Allan R. Millett, "Introduction to the Korean War," The Journal of Military History 65 (October 2001): 921-936.
This essay provides the interpretive framework for the book on the war that he is currently writing. He provides several keys to understanding the war that rests on regional strategic relationships and a Korean civil war mounted by two irreconcilable revolutionary movements that still maintain conflicting claims of political legitimacy. The author suggests that many of the American explanations of events misrepresent the historical truth, but he does not put 'the blame' for the war on the United States and South Korea. The fiftieth anniversary of the 'conventional Korean War' offers an opportunity to reexamine the war's causes, conduct, and consequences, especially since the war still shapes events on the Korean peninsula.
Kaushik Roy, "Coercion Through Leniency: British Manipulation of the Courts-Martial System in the Post-Mutiny Indian Army, 1859-1913," The Journal of Military History 65 (October 2001): 937-964.
The Indian Army was the principal support of the British-Indian empire. From the end of the 1857 Mutiny until 1913, the sepoy army experienced no serious disciplinary problems. How was this possible, especially when rampant indiscipline was common in the precolonial armies? The secret of British success was in the construction of a welfare bureaucracy, the genesis of regimental esprit de corps, and the introduction of the courts-martial system. This essay, based on documents available in the National Archives of India, concentrates on the last aspect. Leniency in military punishment, along with a 'reformist' ideology, characterized the penal apparatus.
Tim Travers, "Liman von Sanders, the Capture of Lieutenant Palmer, and Ottoman Anticipation of the Allied Landings at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915," The Journal of Military History 65 (October 2001): 965-980.
Otto Liman von Sanders, commanding the Ottoman Fifth Army at Gallipoli in 1915, attempted to predict the future Allied landing sites. He correctly anticipated most of the actual landing sites of 25 April 1915, but he also focussed on the northern Bulair/Saros area. By chance, Lieutenant [C. E. S.?] Palmer, a British naval intelligence officer, was captured by the Ottomans on 17 April after his submarine ran aground. Palmer's prisoner of war testimony emphasised the Bulair/Saros area. This evidence was disseminated, and seems likely to have influenced Liman von Sanders, who incorrectly focussed for three days on the Allied false landing at Bulair/Saros.
Edward J. Erickson, "Strength Against Weakness: Ottoman Military Effectiveness at Gallipoli, 1915," The Journal of Military History 65 (October 2001): 981-1012.
Allied official historians ascribed the failure of the Allied offensive at Gallipoli in 1915 to inadequate intelligence, insufficient forces on hand, and the steadfastness of the Turkish defense. Apologists later placed heavy blame on poor Allied leadership at the strategic and operational levels. The German commander of the Ottoman Fifth Army, Major General Otto Liman von Sanders, further muddied the historical waters by exaggerating his own role in planning the defense. Unfortunately, the resulting historiography of the campaign tends largely to ignore the question of Ottoman military effectiveness.
This essay is based on hitherto unused Turkish official histories. It seeks to assess the effectiveness of the Turkish commanders and formations engaged in the campaign and offers new insights about the Turkish defensive campaign. The capabilities of the Ottoman commanders and the effectiveness of the Ottoman infantry divisions participating in the Gallipoli Campaign are examined, along with the development of the Ottoman defensive plans for the peninsula dating back to the First Balkan War in 1912. Finally, the essay concludes with force ratio comparisons at selected points in the campaign.
The Allies landed against the most heavily defended and best-prepared
position in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the defending infantry
divisions and commanders, although outnumbered, were the best
available in the Ottoman Army, a factor which significantly affected
the outcome of the campaign. Finally, the essay advances the
idea that man-for-man, the Turks were as effective as their Allied
counterparts.
Douglas Peifer, "Commemoration of Mutiny, Rebellion, and resistance in Postwar Germany: Public Memory, History, and the Formation of 'Memory Beacons,'" The Journal of Military History 65 (October 2001): 1013-2052.
East Germany, the West German governing establishment, and post-unification German 'antimilitarists' and radical pacifists selected and commemorated incidents of mutiny, rebellion, and desertion from Germany's military past, attempting to elevate them into 'memory beacons' and symbols which resonated and had meaning to the general public. By examining three German 'memory beacons' that emphasize military resistance, rebellion, and nonconformity--the naval mutinies of 1917 and 1918, the Twentieth of July 1944, and the Wehrmacht deserter--the author seeks to lay bare the interplay between function, symbolism, and the past in the construction of Germany's public memory of its military past.
Richard G. Cole, "Behind German Lines in 1915: The Letters Home of David T. Nelson," The Journal of Military History 65 (October 2001): 1053-1060.
This essay is based on a series of letters home written mostly in 1915 by David T. Nelson, a young American Rhodes Scholar whose student career was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Many British students at Oxford volunteered for various military duties; as a neutral American, Nelson had the option of working for Herbert Hoover's Commission for Belgian War Relief. He had the opportunity to live and work behind the German lines, and his letters offer many keen observations on the nature of German militarism and war objectives.