Demise of the Military Hero: How Emancipation, Education and Medication changed society’s attitude to conflict

By Stephen Cowell

Historically, military leaders were heralded as heroic figures, with commanders including Wellington, Nelson and Kitchener venerated by the general public. Today, commanders are no longer celebrated. Stephen Cowell explores how British society’s view of military conflicts has changed over the course of history, and asks challenging questions as to the future of armed conflict. 
Compared to historical wars, the number of deaths and casualties in recent conflicts is far fewer, and yet society is affected by these events to a far greater extent. The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions lasted longer than either of the two World Wars, and yet very few people would be able to name the military commanders in charge of these campaigns. Stephen explores why war is no longer viewed as glorious and heroic, but rather as sorrowful and reprehensible. Demise of the Military Hero charts the reasons as to why Britain engaged in conflict and examines society’s attitude towards war through a series of vignettes of key past military leaders. Stephen argues that the emancipation of women, supported by higher education for the masses and increased life expectancy caused the modern world to see warfare in a more negative light. Stephen’s challenging and controversial book presents a wide-ranging analysis in an easy-to-read way. 
Inspired by the work of English historian, AJP Taylor, the book will appeal to those interested in British history and the military. Readers with an interest in women’s issues and the changing role of women in society will also enjoy the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838596552

Book preview

Demise

of the Military Hero

How Emancipation, Education and Medication changed society’s attitude to conflict

Stephen Cowell

Copyright © 2017 Stephen Cowell

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

States and the Use of Force – Some Questions Posed

Chapter 2

Britain and the Imposition of Will – Setting the Scene

Chapter 3

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

Chapter 4

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722)

Chapter 5

General James Wolfe ( 1727 – 1759)

Chapter 6

Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive (1725-1774)

Chapter 7

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)

Chapter 8

Herbert Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (1850 – 1916)

Chapter 9

Hugh Caswell Tremenheere Dowding,

1st Baron Dowding (1882-1970)

Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet (1892-1984)

Chapter 10

From Blitz to Isil – Changing Values, Changed Priorities

Chapter 11

Emancipation and the Influence of Women on Conflict

Chapter 12

Cities, Doctors, Teachers, Preachers

Chapter 13

No More Heroes

Introduction

"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,

But we left him alone with his glory."

These famous lines written some eight years after the death of General Sir John Moore at Corunna say a great deal more than is first apparent particularly about the changing values of society since 1817 when the poem was written. Moore was killed on the battlefield by a cannonball and became an instant hero. His lasting fame was ensured by the poem’s popular acclaim and he remained for decades a romantic figure, a hero sacrificing his life for the good of Britain and the British Empire. A soldier dying with glory.

He is now one of a long list of names, known to all, that record the history of Britain. Marlborough, Nelson, Wolfe, Wellington, and Kitchener are but a few of the names that used to be regarded as heroes. Statues of these men (they are all men) fill our public squares, portraits fill the galleries, histories and biographies fill the libraries. Romantic tales of death on the high seas, or in the face of the enemy, have been passed down from generation to generation. Poems and plays written and performed.

These men shaped Britain and much of the world. They acted with independence and surety. They were unafraid of casualties or death. They did not fear the press or media and engaged in battle to achieve fame and glory, wealth and conquest, power and influence for Britain and Empire. These military leaders held a status and esteem in society. The state rewarded them handsomely and they were the top-drawer attraction with both the general public and the power brokers. The Lords’ and Commons’ benches were full of former military leaders. Classrooms resounded to tales of their exploits. They were in short household names.

The ranks of these men though are being filled no more. There are no recent recruits and there are few poets bombarding publishers with fireside tales of heroism and glory. The names of admirals and generals are not in the public eye. They have been usurped as celebrities by sportsmen and women, film stars and performers. We no longer see military campaigns in foreign fields as glorious and if we are to have heroes they are the badly injured soldiers blown up in inadequate Land Rovers, not generals. Poems are not written celebrating death on the battlefield and we no longer romanticise the military as did the Reverend Charles Wolfe when he wrote this poem. That a church leader should write such a poem was entirely consistent with values of the nineteenth century and the role of the clergy but would seem utterly at odds with how we perceive them now.

Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, painted in 1838, achieves the same impact on canvas as Wolfe’s letters did in print seeking to stir up romantic images of past glorious victories. They both describe a world which is now gone, changed not just by technology but by attitudes and mindsets. War is not heroic, victories are not glorious, and death on the battlefield is not to be celebrated. If we were to cite a poem to describe conflict, Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon would be far more likely to represent our popular views. He did for them all with his plan of attack would resonate far more than We left him alone with his glory.Theatregoers empathise with war horses not war makers. We no longer think Theirs but to do and die or romanticise the noble six hundred. It is hard to imagine demands for statues of recent generals being made in local council meetings.

No politician would now dream of suggesting as Salisbury did in 1865 that conflict in free States is the law of life or In the real business of life no one troubles himself much about ‘moral titles’, no one would dream of surrendering any practical security, for the advantages of which he is actually in possession, in deference of the a priori jurisprudence of a whole academy of philosophers.

The reasons for such a dramatic change are of course numerous and complex. They define how society has changed over decades. We shall argue, however, that fundamental to the change has been the fact that firstly and above all else in importance women have the vote and are far more deeply involved in the political process and have brought a totally different perspective to war and conflict.

If the growing influence of women has been critical in changing societies’ views then so has the constantly improving living standards, mass education and the decline in significance of organised religion.The background to these changes and the way they have impacted on conflict will be examined.

There can be no doubt that we no longer glorify conflict as we once did. This has had a significant impact on the nature of conflict itself and has resulted in significant new challenges and constraints upon the military leader to the extent that it could be argued that modern-day generals have become trapped in the pincers of risk aversion and litigation on the one side and a more caring educated and sensitive society on the other. We shall look at how this impacted on conflict since the Second World War.

Chapter 1

States and the Use of Force –

Some Questions Posed

The great questions of the day will not be answered by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

The secret of politics ? Make a good treaty with Russia.

(Otto von Bismarck)

History is at its core the study of how one individual or one group of people imposes and seeks to maintain their will on others. The imposition of will takes many forms, e.g. political, economic, cultural, and religious but underpinning all is the use, or threat of use, of physical force.

Force can of course be exercised at many levels: Individuals, groups, gangs, criminal groupings, formal groups or alliances, bureaucracies, armies. At the highest level sits the state or nation, a politically unified grouping of people occupying a definitive territory. In terms of the application of force, states operate at every level from attacks upon individuals and gangs to organised groups, political parties, bureaucracies, terrorists, armies, and of course other states. It is impossible to study any period of world history without it containing reference to conflict whether it be armed, in the sense of formal armies battling against each other, or informal, where the state uses less obvious or organised resources to apply force in order to achieve its objectives.

History tends to be organised into periods when one particular state or empire had undoubted control, is clearly top dog; e.g. the Roman or the British Empire. Alternatively, it is divided into time periods conveniently referenced by major armed conflict, e.g. the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, the Inter War Years, the Cold War. Armed conflict has shaped the world and shaped it more than any other factor.

No state exists, no state has developed, and no grouping of states has survived without employing physical force. Indeed the very reason for the initial establishment of modern states is that only they could form, manage and control military forces of any size. Since time began we have seen the rise of complex bureaucracies needed firstly to collect the taxes necessary to fund military organisations and then to manage these forces. Throughout the ages, the constant improvement in technology has increased, relatively, the cost of such forces, to such an extent that few countries can now sit at the top table and certainly means that individuals cannot.

The primary reason for the ever-changing geopolitical map of the world is that one state is defeated militarily by another state or by a new grouping of people. The demise of one state may not necessarily be as a result of defeat on the battlefield, it may be as a result of the inability to compete with an adversary economically or technologically and thus be unable to afford to maintain military forces that can sustain the state. It may be that one state has consciously sought to improve its military power so that its adversaries would conclude that in the event of war, defeat would be inevitable and therefore declines conflict. However, whether actual conflict takes place or not, geopolitical change of any substance is nearly always determined by force or the potential application of force.

If we consider the world as we see it today its very order is under severe pressure and the application of force used daily. Tensions are rising in Europe as a result of what is seen by the West as Russian aggression, but what is seen by the Russians as a necessary reaction to the constant eastward expansion of NATO. War in the Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, incursions into the Baltic States, and security concerns regarding Russia’s southern borders due to the impact of the civil war in Syria all contribute to a general unease.

In the Far East the emergence of China as a global superpower, is resulting in a changing world order. The United States, no longer able to dictate the agenda, watches with concern the rise of Chinese aggrandisement. The building of naval stations in the South China Sea, the development of blue water navies, the investment in space and missile technology (designed to counter what has been the symbol of American global power since the Second World War, the US Naval carriers) are actions of a nation that intends to impose its will.

The Middle East is a maelstrom of unfathomable complexity with states aligned to particular branches of Islam seeking to gain ascendancy and impose their will on others whilst radical thinkers and religious leaders seek to establish not only states governed by Islam but a new world empire. The Muslim Brotherhood rests on a clearly articulated philosophy with a world vision.

Western nations and particularly America and Britain have been thrown off balance as they seek to reconcile a deep commitment to democratic principles of government with the growing realisation that their self-interests and indeed the interests of subjects more directly affected are not necessarily improved by replacing or assisting in the replacement of the dictatorships of Gaddafi, Saddam Husain, Assad and others.

Isil has occupied and controlled substantial geographic areas and has exercised a brutality of force beyond savage. It has sought to extend its influence to Africa with Nigeria and Somalia suffering regular attacks. The Sunni/Shia divide complicates matters immeasurably as does the unofficial but clear involvement in local territorial wars of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

There is nothing new in these exercises of force. History is the record of such actions.The map of the world is the result of the exercising of force. America is the result of the subjugation of the indigenous population, revolution against a colonial power, wars with other European states, wars with neighbouring states, and civil war. The map of Europe has been determined by innumerable wars many of which arose solely for states to maintain a balance of power between themselves. China, India and the whole of the African continent are the results of thousands of years of one group exercising force against another. The Middle East, as we know it, is merely the latest documentation of an ever-changing scorecard as one group ascends and another declines.

The concept that the geopolitical map of the Middle East will be the same in a hundred years from now defies the evidence of thousands of years. Even a cursory reading of the history of Jerusalem reveals century after century of warfare between rival groups. There is no logical reason to believe that from now on the governance of Jerusalem will be as it is now.

We all and particularly historians must always remember that the times we now live in will be ancient history to future generations. We tend to be blinkered by the glare of present-day lights and events and give too much importance to the events of today. Insignificant trivial issues exercise great attention, probably because these can be more easily understood, whilst sweeping changes underpinning Teutonic shifts in culture, religion and politics are rarely noticed, commented upon or predicted.

It was ever so. A study of the ancient world would be at its core a study of wars between various interests groups. It does not matter if the study is centred on China, India, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, or the Americas. History is the study of the application of force and the consequences of this application.

The application or threat of force shapes the world. It is when undertaken by armies on behalf of states that it becomes military action; the most extreme example of the application of force. The costs are huge, the casualties, not necessarily amongst the combatants, large, the ramifications almost always wrongly predicted.

It is a surprise, therefore, that military history does not have a higher profile particularly in universities. Rather like media studies or business studies, military history is perhaps seen as rather dubious, somewhat lacking in rigour, intellectual context or moral foundations studying as it does wars and the killing of people. It is seen as the playground of journalists or those overly concerned with irrelevant detail. Is it of any lasting significance if we know which particular platoon was based in which particular field at any one time? Yet international relations are determined by the application of force and fundamentally its study is the study of