A study of Lev Trotsky's leadership role in constructing the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Beginning with his appointment in March 1918, Trotsky transformed the Bolsheviks' military policy to adopt more conventional fighting techniques.

The Industrial Revolution created sweeping cultural and technological changes in 19th century American society. During this era, nursing evolved from an unskilled to a skilled form of work. Changes in manufacturing, communication, and transportation occurred differentially in America, which favored the growth of different regional economies. Sectionalism erupted into the first modern war in American history. The Civil War created the conditions in which nursing, medicine, and the hospital formed organizational structures, roles, and boundaries that would later form the template for the modern healthcare system. The purpose of this research was to study how the context and culture of mid-nineteenth century American life affected the evolution of nursing during the Civil War, and the later affect it would have on skilled nursing knowledge, roles, education, and practice. The overall goal of the work is to contribute to the body of research on parallel historic processes that had an influence over the formation of early skilled nursing practice and the evolution of the nursing role. The effect of parallel processes associated with the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern warfare on the development of skilled nursing were the particular focus of this research. A social history methodology was utilized to examine texts and discourse from the Civil War period. It was found that advances in transportation, communication, and manufacturing were both integral to the advent of modern war and modern nursing, and that the advent of these was highly integrated. It was also found that the industrialization of the hospital in response to wartime was highly influential on the development of skilled nursing programs later in the century. The role that nurses would take in the postbellum hospital, however, reflected the mass media image of nursing generated during the war rather than actual wartime practice.

This thesis examines the influences on and evolution of the Irish Republican Army‘s guerrilla war strategy between 1917 and 1921. Utilizing newspapers, government documents, and memoirs of participants, this study highlights the role of propaganda and political concerns in waging an insurgency. It argues that while tactical innovation took place in the field, IRA General Headquarters imposed policy and directed the conflict with a concern for the political results of military action. While implementing strategies necessary to effective conflict of the war, this Headquarters staff was unable to reconcile a disjointed and overburdened command structure, leading its disintegration after the conflict.

The field of medieval gender studies is a growing one, and nowhere is this expansion more evident than the recent increase in studies which address the roles of medieval women in times of war. While this change in research has been invaluable in helping to reveal the many important wartime roles performed by medieval women, previous studies have been too narrowly focused. Scholars have examined particular aspects of women’s military activities without analysing the full extent and significance of their involvement, and their studies have focused geographically either on women in Western Europe or on women in the crusade movement without considering the relationship between these two areas. This thesis bridges the geographic and analytical gap by looking longitudinally at the female military experience from the late-eleventh to the early-fifteenth century in Western European society (predominantly France and England), on crusade, and in the Holy Land. An examination of medieval legal, philosophical, and political debates and discussions provides theoretical understanding of contemporary attitudes toward women and their perceived roles in war. Subsequent chapters focus on how women functioned as military leaders, supporters of military activity, and victims of wartime violence. Perceptions of these women in the writings of contemporary chroniclers are also evaluated. The disparity between theoretical attitudes toward women in war and the realities of medieval women’s military experiences is revealed through discussion of their extensive, though largely unstudied, participation in wars of the period. It is argued that historians must adopt a broader understanding and awareness of not only women’s ‘involvement’ in war, but also the importance of their contributions to medieval military history.

Purpose: This work examines the transition in aerial warfare that took place during the Korean War (1950-1953). Before the conflict, air power was conceived of primarily an instrument of unlimited, or total, warfare. Yet Korea, and all subsequent air wars, have been limited. The transitional nature of the Korean air war has not yet been adequately explored by historians. Methods: The story of this shift is presented in two parts, the first examining the doctrines of the United States Air Force (USAF) immediately before the Korean War, the second comparing them to the USAF’s actual campaigns in Korea. This focus on the USAF reflects both its status as the principal air service in Korea and its influence on the theories and doctrines of all air arms in the post-World War Two era. The USAF’s planning immediately before the Korean War focused on its role in a possible total war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was thus unprepared and ill-equipped for the limited war in Korea and had to improvise its operations there. Findings: The inability of the USAF to conduct an unlimited war in Korea frustrated many Americans, who could not understand the political considerations that limited the conflict, seeing only that the USAF, the world’s most powerful air arm, was prevented from using all of its resources. While the resulting controversy contributed to a change of administration in the United States, it had less of an effect on the USAF. After the Korean War ended, its leadership continued to focus on unlimited war, dismissing the conflict as an aberration from which little about the operation of aircraft in war could be learned. Conclusions: The failure to recognize the lessons of the Korean War has had serious consequences. There have been no total wars since 1945; every air war of the past sixty years has been limited. Limited warfare is defined by restrictions on air power. The USAF and other air arms were slow to adapt to the changing conditions. The Korean War was a more significant event in the history of aerial warfare than is generally appreciated.

Thesis--Academia Georgia Augusta, 1846.

abstract: During the 1850s, Indian policy objectives pursued by the civil and military branches of government in New Mexico would have a lasting impact on future relations between the two cultures. Many later policies originated in this antebellum period, but often receive only a summary analysis by scholars who focus on the more popular post-Civil War period. Debates over proper policies and enforcement would proliferate in the 1850s as military and civil officials vied with one another over their own perceived authority. Many officials pursued viable policies, but did not remain in office long enough to ensure their implementation. Additionally, personal egos and stubbornness often undermined interagency cooperation. An overall cultural misunderstanding regarding Apache tribal structure and the inability to distinguish between subgroups exacerbated the conflict. Anti-Indian sentiments prevailed in the military, which often contradicted the more humanitarian approach advocated by the Indian Department. As a result, a contention for power and prestige emerged on three separate fronts: civil government leaders, military leaders, and within the Apache tribe. This thesis offers a contextualization of events that transpired during the 1870s and 1880s by demonstrating how these three entities contended amongst each other for power, undermining policy objectives in the antebellum era. Americans sought to conquer and control--to exert authority and power--over all components of the western landscape in order that they might realize its full economic potential. The Apaches formed a part of this landscape much the same as lofty mountain ranges, raging rivers, and parched deserts. All of these required conquering before that nineteenth century American dream could be fully imbued in the Southwest, and over the several decades following Kearny's arrival countless individuals streamed westward in torrents intent on accomplishing just that. The Apaches, like all western tribes, thus fell into an unstoppable cycle of conquest driven by an insatiable Anglo-American obsession with exerting control. Just as swarthy lawyers challenged claims to gain legal dominion over western tracts of land; just as engineers constructed dams and sought ways to manipulate streams and rivers; just as the plow tilled millions of acres of raw lands; just as the miner's pick slowly chipped away at formidable peaks; so too did the United States Army subdue the Apaches, all of these being a means towards a common end for the American West. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2011

Thesis (D. Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies)) / The Fertile Crescent, due to its geographical characteristics, has always been an area troubled with conflict and warfare. The men who participated in these wars, from ca 2000 BCE to 1000 BCE operated from an ethos which was governed by a system of rules, all which were conceived to be the creation of divine will, to which kings and their warriors (keymen) were subject. The cuneiform texts from Mari, Ugarit, Ebla, Amarna and others, have not only thrown light on the political, social, religious and military aspects of those turbulent times, but have also given insight into the formation of armies as well as the commanders who led those armies and the royal officials who governed cities and provinces, all appointed by the monarch in order to effect the smooth running of his kingdom. They also shed light on the formation of coalitions and alliances in order to promote peace, arrange marriages to the daughters of other ruling powers and to promote trade relations. These were no easy tasks, considering the diversity of peoples, the birth and fall of kingdoms and empires, and the ever shifting and changes of loyalties of greedy kings and their men, to attain power and conquest for themselves.. However, these texts also give glimpses of the human side of the king and the close relationships between himself and his men of authority, whilst the women of the court also played their role in some areas of the social field. The responses, of these people towards matters and events, whether they were confrontations, marriage alliances, trade ventures or hunting expeditions, occurred within an ever changing world yet, it was also a world with an ethos of ancient traditions, which did not disappear but instead remained, albeit in adapted or altered form, to be a part of their contextual reality. / Biblical Studies

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Sue Zschoche / In 1942, the U.S. Army and Navy announced the creation of their respective women’s military services: the WAAC/WAC and the WAVES. Although American women had served alongside the military in past conflicts, the creation of women’s military corps caused uproar in American society. Placing women directly into the armed services called into question cultural expectations about “masculinity” and “femininity.” Thus, the women’s corps had to be justified to the public in accordance with American cultural assumptions regarding proper gender roles. “Fashioning Femininity for War: Material Culture and Gender Performance in the WAC and WAVES during World War II” focuses on the role of material culture in communicating a feminine image of the WAC and WAVES to the American public as well as the ways in which servicewomen engaged material culture to fashion and perform a feminine identity compatible with contemporary understandings of “femininity.” Material culture served as a mechanism to resolve public concerns regarding both the femininity and the function of women in the military. WAC and WAVES material culture linked their wearers with stereotyped characteristics specifically related to contemporary meanings of “femininity” celebrated by American society, while at the same time associating them with military organizations doing vital war work. Ultimately, the WAVES were more successful in their manipulations of material culture than the WAC, communicating both femininity and function in a way that was complementary to the established gender hierarchy. Therefore, the WAVES enjoyed a prestigious position in the mind of the American public. This dissertation also contributes to the ongoing historiographical debate regarding World War II as a turning point for women’s liberation, arguing that while the seeds of women’s liberation were sown in women’s wartime activities, those same wartime women were firmly convinced that their rightful place was in the private rather than the public sphere. The war created an opportunity to reevaluate gender roles but it would take some time before those reevaluations bore fruit.

General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s East African Campaign was a conventional war of movement. Lettow based his operations on the military principles deduced from his thorough German military education and oversea deployments to China and German South West Africa. Upon assignment to German East Africa, he sought to convert the colony’s protectorate force from a counterinsurgency force to a conventional military force. His conventional strategy succeeded early in the war, especially at the Battle of Tanga in October 1914. However, his strategy failed as the war in East Africa intensified. He suffered a calamitous defeat at the Battle of Mahiwa in November 1917, and the heavy losses forced Lettow to adopt the counterinsurgency tactics of the colonial protectorate force.