historiblogography

back when war was shiny and neat and fun and everybody laughed and played and fought like a big fun game hooray!!!

Annnnnd finally, we arrive at the last post about Frederick Kagan's The Military Reforms of Nicholas I: The Origins of the Modern Russian Army.

So. The book was greeted with highly favorable reviews in the history journals, and appears to be -- I'm no expert on Russian history -- a well-researched, well-argued piece of scholarship.

It also starts with a clammy-handed fanboy introduction of the sort written by war bloggers after a day spent watching the History Channel or reading Victor Davis Hanson, and please do try to hear this in your head in the voice of Buster Bluth:

The Napoleonic era was one of the most dramatic in European history. New ideas, social structures, military organizations, and, of course, exciting military campaigns followed one another with bewildering rapidity. To many, and especially to modern students of those times, the drama that Napoleon brought with him was a breath of fresh air sweeping away the stagnation of the eighteenth century. By contrast, the period following the collapse of Napoleon's empire seems a dark and dreary time...

This perception has seemed equally valid to many students of the military history of the period. It is a commonplace that Napoleon introduced radically new ways of waging warfare that put an end to the stagnant "limited war" of the previous century and pointed the way toward modern warfare: fast, mobile, decisive, and dramatic. Napoleon and his dashing marshals impressed themselves upon history in memorable campaigns such as Ulm, Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. By comparison, both the generals and the limited conflicts of the next three decades would seem dull, pedestrian, and fruitless. It was as though generals and statesmen after Napoleon vied with each other to return to the old, futile ways, ignoring the path to the future he had shown them.

Get the picture? "Dashing" warriors in "exciting" campaigns versus the dullness of limited war. (I have an idea: Let's take our military advice from this guy.) Real war is all shiny helmets and pretty ponies, and what a shame that our toy soldier people don't wear big handsome plumes in their shiny helmets, anymore, hooray! Shiny helmets! (And booooo, mean Mr. Metternich, 'cause of he made everybody have to have all those stoopid decades of boring stoopid peace, and it was soooooo boring!)

I picture him actually jumping up and down and clapping, flushed and pie-eyed. And then cookies, and straight to bed.

posted by Chris Bray @ 3:04 PM