[Lokakyy]

I'm curious to hear what kind of views fellow Pofoites interested about war history have about the entire field of study and especially the obvious dominance of World War II in it (hence the decision to place the thread in this section).

When I was younger, I was exceedingly interested about war history as such, and especially WWII. Heck, the lure of the absurdity of the Third Reich was probably the most definitive reason why I applied to the university to study history in the first place. Later, when the studies progressed, the love affair grew stale and I switched interests.

The WWII war history is still something that is almost daily encountered when following the general discussion about history. In Finland, there of course are historical reasons for that - interpreting and re-interpreting the Winter War and the Continuation War against the Soviet Union are, perhaps only second to the political Finnish Civil War, one of the most contested subject. Debates about the reasons for ending up into unwritten alliance (or as it still goes in the National history, cobelligerency) with the Nazi Germany are featured even in the national press, something that other historical research can only dream of.

Perhaps this is why I have a certain uneasy feeling about war history itself - it is tied to the search for some kind of grand national fable of history. It is also a field favoured by enthusiastic dilentants who write endless amount of pages about the movements of this and that company on the Karelian Isthmus in May 1943, and pretend intellectual supremacy (mostly in forum debates) to professional historians, because professional historians cannot outright answer what was the average boot number of the special battalion anti-air section in 1942.

The academic community here has, at least partly, also opened new ways of researching World War, extending the scope from the movement of certain units into broader subjects like how the ordinary men experienced the violence psychologically, how same-sex sexuality manifested in wartime monogender environment (particularly seen as an affront to the national legacy of heroic veterans), how the scarred veterans adapted to the civilian life after five years of war, the drug use in the armed forces and so on - avenues of research that I find intriguing.

My argument isn't that war history is unnecessary. Not even the boot number war history is unnecessary. My question, however, is what do you think is the purpose of war history? Are we stuck into endless cycle of publications about how things unfolded on Omaha beach or in Kursk? And what do you think about the current trend towards the "new war history" and the methods used by it?

[Ombrageux]

The of any history, ideally, is simply to not what occurred so we can better understand the present. That would be "objectivity". All history, and war history in particular, however, is inevitably extremely politicized. Wars require politicians to ask ordinary people to give up vast sums of money, sacrifice their sons on the altar of national defense, and possibly ruin the whole society. In that circumstance, a war cannot be fought for nothing. Those who asked for war will justify it, those who survived it will want to portray themselves to be on the side of the victors (if only secretly).

These issues are particularly acute in France. The Second World War was not a glorious period, but it was necessary to play up the Gaullist and Resistance myths as much as possible in order to be reborn as a Great Power (UN Security Council seat, occupier of Germany, restored empire, important place in NATO, etc.) after the war. This led to a great deal of falseness and, unfortunately, also a notion that France is more wretched than other countries. Whereas, many countries had less than noble foreign policies (British appeasement, Soviet deals, American isolationism) and France was, after 1940, in a supremely difficult position. The second war has hung over French politics ever since. The shadow of Vichy haunted Mitterrand, the Right has been forever trying to belatedly steal a piece of de Gaulle's glory for themselves (see the fabulous 70th anniversary celebration of the June 18 call).

[Smilin' Dave]

The catch with war history, and WWII is a war like no other in European history, is its popular appeal. As you guys noted, it has broad and specific political conotations. On a more basic level people like explosions, horror and dreams of power. War offers all these things in spades. So these books sell well, even those that are just repeating the same tired old stories without any new analysis. The political link also makes it easier for these books to get a national viewing in the press. The amatuer histories based around technical information probably dove-tails with a certain audience, a sort of practical but not particularly insightful study, it's accessible and to an extent interactive.

A comparison could be drawn with Soviet history. Plenty written about Stalin, and specifically the purges and famines etc. A fair bit about Lenin and the revolution itself. Then it gets pretty sparse. Khrushchev and Gorbachev seem to get a glance because of their supposed attacks on the system and by association the Stalinist image. I can think of no biographies focused on Khrushchev's decidedly less liberal tendencies. Khrushchev has the added advantage of putting missiles in Cuba... which was almost a war so that's 'cool'. One can't help but feel that Brezhnev and his direct successors would have received more equal treatment if only they had killed more peole or blown something up

[peterm1988]

This is a really interesting question. If I had to pull something out of my arse I'd probably say that war history is partly a result to this tendency to view war as more real, or at least as more intense than ordinary life. Sort of allows us to indulge in the not-completely-discredited romance of war from the safety of our own home. It's almost as if the historians of ancient times had returned to the Red Sea or Troy and attempted to examine the legends of old in a forensic and historical manner. For us, our legends are of wars, particularly World War Two which is is heading towards becoming a legend.

Or, more sensibly, it could be because understanding certain key moments can prove very informative. Hitler's refusal to allow a withdrawal from Stalingrad and everything around that highlights many other aspects of the Nazi regime and German conduct in the war.

[Stipe]

I share this ambivalence to war history and probably have since before I went into undergrad (where I once got in trouble for cracking a joke that more or less goes that the only difference between historians of war and star wars buffs is that the random shit the war historian writes about didn't take place in a galaxy far far away, just a long time ago.)

I have to admit though that I'm basically unfamiliar with the methodological differences of newer war histories from the older ones so I can't comment on that. In trying to think of practical value for war history, however, I can see them playing a role in trying to establish an alternative record of a conflict which stands independent from the mythologies of the combatants. Very practically, I can see it being useful for the prosecution of war crimes and in the building of a sort of consensus of "what just happened" in places that have recently been war zones.

[Ombrageux]

I share this ambivalence to war history and probably have since before I went into undergrad (where I once got in trouble for cracking a joke that more or less goes that the only difference between historians of war and star wars buffs is that the random shit the war historian writes about didn't take place in a galaxy far far away, just a long time ago.)

I had never thought of that... but it's so true! I do remember thinking in undergrad that you could have people write essays on imaginary places. I had read some of the race books of Warhammer, which have lots of "facts," "accounts," and "histories," and thinking one could just as easily ask students to write essays on that.

[Lokakyy]

On a more basic level people like explosions, horror and dreams of power. War offers all these things in spades. So these books sell well, even those that are just repeating the same tired old stories without any new analysis.

That is true. Just like the portrayals of the Medieval History sell more when they are about how heretics were tortured, about the plague and other atrocities. I wonder how many readers were let down by Foucault's 'Discipline and Punish' after the good start of pure pain.

If I had to pull something out of my arse I'd probably say that war history is partly a result to this tendency to view war as more real, or at least as more intense than ordinary life. Sort of allows us to indulge in the not-completely-discredited romance of war from the safety of our own home. It's almost as if the historians of ancient times had returned to the Red Sea or Troy and attempted to examine the legends of old in a forensic and historical manner. For us, our legends are of wars, particularly World War Two which is is heading towards becoming a legend.

Exactly. The myth in the making - in a way cinematic representations of dare, danger and sacrifice. Something that can be only imagined by the current generation in the western countries. I'm of course from a country that has no tangible experiences of war since the WWII, but it seems that even in the American context of contract soldiers, War as a concept is an abstract one, only to be broken by unconvenient war memoirs. The topic of American cinema mirroring the operations is exceedingly interesting - what exactly means the gap between Apocalypse. Now! and The Hurt Locker?

[Ombrageux]

Another note: WW2 is the only recent war history which could be properly "heroic" on an individual scale. During WW1, you had static frontlines, and individual action was limited to suicidal charges and random killing from artillery. During the Cold War, the atom bomb and the rocket made any war necessarily apocalyptic. No point driving tanks or planes around when the ICBMs are coming.. WW2 was the last global conflict we could romanticize, with dashing pilots, tank commanders and rugged marines.

[peterm1988]

For the Anglosphere, it was undeniably heroic on a collective scale too. We avoided the traumas of occupation and invasion which plagues Germany, haunts Japan and horrifies France and other occupied countries.

I've often thought that World War Two holds the supreme position it does in the British psyche because it was the only time in our history where we lived up to and almost surpassed our own rhetoric. It is interesting to note how many of these war histories are done by British historians...

[Potemkin]

I've often thought that World War Two holds the supreme position it does in the British psyche because it was the only time in our history where we lived up to and almost surpassed our own rhetoric.

Precisely. Churchill described the 1940 Battle of Britain as Britain's "finest hour" even as it was happening. And everyone knew that he was right.

[peterm1988]

Precisely. Churchill described the 1940 Battle of Britain as Britain's "finest hour" even as it was happening. And everyone knew that he was right.

Completely. Even being the generally disdainful socialist I am I get a shiver down my spine when I hear that, when I hear the call to "defend our island, whatever the cost may be" I can't help but feel more British than at any other point, even though I had nothing to do with it. We've had damn little to be proud of before or since. I mean, since then, we've lost meaning and become an empty shell, an atomised and dreary example of everything that is wrong with the West.

Standing alone against the Nazis still resonates and informs so much of the British identity, to an extent which foreigners, especially other Europeans, just seem to be incapable of understanding and respecting.

[Potemkin]

Standing alone against the Nazis still resonates and informs so much of the British identity, to an extent which foreigners, especially other Europeans, just seem to be incapable of understanding and respecting.

Indeed. Part of that feeling of pride is because of the utter hopelessness of Britain's military position in 1940. One of the leading French generals said at the time that "Britain is a chicken whose neck Hitler will soon wring." Everyone wrote us off as doomed. And, objectively speaking, we were doomed. Britain was the only nation still fighting against Hitler, whose forces had overrun almost all of continental Europe. We had absolutely no chance of dislodging the Nazis from their newly conquered territories, and we had no allies - the Soviet Union still had a non-aggression Pact with Hitler and America was still determinedly isolationist. Basically, we were fucked. But we made the decision that it was better to go down fighting than to become a client state of Nazi Germany. Even I, as a Communist, take a strange kind of patriotic pride in that fact, even though I personally had nothing to do with it.

[Smilin' Dave]

Another note: WW2 is the only recent war history which could be properly "heroic" on an individual scale. During WW1, you had static frontlines, and individual action was limited to suicidal charges and random killing from artillery.

This actually says a lot about popular memory of WWI, where the more dynamic/interest fronts often get ignored. While there certainly was trench warfare on other fronts it was also mingled with a lot of meeting engagements etc. There were also the battles at the end of 1918 on the Western Front, when the old rules of trench warfare ceased to apply. Also by way of counter-point, your description of WWI could also be applied to popularised accounts of Red Army action in WWII, where it is precisely the collective sacrifice and death by modern weaponry that captured people's attention.

[Nattering Nabob]

But we made the decision that it was better to go down fighting than to become a client state of Nazi Germany. Even I, as a Communist, take a strange kind of patriotic pride in that fact, even though I personally had nothing to do with it.

Hitler was across the channel so it's not that hard a call to keep fighting when you still have the worlds strongest navy and the RAF...

Don't pat yourselves on the back too much for not surrendering...

But I fully understand your pride...I always thought that a great preview for a movie about the Battle of Britain would be:

"In the summer of 1940, only one thing stood between the remaining free nations of Europe...and madness," followed by the roaring passover of a low flying Spitfire...

As far as the dominance of WW2 in history studies...I think it is that there is so much material available...I doubt any other war was so well documented...

[MB.]

WWII is so media saturated and the popular literature so divorced from actual war studies that I can hardly stand to think about the subject any more.

Everyone and their mom is an 'expert' on some aspect of the war they think is the most important event in history, whatever it is: treadheads and panzers, nazi sympathisers, soviet boosters, atomic bombing, spitfires, u-boats, the bismark, midway, pearl harbour, whatever.

The problem is that WWII is so vast and so massive and so complicated that no one individual can really grasp the war in a holistic manner. Pretty much whatever you hear anyone say about anything about wwii strategy or tactics or operations or equipment or diplomacy or logistics it is almost assured that 1) there is a counter example or expert testimony disproving everything that person argues and 2) there is some grognard somewhere who knows more about the subject than you ever will.

It is for these reasons that I prefer to study the first world war and any war that isn't ww2. although everyonce and a while I have flirtations with the second world war they are usualy brief or related to broader areas of research (ie, history of stragetic bombardment; history of amphibious operations, history of naval air power, etc ec)

Perhaps this is why I have a certain uneasy feeling about war history itself - it is tied to the search for some kind of grand national fable of history. It is also a field favoured by enthusiastic dilentants who write endless amount of pages about the movements of this and that company on the Karelian Isthmus in May 1943, and pretend intellectual supremacy (mostly in forum debates) to professional historians, because professional historians cannot outright answer what was the average boot number of the special battalion anti-air section in 1942.

Like any real historian a real war historian is first and foremost a philosopher who applies scientific method to historiographical study and the examination of historical texts and evidence. Military history is generally reviled academically because of a bunch of lamer popular 'military historians' who do exactly what you pointed out and basically embarrass themselves and the field of history by doing so. War historians take all the methodological tools developed for rigorous philosophical inquiry and apply them to the study of wars because wars are important and because life is war despite whatever you've heard to the contrary.