A
military is an
organization authorized by its
nation to
use force,
usually including use of
weapons, in
defending its
country (or by attacking other
countries) by combating actual or
perceived
threats. As an
adjective the term
"military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a
military. Militaries often function as
societies within societies, by having their own
military communities,
economies,
education,
medicine and other aspects of a
functioning
civilian society.
The profession of
soldiering as part of a
military group is older than recorded history itself. Some of the
most enduring images of the
classical antiquity portray the power
and feats of its military
leaders. The
Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one
of the defining points of Pharaoh
Ramesses
II's reign and is celebrated in bas-relief on his monuments.
A thousand
years later the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress
the gods with his military might that
he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers
. The Romans were
dedicated to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings as well as a large number of
lavishly carved triumphal
arches
and columns.
In the
modern era, world wars and
countless other major conflicts have changed the employment of the
militaries beyond recognition to their ancient participants.
Empires have come and gone; states have grown and
declined.
Enormous social changes have been wrought, and military power
continues to dominate
international relations. The role of
the military today is as central to global societies as it ever
was.
Etymology and definitions
The first recorded use of
military in English,
spelled
militarie, was in 1585. It comes from the Latin
militaris (from Latin
miles meaning "soldier")
but is of uncertain etymology, one suggestion being derived from
*mil-it- - going in a body or mass The word is now
identified as denoting someone that is skilled in use of weapons,
or engaged in military service or in warfare.
As a noun
the military usually refers generally to
a country's armed forces or sometimes, more specifically, to the
senior officers who command them. In general it refers to the
physicality of armed forces, their personnel, equipment, and
physical area which they occupy.
As an adjective
military originally applied only
to soldiers and soldiering, but it soon broadened to apply to land
forces in general and anything to do with their profession.
The names
of both the Royal
Military Academy (1741) and United States
Military Academy
(1802) reflect this. However, at about the
time of
Napoleonic wars "military"
begun to be applied to armed forces as a whole and in the 21st
century expressions like "
military
service", "
military
intelligence" and "
military
history" reflect this broader meaning. As such, it now connotes
any activity performed by the military personnel.
History
The profession of
soldiering as part of a
military group is older than recorded history itself. Some of the
most enduring images of the
classical antiquity portray the power
and feats of its military
leaders. The
Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one
of the defining points of Pharaoh
Ramesses
II's reign and is celebrated in bas-relief on his monuments.
A thousand
years later the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress
the gods with his military might that
he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were
dedicated to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings as well as a large number of
lavishly carved triumphal
arches and columns.
Military history is often considered to be the history of all
conflicts, not just the history of the
state militaries. It differs somewhat from the
history of war with military history focusing
on the people and institutions of war-making while the history of
war focuses on the evolution of war itself in the face of changing
technology,
governments, and
geography.
Military history has a number of purposes. One main purpose is to
learn from past accomplishments and mistakes so as to more
effectively wage war in the future. Another is to create a sense of
military tradition which is used
to create
cohesive military
forces. Still another may be to learn to
prevent
wars more effectively. Human knowledge about the military is
largely based on
recorded and
oral history of
military
conflict, their participating
armies and
navies, and more recently
air forces.
There are two types of military history, although almost all texts
have elements of both:
descriptive history that
serves to chronicle conflicts without offering any statements about
the
causes,
nature of conduct, the
ending and
effects of a conflict; and
analytical history
that seeks to offer statements about the causes, nature, ending and
aftermath of conflicts as a means of deriving knowledge and
understanding of conflicts as a whole, and prevent repetition of
mistakes in future, to suggest better concepts or methods in
employing forces, or to advocate need new technology.
The Military
Every nation in the history of humanity had different needs for
military forces. How these needs are determined, forms the basis of
their composition, equipment and use of facilities. It also
determines what military does in terms of peacetime and wartime
activities.
All militaries, whether large or small, are
military organizations that must
perform certain functions and fulfil certain roles to qualify for
being designated as such. If they fail to do so, they may become
known as
paramilitary,
civil defence,
militia
or other which are not military. These commonalities of the state's
military define them.
Military command
The first requirement of the military is to establish it as a force
with a capability to execute
national defense policy. Invariably,
although the
policy may be created by
policy makers or
Policy analyst, its implementation requires
specific
expert knowledge of how military
functions and how it fulfils roles.
The first of these skills is the ability to create a cohesive force
capable of acting on policy as and when required, and therefore the
first function of the military is to provide
military command. One of the roles of
military command is to translate policy into concrete missions and
tasks, and to express them in terms understood by subordinates,
generally called orders.
Military command make effective and efficient
military organisation possible through
delegation of authority which encompass organisational structures
as large as
military districts or
military zones, and as small as
platoons.
The command element of the military is often a strong influence on
the organisational culture of the forces.
Military personnel
Another requirement is for the military command personnel, often
called the
officer corps, to command
subordinated
military personnel,
generally known as
soldiers,
sailors,
marine, or
airmen, capable of executing the many
specialised
operational missions
and
task required for the military
to execute the policy directives.
Unsurprisingly, just like in the
commercial enterprises where there
are, in a corporate setting, directors, managers and various staff
that carry out the business of the day as part of
business operations or undertake
business
project management,
military also has its
routines and projects.
During peacetime when military personnel are mostly employed in
garrisons or permanent
military facilities they mostly conduct
administrative tasks,
training and
education activities, and
technology
maintenance. Another role of military personnel is to ensure a
continuous replacement of departing servicemen and women through
military recruitment, and the
maintenance of a
military
reserve.
Military intelligence
Next requirement comes as a fairly basic need for the military to
identify the possible
threats it may
be called upon to face. For this purpose some of the command and
other military, and often civilian personnel participate in
identification of these threats, which is at once an organisation,
a system and a process collectively called
military intelligence (MI).
The difficulty in using military intelligence concepts and military
intelligence methods is in the nature of the
secrecy of the information they seek,
and the
clandestine nature
that intelligence operatives work in obtaining what may be plans
for a
conflict escalation,
initiation of combat or an
invasion.
An important part of the military intelligence role is the military
analysis performed to assess
military capability of potential future
aggressors, and provide combat modelling that helps to understand
factors on which comparison of forces can be made. This helps to
quantify and qualify such statements as "
China and
India maintain the largest armed forces in
the World" or that "the
U.S. Military is considered to be the world's
strongest".
Although some groups engaged in combat, such as militants or
resistance movements, refer to
themselves using military terminology, notably "Army" or "Front",
none have had the structure of a national military to justify the
reference, and usually have had to rely on support of outside
national militaries. They also use these terms to conceal from the
MI their true capabilities, and to impress potential ideological
recruits.
Military finance
Having military intelligence representatives participate in the
execution of the national defence policy is important because it
becomes the first respondent and commentator on the policy expected
strategic goal compared to
the realities of
identified threats.
When the intelligence reporting is compared to the policy, it
becomes possible for the national leadership to think about
allocating resources over an above the officers and their
subordinates military pay and the expense of maintaining military
facilities and military support services for them.
The process of allocating resources is conducted by determining a
military budget which is
administered by a military finance organisation within the
military. Military procurement is then authorised to purchase or
contract provision of goods and services to the military, whether
in peacetime at a permanent base or in a combat zone from local
population.
Capability development
Capability development, which is often referred to as the military
"strength", is arguably one of the most complex activities known to
humanity because it requires determining: Strategic, operational
and tactical capability requirements to counter the identified
threats; Strategic,
operational
and tactical doctrines by which the acquired capabilities will be
used; identifying concepts, methods and systems involved in
executing the doctrines; creating design specifications for the
manufacturers who would produce these in adequate quantity and
quality for their use in combat; purchase the concepts, methods and
systems; create a forces structure that would use the concepts,
methods and systems most effectively and efficiently; integrate
these concepts, methods and systems into the force structure by
providing
military education,
training, and
practice that preferably resembles combat
environment of intended use; create
military logistics systems to allow
continued and uninterrupted performance of
military organisations under combat
conditions, including provision of health services to the personnel
and maintenance for the equipment; the services to assist recovery
of wounded personnel and repair of damaged equipment; and finally
post-conflict
demobilisation and
disposal of war stocks surplus to peacetime requirements.
Development of
military doctrine
is perhaps the more important of all capability development
activities because it determines how military forces were, and are
used in conflicts, the concepts and methods used by the command to
employ appropriately military skilled,
armed
and
equipped personnel in
achievement of the tangible goals and objectives of the
war,
campaign,
battle, engagement, action or a
duel. The line between strategy and tactics is not
easily blurred, although deciding which is being discussed had
sometimes been a matter of personal judgement by some commentators,
and military historians. The use of forces at the level of
organisation between strategic and tactical is called
operational mobility.
Military science
Because most of the concepts and methods used by the military, and
many of its systems are not found in the commercial use, much of
materiel is researched, designed, developed and offered for
inclusion in arsenals by
military
science organisation within the overall structure of the
military. Military scientists are therefore found to interact with
all Arms and Services of the armed forces, and at all levels of the
military hierarchy of command.
Although concerned with research into
military psychology, and particularly
combat stress and how it affect troop
morale,
often the bulk of military science activities is directed at the
military intelligence technology,
military communications and
improving
military capability
through research, design, development and prototyping of
weapons, military support equipment, and
military technology in general that
includes everything from global communication networks and
aircraft carriers to paint and food.
Military logistics
Possessing military capability is not sufficient if this capability
can not be deployed for, and employed in combat operations. To
achieve this,
military logistics
are used for the
logistics
management and logistics planning of the forces
supply "tail", the
consumables and capital equipment of the troops.
Although mostly concerned with the
military transport as a means of delivery
using different modes of transport from military trucks to
container ships operating from permanent
military base, it also involves
creating field supply dumps in the rear of the
combat zone, and even forward supply points in
specific unit's
Tactical
Area of Responsibility.
These supply points are also used to provide military engineering
services such as the recovery of defective and derelict vehicles
and weapons, maintenance of weapons in the field, the repair and
field modification of weapons and equipment, and in peacetime the
life-extension programs undertaken to allow continued use of
equipment. One of the most important role of logistics is the
supply of
munitions as a primary type of
consumable, their storage and
disposal.
Military operations
While capability development is about
enabling the military to perform its
functions and roles in executing the defence policy, how personnel
and their equipment are used in
engaging the enemy, winning
battles, successfully concluding
campaigns, and eventually the
war, is the responsibility of military operations.
Military operations oversees the policy interpretation into
military plans, allocation of
capability to specific
strategic, operational and
tactical goals and objectives,
change in posture of the armed forces, the interaction of
Combat Arms, Combat Support Arms and Combat
Support Services during combat operations, defining of military
missions and
tasks during the conduct
of combat, management of military prisoners and military civil
affairs, and the
military
occupation of enemy territory, seizure of captured equipment,
and maintenance of civil order in the territory under its
responsibility. Throughout the
combat operations process, and
during the lulls in combat combat military intelligence provides
reporting on the status of plan completion and its correlation with
desired, expected and achieved satisfaction of policy
fulfilment.
Military performance assessment
The last requirement of the military is for military performance
assessment and learning from it. These two functions are performed
by
military historians and
military theorists who seek to identify
failures and success of the armed force and integrate corrections
into the military reform with the aim of producing an improved
force capable of performing adequately should there be a national
defence policy review.
Military in combat
The primary reason for the existence of the military is to engage
in
combat, should it be required to do so by
the national defense policy, and to win. This represents an
organizational goal of any military, and the primary focus for
military thought through
military
history.
The "show" of military force has been a term that referred as much
to military force projection, as to the units such as
regiments or
gunboats
deployed in a particular
theatre, or as an aggregate of such forces. In the
Gulf War the
United States Central Command
controlled
military forces (units) of each of the four
military services of the United States. How
victory is achieved, and what shape it assumes is
studied by most, if not all, military groups on three levels.
Strategic
victory
- Military strategy is the
management of forces in wars and military campaigns by a commander-in-chief employing large
military forces either national and
allied as a whole, or the component elements of armies, navies and air forces such as army
groups, fleets and large numbers of
aircraft. Military strategy is a long-term projection of
belligerents' policy with a broad view of outcome implications,
including outside the concerns of military command. Military
strategy is more concerned with the supply of
war and planning, then management of field forces and combat
between them. The scope of Strategic military planning can span
weeks, but is more often months or even years.
Operational victory
- Operational mobility is,
within warfare and military doctrine, the level of command
which coordinates the minute details of tactics with the overarching goals of
strategy. A common synonym is operational
art.
- The operational level is at a scale bigger than one where line
of sight and the time of day are important, and smaller than the
strategic level, where production and politics are considerations.
Formations are of the operational level if they are able to conduct
operations on their own, and are of sufficient size to be directly
handled or have a significant impact at the strategic level.
This
concept was pioneered by the German
army prior
to and during the Second World
War. At this level planning and duration of activities
takes from one week to a month, and are executed by Field Armies and Army
Corps and their naval and air equivalents.
Tactical
victory
- Military tactics concerns
itself with the methods for engaging and defeating an enemy in
direct combat. Military tactics are usually used by units over
hours or days, and are focused on the specific, close proximity
tasks and objectives of squads, companies, battalions, regiments,
brigades and division and their naval and air
equivalents.
One of the oldest military publications is
The Art of War by the
Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu. Written in the 6th century BCE, the
13-chapter book is intended as military instruction and not as
military theory, but has had a huge
influence on Asian military doctrine, and from the late 19th
century, on European and United States
military planning. It has even been used to
formulate business tactics, and can even be applied in social and
political areas .
The Classical Greeks and the Romans wrote prolifically on
military campaigning. Among the best-known
Roman works are
Julius Caesar's
commentaries on the
Gallic Wars and the
Roman Civil war - written about
50 BC.
Two major works on tactics come from the late Roman period:
Taktike Theoria by
Aelianus
Tacticus and
De Re
Militari ("On military matters") by
Vegetius.
Taktike
Theoria examined Greek military tactics, and was most
influential in the
Byzantine world and
during the
Golden Age of
Islam.
De Re Militari formed the basis of European military
tactics until the late 17th century. Perhaps its most enduring
maxim is
Igitur qui
desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum (let he who desires
peace prepare for war).
Due to the changing nature of combat with the introduction of
artillery in the European
Middle Ages, and infantry firearms in the
Renaissance, attempts were made to
define and identify those strategies,
grand tactics and tactics that would produce a
victory more often than that achieved by the Romans in praying to
the gods before the battle.
Later this became known as
Military
Science, and later still would adopt the
scientific method approach to the conduct
of military operations under the influence of the
Industrial Revolution thinking. In his
seminal book
On War the
Prussian Major-General
and leading
expert on modern
military strategy Carl von Clausewitz defined military
strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war."
According to Clausewitz strategy forms the plan of the War, and to
this end it links together the series of acts which are to lead to
the final decision, that is to say, it makes the plans for the
separate campaigns and regulates the combats to be fought in each.
Hence, Clausewitz placed political aims above
military goals, ensuring
civilian control of the
military. Military strategy was one of a triumvirate of
"arts" or "sciences"
that governed the conduct of warfare, the others being:
military tactics, the execution of plans
and
manœuvering of forces in
battle, and
maintenance of an
army.
The meaning of military tactics has changed over time from the
deployment and manoeuvreing of entire land armies on the fields of
ancient battles, and galley fleets, to modern use of small unit
ambushes,
encirclements, bomb and bombardment attacks,
frontal assaults,
air assaults,
hit-and-run tactics used mainly by
guerilla forces and, in some cases,
suicide attacks on land and at sea.
Evolution of aerial warfare introduced its own
air combat tactics. Often,
military deception, in the form of
military camouflage or
misdirection using
decoys, is used to confuse
the enemy as a tactic.
A major development in
infantry
tactics came with the increased use of
trench warfare in the 19th and 20th century.
This was mainly employed in
World War I
in the
Gallipoli campaign and
the
Western Front.
Trench warfare often turned to a stalemate, only broken by a large
loss of life, because in order to attack an enemy entrenchment
soldiers had to run through an exposed "
no
man's land" under heavy fire from an entrenched enemy.
Military technology
As with any occupation, since the ancient times the military has
been distinguished from other members of the society by their
tools, the military weapons and
military equipment used in combat. When
Stone Age humans first took a sliver of
flint to tip the
spear, it was the first
example of
applying technology to
improve the weapon.
Since then, the advances made by human societies and that of
weapons has been irretrievably linked. Stone weapons gave way to
Bronze Age weapons, and later the
Iron Age weapons. With each technological
change was realised some tangible increase in military capability,
such as through greater effectiveness of a sharper edge in
defeating
leather armour, or
improved density of materials used in
manufacture of weapons.
On
land the first really significant
technological advance in warfare was the development of the
ranged weapons and notably the
sling. The next significant advance
came with the domestication of the
horses and
mastering of
horse riding.
Arguably the greatest invention that affected not just the
military, but all society, after adoption of fire, was the
wheel, and its use in the construction of the
chariot.
There were no advances in military technology
until, from the mechanical arm action of a slinger, the Greeks,
Egyptians, Romans, Persians
, Chinese, etc development the siege engines. The
bow was manufactured in increasingly larger and
more powerful versions to increase both the weapon range and armour
penetration performance. These developed into the powerful
composite and/or recurve bows, and crossbows of
Ancient China. These proved particularly
useful during the rise of cavalry, encased in ever-more
sophisticated
armour, dominating the
battlefield.
Somewhat earlier in medieval China,
gunpowder had been invented, and was increasingly
used by the military in combat. The use of gunpowder in the early
vase-like mortars in Europe, and
advanced versions of the
long bow and
cross bow, which all had armour-piercing
arrowheads, that put an end to the
dominance of the armoured knight. After the long bow, which
required great skill and strength to use, the next most significant
technological advance was the
musket, which
could be used effectively with little training. In time the
successors to muskets and
cannon, in the form
of
rifles and
artillery, would become core battlefield
technology.
As the speed of technological advances accelerated in civilian
applications, so too warfare became more
industralised. The newly-invented
machine gun and
repeating rifle redefined
fire power on the battlefield and, in part,
explains the high casualty rates of the
American Civil War. The next breakthrough
was the conversion of artillery parks from the
muzzle loading gun to the
breech loading gun, and in particular
the highly-mobile, recoilless, field-gun, the French
Soixante-Quinze, in the
late 1800s.
The development of breech loading had the greatest effect on
naval warfare, for the first time
since the Middle Ages altering the way weapons are mounted on
warships, and therefore
naval tactics, now divorced from the reliance
on
sails with the invention of the
internal combustion. A further
advance in military naval technology was the design of the
submarine and its weapon, the
torpedo.
During
World War I the need to break the
deadlock of the trenches saw the rapid development of many new
technologies, particularly the
tanks and
military aviation. Military
aviation was extensively used, and particularly the
bombers during the
World War
II, which marked the most frantic period of weapons development
in history. Many new designs and concepts were used in combat, and
all existing technologies were improved between 1939 and
1945.
During the war significant advances were made in
military communications through use
of radio, military intelligence through use of the
radar, and in
military
medicine through use of
penicillin,
while in the air the
missile,
jet aircraft and
helicopters were seen for the first time. Perhaps
the most infamous of all military technologies was the creation of
the
atomic bomb, although the effects of
radiation were unknown until the early
1950s. Far greater use of
military
vehicles had finally eliminated the cavalry from the military
force structure.
After World War II, with the onset of the
Cold
War, the constant technological development of new weapons was
institutionalized as participants engaged in a constant
arms race in capability development. This constant
state of weapons development continues into the present, and
remains a constant drain on national resources, which some blame on
the
military-industrial
complex.
The most significant technological developments that influenced
combat have been the guided missiles which are used by all
Services. More recently, information technology, and its use in
surveillance, including space-based reconnaissance systems, have
played an increasing role in military operations.
The impact of
information
warfare that focuses on attacking command communication
systems, and military databases has been coupled with the new
development in military technology has been the use of robotic
systems in intelligence combat, both in hardware and software
applications.
The
MIRV ICBM and the Tsar Bomb
are considered the most destructive weapons
invented.
Military and society
For much of military history the armed forces were considered to be
for use by the heads of their societies, until recently, the
crowned heads of states. In a democracy or other political system
run in the public interest, it is a
public
force.
The relationship between the military and the
society it serves is a complicated and ever-evolving
one. Much depends on the nature of the society itself and whether
it sees the military as important, as for example in time of threat
or war, or a burdensome expense typified by defence cuts in time of
peace.
These relationships are seen from the perspective of
political-military relations, the military-industrial complex
mentioned above, and the socio-military relationship. The last can
be divided between those segments of society that offer
support for the military, those who voice
opposition to the military, the
voluntary and involuntary civilians in the military forces, the
populations of civilians in a combat zone, and of course the
military's self-perception.
Militaries often function as
societies
within societies, by having their own military communities,
economies,
education,
medicine and other aspects of a
functioning
civilian society. Although
a "military" is not limited to nations in of itself as many
private military
companies (or PMC's) can be used or "hired" by organisations
and figures as security, escort, or other means of protection where
police, agencies, or militaries are absent or not trusted.
Ideology and ethics
Militarist ideology is the
society's
social attitude of being best
served, or being a beneficiary of a
government, or guided by concepts embodied in the
military
culture, doctrine, system, or
leaders.
Either because of the
cultural
memory, national history, or the potentiality of a
military threat, the militarist argument
asserts that a
civilian population is
dependent upon, and thereby subservient to the needs and goals of
its military for continued
independence. Militarism is sometimes
contrasted with the concepts of
comprehensive national power,
soft power and
hard
power.
Most nations have separate
military
laws which regulate conduct in war and during peacetime. An
early exponent was
Hugo Grotius, whose
Rights of War and Peace (1625) had a major impact of the
humanitarian approach to warfare development. His theme was echoed
by
Gustavus Adolphus.
Ethics of warfare have developed since 1945 to create constraints
on the military treatment of prisoners and civilians primarily by
the
Geneva Conventions, but
rarely apply to use of the military forces as internal security
troops during times of political conflict that results in popular
protests and incitement to
popular
uprising.
International protocols restrict the use, or have even created
international bans on weapons, notably
weapons of mass destruction.
International conventions
define what constitutes a
war crime and
provides for war crimes prosecution. Individual countries also have
elaborate codes of
military
justice, an example being the United States'
Uniform Code of Military
Justice that can lead to
court
martial for military personnel found guilty of war
crimes.
Military actions are sometimes argued to be justified by furthering
a humanitarian cause such as
disaster
relief operations or in defence of refugees. The term
military humanism is used to refer to such
actions.
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is the
society's
social attitude opposed to war between
states, and in particular countering arguments based on
militarism. Following
Hegel's exploration of the
relationship between
history and
violence, antimilistarists argue that there are different types
of violence, some of which can be said to be legitimate others
non-legitimate.
Anarcho-syndicalist Georges Sorel advocated the use of violence as
a form of
direct action, calling it
"revolutionary violence", which he
opposed in
Reflections on Violence (1908) to the violence
inherent in
class struggle. Sorel
thus followed the
International
Workingmen's Association theorization of
propaganda of the deed.
War, as violence, can be distinguished into war between states, and
civil war, in which case class struggle
is, according to antimilitarists theorists, a
primordial component. Hence,
Marx's influence on antimilitarist doctrine was not
surprising, although making Marx accountable for the antimilitarist
tradition is a large overstatement. The belief in the eternal
antimilitarist spirit, present in all places and time, is however a
myth because the modern military as an institution is a historic
achievement formed during the 18th and 19th centuries, as a
by-product of the modern nation-states.
Napoleon's invention of
conscription is a fundamental
progress in the organization of state armies.
Later,
Prussian
militarism
would be
exposed by 19th century social
theorists.
Stereotypes of the military
A
military brat is a
colloquial term for a child with at least
one parent who served as a
regular in
the armed forces. Children of armed forces members may move around
to different military bases or international postings, which gives
them an unusual childhood. Unlike common usage of the term
brat, when it is used in this context, it is not
necessarily a derogatory term.
Military in the media
Soldiers and armies have been prominent in
popular culture since the beginnings of
recorded
history. In addition to the
countless images of military leaders in heroic poses from
antiquity, they have been an enduring
source of
inspiration in war literature.
Not all of this has been entirely complementary and the military
have been lampooned or ridiculed as often as they have been
idolized. The classical Greek writer
Aristophanes, devoted an entire
comedy, the
Lysistrata, to a
strike
organised by military wives where they withhold
sex from their
husbands to
prevent them from going to war.
In
Medieval Europe, tales of
knighthood and
chivalry, the officer class of the period, captured
the
popular imagination. Writers
and poets like
Taliesin,
Chrétien de Troyes and
Thomas Mallory wrote tales of derring-do
featuring
Arthur,
Guinevere,
Lancelot and
Galahad. Even in the 21st century,
books and
films about the
Arthurian legend and the
Holy Grail continuing to appear.
A century or so later, in the hands of
writers such as
Jean
Froissart,
Miguel Cervantes and
William Shakespeare, the
fictional knight
Tirant lo Blanch
and the real-life
condottieri John Hawkwood would be juxtaposed against the
fantastical
Don Quixote and the
carousing
Sir John Falstaff. In
just one play,
Henry V,
Shakespeare provides a whole range of military
characters, from cool-headed and clear-sighted
generals, to
captain,
and common soldiery.
Image:Statue-Augustus.jpg|Emperor Augustus Caesar in a martial pose
(1st century)Image:La Fuite de Pompée.jpg|The Flight of Pompey
after Pharsalus, by Jean
FouquetImage:Richard II meets rebels.jpg|Medieval view: Richard
II of England meets rebelsImage:Firenze.Duomo.Hawkwood.JPG|Sir
John Hawkwood (fresco in the Duomo
, Florence)Image:Eduard von Grützner Falstaff
mit Handschuhen.jpg|Shakespeare's Sir John
Falstaff by Eduard von
GrütznerImage:Prince Rupert - 1st English Civil War.jpg|"The
Cruel Practices of Prince Rupert"
(1643)
The rapid growth of
movable type in the
late 16th and early 17th centuries saw an upsurge in private
publication. Political
pamphlets became
popular, often lampooning military leaders for political purposes.
A pamphlet directed against
Prince Rupert of the Rhine is a
typical example. During the 19th century, irreverence towards
authority was at its height and for every elegant military
gentleman painted by the master-
portraitists of the European courts for example,
Gainsborough,
Goya and
Reynolds, there are the sometimes
affectionate and sometimes savage
caricatures of
Rowland and
Hogarth.
This
continued in the 20th century, with publications like Punch in the British Empire and Le Père Duchesne in France
, poking fun
at the military
establishment. This extended to media other print also.
An enduring example is the
Major-General's Song from the
Gilbert and Sullivan light
opera,
Pirates of
Penzance, where a senior army officer is
satirised for his enormous fund of irrelevant
knowledge.
Image:Sir Joshua Reynolds 008.jpg|Colonel John Hayes St.
Leger (detail) by Sir Joshua
ReynoldsImage:Thomas Rowlandson (12).jpg|Rowlandson often satirised the
militaryImage:Pirates of Penzance (A.S. Seer, 1880).jpg|"A modern
major general" (Pirates of
Penzance)Image:Wh russell cartoon.png| Punch: war
reporter, W H Russell,
Crimean WarImage:Red Army recruitment
poster.png|Red Army recruiting poster
(1920)
The increasing importance of
cinema
in the early 20th century provided a new platform for depictions of
military subjects. During the
First
World War, although heavily
censored,
newsreels enabled those at home to see for
themselves a heavily-sanitized version of life at the front line.
About the same time, both
pro-war and
anti-war films came to the
silver screen. One of the first films on
military aviation,
Hell's Angels broke all box office
records on its
release in 1929. Soon,
war films of all types were
showing throughout the world, notably those of
Charlie Chaplin who actively promoted
war bonds and voluntary enlistment.
The First World War was also responsible for a new kind of military
depiction, through
poetry. Hitherto, poetry
had been used mostly to glorify or sanctify war.
The Charge of the Light
Brigade by
Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, with its
galloping hoofbeat rhythm, is a prime late
Victorian example of this,
though
Rudyard Kipling had written a
scathing reply,
The Last
of the Light Brigade, criticising the
poverty in which many Light Brigade
veterans found themselves in
old
age. Instead, the new wave of poetry, from the
war poets, was written from the point of view of
the disenchanted
trench soldier.
Leading war poets included:
Siegfried
Sassoon,
Wilfred Owen,
John McCrae,
Rupert
Brooke,
Isaac Rosenberg and
David Jones. A similar
movement occurred in literature, producing
a slew of
novels on both sides of the Atlantic
including notably
All
Quiet on the Western Front and
Johnny Got His Gun. The
1963 English
stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! provided
a satirical take on World War I, which was released in a
cinematic version directed by
Richard Attenborough in 1969.
The
propaganda war that accompanied
World War II invariably depicted the
enemy in unflattering terms.
Both the Soviet Union
and Nazi Germany
excelled in producing heroic images, placing their soldiers in a
semi-mythical context. Examples of this exist not only in
posters but also in the films of
Leni
Riefenstahl and
Sergei
Eisenstein.
Alongside
this, World War II also inspired films as varied as Bridge on
the River Kwai
, The
Longest Day, Catch-22,
Saving Private Ryan,
and The Sea Shall Not
Have Them. The next major event, the
Korean War inspired a long-running television
series
M*A*S*H. With the
Vietnam War, the tide of balance turned and its
films, notably
Apocalypse
Now,
Good Morning
Vietnam,
Go Tell the
Spartans,
Born on the Fourth of
July, and
We Were
Soldiers, have tended to contain critical messages.
There's even a
nursery rhyme about
war, the
Grand Old Duke of
York, ridiculing a general for his inability to command any
further than marching his men up and down a hill. The huge number
of songs focusing on war include
And The Band Played
Waltzing Matilda and
Universal
Soldier.
Militaria
Militaria are another way of depicting the military. Militaria are
antique artifact or
replicas of military history people, firearms,
swords, badges, etc collected for their historical significance.
Today, the collecting of militaria items such as
toy soldiers,
tin
soldiers,
military models is an
established hobby among many groups of people.
See also
References and notes
Sources
- Dupuy, T.N. (Col. ret.), Understanding war: History and
Theory of combat, Leo Cooper, London, 1992
- Tucker, T.G., Etymological dictionary of Latin, Ares
publishers Inc., Chicago, 1985,www.youmilitary.com,
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