The prevailing historical narrative of the collapse of Louis XIV's naval power has emphasised the importance of political decision-making, either in the strategic shifts between the guerre d'escadre and the guerre de course, or in the decision to reduce the naval budget in the midst of war in 1694 and 1707. As France faced massive financial overextension and an increasing need to fight for territorial survival in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), it was inevitable that Louis XIV's government would fund its armies in preference to its naval capabilities. However, a shift in priorities at Versailles does not provide a full explanation for the navy's decline. Recent works emphasise the effectiveness of the state's revenue-raising capabilities and the importance of the fiscal intermediaries who financed royal expenditure. Yet, these connections between French naval power and Louis XIV's fiscal capabilities remain only partially explored and this thesis presents a fresh examination of the navy's financing arrangements. It is argued that the difficulties that Louis XIV faced in maintaining the fleet were rooted in a unique set of issues embedded in the navy's financing mechanism and the way it was managed. The problem was four-fold: the naval ministry consistently overspent its allocated funds; the navy's budget was increasingly underfunded as a result of the finance ministry's mismanagement and also of wider fiscal instability; the naval treasury was not fit-for-purpose since the navy's fiscal intermediaries, the trésoriers généraux de la Marine, lacked the capacity to sustain costly levels of borrowing; and the crown failed to meet the organisational challenges of war by not controlling spending and the activities of the trésoriers. These structural issues surfaced internally early in the war and would be progressively and disastrously exposed by the loss of liquidity and the mounting debts that affected France in the 1700s.

Winston S. Churchill was a war leader during two world wars, and yet there are few substantive studies of his younger years when he was a practising soldier. This thesis aims to study the early intellectual development of Churchill in those areas which have direct impact on the art of war. The chapters are arranged narratively (Chapters 2-3) and thematically (Chapters 4-8). The introduction covers the scope and methodology of the work. Chapters 2-3 give an account of Churchill's early years, and trace the development of several prominent features of his character that helped form and inform the presuppositions of his later military intellectual development. Chapter 4 addresses Churchill's interactions with late Victorian cavalry doctrine and debate. Chapters 5-7 each address themes of an expanding scope of influence and conceptualization: first, the tactics of war; second, the policy and strategy of war; and finally, Churchill's conceptions of war. The conclusion summarizes the hallmarks and syntheses of Churchill's early military intellectual development, and identifies judgments which can be drawn about his perspicacity as soldier and commander.

Modern studies of Classical Greek battle devote little attention to the role and importance of the general in achieving battlefield success. As a result of this the general is reduced to a simple leader of men whose only influential decision was where and when to fight, and whose major role was to provide inspiration by fighting in the front ranks. A modern conception of Hellenic fair play in warfare has further limited the importance of the general to Greek armies: apparently advanced manoeuvring and tactics were deliberately rejected in favour of a simple and direct test of strength and morale. I do not believe this to be the case, and in this study I demonstrate the importance of the general to Greek armies by offering a new analysis of his role in hoplite battle.

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2016-07-08T14:13:52Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 4324351 bytes, checksum: 7219a78db0ae759ba7ca1a390f5c1005 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-08T14:13:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 4324351 bytes, checksum: 7219a78db0ae759ba7ca1a390f5c1005 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / During the first phase comprising the period of Dutch Brazil (1630-1636), which corresponds, according to Evaldo Cabral de Mello (2007), the phase of conquest and consolidation of military campaigns promoted by the West India Company (West-Indische Compagnie - WIC) in actual northeastern Brazil, the Captaincy of Paraiba was one of the first four captaincies to be conquered, the next to last to surrender. This occurred after three conflicts, of which the Portuguese and Spanish were victorious in two. The purpose of this study is to analyze how they developed the three Dutch invasions in Paraíba, made in December 1631, and in February and December 1634; its impact to the colony, its connection with the conflicts in the neighboring captaincy of Itamaracá, Rio Grande and Pernambuco, and the difficulties that the Dutch had to win the Paraíba captaincy, because our conclusions reveal that the warlike enterprise undertaken by WIC to conquero Paraíba; It consisted of one of the many challenges we faced in those early years. This study was guided on the analysis of four primary sources, written by characters who attended the event in question: the relation written by Fr. Paulo do Rosário, OSB (1632); the travel journal written by Ambrósio Richshoffer (1677), german soldier, who served in the army of WIC; daily memories of Duarte de Albuquerque Coelho (1654), governor of Pernambuco, and the historical annals of Joannes de Laet (1644), a director of WIC in Amsterdam, which was not a direct witness. Such sources express the views of the Portuguese side and the Dutch side in order to build an account of such conflicts by comparing the narratives of both sides of the battlefield. To address these sources, it was decided by a discourse analysis methodology and literary analysis in order to understand the textual and discursive variations of each of the authors, showing how their values interfered in their opinions and judgments about such battles. In the analysis of conflicts, these were based on the approach of the "new military history" field of study emerged in the wake of the "new history", which seeks to rethink the study of military and war forces, not limited to the traditional war history, based in the battles and political and economic factors, but trying to understand the war in their social precepts, cultural, religious and others. / Durante a primeira fase que compreende o período do Brasil holandês (1630-1636), a qual corresponde, de acordo com Evaldo Cabral de Mello (2007), à fase de conquista e consolidação das campanhas militares promovidas pela Companhia das Índias Ocidentais (West-Indische Compagnie – WIC) no atual nordeste brasileiro, a Capitania da Paraíba foi das quatro capitanias iniciais a serem conquistadas, a penúltima a se render. Isso ocorreu após três conflitos, dos quais os portugueses e espanhóis saíram vitoriosos em dois. A proposta deste estudo foi analisar como se desenvolveram as três expedições holandesas na Capitania da Paraíba, ocorridas em dezembro de 1631, e em fevereiro e dezembro de 1634; sua repercussão para a colônia, sua ligação com os conflitos ocorridos nas capitanias vizinhas de Itamaracá, Rio Grande e Pernambuco, e as dificuldades que os holandeses tiveram para conquistar a capitania paraibana, pois nossas conclusões revelam que a empresa bélica empreendida pela WIC para conquistar a Paraíba, consistiu em um dos vários desafios que a Companhia enfrentou nestes primeiros anos. Este estudo foi pautado sobre a análise de quatro fontes primárias, escritas por personagens que participaram do evento em questão: a relação escrita por frei Paulo do Rosário, OSB (1632); o diário de viagem escrito pelo soldado alemão Ambrósio Richshoffer (1677), o qual serviu no exército da WIC; as memórias diárias do governador de Pernambuco Duarte de Albuquerque Coelho (1654), e os anais históricos de Joannes de Laet (1644), um dos diretores da WIC, em Amsterdã, o qual não foi testemunha direta. Tais fontes expressam os pontos de vista do lado português e do lado holandês, de forma a se construir um relato sobre tais conflitos comparando as narrativas dos dois lados do campo de batalha. Para a abordagem destas fontes, optou-se por uma metodologia de análise de discurso e análise literária, a fim de compreender as variações textuais e discursivas de cada um dos autores, evidenciando como seus valores interferiram em suas opiniões e juízos acerca de tais batalhas. No caso da análise dos conflitos, estes foram pautados na abordagem da “nova história militar”, campo de estudo surgido na esteira da “nova história”, o qual procura repensar o estudo das forças armadas e da guerra, não se limitando à história tradicional da guerra, pautada nas batalhas e em fatores políticos e econômicos, mas procurando compreender a guerra nos seus preceitos sociais, culturais, religiosos entre outros.

The United States entered World War I without a policy governing the burial of its overseas dead. Armed only with institutional knowledge from the Spanish-American War twenty years prior, the Army struggled to create a policy amidst social turmoil in the United States and political tension between France and the United States.

No description available.

In 1793, the British government embarked on a war against Revolutionary France that few expected would last twenty-five years and engulf all of Europe. Radical French policies provided an opportunity for William Pitt, the British prime minister, to endeavor to cobble a European alliance, including a number of Mediterranean states. These efforts never progressed beyond theory and negotiations because of conflicted policy and tension between the British diplomatic corps and Royal Navy over the strategic goals in the region. With diplomats focused on coalition building and military commanders focused on national objectives, British efforts never congealed into a unified effort to defeat Revolutionary France.

The Macedonian Campaign of World War I (October 1915-November 1918) traditionally remains one of the understudied theatres of the historiography of the conflict. Despite its vital importance in the outcome of the war, it is still considered as a mere sideshow compared to the Western Front and the Gallipoli Campaign. This dissertation presents a much-needed re-evaluation of the Macedonian Campaign's diplomatic and political origins within the war's early context. In doing so, this study first concentrates on a longue durée perspective and assesses the main historical events in the Balkans and Central Europe from the end of the French Revolution to World War I. In a perspective running throughout the entire nineteenth century, this dissertation integrates the importance of nascent nationalism in the Balkans and examine the Austro-Hungarian Empire's steady decline and subsequent diplomatic realignment toward the Balkans. Similarly, this work depicts the intense power struggle in Southeastern Europe between some of this story's main protagonists, namely the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires. This dissertation also evaluates the rise of new regional powers such as Bulgaria and Serbia and examines their connection to the European balance of power and general diplomatic equilibrium. In the first half of this dissertation, I present an overview of some of the most crucial episodes that paved the way to the onset of World War I and the inception of the Macedonian Campaign: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Congress of Berlin of 1878, The Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909, the Italo-Ottoman War of 1911-1912, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. In the second part of this study, the main thread of the analysis is the crucial Anglo-French relations that took place between the end of the nineteenth century and World War I. This study describes the importance of Anglo-French relations regarding the Macedonian Campaign's inception and highlights the fragile nature of the Entente Cordiale and some of the fundamental issues that affected the Anglo-French conduct of military operations on the Western Front as well as in the Balkans. Therefore, this study underlines why the Macedonian Campaign, suffered so much from a lack of care, preparation, and a much-needed strategic insight and leadership that could have decisively influenced the campaign and potentially have altered the outcome of an eventually successful Allied endeavor in the Balkans.

Par une approche qui s’efforce de relier la question de la culture de la guerre à la prise de conscience des dimensions sociales, économiques, politiques du fait guerrier, cette étude met en lumière la construction de la figure du lansquenet au prisme des pratiques de ces mercenaires germaniques et des représentations des contemporains français. Pour cerner cette figure dominante de la Renaissance, il s’agit de circonscrire les stratégies mises en œuvre par les lansquenets, c’est-à-dire l’arsenal de symboles, de discours et de comportements auquel les membres de ce groupe se réfèrent, et de les confronter aux discours des militaires et des civils français afin d’appréhender la perception qu’ils ont d’eux et les comportements qu’ils développent à leur égard. La dialectique entre les pratiques des lansquenets et les représentations françaises de ceux-ci illustrent les transformations profondes de la monarchie française à l’aube de l’Époque moderne et dévoile l’appréhension d’une société face à l’altérité. / Through an approach that seeks to link the question of the culture of war to the awareness of the social, economic and political dimensions of war, this study highlights the construction of the figure of the landsknecht through the prism of the practices of these German mercenaries and the representations of French contemporaries. To identify this dominant figure of the Renaissance, it is a question of circumscribing the strategies implemented by the lansquenets, i.e. the arsenal of symbols, speeches and behaviours to which the members of this group refer, and to confront them with the discourses of the French military and civilians in order to apprehend the perception they have of the landsknechte and the behaviours they develop towards them. The dialectic between the practices of the Lansquenets and the French representations of them illustrate the profound transformations of the French monarchy at the dawn of the Modern Era and reveals a society's apprehension of alterity.

This dissertation examines U.S. food diplomacy in occupied Germany. It argues that the origins of food aid as an anti-communist strategy are located in postwar Germany. Believing a punitive occupation was the best insurance against future conflict, Allied leadership agreed to enforce a lower standard of living on Germany and did not allow relief agencies to administer aid to German civilians. Facing a growing crisis in the U.S. Zone, President Truman authorized food imports and permitted voluntary agencies to operate in 1946. This decision changed the tenor of the occupation and provided the foundation to an improved U.S.-German relationship. It also underscored the value of American food power in the emerging contest with the Soviet Union. Food served as a source of soft power. It bridged cultures and fostered new relationships while reinforcing notions of American exceptionalism. Officials recognized that humanitarian aid complemented foreign policy objectives. American economic security was reflected in their abundance of food, and the dispersal of this food to war-torn Europe, especially a former enemy, made a strong statement about the future. As relations with the Soviet Union soured, policymakers increasingly relied on American food power to encourage German embrace of western values. Occupation officials portrayed food relief as an expression of democratic ideals, emphasizing the universality of Freedom from Want and focusing on well-nourished German children as the hope for future peace. American food fostered the spread of liberal democracy but its dispersal also contained communism. This work bridges diplomatic history and food studies to investigate the consequences and significance of the transnational food exchange. Food aid had layered political, cultural, and emotional implications. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this dissertation examines the role of compassion in diplomacy and the symbolism inherent in food to demonstrate the lasting political currency of humanitarian aid. Paying close attention to the food relationships that emerge between Germans and Americans allows one to better gauge the value of U.S. food aid as a propaganda tool. Food embodies American power; it offers a medium for understanding the experience and internalization of the occupation by Americans and Germans alike. Food aid began as emergency relief in 1946, reflecting the transition from a punitive to rehabilitative occupation policy. Recognizing Germany’s need for stability and self-sufficiency Military Government officials then urged economic recovery. Food aid was an important piece for German economic recovery, with supporters emphasizing Germany’s potential contribution toward European recovery. The positive press generated by the Marshall Plan and Allied airlift of Berlin contributed to the growing significance of propaganda in the emerging Cold War. Food relief was both good policy and good public relations, providing a narrative that cast the United States as a benevolent power in a rapidly changing world. Food aid to Germany underscored America’s humanitarian obligations, conscripted emotion into the Cold War, and swayed public opinion on the home front and with the former enemy. / History