1. Farewell to Arms? War in Modern European History, 1815-2015 Introductory Seminar

2. Today’s session
The rules of the game
Essay writing
The history of war

3. The rules of the game Class etiquette
Office hours: Tuesday 11-12pm & Thursday 11-12pm
Room H0.10
Tel: (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thu)

4. Essay Writing
Non-negotiables
First steps
Structure
Evidence

5. The “non-negotiables”
Formatting
Referencing – Precision and consistency
Spelling
Grammar and syntax

6. First steps
Read and analyse the essay title. Be as careful and thorough as possible, and answer a set of basic questions: What is the subject matter? What period shall I consider? Which geographic area? Etc… The punctuation, the use of singular/plural, may also be important.
Then, write down your preliminary thoughts and ideas and try to identify the historical problem raised by the question.

7. How to organize your argument and structure your essay
Introduction
First: introduce and present the subject matter in broad terms
Secondly: identify and clarify the historical problem
Thirdly: signpost your argument

8. Take the reader for a walk…
As you are taking your reader on a walk, you first need to invite her/him, to let her/him know where you are both going to (introduce the subject matter).
To capture her/his attention, her/his historical imagination, you need to make clear why the walk is worth her/his time and energy (raise the historical problem).
Then show her/him the path you have decided to follow… (signpost your argument)

9. The body of the essay
Make sure that your overall analysis and each of your individual points is buttressed by evidence.
Make sure your essay follows a logical order; that the succession of points, sections, and paragraphs derives from an intellectual logic. In other words, your essay should not be a mere catalogue of ideas but should present them in a reasoned and coherent way.

10. How to use evidence Subject-matter: civil-military relations
Point: no clear distribution of roles in wartime.
Evidence: French Decree, 28th October 1913:
Government = Conduite de la guerre
Military = Conduite des opérations militaires

11. How to use evidence Subject-matter: balance of forces
Point: overwhelming technological & material allied superiority in 1918
Evidence:
Germany
Allies
Guns
14.000
18.500
Planes
3.760
4.500
Tanks 10
800

12. The structure of the argument
Not a list of bullet-points! …

13. A coherent, structured argument
HISTORICAL PROBLEM
SECTION
Sub-section
Point supported by evidence …

14. War and the Historian Objections to war
Political
Ethical
The problem with military history
Intellectual

15. War: History and Historiography
War and classical historiography
Herodotus (c BC)
Thucydides (c BC)
Xenophon (c BC)
War makes History
Military revolution 16th-18th: practitioners and historians
Technologies, armies and the State
Maurice de Saxe, Henry Lloyd, G.F. von Tempelhoff
The Art of War
The Enlightenment and the road to “Total war”
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
A.H. Jomini, Précis de l’art de la guerre; C. von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege (1832)
The Science of War

16. War and the Academy: Neglect, rejection, reluctant embrace?
War and philosophy: paradoxical legacy of the Enlightenment
Military academies
1802: Saint-Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst
1810: Preußische Kriegsakademie
War and Universities
Hans Delbrück, Chair in Universal and World History, 1895
Oxford Chichele Professor of the History of War, 1909
King’s College, London, Chair in War Studies, 1964
Michael Howard
KCL Chair in War Studies, 1964
Oxford Chichele Professor, 1970
Yale Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, 1993

17. War and Academic History
New paradigms
Decline of political and diplomatic history
Rise and fall of social and economic history
Emergence of cultural history
Political suspicion
Nationalism and conservatism
New voices
The historian as a citizen
New approaches
War and society
“New” military history
The challenge of social sciences

18. Uses and abuses of military history
Authors, Audiences, Agenda
Didactic
Political and commercial
“Comprehensive” (Max Weber)
Armed forces
Public opinion
Scholarship

19. War as an intellectual problem
Categories of analysis
From military history to the history of war
Levels of experience and scales of analysis
Historical problems
Combat
Mobilization
Legacies
War studies and disciplinary identities
Violence – Anthropology & Ethics
Power – Politics & International Relations
Wealth – Economics
An object of interdisciplinary study par excellence
Intellectual necessity and contemporary relevance