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Arteous Military history and historiography

When Hans Delbrck (18481!"!# during the last decades o$ the 1!th century%as it has rightly

been said%al&ost single'handedly trans$or&ed the riting o$ ar)ar$are history $ro& *story'

telling to a science+, hat he pri&arily did as to introduce and -ery e$$ecti-ely use a &ethod

hich he labeled .achkritik ($actual criticis as a co&ple&ent to the established &ethod o$ sourcecriticis&/

0o, hat did Delbrck &ean by the concept o$ .achkritik Described -ery si&ply, it &eans that

all historical *$acts+ (data#, e-en i$ they ha-e passed the &ost rigorous test o$ source criticis&, &ust

%in order to be scienti$ically acceptable%be tested as ell against *reality+, that is in relation to

the 2uestions3 is it possible, and at the sa&e ti&e credible that a certain $act has actually occurred,

or that it really could ha-e been such as it is rendered by the sources he correcti-es a-ailable in

this process are pro-ided by (1# the *las+ (condensed historical e5perience# o$ the theory o$ ar

(6riegstheorie)th7orie de la guerre#, by ("# historically unchanged topo'geographic conditions, and

by (# hat e kno is physiologically or technically possible/

9lauseit: (1;8

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interest o$ historians proper in

this research $ield has ne-er

been -ery great/ Gt has rather

been culti-ated by &useu&

sta$$s, by archaeologists and

historians o$ art, architecture or

technology, and by *a&ateurs+(ho &ight be highly

co&petent in their speciality#/

their great i&portance in

do&estic and international

politics/he research &ade in

this $ield is, to be sure, o$ -ery

une-en 2uality but it has

produced &uch solid and

detailed knoledge o$ so&e&ilitary bodies, like e/g/ the

Eo&an Ar&y, 0apoleon+s ar&y,

the Fritish Ar&y and 0a-y, and

the ?er&an ?eneral .ta$$/

nu&erous people outside the

ar&ed pro$ession/ hey ha-e

also captured the i&agination o$

&any no-elists (Al$red de

igny, =oseph Eoth, =a&es

=ones, =ohn Masters, .-en

Delblanc, and others#/ Gt is,hoe-er, only co&parati-ely

recently that this prospecti-e

$ield o$ research has been

*disco-ered+ by the scholarly

orld/ And it is not historians

(ith so&e $e e5ceptions#

ho ha-e taken the lead in

e5ploring the ne research

$ield, but rather anthropologists,

ethnologists, and sociologists/

The Military and Society Problematique

his proble&ati2ue beca&e a &aIor obIect o$ research $or historians, sociologists, and political

scientists a$ter the .econd World War, but it has intrigued historians long be$ore that, like, $or

instance, those riting o$ the late Eo&an republic, or the 9ro&ell regi&e, or the 0apoleonic

@&pire/ he a-e o$ scholarly interest in the proble&ati2ue rising in the 1!C

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history or hird World

de-elop&ents, but $ro&

the challenge o$ the

&any unknons in the

do&estic history o$

i&perial .eden and in

the dyna&ic history o$1;th century Den&ark

sociologists and

political scientists

(.a&uel / Huntington,

Morris =anoit:,

.a&uel @/ Biner, and

others# ha-e

concentrated al&oste5clusi-ely on the

conte&porary orld,

and there &ainly on the

K. and the de-eloping

states/ he historians,

on their side, ha-e been

&ore interested in

@urope and, o$ course,

older periods and one

o$ the& (?ordon A/

9raig# has produced the

beaconing ork on the

&ilitary in politics3 he

olitics o$ the russian

Ar&y (1!CC#/

sociologists ere late in co&ing3 to on

russia)?er&any by Ltto Fsch and 6arl

De&eter, respecti-ely, appeared in the 1!> and one on

18th century .eden by ?unnar Art7us in 1!8"/

he i&portance o$ this research $ield has nobeco&e idely recognised, hoe-er, and is

&ani$ested, e/g/ by so&e ne Iournals and in the

recently published series o$ books on War and

.ociety, edited by ?eo$$rey Fest and authored

by so&e o$ the &ost pro&inent Fritish

historians/