tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post2911111057292816569..comments2024-03-28T03:10:23.679-07:00Comments on Polemarch: History, Wargames and EthicsThe Polemarchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-37376373573189136012014-01-13T07:04:03.901-08:002014-01-13T07:04:03.901-08:00I think that whimsical rhetoric sometimes conceals...I think that whimsical rhetoric sometimes conceals a real hard question; why do history at all? Mankind lasted a good many millennia without it, after all. But now we have it, we have to recognise its limitations. We rewrite history for our own times.<br /><br />I guess anyone can write biased history; it all depends on the level of bias. My grandfather once told me a story about observing a German officer who had been harassing the field hospital's nurses being injected. There was no fluid in the tube. A few minutes later he had died of wounds. I have no idea if it is a true story or not, nor how I could find out. But I doubt if it is even today in the annals of D-Day....<br /><br />Ah, Cromwell. Yes. As someone I know pointed out, most people who would claim to be Royalists would probably have been oppressed by them if they had been alive in the 17th C. <br /><br />And anyway, a recent book on political history describes the UK as a republic. Which, from some points of view, it is. Charles I wouldn't recognise the monarchy today.The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-22672982304857311512014-01-13T03:42:04.304-08:002014-01-13T03:42:04.304-08:00My question, "why does anyone bother", w...My question, "why does anyone bother", was - as you will realise - meant to be whimsically rhetorical. It does seem to me that a great deal of history has been written to support a particular view - maybe that is a historian's job. Maybe it isn't. Maybe even our "no-one-has-ever-been-so-clever-or-enlightened-as-we-are-now" present day historians, whether they realise it our not, are writing primarily to demonstrate their own superiority to the fools who came before. There are axes grinding all around.<br /><br />If we read history to get a better handle on what happened, it is difficult to get any degree of certainty that we get an objective presentation. We might even be disappointed or offended by an objective account if it did not sit well with our own preferred version.<br /><br />The point? Merely that any claim, by anyone (especially me), that they are in search of the truth is fatuous. We need to read as widely as we think appropriate, from a reading list which fits our purposes, and form our own view.<br /><br />My reference to languages has been hijacked a bit by subsequent commenters, which is maybe no bad thing. I can see, for example, that lack of facility with languages (plus a large slice of xenophobia) has contributed greatly to the lack of Spanish input into British accounts of the Peninsular War. My reference to English-language WW2 books simply referred to the dreadful patriotic bias that is prevalent in British and American works until fairly recently. I have heard first hand, unpublished, eyewitness accounts of the goings-on at Dunkirk, and about the wholesale shooting of German prisoners in France in 1944 which do not fit well with the official story. Some of that is starting to sneak its way into written history now - perhaps, as I suggested, the gradual demise in the UK of the heroes, the maligned and the backside-coverers is taking some of the pressure off, at the same time that more, non-British sources become available and acceptable.<br /><br />As for Cromwell - there are many people around who - when mention of the ECW comes up - will tell you very quickly that they are passionate Royalists (it's usually Royalists). We could have a good laugh in the pub about why they feel like that, but which monarchy is it that they are in favour of? - the Stuarts? - all kings? - only British kings? - the present British monarchy? - anyone who is not the peasants or the working classes? What is all that about? Do we need to have special history books written for these people, or will the existing ones do?MSFoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14470241067504971068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-85418287091243780832014-01-13T01:35:16.791-08:002014-01-13T01:35:16.791-08:00I think one issue here is the existence and contin...I think one issue here is the existence and continuation of 'myth' or folklore. It seems that we like the idea of futile bravery and self-sacrifice. Plus the fact of 'winning' is so difficult to define (I think I wrote about that before, sometime). <br /><br />Who won the charge of the light brigade? Who won the battle of Balaklava? Who won the Crimean War? Possibly three different questions (or more) are encapsulated here.<br /><br />And similarly with the Somme: 'winning' was probably never an option. Did it mean that the French didn't cave in at Verdun? How exactly can we tell, anyway? History is not science; we cannot re-run the experiment to see if the same thing happens (which is probably just as well).<br />The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-62412163927207377802014-01-13T01:30:37.585-08:002014-01-13T01:30:37.585-08:00It is a little worrying, but interesting, to compa...It is a little worrying, but interesting, to compare the BBC Radio News with the TV version. Although the reports are often the same, the order and focus depends largely on what film is available. <br /><br />I guess it is the same for history. Only read English and you will get a certain focus, and miss other stuff out. Certainly you will struggle to see how other people not writing in English came to make their decisions.The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-147741904462157462014-01-13T01:28:16.641-08:002014-01-13T01:28:16.641-08:00Why bother? I think there are a few reasons. First...Why bother? I think there are a few reasons. Firstly, given that we have arrived at a given position, one question which presses is "how did we get here?" One of the issues is that different ages approach ancient texts with different questions. Victorian historiography of the Roman Empire is very different from our own.<br /><br />Therefore, secondly, possibly historians write about the past to understand the present. Not what we might call 'technical' history, in diving through archives, but in the syntheses which are created, and the arguments that are had. Whether Cromwell was a good or bad egg actually depends, in part, on our view of politics today. <br /><br />As for languages, consider writing a history of the thirty years war, and the sheer quantity of languages needed for that: Latin, more or less every current European language except Russian, and probably Turkish too. Probably in slightly archaic forms, as well.<br /><br />And for the Dame? Well, she seems to be very fond of Montrose, for no political, military or common sense reason I can think of. Maybe he was just dashing...The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-29097813396693297582014-01-12T15:19:32.083-08:002014-01-12T15:19:32.083-08:00Another, if less spectacular, example of that Chri...Another, if less spectacular, example of that Chris, is the German view of the Somme. See Christopher Duffy's "Through German Eyes".nundankethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12895608927860103442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-85036543487024395732014-01-12T12:15:16.554-08:002014-01-12T12:15:16.554-08:00I remember reading one book about the Crimea (and ...I remember reading one book about the Crimea (and I can't for the life of me remember which one) which pointed out that the Russian recollection of the Charge of the Light Brigade was that it was a blistering success which wrecked two Russian cavalry brigades and an artillery battery and that Russian cavalry shunned any encounter with the British cavalry for the rest of the war because of it. It's entered British folklore, of course, as a disaster. Perhaps we never asked for the Russian perspective?Chris Gricenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-54938655619758805232014-01-12T08:42:14.196-08:002014-01-12T08:42:14.196-08:00I think Mr Foy raises on a good point about, for e...I think Mr Foy raises on a good point about, for example, English-language sources. As a history under-grad I liked the idea of becoming an academic but felt my lack of language skils would limit my scope for research. How can you expect to get a rounded view if you can't read allied sources let alone opponents'?<br /><br />Even the BBC seems to be economical with the way it covers stories, or more particularly, doesn't cover them. I think I know far more about a former racing driver's accident on holiday than I do about dozens of people being blown up in Volgograd.nundankethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12895608927860103442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-64297383727321912992014-01-12T07:06:12.774-08:002014-01-12T07:06:12.774-08:00Dame Veronica - despite her personal orientation, ...Dame Veronica - despite her personal orientation, perhaps - also had a very strong liking for handsome men - check out the selected contemporary portraits in her 4-vol ECW history.<br /><br />It is possible in the writing of history to have a mixed approach - e.g. record only the heroics of our lot and only the atrocities of the other lot. This approach is what has limited my reading of English-language WW2 histories in the past.<br /><br />I am very impressed by the size of the task facing the historian - thinking further about this post, I see that the writer himself will have a suboptimal level of objectivity, which will affect his choices from, and interpretation of, the (subjective) primary sources and the (influenced) secondary sources, and his work will be judged by the readers in the light of fashion, current attitudes and their own lack of objectivity.<br /><br />It isn't going to work, is it? I'm glad they do, but why does anyone bother?MSFoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14470241067504971068noreply@blogger.com