Is the military history true history?

Since the birth of World Conflicts, I have repeatedly tried to furnish historically correct and in a certain way useful information and news. However, the principal subject has never changed from the study of modern conflicts and just for this motive it was brought to me in the last days a heavily effective and well-structured criticism. In fact, it has been firmly announced to me that my site doesn't have any right to boast a whatever historical value, since the military history would not constitute a real historical study, if you grant to me the game of words. The motivations on which this criticism is founded are the following: first, for history would be necessary to intend a discipline that has as purpose the knowledge of the passed life of the man and not only of a secondary aspect as the war can be. In addition, if we also thought about giving a historical dignity to the search in military field, we would arrive to deny the importance of a central factor of the history and that is the sociological andsychological aspect of the men that have contributed to write it.

Who has contacted me for this discussion has to excuse me, but I have had to condense their reasons for motives of space. I won't stay behind in front of this problem. Is the military history, history indeed? I will strive to deduce some valid arguments that will disprove both bases of the criticism. Departing from the first point, it is undeniable that the military history is not anything else other than a section of the largest whole of history in general sense. I have not ever intended to replace its order of importance and after all, why would I have had to do it? If it exists a principal subject and a secondary one, it doesn't want to say that the latter has less merits or less importance of that from which it takes the rush. Literature is an evident example of this. It can be divided in hundreds of sections according to the nation or the historical period or the content or, also to the author, but nobody would never deny validity to every single search. Therefore, the solo motive that, I think, can reanably found this first part of the criticism, it would have to reside in the fact that we are speaking about wars. Fundamentally, it is the greatest problem. The war as object of study has been always badly seen, because it was let coincide the research about war with the pursuit of it. Unfortunately it is a serious misunderstanding too often committed by whom, from outside, tries to understand what are the reasons that push a person to interest in conflicts and huge tragedies as wars are. The systematic analysis of the war doesn't owe to be considered a peculiar aspect of the warmonger or pacifist. Also in times of revisionism as those in which we live are, it would have to appear clear that it can serve, rather it MUST serve, to understand the reasons and accordingly to understand the errors that are at the base of those conflicts. Denying the existence of something (or its importance in the history of Man) doesn't want to say that it doesn't exist indeed. What has pushed me to create World Conflicts it isot a visionary spirit of emulation (I would ask the author of this affirmation to contact me personally before cataloging me in this category), but rather a conscious taking of position in front of the undeniable presence of the war phenomenon. As it says a famous television spot: "if you know it, you'll avoid it".

The second part of the criticism has some more interesting aspects. Writing of wars and conflicts involves necessarily a general vision on them. For example, World War II has had such duration and has involved so wide part of the population of our planet that could not be done otherwise. I think that this is evident for whomever. I don't want, however, entrench me behind the obviousness. I have personally realized the problem in the moment in which I have deepened General De Gaulle's life. In the historical testimonies that I have recovered, it was given more importance to the concreteness of his actions than to the psychological motives that have conditioned them. Certainly, nobody who writes about history can arrogate the ability to know the unconscious of another individual, but if we intend him from the collective point of view, this can be indeed gotten. I lean on the theory of Gaston Bouthoul who in his book “Wars” found the bases of the polemology, that is, following his definition, “the objective and scientific study of the conflicts how social phenomenon susceptible to be observed as anyone else phenomenon.” The military history could be so sight how a development in the time of this dynamic sociology. Determining which reasons have convinced whole people to fight or to stop doing it, has to be necessarily based on sociological and psychological foundations. Perhaps, not of individuals, but certainly of collectivity. In conclusion, under the light of these precise statements, the qution that I have set to me in precedence has to receive a positive answer: military history is true history.

I hope having contributed to clarify the misunderstanding. Don't attend from World Conflicts more than what it can give, because otherwise it would lose also that little value that has acquired in the time.

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