First World War Memory and the Next Few Years

I was all prepared to write several thousand words about the closest thing to a historical debate we have had in Canada for a very long time.  Mainly the blog post put forward by a current NDP, member of parliament suggesting that the First World War was something that Canada should not have been involved in and only Communists had stood up against it.  On rereading the original article I realized that the post in question was from 2007 which does blow up my thesis that this is the beginning of a historical debate that should encompass the next few years, filled as it is with the centennial of the various military actions.

I also found the original piece rather odd. After all, the war support in French speaking Canada was never as high as it was in English Canada. This is true of both world wars. I am not exactly sure why the Communists specifically are being put forward here. As for Vimy Ridge, I have actually most seen it described as the coming together of English Canada, specifically separate from French Canada.

That being said, I do think the next few years will be very interesting. I can only see more debates like this popping up. I only hope that Canadian media, both in book publishing as well as TV and perhaps even film are able to produce suitable material. I have already heard stories out of the UK about jockeying for position as far as the publishing schedule goes.  I am worried that since the Canadian industry is so much smaller and we have comparatively fewer experts that there won’t be much. Also our anemic film and TV industry, trapped as it is by reproducing American reality TV shows and occasional quirky comedies, may not have the chops to produce our own Saving Private Ryan.  It is, perhaps, an unfortunate bell weather that the recent Canadian film to deal with the First World War Passchendaele seems to have been more as an excuse for Paul Gross an aging leading man to bed a nurse during an artillery barrage. I will be optimistic and try on this blog to point out things as they happen going forward.

For the record I was also gratified to see  Thomas Mulcair of as well as the veterans affairs critic strongly condemn the statements.  Stupid and insulting as they were.

What's new for the week of April 9th 2013

Here are the books that looked interesting when I scanned through Amazon's new releases list in military history.
Bolivar: American Liberator . By Marie Arana I'm weak on South American history particularly 19th century so I'm very interested in this book. It's a biography but hopefully the military campaigns will have decent coverage it's over 600 pages.
Mussolini's Death March: Eyewitness Accounts of Italian Soldiers on the Eastern Front by Nuto Revelli translated series of interviews with Italian veterans. Originally published back in the 60s. As the back copy mentions the soviets and Germans get most of the coverage so this is an important book.
Tragedy at Dieppe: Operation Jubilee, August 19, 1942 by Mark Zuehlke I've been reading his Canadian battles books on World War II for years. They're always excellent and include lots of eyewitness accounts. So I'm looking forward to this.
The Biafran War: The Struggle for Modern Nigeria by Michael Gould finishing off this week with another book on an obscure conflict. I always say that we don't need another book on Normandy we need books on the other conflicts so I should practice what I preach and take a closer look at this one.

Let's try this again

Yes I been gone for quite a while. Things came up including a death in the family. Now I'm back willing to try to take a stab at things. At least considering my traffic numbers it's not like I'm been disappointing any of you. A new  books list up shortly. With a review in the next few days..

What's new for the week of January 8th 2013

I'm back after a hectic Christmas season hopefully I'll be able to do this weekly from now on. I guess we'll see. These are new releases that looked interesting I haven't had a chance to read any of them yet though.

My Share of the Task: A Memoir by General Stanley McChrystal this is easily the sexiest new release. Mentioning it more for completeness than anything else the reviews I've seen so far aren't exactly glowing.

Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency by Dr Huw Bennett often held up as a model counterinsurgency this takes a revisionist view. I looked quite a bit at this when doing my MA. Interested to see how his argument holds up.

The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan look at the rise and I suspect fall of the "COIN mafia". This goes straight to the top as far as a purchase list for me.

Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era by William J. Cooper my interest in the American civil War comes and goes but the dysfunction of the CSA particularly it's chain of command is always worth a look. Davis of course being responsible for much of it.

What's new for the week of November 13 2012

I was busy last week so this contains the last two weeks of releases. As I've said before I haven't read any of these they just sound interesting.
Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb by Feroz Khan I don't think there is much in English on Pakistan's program. The fact that this is written by someone from the nation with experience makes it all the more interesting.
A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust by Mary Fulbrook perhaps tangential to military history I think this does have a place here. Both for what it says about NAZI ideology which after all started the war as well as the wasteful use of manpower Germany inflicted on itself.
STALIN'S FALCONS RESURGENT: Soviet Air Power and the Battle of Kursk 1943 by Mark A. O'Neill I tend to be a bit leery of books on the eastern front. There just are so many landmines to be avoided but on the other hand this is one of the few books to deal with aviation.

The utility of one star reviews

While writing up the last review I took the time to look at the other reviews I could find online. I noticed something that I have noticed other times when dealing with books that have controversial topics. Often the one star reviews are more useful to me than the five star reviews for the simple reason that if one star reviews are able to use actual facts to show their arguments are correct, that gives the book less credibility, while if the one star reviews simply involve ad hominem attacks without giving reasons then that strengthens the book. For example, many years ago I worked up a reading list on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by reading one star reviews. If the one star reviews said that the author was either an anti Semite or part of the Zionist conspiracy without providing examples of how they were wrong, it was likely that the book was much closer to the truth than the negative reviewer wished to admit. I naturally found that out with the previous book on the Tamil Tigers.

The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers by Gordon Weiss

The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers
 by Gordon Weiss

 This book describes the final days of the campaign of the Sri Lankan government to defeat the Tamil Tigers. This was highly controversial and it has, in fact, been described as the first foreign policy failing of the Obama administration. The use of heavy weapons, including artillery against civilians, as the author notes, turned what were operations against a terrorist group that the world community approved of to one that for a time, at least, made the Sri Lankan authorities isolated within the international community.

The book starts out with a history of the Tamil Tigers and their attacks against the government. This takes up the first few chapters of the book. He does bounce around inside the timeline. It is not a strictly linear telling, which can make things somewhat confusing.

The heart of the book is a description of the final assault. The author, who worked for the UN is exceedingly careful in describing the events. For instance, after describing the use of artillery against a school which killed several female students, he points out under international law how this could be a legitimate military target, then lays out the Sri Lankan government’s argument that it was.  Next using various reports to show that this was not accurate. It is much more convincing than if he had simply complained against the use of military hardware against civilians. He criticizes both sides, both the government for its heavy handed tactics as well as the Tigers for using the people as human shields.

This is not a book for someone who thinks that the government was within its rights to do anything to stop terrorists or, for that matter, that the Tamils were freedom fighters who could do anything against a corrupt government.

The book is also excellent at describing the international community’s reaction, first, after 9/11 becoming serious about the Tigers as a terrorist group, doing what they could to disrupt the highly sophisticated fund raising operations in the western democracies—Canada, Australia and the US—and how this gave the Sri Lankan government carte blanche in the beginning to step up operations against them. While the operations were taking place, the politics of the ualigned countries and third world came into play when the western nations wanted investigations against the Sri Lankan government’s actions. Countries such as India and China viewing these as a violation of sovereignty did what they could to block them, which is something that, of course, is going on today in Syria.

The book concludes on a rather depressing note discussing that these sorts of conflicts is something that will be needed to be confronted in the 21st century.

I would recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in the conflict and who doesn’t have an ideological dog in the fight. 

This book was provided by the publisher for review.