Report: West Point Undergraduate Historical Review, Volume 012 (Spring 2022)
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Item West Point Undergraduate Historical Review, Volume 12 (Spring 2022)(West Point Press, 2022) Editing TeamReport is a non-profit publication produced by undergraduate cadets at the United States Military Academy. It accepts and encourages submissions from undergraduates in the fall and spring. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.Item Front Matter(West Point Press, 2022) Editing TeamThe Editorial Board would like to thank the faculty of the History Department for their submission recommendations, all the students who submitted papers, and Major Tom McShea for his advice and guidance on historical scholarship. Without their help, Report would not have been possible.Item An Interview with Dr. Holly Mayer: 2021 Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History(West Point Press, 2022) Hogan, WilliamDr. Mayer, what has your career as a professor looked like and where has it taken you? “My career as a professor began when I was on active duty and mulling over options for the short, medium, and long terms. I decided to shift to the Army Reserve and enter the history Ph.D. program at the College of William and Mary, which would allow me to combine a never-ending interest in history, a desire to research and write, and a calling to teach. Reserve duty also worked well with grad school and an academic career, especially when I was able to use my research and teaching skills in military assignments. What I learned over the years certainly informed what I could and did do at the USMA this past year as the visiting Ewing Chair of Military History.”Item Gender Roles on the American Frontiers(West Point Press, 2022) Rouabhia, Ramsey"The American frontiers during the nineteenth century have been a great source of contention in historical communities for decades. The time period’s rapidly changing gender roles and perceptions have been hotly debated for much of the latter half of the twentieth century through today. With the rise of discussion of gender in historical debate, eyes are shifting to the gendered dynamics of the frontier on the American West to try to explain the development of gender roles. Much attention has been granted to women’s history on the western frontier, where the general consensus is that women largely transported traditional, eastern gender norms and roles with their movement to the West..."Item The Unified Exception: The Success of Post-War Ethnic Integration in Bosnia’s Brčko District(West Point Press, 2022) Grujic, Mark"The modern state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is best known for the horrific events that transpired as Yugoslavia descended into chaos in the 1990s, a time of brutal conflict between nationalist factions which reached its climax in ethnic cleansing. This period of war between rival ethnic groups created deep divides in the fabric of Bosnian society, and the reconstruction of a modern, functional state was only brought about with immense effort on the part of the international community..."Item “The Grave of Cold British Steel” – How the Lessons of the Boer War Shaped British Tactics in 1914(West Point Press, 2022) Kohmetscher, Max"In 1914, in the face of a massive German offensive, the British Expeditionary Force proved crucial in defeating the Schlieffen Plan. The BEF did this in spite of the fact that the British army had not faced another well-trained and disciplined European enemy since the Crimean War over fifty years before. Yet the “Old Contemptibles,” as the BEF became known, not only held the line but eventually stopped the advance of the German First Army on the Marne..."Item From Superfortress to Poseidon: Strategic Nuclear Delivery Systems of the United States of America from 1945 to 1972(West Point Press, 2022) Lee, Seanan"After the delivery of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the world’s focus quickly turned from conventional armaments to nuclear weapons. Four years, one month, and thirteen days after “Trinity,” the United States’ first nuclear test, the Soviet Union detonated their first nuclear device code-named “First Lightning”. With United States’ monopoly on nuclear weapons a thing of the past, the two countries began a massive build-up of nuclear armament, beginning in the early 1950s to the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement on May 26, 1972."Item The Eyes of the World Are Upon You:” International Organizations and the Suez Crisis(West Point Press, 2022) Bruess-Burgess, Asa"Gamal Abdel Nasser savored the moment: it is 26 July 1956 and he has just announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal. The thousands packed into Alexandria’s Mohammed Ali Square are ecstatic.1 This bold and highly contingent decision marked the beginning of the Suez Crisis, a complex mixture of war and diplomacy that tested the 1950s international system. Despite intense disagreement and violence, the crisis eventually reached..."Item The Lessons We Choose: The U.S. Army and Indifference Toward the French Indochina Experience(West Point Press, 2022) Moore, Kevin"The sound of a bugle halts bereted soldiers walking along a dusty road. Their officers, riding atop a nearby jeep, survey the surrounding landscape as their pristine, white képis shine in the sun. Only moments later, every man in the convoy lies dead, overrun by a horde of khaki-clad Viet Minh soldiers who extend their defeated enemy no quarter..."Item The Fight for Supremacy and the Course of German History: The Battle of Königgratz as a Contributing Factor in German Unification(West Point Press, 2022) Mitchell, Cody"Since the earliest accounts of the nineteenth-century German unification, historians have clashed over the explanation of this momentous event. This discussion has given rise to a rich set of historical literature dealing with the factors that aided in the formation of modern Germany. While many factors were involved in the formation of the German nation-state and German national consciousness, recent scholarship has highlighted that the two did not emerge simultaneously. Rather, the political, economic and military unification in 1871 preceded the full development of German national identity – what Hughes calls a ‘spiritual’ unification..."Item Zombies Zoning for Zionism: The Effect of an Inherited Ottoman Land Use System on British Mandatory Palestine(West Point Press, 2022) Foster, Jacob"After the end of the First World War, the British were granted a mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations. This gave them the challenge of managing both Zionist immigration to what they had acknowledged as a “Jewish Home,” as well as the resistance to Zionism by Arab residents, particularly landless tenant farmers. Upon receiving this mandate, they inherited a complex Ottoman legal structure governing the land they now controlled. In some areas, such as criminal and commercial law, British authorities quickly made meaningful legal changes, that, however, was not the case for land use..."