Volume 74, Number 3 · July 2010

Following the Spanish revolts of 1808 against French occupation of their country, Spanish regiments that had previously fought for Napoleon in northern Europe became anxious to return to their homeland to support the uprising. The British government, very much aware of the military and political utility of removing this force from Scandinavia, prepared and executed an operation to remove the soldiers from Denmark and carry them back to Spain. This article outlines how this remarkable operation was managed and conducted, studying the political, administrative, and logistical elements, before moving on to consider its wider implications, both for Britain and for the war in Spain.

Between 1834 and 1853 the British colonial army fought three wars with the Xhosa peoples who resided on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony of South Africa. Based on the published and unpublished diaries, journals, correspondence, and memoirs of British soldiers who served in these wars, this paper examines how these wartime experiences led to the creation of a military knowledge system of the Xhosa that stereotyped them as treacherous savages and merciless barbarians. Further, this essay argues that these stereotypes played a crucial role in the conquest of the Xhosa by justifying policies of dispossession and subjugation in the name of colonial security, and allowing British soldiers to conduct unlimited warfare against them. In this regard, the British military knowledge system of the Xhosa casts long shadows of violence and distrust over the history of South Africa.

The historiography of Western intelligence assessments of Japanese military power and prowess, particularly before the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, is littered with accusations of racism, ignorance, arrogance, and incompetence, which are portrayed as having created one of the most serious underestimations of a modern power’s military capabilities. However, cultural and racial biases will always exist in professional military establishments because their competitiveness and emphasis on morale lead some untrained minds to undervalue systems possessing values different from their own. This article will reassess the influences of racism on Anglo-American appreciations of Japanese air power, and its development, in the seven years before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This article revisits the topic of Soviet women in the ground forces in the Second World War. The focus is on the nature and variety of women’s combat experiences. Although most women were noncombatants, many did participate in activities normally associated with combat, and some women participated in virtually every combat role of the time. The available evidence indicates that women in the Red Army performed, overall, as well as men in combat situations.

Wilfred A. Burchett was perhaps the most controversial foreign correspondent of the Cold War era. An Australian by birth, he wrote for British and French newspapers, but spent much of his career reporting from the other side of the “bamboo curtain.” Although his dispatches often had a propagandist purpose, his account of the U.S. Army’s media relations during the protracted Korean armistice negotiations continues to exert a significant influence over the academic literature. This article looks at the reasons for this influence and critically examines Burchett’s claim that the U.S. military engaged in a concerted effort to mislead the public by lying about, and sometimes suppressing, what was really happening in the truce talks.

The Battle of the Golan Heights was one of the critical events of the Yom Kippur War. Most of the current historiography follows the narrative established by Avigdor Kahalani in his work The Heights of Courage, in which the outcome was determined by the skill and courage of the Israeli tank crews of the 7th Armored and Barak brigades. While acknowledging the Israelis’ bravery, this article challenges this conventional approach by stating that it was the Syrians’ tactical incompetence and failure to adhere to Soviet operational doctrine that was the primary cause of the battle’s outcome.

During the Vietnam War several beliefs gained currency that had negative implications for the men who labored as advisers. One was that the U.S. Army did not select its best men for advisory duty. Another was that promotion boards disregarded statements by senior Army leaders that command and advisory performance would be given the same weight when determining officer promotions. This article attempts to shed light on the question by examining the extent to which former Vietnam advisers achieved general officer rank in the U.S. Army.