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Item The Roussillon Campaign Of 1793-94: Spain’s Lost Opportunity(Age of Revolutions, 2024-05-13) Hamel, MichaelThis paper offers a reassessment of the military leadership and strategic decision-making of Spanish General Antonio Ricardos during the Roussillon Campaign of the War of the First Coalition in 1793. Drawing upon previously underutilized Spanish and archival sources, this study challenges the prevailing narratives that characterize Ricardos as excessively cautious and indecisive. Instead, it argues that Ricardos demonstrated disciplined initiative and tactical acumen in the face of significant logistical constraints and numerical disadvantages against the French Revolutionary armies. Through a detailed, battle-by-battle analysis of the campaign, this paper highlights Ricardos' ability to secure strategic positions, maintain offensive momentum, and achieve victories despite chronic shortages of artillery, supplies, and manpower. It situates these challenges within the broader context of the transformative nature of warfare during this period and the unique difficulties posed by the French levée en masse. By providing a more nuanced and comprehensive account of Ricardos' generalship, this study contributes to a reevaluation of Spanish military performance during the early stages of the French Revolutionary Wars. It challenges stereotypes of Spanish military ineffectiveness and sheds new light on the operational intricacies and leadership dynamics of a pivotal yet often overlooked campaign. In doing so, this paper enriches our understanding of the complex military, logistical, and strategic factors that shaped the conduct and outcome of the War of the First Coalition.Item “I Hope to Have Justice Done Me or I Can’t Get Along Here”: James Webster Smith and West Point(The Journal of Military History, 2023-10) McGovern, Rory; Campbell, Makonen; Koebrich, LouisaJames W. Smith’s experience as West Point’s first Black cadet is a microcosm of Reconstruction and the struggle to integrate West Point. It began with the best of intentions, but ultimately failed due to a destructive combination of racist antipathy and the apathy of those who could have intervened on his behalf. His extraordinary persistence and perseverance changed the environment at the Academy, forcing the West Point community to shift from active to passive resistance. Although he did not reap the rewards himself, Smith made graduation possible, if still not probable, for those African American cadets who followed.Item National Policy and Military Strategy: The Korean War Case, July 1951 - December 1952(N/A, 2023) Gibby, Bryan R.Unlike previous major conflicts, American policy and strategy during the Korean War was tested by ambiguous war aims and constrained to a great degree by America’s allies who joined a United Nations coalition—the United Nations Command (UNC)—and who desperately wanted to avoid a wider war. President Harry Truman's effort to shape public opinion was a difficult balancing act to restrain the urge to escalate when circumstances appeared to limit American prospects for military victory. His explicit desire to limit the conflict ensured that nearly every military decision would have a diplomatic or political component, a policy which produced significant strategic limitations on his theater commanders, especially during the negotiations phase of the conflict.Item James Monroe and American Military Policy: A Lifetime of Connection and Growing Advocacy for a Standing Army(The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 2020) Watson, Samuel J.A year after the “Revolution of 1800,” when Republicans won the presidency from the centralizing Federalists, James Monroe affirmed republican antagonism toward standing armies, while recognizing the imperative of national defense. Indeed, he appeared to consider military service an almost compulsory duty: “Freemen should never rely on others for the protection of an interest, for which they are personally responsible, and from which they have no right to shrink. . . .Item Echoes of the Shoah: the 1951 Resettlement of Budapest’s Jews(Interamericana, Volume 12, 2017) Frey, David S.This collection puts the topic of Jewish Studies and Holocaust Studies in a new American Studies perspective. This perspective compares the similarities and differences in responses and their transatlantic interaction. As the Holocaust grew into an important factor in American culture, it also became a subject of American Studies, both as a window on American trends and as a topic to which outsiders responded. When Americans responded to information on the early signs of the Holocaust, they were dependent on European official and informal sources. Some were confirmed, others were contradicted; some were ignored, others provoked a response. This book follows the chronology of this transatlantic exchange, including the alleged abandonment of the Jews in Europe and the post-war attention to the Holocaust victims. This collection puts the topic of Jewish Studies and Holocaust studies in a new American studies perspective. This perspective compares the similarities and differences in responses and their transatlantic interaction.Item Competitor or Compatriot? Hungarian Film in the Shadow of the Swastika, 1933–44(Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2011) Frey, David S.Writing to Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels in late 1933, Hungary’s Interior Minister József Széll detailed an understanding he believed Hungarian and German political elites shared. Both groups agreed that they must fashion their film industries from a ‘national point of view’ and eliminate the artifice of cosmopolitan ‘internationalism’. ‘Film must suit each Volk’, preached the Interior Minister, ‘and each Volk’s film must assume a characteristic place in the market’. As a minor, linguistically isolated European power of less than 9 million inhabitants, however, Hungary faced a dilemma: it had neither the resources nor the internal market to sustain the ‘national’ niche industry it desired. ‘Profit’, Széll admitted, ‘was impossible on production of Hungarian version films for Hungary only.’ The solution, suggested Széll, was access to the German movie market. The Interior Minister assured his German counterpart that his nation’s films would not compete directly with German films since they would be ‘Hungarian’ products, culturally and perhaps racially distinct from those made by Germans. These features, naturally, would attract new audiences, and all sides would benefit from greater trade and mutual cultural understanding.Item Mata Hari or the Body of the Nation? Interpretations of Katalin Karády(Hungarian Studies Review, 2014) Frey, David S.Fame has a strange way of making individuals more opaque. Audiences assume they know the stars whose faces they see and whose personal lives they follow in popular media. However, the process of creating public personas can significantly alter the individual. Stars both make themselves and are made through media, sometimes in a symbiotic manner, other times in an adversarial one. Such is the case with the Hungarian songstress and actress Katalin Karády. This analysis of the characterizations of Karády, which emerges from a myriad of disjointed descriptions and biographic confusion about the actress, is case in point. There is much we do not know, and thus much legend, surrounding the woman who dominated the Hungarian box office and whose voice reigned over popular music during the Second World War. It is precisely this contradiction — this dominant public personality with multiple semi-private and private personas — that make Karády a superb subject for a brief study of symbolism, nation and gender in the context of a changing Hungary.Item The Korean War: A More Interesting Case of Civil-Military Relations(N/A, 2023-10-12) Gibby, Bryan R.The clash between the President of the United States (Harry S. Truman) and his theater commander (General Douglas MacArthur) during the Korean War is well known. What is not as well known, is the conflict between President Truman and MacArthur's two successors, General Matthew Ridgway and General Mark Clark. Both officers still had a "MacArthur problem," in that they did not agree with the president's policy as a way to direct the war in Korea. Each officer dealt with this tension in his own way to eventually "thread the needle" to achieve American objectives in Korea while avoiding a crippling crisis in civil-military relations. This essay explores these challenges and how they affected air and ground operations during the latter half of the conflict.Item Transformation Under Fire: A Historical Case Study with Modern Parallels(United States Army War College Press, 2007) Kimball, Raymond A.The ideas of military transformation have been percolating within the U.S. military for more than a decade. Proponents of both “net-centric” and “fourth-generation” warfare have been arguing for specific force constructs to meet what they perceive to be the unique demands of a new type of war. The heavy demands of current operations add to the pressure to bring some kind of closure to this debate. In this Letort Paper, Major Raymond Kimball, a veteran of both peacekeeping operations and high-intensity warfare, examines the case of the Red Army, which attempted similar military transformation under fire during the Russian Civil War. He argues that many of what were intended to be temporary fixes became permanent and defining institutions of the force, and a myopic fixation on one type of enemy had disastrous results when fighting a very different foe. He cautions against similar errors perhaps pending in our own transformational processes.Item The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 2: Surge and Withdrawal, 2007-2011(United States Army War College Press, 2023) Rayburn, Joel D.; Sobchak, Frank K.; Godfroy, Jeanne; Morton, Matthew D.; Powell, James; Zais, Matthew M.The Iraq War has been the costliest U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War. To date, few official studies have been conducted to review what happened, why it happened, and what lessons should be drawn. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army's initial operational level analysis of this conflict, written in narrative format, with assessments and lessons embedded throughout the work. This study reviews the conflict from a Land-power perspective and includes the contributions of coalition allies, the U.S. Marine Corps, and special operations forces. Presented principally from the point of view of the commanders in Baghdad, the narrative examines the interaction of the operational and strategic levels, as well as the creation of theater level strategy and its implementation at the tactical level. Volume 1 begins in the truce tent at Safwan Airfield in southern Iraq at the end of Operation DESERT STORM and briefly examines actions by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the interwar years. The narrative continues by examining the road to war, the initially successful invasion, and the rise of Iraqi insurgent groups before exploring the country's slide toward civil war. This volume concludes with a review of the decision by the George W. Bush administration to “surge” additional forces to Iraq, and reviews the conduct of the “surge” and its aftermath. This study was constructed over a span of 4 years and relied on nearly 30,000 pages of handpicked declassified documents, hundreds of hours of original interviews, and thousands of hours of previously unavailable interviews. Original interviews conducted by the team included President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every theater commander for the war, among many others. With its release, this publication, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, represents the U.S. Government's longest and most detailed study of the Iraq conflict thus far.Item THE U.S. ARMY IN THE IRAQ WAR: VOLUME 1- INVASION, INSURGENCY, CIVIL WAR 2003-2006(United States Army War College Press, 2019) Godfroy, Jeanne; Zais, Matthew M.; Rayburn, Joel D.; Sobchak, Frank K.; Powell, James; Morton, Matthew D.In July 2013, 18 months after the last of our operating forces departed Iraq, I directed that the U.S. Army take steps to capture key lessons, insights, and innovations from our more than 8 years of conflict in that country. As the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, I strongly believed that having been at war continuously since the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), it was time to conduct an initial examination of the Army’s experiences in the post-9/11 wars, to determine their implications for our future operations, strategy, doctrine, force structure, and institutions. The two-volume study, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War by the Chief of Staff of the Army’s Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) Study Group is the first product of that effort...Item OCTOBER 1973: RISE OF A KINGDOM OR EMPIRE?(USMA, 2018) Bin Saud, SaudLocated in Western Asia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a country with a deep rooted cultural background and a tremendous appreciation for individual and communal privacy. Little is really understood about the intrinsic kingdom. It was only until the end of the twentieth century that the Saudi kingdom gained the perception as a dominant power in the Arab world and one of the few Arab countries that the average American is likely to be aware of, as Saudi Arabia was involved in multiple interstate conflicts and incidences throughout its short history. In October 1973, Saudi Arabia placed an oil embargo on countries that were deemed as supporters of Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The lack of historical or academic focus by Middle East historians on the incident may imply a belief that the incident was insignificant. This, however is far from the truth. The 1973 Oil embargo changed the perceptions of the United States Government on the capabilities and willingness of Saudi Arabia to achieve its political and economic interest as a sovereign state. The 1973 Oil Embargo changed the United States Government’s perceptions of the Saudi monarchy from viewing it as an economically dependent country that could only guarantee a steady supply of cheap oil for the United States, to be perceived as a sovereign state that was willing to enforce its own economic and regional interest. The focus of this paper is on the bilateral relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Other Arab states and Israel are not primary factors in this relationship during the events of the oil embargo, hence the focus on the Saudi-American relationship. This essay will analyze the Saudi-American relationship chronologically. To better understand the impact of the oil embargo on how it changed the perceptions of US policy makers towards Saudi Arabia. American perceptions of Saudi Arabia before the embargo will be first be outlined. The focus will be in the period after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the transition from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration to the Nixon administration in 1969. The perceptions and changes in perceptions of Saudi Arabia by US policy makers will then be described during the oil embargo from October 1973 to March 1974. Finally, the impact of the oil embargo and the changes of perceptions that resulted from it will then be described. The time period will be from the end of the embargo until 1979, before the second oil crisis.Item How Nationalist China Attempted to Modernize its Military Food System During and After World War II(USMA, 2022) Walker, JohnIn 1949, the United States Government published the China White Paper as justification for withholding military aid to the Chinese Nationalist Government (KMT) during the Chinese Civil War, which many blamed as the cause of the KMT’s loss to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the China White Paper, the claim was made that “in no small measure, the predicament in which the National Government finds itself today is due to its failure to provide China with enough to eat.” Six years prior to the American government making this conclusion in 1943, the KMT sent one of its leading public health official’s, Tsai Chiao, to visit America and describe some of China’s nutritional challenges to American scholarly audiences at the request of the Norman Wait Harris Memorial Foundation of the University of Chicago.Item Fire and Maneuver: The 2nd Infantry Division’s Assault on Korea’s “Punchbowl”(USMA, 2018) Gibby, Bryan R.“Fire without movement is indecisive. Exposed movement without fire is disastrous. There must be effective fire combined with skillful movement.”1 In war there may not be authoritative rules to follow, but there are nuggets of wisdom, and the lead sentences of this chapter comprise one of them—commanders disregard the synergy between fire and combined-arms maneuver at their (and their Soldiers’) peril.Item Failure in 1813: The Decline of French Light Infantry and its effect on Napoleon's German Campaign(USMA, 2018) Doll, GustaveAfter Napoleon Bonaparte’s failed Russian campaign in 1812, the Grande Armée had already begun to reform in France. Napoleon, having already returned to Paris prior to the conclusion of the Russian campaign, initiated the rebirth of his once illustrious Grande Armée by ravaging French Corps in Spain, local militia units in the French suburbs, and by reallocating the survivors trickling in from Russia. Unfortunately, in his haste to amass line infantry regiments, as well as enlarge the artillery units, Napoleon allowed his infantrie-legere, or light infantry, to be stripped of men and supplies. Light infantry officers and men were dispersed to several newly formed heavy and line infantry units in order to bolster the French Army’s infantry backbone...Item English Armor and Its Relation to Tactics: 1415-1515(USMA, 2018) Johnson, Vaughn Weldon,Nations do not conduct warfare in the same manner as all other nations that they may go to war against or with. A nation may share general characteristics of warfare with other nations, but every nation is made up of different components. Some nations will have more of a particular type of resource, others will specialize in a particular kind of warfare, and the culture of the people may drive them towards a particular style of warfare. Another way nations differ from each other is their relationship between their technology and tactics in battle. This paper will focus on what the relationship was between England's armor technology and battlefield tactics from 1415 to 1515.Item Unforgiven: Russian intelligence vengeance as political theater and strategic messaging(Intelligence and National Security, 2019) Gioe, David V.; Goodman, Michael S.; Frey, David S.The poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer and MI6 agent Sergei Skripal highlights the enduring Russian ardor for poisoning enemies of the state as a warning to others who contemplate disloyalty. Beyond treating the event itself, we explore Russian conceptions of theatrical murder as a peculiar element of state power. We historicize this development and inquire whether assassination as political theater and strategic messaging is a tool embraced in particular by Vladimir Putin or rather emblematic of the Russian state. We explore why and how Putin opted to strike at the moment he did to seek vengeance against Skripal, concluding that a confluence of structural and human factors at the intersection of British government policies with Russian domestic politics led Putin to his decision. We conclude with the implications of these findings for western governments.Item Reappraising Zhang Zhidong: Forgotten Continuities During China’s Self-Strengthening, 1884-1901(Journal of Chinese Military History, 2017) Chang, AdamThe recent historiography of China’s late nineteenth-century Self-Strengthening movement emphasizes the successes in Chinese state building. My research expands upon this trend through the perspective of the prominent governor-general Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837-1909) and his military reforms. From 1884 to 1901, Zhang consistently pursued the creation of new military academies and western-style armies with the aim of providing an army capable of defending China. At the turn of the century, Zhang’s military apparatus was arguably one of the best in China. However, his role as a military pioneer of this era was often obscured by the wider narratives of Chinese reforms or subsumed under the reforms of more notorious officials such as Li Hongzhang or Yuan Shikai. Ultimately, the study of Zhang Zhidong’s reforms reveals an often-missed continuity in successful military reform starting in the 1880s and contributes to the developing historical narratives of successful late Qing state building.Item A Smashing Success? The Paradox of Hungarian Cultural Imperialism in Nazi New Order Europe, 1939–42(Journal of Contemporary History, 2016) Frey, David S.This article investigates the flooding of the Yugoslav film market by Hungarian features between 1939 and 1941, the impact of which continued well into 1942. This torrent and the simultaneous expansion of Hungary’s domestic market substantially influenced not only the Hungarian film industry, but surprisingly the cultural politics of southeastern Europe during the early imposition of the Nazi New Order. Viewing Hungarian cinematic success through the lens and rhetoric of cultural imperialism, the article examines the centrality of Jewish participation in and expulsion from Hungarian cultural production, Hungary’s perception of its role in southeastern Europe, and Nazi Germany’s understanding of Hungarian film as an existential threat to its European New Order. By ‘Europeanizing’ Hungary’s venture in Yugoslavia, the article opens new avenues of thought about the space afforded to small states in Nazi-dominated Europe. It explains how Hungary’s achievements in Yugoslavia reinvigorated a faltering industry and allowed Hungary’s film establishment the fantasy of perceiving itself, and being perceived by others, as possessing imperial prestige and power. It reveals the malleability of national identities, describing how these identities transformed when crossing borders. Finally, it demonstrates the importance of cultural politics in Nazi thinking, and that force and coercion were central to the New Order at an earlier stage than previously acknowledged.