Volume 83, Number 2 · April 2019

Why did Attila the Hun withdraw from Italy in 452? Ancient sources give two explanations: the divine intervention of Pope Leo persuaded Attila to leave; or, the Huns suffered from hunger and disease, the explanation preferred by most historians. To the contrary, this micro-regional study of northern Italy argues that Attila met his food supply needs. By observing the distances traveled and extrapolating the speed of the Huns, this study proposes, in place of the traditional food shortage explanation, that Attila left Italy due to the oncoming winter.

This article aims to reconstruct and compare the technical developments of Italian ordnance production during the second half of the fifteenth century. The analysis will particularly focus on novelties and changes induced by the appearance and the assimilation of French royal cannons into Italian warfare, before and after the famed French Neapolitan campaign of 1494. Data have been collected from numerous contemporary chronicles and several critical editions of documents. Moreover, archival sources have been used for the examination of the significant Florentine case study. The results of the research demonstrate that the Italian states had for some time been engaged in the traditional manufacture of heavy guns, and so were skilled at adopting original practices, searching out innovations, and encouraging effective ideas, in the lively context of a Renaissance technological efflorescence.

This essay juxtaposes the biographies, ideologies, and military commands of four nearly contemporary soldier-statesmen: Andrew Jackson in the United States, Baldomero Espartero in Spain, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, in Great Britain, and Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult in France. Despite the differences between their respective four countries in the decade from 1820 to 1830, all of them went through the same post-revolutionary phase, decisive in the consolidation of representative political systems and the formation of party structures. At this juncture, and independently of cultural or ethnic factors, some of these leaders were held up as popular champions of change, whilst others held up their swords in defence of a more reactionary stance.

This article discusses the origins of the Army Nurse Corps in the Spanish-American War and the contributions of the Daughters of the American Revolution Hospital Corps. This organization was a vital proponent of employing contract nurses as medical auxiliaries, women whose service demonstrated both the capability of, and necessity for, female nurses in the military. The article also addresses the role of the American Red Cross in providing medical support, but concludes that tensions over control of transportation, supplies, and personnel drove the Army away from voluntary aid and toward creating a professional nurse corps within its Medical Department.

This essay explores the challenge the First World War posed to imperial culture by looking at representations of colonial troops in British and French soldiers’ wartime writings. The Great War posed significant challenges to empires and created new dynamics of exchange and dependence within them. Never before had so many civilians joined the army nor had so many non-European soldiers served in Europe. As the face of battle changed in so many significant ways, British and French soldiers took up pen and paper to distract and amuse themselves and each other. In the process, they created discourses which also reveal the ways in which the war provided a new context for evaluating empires and their peoples and questioned existing imperial culture.

During the past three decades, historians have largely dismantled the notion that the German Wehrmacht’s officer corps was apathetic, or even hostile, to National Socialist ideology. They have shown that younger officers joining the Wehrmacht during the late 1930s and the war years were typically members of Nazi organizations, particularly the Hitler Youth, and frequently held National Socialist ideological perspectives. The NSDAP affiliation of older junior grade officers, a numerically significant group, whose formative years predated the Third Reich have been less extensively studied. This article examines the German Volkssturm’s command personnel to demonstrate that many older, lower level officers possessed both successful military careers and extensive credentials as members and leaders in Nazi organizations. This finding not only confirms the Volkssturm’s dual military-political role, but also reveals the commitment to Nazi ideology of many in this cohort.

This new history brings women center-stage to the Arab revolt (1936–39) in Palestine and asks three related questions: how did Britain’s colonial pacification affect women, what part did women play thereof, and how did soldiers treat women? This includes discussion of sexual assault. It does this through deep mining of multilingual sources. The article argues that British soldiers eschewed sexual violence towards women, but military pacification had considerable oppressive effects on women as a target population during counter-insurgency. The analysis suggests more broadly that national-military cultures prompt armies in war zones to treat women differently, making brief reference to Israel today.

The 1 August 1943 low-level, U.S. Army Air Forces heavy bomber attack on the Ploesti oil facilities in Romania is best known for its daring, its crews’ bravery, and the heavy losses. Little attention has been given to an examination of the plan for the attack, the reasons for its failure, or its limited results. One of the most significant factors contributing to the outcome was combat friction, the accumulation of a number of unforeseen, relatively minor factors that disrupted the plan. This mission illustrates that daring and bravery, while necessary and important, are insufficient for military success and that flexibility and leadership are essential to overcome friction.