The Dispatches On War (Part III)

Hi F R Khan, thanks for the informative post. I`m reading about 1789 at the moment but from a very different perspective. The histories I am reading put Haiti at the center of matters in France. The two books of most interest are CLR James` The Black Jacobins and Michel-Rolph Trouillot`s Silencing the Past. Marx`s 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is also fascinating, although James and Trouillot in different ways would contend that its narrowly European perspective results in a history that ``silences the past`` in many ways. Putting Haiti at the center of matters does many interesting things. In Haiti you have a situation of a ``technologically`` limited population of slaves overthrowing the entire plantation system, drawing on culture and spirituality and the modes of communication and action these made possible. (I guess you could call that technology, albeit a non-industrial technology). Their success and the gains they were making inspired the ``masses`` in France, and the bourgeoisie co-opted their energies. And its impossible to contemplate the rise of the bourgeoisie and indeed the Industrial Revolution without considering slavery and colonialism in the New World, which enabled the accumulation of surpluses and capital - what Marx called ``primitive accumulation``. Could the Haitian revolution be called a ``war`` in the traditional sense? Trouillot makes interesting observations on the guerilla tactics first generation slaves had learnt during war in Central Africa prior to the Middle Passage. How do we simulataneously think insurrection and war? Just some ruminations...

It is a well researched series that you have written.

As chowk interactor, it has become our second nature to question the motives behind any article. If I may ask what is the purpose of writing this, I mean other than coimmenting on the history of warfare.

urstruly: The motives behind an act are significant only when the act is expected to result in something significant in terms of changing society, influencing public opinion, influencing public policy, and so forth. None of that is likely to happen, no matter what you write on chowk. We are merely a handful of people (some being friends, others being half-baked potatoes) venting our views on chowk.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the venting and ranting (or, in this case, the scholarly article).

re: Urstruly

The purpose behind this series of ``War Dispatches`` is to indulge in my own passion, which is the study of war as a human phenomena and in the process, to offer something interesting to the readers in hopes they might gain something educationally.

re: Tupac

The basic criteria of judging wars, insurrections or irregular warfare is quite simple. Warfare is orthodox and it has certain rules of conduct, which define it. Irregular warfare is asystemetrical warfare and it does not follow the established rules of war; Geneva Conventions etc.

Ciao

Feroz,

Interesting writeup. It seems as if you should be off somewhere doing a PhD in Military History ! Any plans to do so?

Regards.

Feroz sahib

Let me take the opportunity to commend you for the laborious effort you put into these series. Its an enjoyable read but appearently one that is too dry and heavy for the Chowk crowd who, as is evident, are mired into their ethnocentricities. While we speak of this or that ``centricity`` let me say that this is a rather Eurocentric (if not Franco-centric)presentation, particularly this part III. No mention of similar phenomena elsewhere. Was that by design? Or time and space constraints?

This is by no means meant as a criticism, but, I got the sense that your analysis is somewhat restrictive to the political, or maybe socio-political, realm. There is scant mention of the strong link between war and money. The powerful economic undercurrents that manifest in armed conflict are not fully addressed. This makes for a somewhat monochromatic, or two-dimentional, picture of warfare as a phenomenon.

Elsewhere you make references to ``technological factor`` but important as they are, without examining the economic context one cannot paint a clear picture.

What impact, for instance, did John Law with his Mississippi Scheme (followed by the South Sea bubble) and the whole financial and monetary ``revolution`` have on France and England a century before Waterloo? The rapidly growing international trade with the colonies had a direct impact on the ``political frictions`` inside Europe... just as an example.

This is not to take away from anything you`ve written. No. The point is that there are other essential aspects that you leave out and I am wondering why?

Over all, a great read and thanks for sharing it.

...SR

re: Fuzair# 5

Fuzair, I am not sure about the doctorate in military history, but in the immediate sense, I doing the spade work for a course in military history and hope to teach it LUMS in the near future.

re: SR

You are right, there is a very Eurocentric bias to these articles. The reason is that the concept of war, in its modern sense, was greatly influenced by the European experience and when these Europeans nations colonized vast areas of the globe, their martial legacies were also adopted by their former colonies. The works of Indian and Chinese writers on war preceded the European works, but are not known because Europe was so successful in imprinting its own version on the world. War as it evolved and matured, did so from an European prism and hence, the emphasis on a Eurocentric view in these articles.

Again, in the begining of these series, I wanted to trace the political evolution of war and in the past, I have discussed economics, where it was deemed to propel the narrative understanding of the articles. For example, the article before this one talked about the political economy of the Habsburg Empire. Another restricting consideration is that these articles have to be based on a Cliff Notes format, because if all the myriad influences are grouped together, the lenght of the articles will become too cumbersome for the average Chowk reader.

Consequently, I am well aware of the limitations of these articles, but I am concentrating on those developments, issues and factors, which greatly influenced the development of war in a political sense. If the idea of teaching at LUMS ever becomes a reality, it will be a class dedicated to the idea of mapping the political aspects of war, because in Pakistan, there is no comphrension of war as a political idea and I believe that the Pakistani military itself lacks an awareness of this Clausewitzian idea in the formulation of its military plans. If you look at the Pakistani military strategy as benchmarked by the Pakistani military experiences in 1965, 1971 and then again in 1999, this fact is quite visible.

The only exception to this norm was the war of 1947-48 in Kashmir.

The subject itself is dry and academic and that does not help the process either. :)

Ciao

Good luck with the course, Feroz, should be an interesting one. I took a few courses on military history, strategy, etc, back in my misspent youth--including one by Prof. Peter Paret--and I quite used to enjoy them. I think a book on the political aspects of pakistani military strategy would be quite interesting (if a short read) and you should think about writing it ;-).

re: Fuzair

I intend to use one of Peter Paret`s books as a textbook: Makers of Modern Strategy!

Interesting coincidence!

Ciao

I read the original Makers of Modern Strategy when the Army Book Club reprinted it; the book of Paret`s that I read was his translation of Clausewitz`s Vom Kreig. I`d be interested in taking a look at your reading list, if that would be OK, when you finalize it. I`m really curious as to what you will be using on Indo-Pakistan military affairs.

TTFN

re: fuzair

I will forward the list to you, when it is finalized but right now the whole thing is just a concept.

Ciao

Hi Feroz:

You really worked hard on your paper. For someone who associated the French revolution merely with Rouseau`s call for `liberté, egalité, fraternité` you have added a new dimension to my understanding of the class background of the revolution.

This subject is alien to me. So, the querries I am raising are more of the kinds you might encounter from a sophomoric student.

You suggest that the pre-french revolutionary wars were not patriotic. I think that this is true if you define patriotism to a nation state. But how about defining in biblical/quranic terms, as the nation of Abraham`s people or of islam? Were not people fighting for those ``nations`` or the crusaders also infused by a sense of ``patriotism``?

You say,``A nation’s power was measured as a proportion of the monarch’s personal power and influence and the conduct of the army and of wars was influenced by the need to protect this power and influence.``

I think that you may want to amend this in case of England after Magna Carta, where the power of the king was replaced by that of the parliament.

``Warfare, in the eighteenth century, was a very expensive game played by the kings for their own personal glory and the conduct of the wars only affected the population in the sense that they had to economically subsidize this royal sport.``

It was probably true of the invader, but what about the defending king; in his case, didn`t they have a vested interest in not being plundered, looted and raped? I do not know, however, if the defending subjects behaved more ``patriotically`` than those of the attacking king.


A minor correction, I think that you meant ``raison d`etre``.

re: Dost-Mittar # 12

Thanks for your comments! :)

To answer your questions; Patriotism came about as the result of the French Revolution but it really matured as a concept only in the 1800s. As to the crusaders, they had no idea about patriotism as we understand the term. The concept, which was prevailing at the time of the crusades was one of Christiandom, which was a pan-Christian ideal of politics much like the Ummah and just as ineffective as the Ummah. The concept of nation-states did not exist in Europe till about 1650s and it would take another 200 years for it to firmly establish itself as an idea.

In the case of the Magna Carta and the power of the kings versus the parliaments, please bear in mind that the supremacy of the parliament was only guranteed in the 1800s in England. Magna Carta was signed in 1214 AD and though the parliamentary idea was in practice, England underwent many a crisis between the parliament and monarch before it was able to evolve the idea of a constitutional monarchy for itself. Magna Carta did not make the parliament supreme and nor it did it create the idea of the ``supremacy of the parliament``.

Parliament gained power during the time of the Hanoverian monarchs, who were German princes ruling England from the 1750s onwards. Since they could not speak english, parliament was able to whittle their powers away gradually since the kings did not understand the politics and were incapable of stopping the parliament. :)

The defending king had to raise money to defend and he would do so through excessive taxations but the point is that the politics of wars did not affect the people and their only exposure was economic. The people were taxed and they had no representation or rights to ask why the wars were being fought and on what issues.

Think of the wars of the period like Pakistan`s wars with India. The people did not ask to fight those wars and they did not identify with the ruler`s ideas on fighting the wars. There was a total alienation between the rulers and the ruled when it came to wars and that was the point made in the article.

Thanks for the correction! :)

Ciao