Module Identifier | IP35320 | ||||||||||||||
Module Title | WARFARE AFTER WATERLOO: MILITARY HISTORY 1815 - 1918 | ||||||||||||||
Academic Year | 2007/2008 | ||||||||||||||
Co-ordinator | Professor Martin S Alexander | ||||||||||||||
Semester | Intended for use in future years | ||||||||||||||
Next year offered | N/A | ||||||||||||||
Next semester offered | N/A | ||||||||||||||
Course delivery | Lecture | 16 Hours. (16 x 1 hour) | |||||||||||||
Seminars / Tutorials | 8 Hours. (5 x 90 mins) | ||||||||||||||
Assessment |
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- critically assess the legacies of Napoleonic warfare for a range of European countries and their armed services
- discuss the challenges encountered by European forces in operating in non-European contexts in the age of imperialism
- describe and analyze the key factors, agents historical trends and structural dynamics that influenced the changing shape, doctrines and fighting styles of various European and non-European armed forces in the period examined
- evaluate critically the roles of naval and land forces and their structure and recruitment in relation to differing national politico-strategic cultures and ways of war.
1 Legacies of Napoleon
(Areas of Study: Napoleon's system of operational manoeuvres; how his opponents had eventually adapted to cope with him; guerrillas and `people's war' in the Napoleonic era; conscripts vs. professionals; the theories of Clausewitz)
2 The Concert of Europe and Limited War: the Crimea
(Areas of Study: the `Concert of Europe' and the practice of Limited War; the `Balance of Power' and how to uphold it; were the British generals in the Crimea `Butchers and Bunglers'?; disease and the health of armies; impacts of new technologies; replay of Napoleonic war or foretaste of `modern' war ?)
3 The Wars of German Unification 1864-71
(Areas of Study: the evolution of battle tactics as a result of new weapons; the Elder Moltke and the rise of the Prussian Great General Staff; German operational methods and the `kesselschlacht'; sources of Austrian and French weakness,1866/1870; `Volkskrieg'/People's War in 1871)
4 The American Civil War 1861-65
(Areas of Study: amateurs at war and the problem of improvising mass citizen armies; the impact of railways; the effects of terrain; reasons for the move to a `raiding' strategy; Confederate superior generalship versus Northern industrial muscle; attritional war: the strategies of U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman)
5-6 European Interventions in Africa & Colonial `Small Wars'
Lecture and video screening
(Areas of Study: Logistics problems in colonial campaigning; distance, disease and communications; limitations inherent in the Victorian concept of pacification, colonisation and `indirect rule'; weapons and tactics; the circumstances in which non-Europeans could win - case study: The Zulu War 1878-79)
7-8 Developments in Naval Warfare, 1815-1918
(Areas of Study: wooden walls to steel dreadnoughts: a revolution in shipbuilding; the rise of naval theorists - Mahan and Corbett; the `Jeune ecole' in France and the debate on composition of fleets for winning and exercising sea-control; the rise and impact of torpedoes and submarines; armour versus big guns: naval arms races; naval bases, dockyards and coaling stations: navies and empires; Jutland - `missed opportunity'; trade defence in time of war: the U-Boat campaigns of 1915 and 1917 and the rediscovery of the convoy)
9 The Revolution in Armament, 1879-1914
(Areas of Study: role of the 2nd Industrial revolution and its impact on armaments development; specific developments in arms technology; impact of technology on logistics, communication and administration; implications for strategy and tactics; military reforms and the creation of professional general staffs)
10 Opening Moves in the Great War, August 1914
(Areas of Study: Anglo-French planning and strategy; expectations and realities of war in 1914; impact of technological and industrial development on warfare; `War by Timetable'; the problem of ammunition expenditure and re-supply; the `Race for the Sea' and end of mobility)
11-12 Trenchlock on the Western Front, 1915-16
Lecture and video screening
(Areas of Study: The phenomenon of `Trenchlock'; the development of mass civilian armies; the `Shell Shortage' crisis; the rise of artillery; the persistence of `breakthrough' strategic thinking and the realities of attrition; trench and artillery weapons development; assessing the Somme)
13 France's War: `Aux armes, citoyens'
(Areas of study: the spirit of the offensive and the weakness of French artillery; Joffre's Plan XVII and the miscalculations of 1914; bearing the brunt: 1915; Verdun, 1916: `They Shall Not Pass!'; the failure of the Nivelle offensive and the French mutinies, 1917; new commanders, new techniques: Petain, Estienne, Debeney, tanks and the Air Division: the restoration of French military effectiveness in 1918)
14 Entente's Exhaustion, 1917
(Areas of Study: From Arras to Ypres; the power of defence; the development of modern deep battle and the operational `set-piece' attack; changes in tactics and the creation of the platoon system; logistics and the `industralisation' of war; the soldiers' experience of war; assessing Cambrai)
15-16 The Kaiser's Collapse, 1918
Lecture and video-screening
(Areas of Study; The Entente in defence and the problem of manpower; the German spring offensives; development in Entente command, control, co-operation and strategy; `The Yanks are coming'; The Entente bites back: July-August 1918; the development of the `symphony' of all-arms co-operation; the restoration of mobility? - Sept.-Nov. 1918; Reflections on WW1
10 ECTS credits
This module is at CQFW Level 6