Volume 89, Number 2 · April 2025

Fort Zeelandia is prominent in debates about European fortress design and the establishment of European power overseas. Some argue that Zeelandia confirms notions of a specific European military advantage in the early modern period. Yet the evolution of Zeelandia’s design has been insufficiently studied in this context. This paper uses archival sources on Dutch Formosa to examine the construction of Zeelandia and the other colonial forts on southwestern Formosa up to c. 1650 and contextualizes developments in colonial fort-building by the VOC throughout Asia. It delineates a shift away from European convention towards a style better adjusted to local demands, which requires reconsideration of the terms of the discussion.

From its founding in 1845, the United States Naval Academy employed African Americans as attendants in the midshipmen’s mess. While midshipmen misused rank to lampoon and exploit their mess attendants, some messmen suffered brutal treatment. In response, Naval Academy leadership used the midshipmen’s interactions with their mess attendants to inculcate the navy’s principle of hierarchy, the cornerstone of the discipline, restraint, and decorum that Annapolis training was designed to imprint upon the fierce concept of traditional honor desired in its graduates. Despite the shame attached to breaking the principle, naval hierarchy, exacerbated by prejudice and regulatory limitations, gave rise to a stark subculture of exploitation and abuse between midshipmen and messmen. That subculture, and the impressions midshipmen formed about their mess attendants at Annapolis, contextualizes the service’s history of racialized retention and the occupational roles available to African Americans, especially as the academy’s white officer-graduates rose to senior leadership in the interwar and World War II navy.

During and after World War I, the Prussian military, right-wing nationalists, and Nazi propagandists stirred up hate against Jewish soldiers and veterans by withholding information, creating conspiracy theories, and reinforcing negative stereotypes. This article explores how German Jewish frontline veterans fought back, via publicity, to refute the anti-Semitic stab-in-the-back myth (Dolchstoßlegende) by regularly publishing facts and statistics, framing their collective identity around honor, and diversifying news content. Through a systematic content analysis of the 1922–1938 issues of the German-language periodical Der Schild (published by the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten), this study reveals how Jewish veterans engaged in early forms of counterpropaganda by publishing facts, archival documents, statistics, photographs, verified testimonies, and eyewitness accounts. Historical records show that the “big lie” of “German Jewish cowardice” during World War I was simultaneously disproven but also incited earlier than the hate-politicking and race-baiting of Adolf Hitler and the nascent National Socialists. We argue that German Jewish Frontkämpfer countering destructive propaganda in the pages of Der Schild can be understood as fulfilling patriotism for their fatherland as much as their military service did.

During the Second World War, Canadian interests in British Guiana were essential for the Commonwealth war effort, since the colony’s extensive facilities for mining bauxite, the key ingredient in aluminum smelting, were Canadian owned and operated. This article examines the eventual dispatch to British Guiana of a small number of Canadian soldiers on British imperial service as a case study of wartime Anglo-Canadian military relations, addressing the nature of the Anglo-Canadian command relationship in the colony from the perspective of the Visiting Forces (British Commonwealth) Act, 1933. It explores military jurisdictional disputes in an imperial-dominion-colonial context and demonstrates the misunderstandings that arose between a Dominion seeking to preserve the national character of its overseas forces and British colonial authorities bent on simply absorbing the Canadians into British Guiana’s existing military structure.

Canada raised an army for the Second World War that proved almost too large to sustain. Yet the army overcame the challenge and kept all its formations in Europe fighting until the German surrender. Scholars have assessed how the army managed to sustain its combat power, for instance, by deploying conscripts, remustering soldiers from overborne trades into the understrength infantry, and employing women to free men for operations. This article explains that another way the army sustained its fighting capacity was by finding meaningful employment for battle-exhausted soldiers who could no longer fight but could work in support roles behind the forward area.

This article explores pacification operations led by the Republic of Korea Forces in Vietnam (ROKFV) during the Vietnam War. By examining U.S. military documents, South Korean sources, and participant testimonies, it revisits the strategic approaches and controversies surrounding their actions. The article analyzes the ROKFV’s impact on the broader goal of pacifying South Vietnam, situating their efforts within the context of the time. It illuminates the complexities of pacification and the crucial role of cultural understanding in counterinsurgency operations. Ultimately, it concludes that the ROKFV’s efforts were marked by successes in securing areas and limitations in winning hearts and minds, reflecting the inherent challenges of military-led pacification in a contested space.