persisted, which reflected the impossibility of the development and implementation of pan-Arab ideas. In general, pan–Islamic and pan-Arab ideas did not help to get rid of colonial dependence, but became an important basis for the formation of post-colonial ideologies – Arab nationalism and Islamism. The process of decolonization entered an active phase only after the Second World War. The post-war movement of Arab nationalism partially contributed to the formation of a post-colonial order in the Arab world. The subsequent ideological system in the form of Islamism did not get rid of the colonial legacy, however, laid the foundation for post-Islamism, which demonstrated its potential after the Arab Spring.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Prosecution of War Criminals in Yugoslavia

Abstract To understand the different developments that shaped the Yugoslav war crimes policy it is important to analyse the impact of international discussions on the Yugoslav criminal law and the Yugoslav involvement in the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). During the Second World War two different institutions claimed to be the legal representatives of the Yugoslav people: The Yugoslav government in exile in London and the communist led AVNOJ (The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia). With this in mind, this paper analyses Yugoslav war crimes policies from different perspectives and in different settings. It shows that the Yugoslav`s discussion about the punishment of war criminals was influenced by power struggles, geopolitical aims, and legitimacy. While Yugoslav government in exile got lost in internal nationalist struggles, it was the Yugoslav representative at the UNWCC, and the communist led State commission to investigate the crimes of the occupiers and their accomplices who took the active role and shaped the Yugoslav war crimes policy. In consequence the Yugoslav national law for prosecuting war crimes was developed from different sources: pre-WWII traditions, Soviet law, and the UNWCC.

The Tribals and the National Uprising of 1857 in Rajputana States

The scholars have paid scant attention to the role of the Bhil and the Mina tribes of southern Rajputana States of Mewar, Banswara and Partapgarh in the 1857 national war of independence. These tribals were dissatisfied with the settlement of British paramountcy in the Rajputana States in 1818 as it was responsible for depriving them of their right to collect rakhwali (protection tax) from the neighbouring States, restraining their movements by stationing the Mewar Bhil Corps and the Kota Contingent in tribal regions, creating a fissure in their society by recruiting a section of tribals as soldiers in these Political Corps and, above all, penalising them as criminals for witch swinging and witch murdering in contravention of their community resolution. Disgruntled with the series of these innovations the Bhil chiefs, such as those of Pahara Bhomat in Mewar Hill Tracts, Onkar Rawat of Mowree Khera and Dalla Rawat of Sodulpur in Banswara State, and the Minas of Uncha village (in Jahazpur district of Mewar State) on the border of Deoli cantonment, revolted to end the British rule under the spell of the 1857 rebellion of the native sepoys of the British regiments at Neemuch, Nasirabad and Mhow cantonments. These tribal uprisings spread, far and wide, in Banswara, Partapgarh and Mewar Hill Tracts in southern Rajputana on the spur of Rawat Kesri Singh of Salumbar, a powerful Sisodia Rajput jagirdar of Mewar State, the Vilayati mercenaries (Makranis and Arabs) and Maratha General Tantia Tope who campaigned with his rabble force throughout Rajputana States between June 1858 and April 1859 for seeking support of people to overthrow the British government and also for punishing those Rajput rulers who had sided with it and surrendered to it the rebel leaders. Of course, the British government suppressed the tribal rebellions with the support of the Rajput rulers of Mewar, Partapgarh and Dungarpur States, but the prolongation of the 1857 tribal rebellions in southern Rajputana even after the restoration of British power in the imperial city of Delhi (September 1857) and in Lucknow (March 1858) confirmed the contention of the eminent historian V. D. Savarkar that the 1857 rebellion was the Indian War of Independence. Thus, the tribals have left a legacy of their valour and patriotic fervour during the 1857 national war of independence in Princely Rajputana.

The Polish Government-in-Exile: The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Holocaust

Abstract The author discusses the engagement of the Polish Government-in-Exile with the issue of German war crimes and its involvement with the United Nations War Crimes Commission during the Second World War. Information sent by the Polish Underground State allowed the Polish War Crimes Office to compile its charge file submissions for the UNWCC in a strategic and organized manner. According to the author, the War Crimes Office attempted to ensure that German crimes against Jews received due attention in its charge file submissions.

“Real war ammunition:” Artists for Victory, the National War Poster Competition, and the Hostile Imagination on the United States World War II Home Front

“Real war ammunition:” Artists for Victory, the National War Poster Competition, and the Hostile Imagination on the United States World War II Home Front

Catholic Women and Patriotism: Acción Católica Mexicana and Women’s Organizing in World War II

Mexico entered World War II in 1942, and the government quickly instituted a draft of young men. Catholic women’s lay organizations immediately organized to support the troops, claiming patriotism as their religious calling. This article examines Catholic women, ideas of patriotism and support for the national war effort. Despite the previous antagonism between Catholics and the post-revolutionary government, the rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the government of the 1940s allowed Catholic women participating to finally embrace a national project through dedicating their charity and service to the war effort, they defined their citizenship as a religious calling.

WarVictimSampo 1914–1922: A National War Memorial on the Semantic Web for Digital Humanities Research and Applications

This article presents the semantic portal and Linked Open Data service WarVictimSampo 1914–1922 about the war victims, battles, and prisoner camps in the Finnish Civil and other wars in 1914–1922. The system is based on a database of the National Archives of Finland and additional related data created, compiled, and linked during the project. The system contains detailed information about some 40,000 deaths extracted from several data sources and data about over 1,000 battles of the Civil War. A key novelty of WarVictimSampo 1914–1922 is the integration of ready-to-use Digital Humanities visualizations and data analysis tooling with semantic faceted search and data exploration, which allows, e.g., studying data about wider prosopographical groups in addition to individual war victims. The article focuses on demonstrating how the tools of the portal, as well as the underlying SPARQL endpoint openly available on the Web, can be used to explore and analyze war history in flexible and visual ways. WarVictimSampo 1914–1922 is a new member in the series of “Sampo” model-based semantic portals. The portal is in use and has had 23,000 users, including both war historians and the general public seeking information about their deceased relatives.

Exhibiting the Past to Build a Nation: 19th-Century Identities and Museums in Spain and Italy

This article analyses how political and cultural European elites crafted new historical narratives to construct identities during the process of defining the nation-state in the 19th century. It looks specifically at the cases of Spain and Italy, two Mediterranean countries that have common characteristics with regards to the process of crafting their national identities: the use of historical objects and events. The ruling party’s ability to control the past led to the creation of new narratives that would favour their aspirations at the time. These were transmitted through a new tool: history museums. It was not only works of art that were exhibited in these museums; what had previously been considered trivial was also put on display. The familiarity and everyday nature of such objects was used to arouse patriotic feelings in visitors. National wars of independence and their attendant disasters were central themes depicted within deliberate political discourses. Three case studies show how museums were used to mythologise the most recent historical events at the time in order to generate nationalist sentiment. In the provincial museums of Girona and Badajoz, Spain, space was set aside in exhibitions to pay homage to local heroes of the War of Independence. In Turin, Italy, the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento dedicated a museum to the cult of King Victor Emmanuel II, the Father of the Italian Fatherland. This museum was conceived as a great temple of italianità in which to remember the suffering and wars that had made Italy a new and united country.

Patriotism, Nation, and Masculinity in the Official Propaganda of the Hungarian Insurrectio during the War of the Fifth Coalition (1809)

During the War of the Fifth Coalition (1809), the idea of “national war” was put into practice in the Austrian Empire. Not only the Habsburg military system was reformed, but the war was accompanied by an extensive propaganda campaign, implemented by intellectuals in the service of the Viennese Court. In Hungary, the palatine, Archduke Joseph was responsible for harmonizing the military innovations with the constitutional traditions of the country. The mobilization was carried out mainly by the partly modernized insurrectio, which obliged the masses of nobility to do personal military service in exchange for their privileges. This anachronistic means of defense tried to satisfy, lopsidedly, the demand of manpower in an age of mass warfare. Consequently, the imperial propaganda also had to be adapted to the particular Hungarian situation. This paper investigates this unique Hungarian situation, through analysing the relationship between the military mobilization of the nobility by the insurrectio and the efforts of the official propaganda to construct a valorous and patriotic self-image of the Hungarian nation. First, the study analyses the limited reforms concerning the traditional system of defence of the estates. Second, it presents how the official propaganda of the insurrectio shaped the ideal image of the “noble warrior” on national level in the periods of mobilization, war and demobilization. Third, it discusses the cult of heroes and the fallen of the insurrectio both on national and local (county) level. It argues that this cult proved short-lived in the long run because of the defeat of Austria, the shortness of the war, the uneven involvement of the counties in fighting, and so forth. The paper concludes that the insurrectio of 1809, which was the last great moment of the military mobilization and the valorous patriotic-national ideology of the nobility, did not fit the modern nation-building process and therefore has never incorporated into the Hungarian nationalism as a true “national war.”

“Essa Dama Bate Bué” e o cânone literário angolano

Essa Dama Bate Bué and the Angolan Literary Canon. A relevant topic for the history of literature, the literary canon has been widely questioned and the Angolan literary canon is no exception, being constantly susceptible to changes. The current paper aims at challenging the Angolan literary canon and defending the necessity of including the novel Essa Dama Bate Bué by Yara Monteiro. Published in 2018, it represents an example of silenced literature about women and guerrilla movements during the war for national independence, the subsequent civil war, and the post-conflict period. The book problematizes the presence of women in national wars, the countless roles they played, but also their integration in the post-colonial society, giving insights into a topic largely ignored in Angolan literature. Keywords: Angola, Angolan women, canon, Yara Monteiro, guerrilla movements

Memories from the Future: The Historical Experience of the First World War and the Civil War in Soviet Propaganda of the 1920s and 1930s

The article deals with the historical experience of the First World War and the Russian Civil War as it was brought up in Soviet propaganda of the 1920s and 1930s; topic is thus the employment of a useful past in the production of ideas about future wars. The present research is based on a corpus of normative texts related to the assessment of the First World War and the Civil War in the late 1920s and 1930s (including periodicals, political writings, materials of the Communist Party) as well as archival documents about campaigns dedicated to the anniversaries of the First World War and the Civil War. Despite their proclaimed policy of peace, Soviet leaders spoke of a major future war as inevitable, and tried to anticipate its nature through comparison with conflicts of the recent past. In the Soviet information space of the 1920s and 1930s, the Great War was presented primarily from a socio-political perspective. Assessing the First World War as imperialist, Soviet propaganda emphasized that the future conflict would inevitably start as a counter-revolutionary war against the USSR. The Civil War became the main source of heroic military discourse, and was presented as a national war against external enemies. The future war was thereby imagined on the model of the foreign interventions of 1918-1920. The author analyzes this approach with the example of the Soviet campaign dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the defense of Petrograd from Yudenich's troops in 1919.

4. Les actions en justice contre les crimes de la Shoah en Yougoslavie

During the Second World War, Yugoslav Communists followed Soviet patterns and adopted Aron Trianin’s legal ideas when sentencing war criminals. However, as a result of their participation in the United Nations War Crimes Commission, they adapted the commission’s legal framework and a whole set of jurisdictional guidelines and standards and incorporated them into the country’s criminal law code. From this perspective, this paper will analyze Yugoslav war crime trials connected to the Shoah, focusing on the transition of knowledge and transnational dynamics : which institutions were involved in “legal flows?” Who were the convicted perpetrators in the first Shoah trials? Who were the witnesses and what kind of evidence was produced? Did judgments follow patterns set by the IMT? And how did the first Shoah trials shape Yugoslavia’s understanding of the WWII and the Shoah?

Planning an Uprising; Remaking a Nation: The Polish Radicals’ Debates on the Army and War in 1832-1846 Revisited

ABSTRACT The primary aim of this article is to investigate the debates among those radicals who found themselves in exile after the failure of the Polish November Uprising (1830–1831) about whether a new national war was necessary. Instead of dealing with their reflections on warfare, I focus on the political dimension of these debates, and in particular on their ideas about mobilization during wartime. The first part of the article sketches out the general context of these reflections, stressing the deep roots of the debates about ‘citizen-soldiers’ and mass military mobilization. The second part examines the Polish radicals’ sometimes contentious debates during the 1830s, which focused on the reasons for the failure of the November Uprising, the lessons that needed to be learned, and the means by which the peasantry could be included into both military ranks and the political sphere. The principal forum for these discussions was leaflets and articles. The third part concentrates on their disputes during the 1840s. This decade was marked by the particular intensity of these polemics as the radicals confronted, amongst other issues, the question of revolutionary terrorism and mass democracy during the (supposedly impending) war. The article concludes by recapitulating the main features of these debates, and clarifies that there was only a bare thread of continuity between the radicals from the 1830s and 1840s and those who mulled over similar issues in the second part of the 19th century.

LITERATURE REVIEW TENTANG SEJARAH PERANG DALAM STRATEGI PERANG SEMESTA INDONESIA

In a social community, conflict is inevitable. This is due to the interests of certain groups or individuals in a community who have an ego or desire to fulfill the needs of themselves or their groups. In an effort to fulfill this ego or desire it can result in friction with other individuals or groups. The factor of natural resources in meeting industrial needs and raw materials is one of the limitations driving conflicts between countries. Various conflicts between countries occur in the context of seizing territory and natural resources. Various war strategies have also been applied in order to win with the best possible results and very small losses. Several war leaders became a reference in the implementation of the next war. We know war strategy figures such as Napoleon, Mao Ze Dong, Guevara, and war leaders from within the country such as Cik Di Tiro, Imam Bonjol, Cut Nya' Dien, Diponegoro, Jenderal Sudirman, also A.H. Nasution. These figures are the reference and inspiration in formulating the Indonesian nation's war strategy so that determining the people's war strategy is the best choice for the Indonesian nation.

The South African National War College military history staff ride as a deep learning experience

In this article, based on a study rooted in interpretivism, the South African NationalWar College military history staff ride, as an education and training method related tothe curriculum of the senior staff programmes since 2002, is discussed. The educationand training process, with specific reference to the staff ride to military battle sites andthe associated application of the theory of operational art, were researched accordingto the tenets of the theory of deep learning. While using the historical–comparativemethod during the staff ride enabled the majority of the students to determine whichviable options were available to the commander, not all students were necessarily ableto relate deep learning to critical thinking. Consequently, in certain instances, surfacelearning tended to dominate simply because that was the educational world into whichthe students had been socialised. Furthermore, the facilitation process did not alwaysfully serve the students by completely weaning them off learning habits associated withsurface learning. Consequently, while being able to claim some deep learning successesusing the staff ride, continuous reflection and educational interventions are neededto maintain the successes achieved and to use these as a building platform for deeplearning during future staff rides.

Social dramas and memory formation. Resistance and the use of the Risorgimento in the Italian politics of memory, 1943–1948

ABSTRACT This article analyses the case of Italy and how the memory of World War II came to provide the ground for political legitimacy and the ideological foundations of post-war democracy. It focuses on the topos of the Resistance against Fascism as a ‘second Risorgimento’, e.g. a national and patriotic war of liberation supported by the entire populace. The article argues that the process of memory formation of the Resistance as a ‘second Risorgimento’ during the period of transition from Fascism to democracy shares the defining features of a rite of passage in the sense originally introduced by Arnold Van Gennep. The article develops a conceptual approach that brings together social science approaches to liminality, transition, and memory studies. Advancing a processual approach to memory formation, the article thus offers an alternative to the still dominant functionalist-presentist approaches to memory, heavily influenced by Durkheim society since the pioneering work of Halbwachs.

Clothing the Nation: Representing a Distinctively Australian National Identity in World War I Memorial Architecture

Large-scale state and national memorials to World War I dead embody complex symbolism, spanning pride and grief. Built at a time when Australia sought to assert a more independent national identity, they provoke the question of how Australian designers chose to express national identity through the medium of commemorative architecture. To address this question, this article examines a range of designs submitted to three major Australian competitions held in the 1920s: for the National War Memorial of Victoria (Melbourne), the Australian War Memorial (Canberra), and the Australian Memorial (Villers-Bretonneux, France). It draws on visual documentation of these designs, unpublished competition reviews, and responses from the contemporary press, while its examination of both built and unbuilt designs enables a new analysis of contemporary architectural thought about memorials. In looking beyond the predominantly classical nature of these designs, this article discerns efforts by designers to create a deeper symbolic representation of nationhood.

The Uprising of 1648 in the Interpretations of Polish Historians at the End of the XIXth Century – 1939th

The purpose of this article is to study the peculiarities of depicting the events of the first year of the national liberation war under the leadership of B. Khmelnytsky in the Polish historical science at the end XIXth century - 1939, and in particular the battles near Zhovti Vody, Korsun, Pyliavtsi, the siege of the Cossack-Tatar troops of Lviv; investigate various historical myths, stereotypes and evaluation patterns used by Polish historians in depicting the events of Khmelnytsky region; analyze the influences of historiographical concepts, cultural trends and political ideologies on the image of the history of the Polish-Cossack war in 1648. Methodology of the research: the work was based on such principles as historicism and scientific objectivity. Both general scientific (systematization, typology, retrospection) and a number of special historical methods (critical analysis and synthesis of source material, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, etc.) were used. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that a systematic analysis of the depiction of the events of Khmelnytsky region in 1648 in the Polish historiography of the end XIXth century – 1939 was done in this article for the first time in domestic science and the influences of political ideas on the interpretation of historical material were analysed by scientists. Conclusions. The history of the first year of the national liberation war of Ukrainians under the leadership of B. Khmelnytsky attracted considerable attention of Polish researchers and was considered as one of the cornerstones of the history of the Commonwealth, and especially of the Polish-Ukrainian relations. Due to the severity of the events, they were overgrown with various historical myths and were often interpreted through the prism of political conditions and various ideological trends. Thus, the symbolic meaning was given to the battle of Yellow Waters, which historians saw as the last battle of the Polish people for possession of the Black Sea steppes. The influence of the concept of "Poland's stronghold of Christianity" and the ideas of inter-civilizational struggle on the events of the Polish-Cossack war is revealed.

Objectivity in Museums: The Nigerian Civil War According to the National War Museum, Umuahia

Objectivity in Museums: The Nigerian Civil War According to the National War Museum, Umuahia

The Political Uses of the Past During the Cold War: Conservative Intellectuals and the Military Dictatorship in Brazil

The aim of this paper is to examine how, in the context of the Cold War and Latin America’s National Security dictatorships, conservative Brazilian intellectuals turned to history to demonstrate the country’s ‘incompatibility’ with progressive values and left-wing government. It analyzes a selection of lectures given by acclaimed conservative intellectuals at the National War College during the 1960s and 70s. An examination of these lectures demonstrates that many of the elements chosen to define ‘national identity’ under the ‘Estado Novo’ dictatorship of 1937-45 – such as the valorization of miscegenation, a belief in the docile nature of the Brazilian people, the exaltation of work and the idea of a nation founded on cohesion and cooperation – were revived after 1964. Thus, conservative intellectuals made an important contribution to legitimizing the military dictatorship of 1964-85 by inscribing it within what they believed the Brazilian tradition to be, presenting it as the only regime capable of preserving national unity and culture against the threats posed by Marxism and communism.