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21. Occupation Duty In The Dysfunctional Coalition: The Italian Second Army And Its Allies In The Balkans, 1941–43

Author:
Nicolas Gladstone Virtue
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The Axis in the Second World War has been dubbed a "dysfunctional coalition." Its members failed to develop unified political objectives, joint planning, or a coherent grand strategy for the conduct of the war. As Richard DiNardo demonstrates, the lion's share of the blame must fall on Germany's shoulders; Hitler's ideological ambitions left little room for others, the Germans balked at supplying their allies with much-needed technology, and German liaison officers frequently came across as arrogant. While historical studies of the Axis coalition tend to focus on strategy and frontline operations, the Axis partners also came into contact with one another in occupied territories throughout Europe. Here, well away from the main fighting, coalition relations were even worse.
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, and Italy

22. Bomber Harris and Precision Bombing – No Oxymoron Here

Author:
Dr. Randall Wakelam
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Criticisms as to the efficacy or lack thereof of the RAF's strategic bombing campaign against Germany have been fuelled in Canada in recent years first by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's docudrama miniseries, The Valour and the Horror, in the mid 1990s and more recently by a debate over the wording of the Bomber Command panel in the new Canadian War Museum. The essence of these debates centres on the morality of Sir Arthur Harris's apparently bloody-minded city busting tactics compared to the US Army Air Forces' ethical and restrained precision bombing of military and strategic target systems.
Political Geography:
Germany

23. A neglected story: German prisoners of war in Italy (1945-1947)

Author:
Federico Niglia
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The story of German military prisoners in the hands of the Allies at the end of the Second World War is progressively shifting out of living memory and becoming an interesting topic for both scholars and ordinary readers. For years, the experiences of German prisoners have been neglected by historians; rarely has it even been possible to discuss in a dispassionate way the difficult conditions in which the prisoners lived. The reason for this neglect is self-evident: the suffering of the Germans in the aftermath of their surrender could not be compared to the suffering of Germany's victims. Since the collapse of the Berlin wall, a barrier that in some ways symbolised the price that Germany had to pay to Europe for its guilt in the war, the self-perception of the German people has started changing. A new generation that has no memory of the war and Nazism has helped to move beyond the crippling guilt that haunted Germany until the 1980s. Beginning in the 1990s, a benign revival of German national pride occurred, affecting the historical memory of the country. The literary elite that once confined itself to harsh censure of the guilt and the wickedness of its own people, began also to tackle once taboo subjects, such as the suffering of German civilians during the Second World War; the romance of Günter Grass Im Krebsgang is, for example, extremely significant.
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

24. The Battle of Tannenberg in 1410: Strategic Interests and Tactical Implementation

Author:
LTC (GS) Dr. Martin Hofbauer
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The Teutonic Order dates back to the time of the Third Crusade (1189-1192). Around 1190, during the siege of Acre in the Holy Land an order of nurses was founded. This order was converted in 1198 into an order of knights, the so-called Teutonic Order. It was confirmed a year later by Pope Innocent III. The Order acquired its first properties in Palestine, Armenia and Cyprus, and from 1200 on also in Germany. Eventually it spread over large parts of Europe. The competition with older orders of knights in the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well as the failed crusades prompted the order to look for a new field of activity.
Political Geography:
Europe, Lithuania, Palestine, Germany, Armenia, and Cyprus

25. Bismarck, Wilhelm II., and German Military Leadership

Author:
Dr. Michael Epkenhans
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
At least twice in the history of Imperial Germany, December seems to have been a rather critical month: On 17 December 1887, the ageing German Emperor, Wilhelm I, convened his military entourage at his bed in the castle of Berlin to listen to the reports of his generals about the military situation of the Empire. Under normal circumstances, these reports by Germany's highest-ranking generals, the Chief of Staff and his Quarter Master General, the Prussian Minister of War, and the chief of the Military Cabinet were by no means unusual. Against the background of a political situation which seemed to be deteriorating for several years now, this meeting, however, turned out to be a war-council. For many months the Quarter Master General of the Prussian Army, General v. Waldersee had been pleading for a preventive war against Russia. Germany's eastern neighbour had been quarreling with the nation's most reliable ally, Austria-Hungary, over the Balkans for more than two years now, and according to secret reports about the redeployment of troops on its western border seemed to prepare for a war against the powers of the dual alliance. From a military point of view a solution to this problem seemed urgent, not the least because of the hostile attitude of Germany's western neighbour, France. Waldersee's plea for war was supported by the 87-year-old Chief of the General Staff, Moltke the Elder, and Prince William, whose influence had become ever more important due to his father's fatal illness.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Russia, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Berlin, and Prussia

26. Offense, Defence or the Worst of Both Worlds? Soviet Strategy in May-June 1941

Author:
Dr. Alexander Hill
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Getting the strategy right does not guarantee a successful outcome, but all other things being equal it certainly stacks the odds in favour of one. The Soviet Union was strategically prepared for war in June 1941, but poor operational-strategic deployment and operational and tactical failings allowed the Wehrmacht to achieve far more through operational and tactical competence than perhaps need have been the case. Nonetheless, despite poor operational-strategic deployment and operational and tactical inadequacies during Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army was able to survive the summer and autumn of 1941, after which a combination of improvements at the operational and tactical levels and superior resource mobilization stemming to a large extent from strategic planning made German victory increasingly improbable.
Political Geography:
Soviet Union and Germany

27. Strategic Thinking: The French Case in 1914 ( 1940)

Author:
Dr. Eugenia Kiesling
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
A common military history examination question at West Point is "Discuss the proposition that good strategy always beats good tactics." I tell my cadets that if they cannot answer an examination question, they should modify it they can. Behind our eight stimulating "Workshop Questions" lies a world view which I would summarize as follows. Strategy is literally crucial—the crux of war. Military failures, failures of what my friend Wick Murray calls "military effectiveness," usually being at the strategic level—or stem from a failure to integrate strategy with sound policy. Strategic effectiveness requires not only clear and achievable goals but good policy, sound institutions, and political will.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Germany

28. The Significance of the Balkans as a Strategic-Operational Area for the Bundeswehr

Author:
Rudolf J. Schlaffer
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
I have said: I will not advise Germany to take an active part of any kind in these efforts as long as I cannot see that Germany has any interest in the whole matter that – please excuse the coarseness of expression – would be worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian musketeer. What I wanted to express was that we should use the blood of our countrymen more sparingly instead of expending it for an arbitrary policy which no interest forces us to pursue.
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
Germany

29. Mark Osborne Humphries and John Maker, eds. Germany's Western Front, 1915: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War, Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010

Author:
Matt Bucholtz
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Germany's Western Front, 1915, translated and edited by Mark Osborne Humphries and John Maker, is the second volume in a series of translations of Der Weltkrieg, the official German history of the First World War. Mark Osborne Humphries teaches Canadian and military history at Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta and has published several works on the First World War in both Canadian and international journals. John Maker is a PhD Candidate at the University of Ottawa, working on a dissertation entitled ‚Shiner, Shindigs, and Shenanigans: Canadian Soldiers in Britain during the Second World War.‛ Composed of selections from volumes VII, VIII and IX of Der Weltkrieg, Germany's Western Front, 1915 dutifully presents one of the last triumphs of German Wilhelmine era operational level military history. Originally published from 1925 to 1944, Der Weltkrieg stands as the culmination of the von Rankean tradition of ‚wie es eigentlich gewesen” or 'how it actually happened' in the Great German General Staff. Humphries and Maker produced this translated work in an attempt to provide a German counterpart to the narrative of the Great War in English, which has been traditionally, and understandably, dominated by sources from England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America. In an ironic post-modern twist, the editors have sought to end the ‚othering‛ of German interpretations by translating the official (one might be tempted to say master narrative) German history of the war into English, and thus simply adding one master narrative to another. Nevertheless, both the foreword by Hew Strachan and the introduction written by the editors do an excellent job of not only situating Der Weltkrieg within the historiography, but also critically examining the creation and creators of the series. Throughout the volume, the editors consistently provide useful footnotes, not only to clarify various points in the text, but also to elaborate on the relationships between the subject matter and the authors of Der Weltkrieg (the most notable example being von Haeften's consistently negative critique of Feldmarschall von Falkenhayn's conduct throughout 1915, which directly stemmed from von Haeften's personal loyalty to his former commanding officer, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who was replaced by Falkenhayn). Although the usefulness of Der Weltkrieg is limited by its high level focus (the series does not focus on any military unit smaller than a division and is mainly concerned with the leadership coterie of Germany's war effort), it nevertheless remains an important resource for historians as the series was produced from sources which were destroyed during the Second World War by a wayward British bomber, and thus denied to current researchers. Although this official history was finished during the Nazi era, it remains remarkably free of National Socialist ideological overtones. Most of the politically motivated interpretations in the series are an expression of Imperial or Weimar era internal military intrigues, not those of the Third Reich.
Topic:
Intelligence
Political Geography:
United States, America, Canada, Germany, Australia, England, and New Zealand

30. The Past as Prologue: Sustaining Canadian Capacity for Defence, Diplomacy and Development

Author:
Colin Robertson
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Drive down Wellington Street, past the Parliament Buildings and, almost directly across from the Supreme Court are a pair of buildings buttressing both sides of Lyon Street. Built in the aftermath of World War II, the East and West Memorial Buildings once housed the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their architect had a sense of both history and the neighborhood. It is reflected in their chateau style, copper roofs and stone facing – not the usual cinder-block approach of later government buildings. Spanning the street and connecting the two buildings is an Arch.
Political Geography:
Canada, Germany, and Netherlands