The Place of Military History
Writing in the 1890s, General Hamley observed that 'no kind of history so fascinates mankind as the history of wars'. To judge from the volume of new titles, reprints, magazines and part-works – the good with the bad – devoted to military history and associated subjects that pour from the publishers each year, there must exist a wide popular readership that would agree with Thomas Hardy in The Dynasts : 'War makes ratting good history; but Peace is poor reading.' There are those, however, amongst serious academic historians who tend to regard the subject with a jaundiced eye, at worst equating it with the propagation of militarism and at best according it the status of the most junior partner or poorest relation of the major fields of historical study, suitable and relevant only for those engaging in the profession of arms. The first charge is groundless, for by the same logic the study of medicine would lead to the spread of disease. As for the second, there is no denying the subject's relevance to the serving soldier. 'Read and meditate upon the wars of the greatest captains', ....
