University of North Texas 
What's Happening at the Center
On October 15, 2024, the Department of History and the Military History Center organized a panel "Perspectives on Military History." Professors Ruth Lawlor from Cornell University and Michael Neiberg from the Army War College presented their views on the state of the field.
Volume I of the MHC's War Studies Journal can be purchased online at: https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781544045856/war-studies-journal-1/
Volume I
ARTICLES:
"The Creation of the Seven Military Classics" by Peter Lorge
"Revisiting Russian Strategic Planning against Napoleon, 1810-1812" by Alexander Mikaberidze
"Histories of War" by Jeremy Black
EDITOR'S CHOICE
"American Understandings of Chinese Strategy: A First-Draft Genealogy of the Search
for a Chinese Way of War" by Harold M. Tanner
BOOK REVIEWS:
Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, by Peter Wilson, reviewed by Sam A. Mustafa
Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare, by Paul Lockhart, reviewed by Jeremy Black
Kutuzov: A Life in War and Peace, by Alexander Mikaberidze, reviewed by Roger R. Reese
The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars, 3 vols., edited by Michael Broers, Philip Dwyer, Bruno Colson, Alexander Mikaberidze, Alan Forrest, and Peter Hicks, reviewed by Jordan R. Hayworth
Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era, by Francis M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant, reviewed by Ethan S. Rafuse
The Austro-Hungarian Army and the First World War, by Graydon A. Tunstall, reviewed by Geoffrey Wawro
Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded, by David Stahel, reviewed by Russell A. Hart
Eagles Overhead: The History of U.S. Air Force Forward Air Controllers from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul, by Matt Dietz, reviewed by S. M. Pavelec
Mercy: Humanity in War, by Cathal J. Nolan, reviewed by Lisa M. Brady
Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia's Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution, by Samuel Ramani, reviewed by Sean McMeekin
Congratulations to West Point Fellow Captain Arthur Avery for the successful defense of his MA thesis: "IRREGULAR PROFESSIONALISM: THE MILITARY COMPETENCE OF AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY MILITIA." Written under the direction of Dr. Chet and defended on 20 March 2024--way to go Arthur!
The MHC held the 6th Annual War Studies Symposium Luncheon on 6 April 2024. Award-winning historian Dr. Sean McMeekin revealed how Stalin--not Hitler--was the driving force of World War II. According to McMeekin, the Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's. Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, McMeekin has revolutionized our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin will show, the war that emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941-1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the "Anglo-Saxon" capitalist powers that he viewed as his ultimate adversary.
The 40th Annual Alfred and Johanna Hurley Military History Seminar will be held on 2 December 2023 at the UNT Gateway Center on the main UNT campus in Denton. The 2023 Seminar, titled "Will There Be War? The US-China Rivalry and the Dangers of War," will feature two outstanding scholars: Professor Yong Deng of the US Naval Academy and Professor Rana Mitter of Harvard. Professor Deng will answer fundamental questions about the origin and nature of the great power politics that have made war a possibility. He will explain the emerging patterns that suggest a future conflict by discussing the Chinese perspective on US-China competition in the Indo-Pacific. Our luncheon address will be presented by Professor Mitter, who will examine the rise of China's military, and explore the ways that technology, economics, and geopolitical goals come together in Beijing's thinking. His talk will contextualize China's understanding of its twentieth-century wars and how China's experience of war against Japan and against the U.S. in Korea still resonates in popular memory.
The 5th War Studies Symposium was held on Monday, 1 May 2023 at the Embassy Suites in Denton. The theme of the Symposium, "Death of the Luftwaffe: The Air War over Germany," was presented by Dr. s. Michael Pavelec, Professor and Director of Research, US Air Command and Staff College. The Luftwaffe - the German Air Force - played a crucial role in Germany's blitzkrieg tactics by providing both air cover and air artillery for Germany's ground forces. Germany's successful invasions of France, the Low Countries, the Balkans and the Soviet Union are due in no small part to the professionalism, dedication and skill of the Luftwaffe. However, as the German army became bogged down on the Eastern Front, British and American air forces undertook a massive air campaign against Germany that accelerated from 1943 through 1945. Bereft of fuel and its units ravaged by attrition, the Luftwaffe no longer exercised any influence on the conduct of either air or ground operations. Starting in late spring 1943, American "strategic" bombing attacks against German industry imposed a wasting attrition on the Luftwaffe's fighter forces. The severe fighting over the Reich in the summer and fall coupled with decimation of air units fighting on the periphery placed a rising and, in the long run, intolerable burden on the Luftwaffe. In addition, production of new fighters fell off substantially due to American bombing. Starting in February 1944, the American air forces broke the back of the Luftwaffe and assured complete Allied air superiority over the continent for the D-Day invasion. The achievement of air superiority allowed the Allies to launch a true "strategic" bombing effort to bring Nazi Germany to its knees.
Dr. Pavelec received his Ph.D. in 2004 from the Ohio State University. He specializes in 20th Century military history, airpower, and diplomacy. His first academic position was as an assistant professor of history at Hawaii Pacific University, where after a year he became the program chair for diplomatic and military studies. He has taught at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS) of the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB since 2011. He is the author or editor of five books and has published numerous articles and book chapters on airpower, technology, space, and cyber warfare. He has been the subject matter expert for well- known history shows such as Nazi Megastructures: Battle Ready (2019), What on Earth? (2015) and Nazi Mega Weapons (2013). He is the author of five monographs on air power.
Colonel Jeremy Reeves, United States Air Force and UNT PhD candidate, gave the Spring 2023 Executive Council Lecture, "The Limits of Power Projection: US Capabilities and Constraints" on 19 April 2023.
The MHC welcomes new Student Fellow Kristie DeLuna. Kristie earned her Bachelor of Science - Secondary Education in Social Studies degree from Fayetteville State University (2008) in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She earned her Master of Arts in Teaching from Columbia College (2012) in Columbia, Missouri. She also earned graduate credit hours in History from Midwestern State University (2020) in Wichita Falls, Texas. Kristie is currently a Doctoral student in European History and a Teaching Assistant at the University of North Texas. She has taught AP United States and European History in public schools for fourteen years, serving for eight years in the Lewisville Independent School District, is also an Adjunct-Professor of History at Collin College in Frisco, Texas.
The focus of Kristie's doctoral research is a study of Désirée Clary Bernadotte, the first fiancée of Napoleon Bonaparte and the wife of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. Her husband's election to the role of Crown Prince of Sweden and later King of Sweden propelled Désirée to the rank of Queen. Désirée returned to Paris and continued to live in France, hosting salons for political dissidents and activists. Desirée's life is largely misunderstood and through research at the Swedish National Archives, Kristie intends to uncover the truth about her political role between France and Sweden during the Napoleonic Wars.
This year, Dr. McCaslin published two articles: "Brush Country Rangers: Capt. William L. Wright and Company D in South Texas, 1919-1925," in the Journal of South Texas 36 (Spring 2022), and "A Team Effort: 125 Years of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 125 (April 2022). Two of his doctoral students graduated after successfully defending their dissertations: MHC Student Fellow David Onyon, "The United States Occupation of Mexico City, 1847-1848," and Steven Collins, "Professor Carl A. Helmecke and Nazism: A Case Study of German-American Assimilation." A former doctoral student, Terry Furgerson, had his dissertation on the North American Aviation Plant at Dallas in World War II accepted by UNT Press for publication, hopefully in the spring of 2023. Another former doctoral student, James Blackshear, published a co-authored book, his third, on the Comancheros in New Mexico. Dr. McCaslin also chaired a session at the Society for Military History that featured papers by two UNT doctoral graduates, Furgerson and Merv Roberts, and he delivered lectures to many local history groups as well as in-service presentations for the Aledo, Texas, Independent School District.
Congratulations to Dr. Chet for being named a Faculty Fellow at MESOPOLHIS - University of Aix-Marseille Mediterranean Center of Sociology, Political Science, and History. Also, in 2021-22, Dr. Chet published articles on the American Revolution ("Was the American Revolution a Rich Man's War but a Poor Man's Fight?"), the Constitution ("The 14th Amendment and the Heart of the Constitution"), and Atlantic piracy ("Maritime Law as Propaganda: The Case of Piracy Suppression in the British Atlantic"). He also delivered talks on these topics at the University of Aix-Marseille and to the Taiwan World History Society.
Dr. Majstorovic gave the MHC's Fall 2022 Executive Council Lecture, "Putin Strikes Ukraine," on 30 November 2022.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Andrew Huebner who has become the first UNT graduate student to be named a Boren Fellow. The highly competitive Boren Fellowship, funded by the National Security Education Program, is open to U.S. graduate students and funds research, networking, and language study in "world regions critical to U.S. interests." Andrew will spend a full academic year learning Russian at the BORN Russian Language Academy in Latvia as well as conducting archival research across the Baltic Sea region for his dissertation. Andrew's work will examine how American relief operations in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) during the post-First World War years played a key role in the rise of new nation-states and American humanitarianism. Andrew also received a 2022-2023 Silas Palmer Research Fellowship to further his doctoral research at the Hoover Institute Archives housed at Stanford University.
The MHC welcomes new Student Fellow, Jessica Luepke. Jessica is a current PhD student and teaching assistant at the University of North Texas. She also is an adjunct professor at Weatherford College. She earned her Associate of Arts (2016) from Tarrant County College and her BA (2018) in History with a minor in military history at the University of Texas at Arlington. In 2020 she received her MA in History from UTA with her thesis "What Germany Taught the U.S. Army: Occupational Lessons in Postwar Germany, 1945 1947." The project focused on how military policies dictated the rebuilding of Germany but caused friction within the occupation troops and the resulting dissent among the soldiers led to a change in the command culture. Her doctoral research expands upon the lessons learned during occupations to compare how civil military relations during the Philippine Occupation (1899 1902), Haiti (1915 1917), and Germany (1945 1946) resulted in changes in the culture of the U.S. Armed Forces. Questions surrounding race, gender, and martial culture allow Jessica to draw lines of similarities between the three events and explore the role occupation has in developing cultural normality.
The MHC held the 39th Annual Hurley Seminar on 29 October 2022. Professor David R. Stone of the US Naval War College analyzed the sweep of Russian and Soviet history and Putin's characterization of Ukraine as a "lost province." General Peter B. Zwack, who served as defense attaché to Moscow from 2012-14, where he traveled extensively in the Russian Federation, interacted with the Kremlin leadership, saw first-hand the working of "Putin's brain." Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was based on his own particular reading of Russian history, his insistence that Ukraine is an inalienable part of Russia, and a Trojan Horse for Western meddling in Russia's sphere.The Seminar explored the background influences on Russian policy and strategy as well as the dark culture of war, paranoia, religious nationalism, and sacrifice propagated by Putin today.
Congratulations to Dr. Merv Roberts (PhD UNT 2016) on the publication of his second book: Propaganda and Influence: Russia and China Targeting America. "In the twenty-first century, Russia and China have positioned themselves as competitors to the current US-led Western geopolitical order. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine, they have closely aligned themselves against that order. These nations represent the United States' top national priorities and have necessitated a shift from the counter-terror operations of the last twenty years to near-peer competition in a multi-polar world. As such, propaganda from these nations will be an increasingly important factor in this competition. This book is for people interested in Russian and Chinese propaganda as a phenomenon, those seeking to navigate the current information minefield, as well as practitioners new to the field of influence."
Congratulations to Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Stampher on the successful Spring 2022 defense of his dissertation: "Desertion and Defection in Roman Republican Warfare."
Despite their many successes, Roman leaders continually struggled with indiscipline in their own ranks as they battled Rome's opponents. Desertion and defection were steps that soldiers often undertook to avoid their obligated service. Previous scholarship has largely overlooked this aspect of Roman warfare. This dissertation analyzes why Roman soldiers began turning to desertion and defection throughout the Republican period. Such cases were generally rare in early Rome, but the expanding responsibilities and hardships of warfare in the Middle Republic caused them to rise, as did the sizeable growth of the Roman community. The civil wars of the Late Republic saw especially high cases of such act, as generals incentivized defections in their opponents ranks. Roman desertion was not unique, but a common occurrence in ancient warfare. This dissertation also addresses how Romans capitalized on desertion and defection in warfare. The Second Punic War offers an example of how Rome achieved victory by encouraging defection in its enemy's alliances. Romans also relied heavily on defectors as a source of intelligence and as a tool in siege warfare. The moral forces of commitment, discipline, dissatisfaction, and desertion were often as important as the tactics and technologies of the participants in Rome's wars. Lieutenant Colonel is the new Commander of the Northern Arizona University Air Force ROTC.
During Summer 2022, MHC Student Fellow Julia Ortiz presented "Astronomical Clocks and Lares: A Comparison of Sacred Space" at the 9th Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Saint Louis University. The paper is part of an article she is publishing with the University of Florida under their conference proceedings from last year. Julia also presented a paper, "Feminine Valor: The Empress's virtues in Roman Propaganda," at the International Ancient War Conference hosted by South Dakota State University.
Check out Dr. Majstorovic's article, "If you Love Russia - Support Ukraine" in East West Bridge International
MHC Teaching Fellow Dr. Vojin Majstorovic is presenting his research live on YouTube on 14 April at 1300 Central Time. The event will be hosted by Paul Woodadge of WWTV Military History Channel. The link for the live stream is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXiex2uOYqQ. The title of his presentation is "The Red Army Storms into Europe: Identity, Violence, and Discipline on the Eastern Front, 1944-1945."
Check out this great article by Student Fellow Lieutenant-Colonel Will Blythe, US Army:
"Multi-Domain Warfighting in NATO: The 1 German-Netherlands Corps View"
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/journals/military-review/online-exclusive/2022-ole/blythe/
The MHC welcomes its newest Student Fellow, Nicholas Kramer. Nick is currently a PhD student and Teaching Assistant at UNT. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in History in 2019 from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York where he also played four years of college football. In 2021, he obtained a masters degree in History from the University of North Texas. Nick's main area of research is the French Revolution and Napoleonic military history. He is currently working under the guidance of Dr. Michael V. Leggiere. Nick's dissertation focuses on the military career of Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout. Nick is originally from Farmington, Pennsylvania, a small town one hour south of Pittsburgh. He and his dad are diehard Pittsburgh Steeler fans and attend one game every year. Nick is also an avid golfer.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Hailey Stewart on the publication of her chapter "'A Metaphysical Distinction': British Policy and the Prussian Occupation of Hanover in 1801" in THE SWORD AND THE SPIRIT: Proceedings of the first 'War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon' Conference, ed. Zack White (Helion, 2021). More than two hundred years on, the Napoleonic Wars still fascinates, with fresh perspectives and new information continuing to develop our understanding of the era. Drawing on cutting-edge research presented at the British Commission for Military History's inaugural 'War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon' Conference, this volume presents a rich array of papers from both established and emerging experts of the period. Featuring the work of Edward Coss, Andrew Bamford, Jacqueline Reiter, Alistair Nichols, Vanya Bellinger, Gavin Lewis, Silvia Gregorio-Sainz, and Hailey Stewart, The Sword and the Spirit examines some of the people, personalities, and policies that shaped the conflict. From assessments of Napoleon's mental state, to the actions of individuals such as Sir Home Popham and Carl von Clausewitz; from the siege of San Sebastian to the fields of Waterloo, this book considers the impacts that patronage, diplomacy, psychology, personal experiences, and the disobedience of established practices all had on the waging of war. In the process, it demonstrates the truth of Napoleon's remark that the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Kevin R. Broucke for the successful defense of his dissertation: "THE BALKAN IMBROGLIO. THE DIPLOMATIC, MILITARY, AND POLITICAL ORIGINS OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN OF WORLD WAR I" under the direction of Professor Wawro. Broucke's dissertation provides a much-needed re-evaluation of the Macedonian Campaign's diplomatic and political origins within the war's early context. In doing so, it first concentrates on a longue durée perspective and assesses the main historical events in the Balkans and Central Europe from the end of the French Revolution to World War I. The first half of the dissertation presents an overview of some of the most crucial episodes that paved the way to the onset of World War I and the inception of the Macedonian Campaign: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Congress of Berlin of 1878, The Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909, the Italo-Ottoman War of 1911-1912, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. In the second part of this study, the main thread of Broucke's analysis is the crucial Anglo-French relationship that evolved between the end of the nineteenth century and World War I; Broucke describes its importance regarding the Macedonian Campaign's inception and highlights the fragile nature of the Entente Cordiale and some of the fundamental issues that affected the Anglo-French conduct of military operations on the Western Front as well as in the Balkans. Therefore, he underlines why in the Macedonian Campaign, the French government (which since the beginning of 1915, had resentfully consented to follow the British Cabinet's lead) decided to enforce its prerogatives on the Eastern policy of the Entente, and unlike in the Dardanelles to no longer play "the role of a docile stooge."
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow David Onyon for the successful defense of his dissertation: "PEACE SELLS…BUT WHO'S BUYING: THE UNITED STATES OCCUPATION OF MEXICO CITY, 1847-1848," written under the direction of Dr. McCaslin. Between 1846 and 1848, the United States and Mexico engaged in a conflict that eventually established most of the modern border dividing the two nations. The war represents the apex of the expansionist Manifest Destiny sentiment that pervaded the popular discourse of the first half of the nineteenth century. Historians have extensively examined its major battles, discussed the sectional disputes within the United States that emerged as a result of it, and written about its impact on the expansion of slavery in the aftermath of the war. The war clearly serves as an introductory footnote to the American Civil War. However, the focus on these issues overlooks many other significant characteristics of the conflict. For the first time in American history, United States forces defeated a foreign nation, conducted large scale operations outside their own nation's borders, coordinated army and navy operations with reasonable effectiveness, and staged their first large amphibious landing. Most important, the capture of Mexico City in September 1847 left the United States Army with the unprecedented task of occupying an enemy capital for an extended period. Onyon's study of that operation, which endured longer than anyone originally expected, provides new insights on the factors that shaped United States policy and actions in Mexico City, and how that effort provided legal and practical foundations for future occupations.
CONGRATULATIONS to former MHC Fellow Dr. Jonathan Abel. Not only did he get married in 2021, but his second book, a translated and annotated edition of Guibert's General Essay on Tactics, was published by Brill. "'The God of War' is near to revealing himself, because we have heard his prophet." So wrote Jean Colin, naming Napoleon the God of War and Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert, as his prophet. Guibert was the foremost philosopher of the Military Enlightenment, dedicating his career to systematizing warfare in a single document. The result was his magnum opus, the General Essay on Tactics, which helped to lay the foundation for the success of French armies during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It is presented here in English for the first time since the 1780s, with extensive Abel's annotation and contextualization. View PDF Flyer
Big congratulations goes out to former MHC Student Fellow Dr. Nate Jarrett. The Faculty Advisory Board at the University of Oklahoma Press approved his manuscript, tentatively titled "The Lion at Dawn: Forging British Strategy in the Age of the French Revolution, 1783-1797," for publication in late 2022. Way to go Nate! We are so proud of you!
The MHC held the 38th Annual Hurley Military History Seminar on 6 November 2021. The Seminar featured two enlivening perspectives on America's 10,000-day war in Vietnam. Colonel Ramon "Tony" Nadal (US Army, ret.), reflected on his experience of the war as a decorated combat soldier in one of the war's fiercest battles. Historian Andrew Wiest, author of several books on Vietnam, considered the question of the war's strategic direction and whether or not the conflict was winnable. As a young captain, Colonel Nadal commanded a company in Lt.-Colonel Hal Moore's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Ia Drang, which was the first major clash between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies in November 1965, and the first great test of the "airmobile" tactics that the U.S. Army hoped would prove decisive in defeating the stealthy communists, who had run circles around the French. Colonel Moore and Joseph Galloway later documented the horrors of Ia Drang in their book We Were Soldiers Once … And Young, which was the basis for the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson. Andrew Wiest, author of The Boys of '67 and Vietnam's Forgotten Army, among many other works, is a Vietnam expert, who will assess the various views about the wisdom and the strategy of the war. Was it winnable? Were the strategies correct or flawed? Do join us for what will certainly be a fascinating discussion of the war from multiple perspectives: from that of the troops on the ground to the view from Saigon, Hanoi, and Washington.
The MHC welcomes Colonel Jeremy Reeves, an Air Force Fellow specializing in 20th century American military history and studying under Professor Wawro. His preliminary reseach focus is on the dvelopment of the United States General Staff. Col Reeves is a command pilot with over 3,400 flight hours, primarily in KC-10 Extender. His twenty-two-year career includes serving as an operations officer and commander of a flying squadron and staff assignments at the Air Force major command and Joint Combatant Command level. Before beginning the PhD program at UNT, he served as the Vice Wing Commander of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates. A graduate from Texas Tech University, Col Reeves earned masters degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School and the Naval War College. Upon completion of the PhD fellowship at UNT, he will join the faculty at the Air War College.
The MHC welcomes new Air Force Fellow Lt Colonel Drew Roberts, who is serving as an Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Fellow at the University of North Texas. He is studying the First World War with Dr. Wawro. Major Roberts is an Electronic Warfare Officer on the RC-135 V/W Rivet Joint with over 1600 flying hours, including over 400 combat hours. He has flown and deployed in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM, IRAQI FREEDOM, AND INHERENT RESOLVE. He also served as an exchange officer with the Royal Air Force for three years, deploying twice in support of Operation SHADER. Prior to arriving at the University of North Texas, Major Roberts was a Fellow at Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. In this position, he taught leadership and joint warfighting to U.S. Air Force captains and civilian leaders before becoming a student at Air Command and Staff College. Major Roberts was commissioned into the Air Force at Florida State University through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program. He holds a Master of Arts in Strategic Intelligence from American Military University and a Masters of Military Operational Art and Science from Air University. He has been selected to join the faculty of Air Command and Staff College following his PhD Fellowship.
THE MHC WELCOMES ITS NEWEST WEST POINT FELLOW, CAPTAIN MICAHEL HAMEL. CAPTAIN HAMEL HAILS FROM DALLAS, TEXAS. HE GRADUATED FROM SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY WITH HONORS IN MAY 2013 AND WAS COMMISSIONED AS A SECOND LIEUTENANT IN THE MILITARY POLICE CORPS. AFTER GRADUATION FROM THE MILITARY POLICE BASIC OFFICERS' COURSE, CPT HAMEL WAS ASSIGNED AS A PLATOON LEADER IN THE 118TH MILITARY POLICE COMPANY (AIRBORNE) AT FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA. IN MARCH 2015, HE DEPLOYED IN SUPPORT OF THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND CENTRAL CRISIS RESPONSE ELEMENT WHERE HE SERVED AS BOTH THE SUPPORT DETACHMENT COMMANDER AND THE CRISIS RESPONSE ELEMENT'S ANTI-TERRORISM FORCE PROTECTION OFFICER. UPON HIS RETURN IN FEBRUARY 2016, HE SERVED AS THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR HHC, 16TH MILITARY POLICE BRIGADE. UPON GRADUATION FROM THE MILITARY POLICE CAPTAINS' CAREER COURSE, HE WAS ASSIGNED TO HHC, 8TH MILITARY POLICE BRIGADE WHERE HE SERVED AS LAW ENFORCEMENT OIC FROM JANUARY 2018 TO APRIL 2019. CPT HAMEL ASSUMED COMMAND OF HHD, 19TH MP BN (CID) IN MAY 2019 AND REMAINED IN COMMAND UNTIL MAY 2021. CPT HAMEL IS CURRENTLY ASSIGNED TO THE U.S. ARMY STUDENT DETACHMENT WITH DUTY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS PURSUING HIS M.A. IN MILITARY HISTORY. UPON COMPLETION, CPT HAMEL WILL SERVE A UTILIZATION TOUR AT THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY AS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR. HIS AWARDS AND DECORATIONS INCLUDE THE MERITORIOUS SERVICE MEDAL, ARMY COMMENDATION MEDAL (2), ARMY ACHIEVEMENT MEDAL (3), NAVY ACHIEVEMENT MEDAL, NATIONAL DEFENSE SERVICE MEDAL, GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM EXPEDITIONARY MEDAL, GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM SERVICE MEDAL, ARMY SERVICE RIBBON, OVERSEAS SERVICE RIBBON (2), JOINT MERITORIOUS UNIT AWARD (2), AND THE AIR ASSAULT BADGE.
The MHC had a strong showing at the The Society for Military History's 87th Annual Meeting (May 20-23, 2021), the largest military history conference in the United States. This year's theme, "Turning the Tide: Revolutionary Moments in Military History," took place in Norfolk, Virginia and was hosted by the Joint Forces Staff College. The following students and faculty of the MHC participated:
Brittany Huner (University of North Texas): Relying on the WACs: The Women's Army Corps in the European Theater of Operations During the Second World War (in the panel "Reinterpretations of the European Theater of Operations" presented on Friday May 21st).
Graduate Student Roundtable - Back to School: What to Expect as a New Academic Hire (featuring Michael Stout as a Discussant on May 22nd).
Dr. Vojin Majstorovic (University of North Texas): Soviet Occupational Apparatus in the Balkans and Central Europe, 1944-1945 (in the panel "Military Occupations during World War II" presented on Friday May 21st).
Andrew Huebner (University of North Texas): A Tammany Regiment in Moscow: The U.S. Military, the American Relief Administration, and the 1921 Russian Famine (in the panel "Warrior Hands, Feeding Hands: Military Personnel and Humanitarianism in the 20th Century" presented on Sunday May 23rd).
The MHC welcomes Brittany Huner to its ranks of Student Fellows. Brittany is a PhD student and teaching assistant at the University of North Texas. She earned her BA (2013) in History with minors in Theater and Political Science from the University of Northern Colorado. In 2018 she received her MA in History with a minor in Public History - Museums. Her thesis, "Forgotten Soldiers: Memory and Perspectives of American Women's Military Corps in World War II" focused on how newspapers and magazines presented the women's military corps and how modern museums remember them. Her current research continues to examine issues surrounding women and the military during the Second World War. She focuses on questions of utilization of the corps, recruiting, and public relations. Other research interests include women's military history involving other conflicts and women in medieval Europe. Brittany has presented at several conferences, the most recent being the Society for Military History's Annual Meeting in Norfolk, Virginia in May 2021. She has a few projects published, most recently an article about the women's military corps in 1946 for the National WWII Museum. As part of her work in museums, she helped create museum exhibits for the Auraria campus, the University of Colorado College of Nursing, and participated in an inventory and collections care project for the Colorado Governor's Residence. In addition to the MHC, Brittany is a member of the Society for Military History, Phi Alpha Theta, and the Legendary Ladies - a non-profit dedicated to promoting women's history. When she is not studying history, Brittany spends a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and baking, reading anything she can get her hands on, and playing video games. As a native Coloradan, Brittany enjoys the outdoors and has climbed several of Colorado's 14er and 13er mountains. She also spends a lot of time with her two very large dogs and three-legged cat!
The MHC welcomes new Student Fellow Darrell Reader. Darrell is a PhD student focusing on military history, particularly modern warfare in America and Europe, particularly the Second World War. His current research and doctoral work focuses on the history of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He is looking at why the United States military felt compelled to transition from the previous Articles of War that governed the military for 150 years. Additionally, he is studying how Congress crafted the statute, how the law was implemented, and problems with its implementation. Darrell is also interested in the American founding and American Revolution. He earned a BA in political science at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and a law degree at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He practiced law in Oklahoma for nearly twenty years prior to returning to academia. Since he returned to school he earned an MA at the University of North Texas. His thesis was titled "Weaponized Nature: How the Environment Saved the Allies at Bastogne, December 16 to 23, 1944." It focused on the ways the environment helped the defending Allies and influenced the outcome of the Battle of the Bulge. While at UNT, since 2016 Darrell has worked as a Teaching Assistant and a Teaching Fellow teaching American History 2610. Additionally, he helped to build and publish UNT's online museum "Blowout: A Community's Engagement with Fracking in Denton, TX." Darrell is a member of the History Honors Society, Phi Alpha Theta, and the Society of Military History. Darrell and his wife are diehard OU football fans and love to travel throughout the United States and Europe. She especially enjoys when he takes her to obscure military sites on their trips to "study at the terrain."
The MHC welcomes into its ranks of Student Fellows Julia Wetzel. Texas where she finished her Master's of Arts here at UNT. She is currently a Doctoral student in European history and specializes in architecture. During her time at RU, Julia was captivated by Rome's landscape, culture, and history. It was upon her return from a study abroad trip in Rome where she wrote her senior thesis on Julius Caesar's ambition and began her research on the topography of Rome. Her Master's thesis, "The Making of a Princeps: Imperial Virtues in Monumental Propaganda," builds on her previous research and looks at the imperial virtues used in triumphal monuments to further an emperor's status. She has presented at multiple conferences including the AHA, and CAMWS. As Julia continues her research she broadened to specialize in Roman cosmology in European architecture with an emphasis on the cosmos. She hopes to write her dissertation on the beginnings of the cosmocrater and astral culture surrounding the Roman army and its transition into the Medieval era. Her committee consists of Dr. Beebe, Dr. Thorstad, Dr. McFerrin, and is headed by Dr. Fuhrmann. Julia is originally from Rockford Illinois and moved to Dallas in 2015. Back home, she spent most of her free time volunteering in local museums and at the airport with her father where she encountered some of history's most famous warbirds, also giving her a love of aviation.
In 2021, Dr. McCaslin published his nineteenth book, which is about William L. Wright, captain of three Texas Ranger companies during a law enforcement career that lasted more than forty years. This work is being published by UNT Press. McCaslin also directed the completion of David Musick's dissertation, "Benevolent Assimilation: The Evolution of United States Army Civil Affairs Operations in the Philippines from 1898 to 1945," at UNT in the spring. He gave a paper at the East Texas Historical Association and chaired sessions for the Texas State Historical Association and the Southwestern Social Science Association. Three book reviews have been published this year in academic journals, and he remains a member of the UNT Press editorial board. Finally, in 2021 he delivered invited talks to six local and national history organizations, as well as the Civil War Round Table in Fort Worth.
Dr. Majstorovic's extremely interesting article: "Soviet Occupation of Austria," written for The National World War II Museum, can be found at https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/soviet-occupation-of-austria?fbclid=IwAR2lWIVqWWD9e2K0W4f9fScP9x_RBZMlTQOzLl0evAii0Iw25fybbIS2qm0. He gave a (virtual) talk in Russian at the Russian State University for the Humanities in March, titled "Osvobozhdenie Kranoi Armiei evreev Vostochnoi i Tsentral'noi Evropy (Liberation of Eastern and Central European Jews by the Red Army)." In May he presented "Soviet Occupational Apparatus in the Balkans and Central Europe, 1944-1945," at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Military Historian.
Dr. Tanner presented a paper entitled "From Shangdang to the Dabieshan: Liu Bocheng and the Challenges of Military Professionalism in the Chinese Civil War" at the 23rd Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies (conference based in Leipzig, Germany but held as a virtual conference) on 25 August 2021. He also taught a unit on the Chinese Civil War for the US Air Force's Air War College's Foundations of Strategy course on 30 September 2021: very prestigious!
Dr. Chet's article, "The 14th Amendment and the Heart of the Constitution," was published im the Saint Louis University Law Journal Online 70 (2021) and he presented "Piracy Law as Propaganda: Piracy Suppression in the British Atlantic," online to the (Taiwan World History Society.
Congratulations to MHC Teaching Fellow Donald Keith Mitchener on the publication of his book: U.S. Naval Gunfire Support in the Pacific War: A Study of the Development and Application of Doctrine, by the University of Kentucky Press! Dr. Mitchener documents and analyzes the prewar development of this doctrine as well as its application and evolution between the years 1943-1945. The historical consensus is that the test at Tawara was successful and the experience increased the efficiency with which U.S. forces were able to apply the doctrine in the Pacific theater for the remainder of the Second World War. Mitchener challenges this view, arguing that the reality was much more complex. He reveals that strategic concerns often took precedence over the lessons learned in the initial engagement, and that naval planners' failure to stay up to date with the latest doctrinal developments and applications sometimes led them to ignore these lessons altogether. Way to go Keith!
https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Naval-Gunfire-Support-Pacific/dp/1949668126
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Hailey Stewart! Her paper, "Hanover as a British Province: British Policy and the Prussian Occupation of Hanover in 1801," presented at the War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon Conference at King's College London, has been published as part Helion's THE SWORD AND THE SPIRIT: Proceedings of the first 'War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon' Conference. Way to go Hailey!
The MHC would like to welcome the newest member of its Executive Council, Mr. Venson L. Heron. Mr. Herron is a native of Denton, TX. After graduating from Denton High School in 1987, Nr. Herron attended North Texas State University. At the end of his sophomore year at now the University of North Texas, Mr. Herron decided to enlist in the United States Army. During his service in the Army, Mr. Herron completed several deployments that included Operation Joint Endeavor to the former Yugoslavia; two deployments to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom 10-11, and Operation New Dawn; and one deployment to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom XIV and Operation Resolute Support.
Mr. Herron's military education includes all levels of the Non-commissioned Officer Education System up to the Senior Leaders Course. He is a graduate of Airborne School, Air Assault School, Drill Sergeant School, Recruiting School, Equal Opportunity Leaders Course, Sexual Harassment/Assault Response Program Course, Basic Instructor Training Course, Combatives Level 1 and 2 Courses, and numerous other military courses.
Mr. Herron was awarded several military awards during his Army career. They include two Bronze Star Medals, four Meritorious Service Medals, six Army Commendation Medals, and eight Army Achievement Medals. Upon retiring from the Army after 23 years of service as a First Sergeant, Mr. Herron decided to complete his degree at the University of North Texas. He graduated with a B.S. in Emergency Administration and Planning. Venson currently serves as the Army Instructor for the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at Richardson High School in Richardson, TX.
Thank you, Mr. Herron, for your service and thank you for your support of the MHC!
Dr. Tanner is offering a NEW GRADUATE READINGS COURSE FALL 2021: HIST 5130.001 THE COLD WAR IN EAST ASIA, Tuesday 2:00-4:50. This graduate readings course will cover various aspects of the Cold War in East Asia. Each week, students will read and discuss a common set of texts (book chapters and journal articles) focused on a specific aspect of the Cold War in East Asia. There will be two required books for the course: 1) Li, The Cold War in East Asia (Routledge, 2017); 2) Hasegawa, The Cold War in East Asia (Stanford, 2011). All other readings will be available via UNT Library or as PDFs. Students will be graded on participation, one book review, and a research paper (drawing on secondary sources).
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Kevin Broucke for the publication of his article,
"Perceptions and realities of the Mediterranean East: French soldiers and the Macedonian
Campaign of the First World War," in The British Journal for Military History. Kevin is in the process of completing his dissertation on the Macedonian Theater
during the First World War under Dr. Wawro's direction. Way to go Kevin!
https://bjmh.gold.ac.uk/issue/view/114
Congratulations to Dr. Beebe for co-editing a special issue of The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Duke University Press): "Pilgrimage & Textual Culture in Late Medieval & Early Modern
Europe: Production, Exchange, Reception," which developed out of Leverhulme Trust
"Pilgrim Libraries" international research network. It includes an article written
by Dr. Beebe entitled, "The Meaning of Imagined Pilgrimage." https://read.dukeupress.edu/jmems/issue/51/1. Dr. Beebe also recently finished her tenure as President of the Texas Medieval Association
(TEMA), and as part of that, she organized and hosted an entirely virtual two-day
conference -- the 30th Annual Texas Medieval Association Conference, on the theme
of "Medieval STEAM" (that is, including the "arts" alongside science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics). Over the course of two days, she welcomed almost 100
participants in 3 different continents, 4 different countries, and 15 different states,
from coast to coast. Dr. Beebe also won a $1,000 grant from the Medieval Academy of
America and its Committee on Centers and Regional Associations: the 2020 MAA/CARA
Conference Grant for Regional Associations and Programs. As a result of her proposal,
the MAA/CARA Conference Grant provided $1,000 to fund bursaries for independent and
junior scholars, and to help alleviate the cost of family-, child-, and eldercare
for conference attendees. Way to go Dr. Beebe! Last but not least, in Fall 2021 Dr.
Beebe will teach HIST 5040 - Studies in Modern European History -- "The Holy Dead"
-- a graduate readings course focusing on the tradition of pilgrimage and the Christian
cult of the saints, from late Antiquity through the end of the Middle Ages. It will
compare medieval ways of commemorating the dead with modern ones, including the Tomb
of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
in Washington DC, and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.
Check out former UNT West Point Fellow LTC Dr. Casey Baker's article "Grain as a Weapon? Britain's Scheme to Starve Revolutionary France, 1793-1796." Historical Geography 47 (2019): 72-99. During Britain's transition to war against Revolutionary France in 1793, the administration of William Pitt expanded Britain's traditional military embargoes on enemy commerce to include grain--a policy that redefined "military stores" to include foods alongside other materials required for warfare. The goal of this blockade was to use starvation as a political weapon for ending the war by forcing France's National Convention to decide between feeding its civilian population and feeding its armies. The policy never received full support in London, however, and the National Convention in France prioritized feeding its soldiers over its people. Although the British effort to manipulate Europe's international food system to serve Britain's diplomatic and military ends was largely a failure, the redefinition of grain as military material reshaped the significance of food and agricultural geography in European military strategy at the turn of the nineteenth century. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/754771
The MHC congratulates West Point Fellow, Casey Baker. In September 2020, not only did Casey successfully defend his dissertation, but he received his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, US Army. Casey's dissertation, "BETWEEN COALITION AND UNILATERALISM: THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, 1793-1796," written under Dr. Leggiere's direction, proves that the Mediterranean Theater remains important for understanding two critical concepts of British and Allied Strategy and Policy during the French Wars (1792-1815). First, commitment to the Mediterranean war represented the reintroduction of British power in European affairs after a self-imposed hiatus. Secondly, it provides a lens to understand the conflicted and self-defeating impact of the Royal Navy on British foreign policy. The war, particularly in the Mediterranean, laid bare the tensions between continental and colonial interests. It also highlighted the institutions that represented these two areas of British foreign policy. Without decisive leadership in the Mediterranean to reconcile these institutions, national military strategy exposed the severe internal tensions and great contradictions of British policy. Congratulations Casey--the MHC is very proud of you and happy for you and your family. We can't wait for the book!
The MHC congratulates Student Fellow Ethan Soefje for the successful defense of his MA thesis, "Testing the Narrative of Prussian Decline, 1778-1806, written under the direction of Dr. Leggiere, in August 2020. The thesis argues that upon withdrawing from the War of the First Coalition in 1795, the Prussians could still claim with some validity to possess the best army in Europe. Although the French army gradually improved during the upheavals of the Revolution, it had not yet surpassed the Prussian. During the eleven years between the Peace of Basel and the War of the Fourth Coalition, the French army continued to develop and, in the process, transformed warfare. Many Prussian officers observed these developments and attempted to reform the army to keep pace with the French. The Prussians implemented reforms to address their shortcomings in the areas of unity of command and light infantry. However, many officers felt that further changes were unnecessary, that the Prussian army could still defeat the French in battle. Given their own victories against the French in 1793 this belief was reasonable. The existence of the reform debate and the adoption of some changes proves that the Prussian army was far from stagnant. Rather, the army continued to grapple with the best method of adapting to the new trends in warfare. While the Prussian army had flaws, its history between 1778 and 1806 does not reveal an army in decline, but a force that remained an effective weapon of war. Ethan will continue working on the Prussians as a UNT PhD Student Fellow.
The MHC congratulates Student Fellow Dan Messman for the successful defense of his MA thesis, "THE AUSTRIAN ARMY IN THE WAR OF THE SIXTH COALITION: A REASSESSMENT," written under Dr. Leggiere's direction, in August 2020. Dan's thesis argues that as Austria was France's main rival on the European continent, the structure of the Habsburg empire appears prima facie opposed to the essence of the French revolution in warfare, yet the Habsburg monarchy successfully adapted to the French challenge. While Austria's adaptation to this second 'Military Revolution' remained incomplete at the close of the French Wars (1792-1815), the army improved in key fields following the defeat of 1809, leading to the victories of the German campaign of 1813 and the 1814 invasion of France. These successes were not the product of a single reforming mastermind, but of specialists working together. The central figures of the Austrian revival were Klemens von Metternich, Karl Philipp zu Schwarzenberg, and Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. Metternich was the chief architect of Austrian foreign policy, and so set political objectives while Radetzky was an accomplished military organizer and strategic planner. Schwarzenberg was both a soldier and a diplomat, and so understood both realms, forming the crucial link between two colleagues whose specialized talents overshadowed his own. Austria successfully adapted after the 1809 defeat to raise a powerful army in 1813, despite the handicaps imposed by the Peace of Schönbrunn. This army provided Vienna with the premier role in shaping Allied strategy. The Austrians used this preeminence to craft a war plan fundamentally based on modern strategic principles, rather than outdated eighteenth century ideas. The Reichenbach Plan brought Napoleon to battle on advantageous terms. During the decisive battle at Leipzig, the Austrians employed modern tactics to ensure their strategic advantage was not wasted. Finally, the 1814 campaign demonstrates the necessity of sound political guidance for military operations to produce results desired by the Austrians. Dan will continue working on the Austrians as a UNT PhD Student Fellow.
The MHC welcomes Joe Morrel to its ranks of Student Fellows. Joe, a PhD student, earned
his Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Dallas, were he studied Islamic
history and its impact on Western Civilization. He continued at the same institution
for his Master of Humanities, focusing his work on the interactions of Byzantium and
the Islamic world. From there too, he earned a Master of Arts in theology, in which
he explored the theological interactions between Christianity and Islam. In the UNT
doctoral program, he has continued his focus on Byzantium and the Islamic world, especially
in matters of military borrowing and emulation. This is his first academic year as
a Teaching Assistant at UNT, but he has taught before as an adjunct at the University
of Dallas in 2018 and 2019. Joe is working under the direction of Dr. Christopher
Fuhrmann, MHC Teaching Fellow. Joe's doctoral dissertation will examine the eminent
role of Sicily's Muslims in the Norman kingdom of the eleventh century, especially
the soldiery for which the kingdom became well-known. Joe enjoys bringing history
beyond the mere text: he makes ancient and medieval military equipment and practices
with various scholarly groups such as The Order of Lepanto, HAMA, and various Japanese
Ko-Ryu. As a full-time teacher for Great Hearts Academy, he has helped his students
relive the history they have studied in books, making it far more alive for them.
Joe has four children and a generous wife, all of whom are incredibly supportive of
many late nights of reading, writing, and grading.
The MHC welcomes Claudio Man to its ranks of Student Fellows. An MA student working under Dr. Leggiere, Claudio comes to the MHC with 30 years of success managing financial and administrative operations in global organizations, with tremendous experience in setting up and managing global shared service centers as well as in business processes re-engineering, with a strong focus on internal controls improvement. From October 2010 to 2019, he was Present at Man Consulting LLC Service, which provided advice and hands-on support to organizations in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Canada, Africa and Middle East. From 2015-2019, he was a Founding Partner and senior consultant at EFT Global Consulting (EFT), a professional services firm focused on delivering expert advisory and consulting services to the energy and power industry in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, S.E. Asia, and North America. Claudio was also Program Manager, Business Resilience Practice Leader at Tercon Consulting, Inc from 2010 to 2015. He spent most of his career working with Exxon and its affiliate, Esso Argentina. From 2008-2010, he was CFO and Director of Esso Argentina; from 2006-2008, Senior Advisor for ExxonMobil Global Services. He left Exxon for a brief period, serving as General Manager, Business Support Center (Argentina) LLC, which developed, established, and managed network of Shared Services Centers located in Argentina, Brazil, and Guatemala from 2004-2006. Back at Exxon, Claudio was Manager, Crude Oil Accounting, ExxonMobil Controller's Department, from 2003-2004; Executive Advisor, ExxonMobil Global Procurement (2000-2003); European Purchase-to-Pay Process Manager, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Affiliate of ExxonMobil - Hamburg, Germany (1999-2000); Central Europe Procurement Manager (1997-1999) for Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia; Procurement Department Manager for Esso Petrolera Argentina (1995-1997) for Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay; Manager, Financial Reporting Division, Esso Petrolera (Argentina, 1989--1992); CFO, Esso Standard Oil (Uruguay, 1987-1989); Supervisor, Financial Reporting Division, Esso Petrolera (Argentina, 1985-1987); Internal Auditor, Esso Petrolera (Chile, 1983-1985); Senior Financial Analyst, Esso Petrolera (Argentina, 1980-1983). Claudio holds a Master in Accounting from the UNIVERSITY OF BUENOS AIRES and a CPA degree in the REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA.
Dr. Majstorovic presented a paper, "Crime and Punishment in the Red Army" as part of a panel titled, "Identity, Violence, and Authority on the Eastern Front," at the 52nd Annual Convention of The Association for Slavic, East European, Eurasian Studies in November 2020.
In 2019-20, four of Dr. Wawro's students successfully defended their dissertations, all excellent: Tiffany Smith Chamberlain's "Uncle Sam Does Not Want You: Military Rejection and Discharge during the World Wars" (2019); Cody Carlson's "The 'Marshall System' in World War II, Myth and Reality: Six American Commanders Who Failed" (2020); Major Kyle Hatzinger's "Places of Pain and Pride: U.S. Army Graves Registration and Its Burial of the World War I Dead" (2020); and Lieutenant Colonel Matt Dietz's "Eagles Overhead: The History of U.S. Air Force Airborne Forward Air Controllers from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul" (2020).
Dr. McCaslin had three doctoral students finish in the spring and summer of 2020. Biran Elliott, Brian defended his dissertation, "Passing as Gray: Texas Confederate Soldiers' Body Servants and the Exploitation of Civil War Memory," in March, and he is currently a teacher in the AP US History and IB History of the Americas Diploma Program at Westlake Academy in Westlake, TX. Terry Furgerson defended his dissertation in April: "The Dallas Story: The North American Aviation Plant During World War II." He is currently an adjunct instructor at Collin College and Northlake College, both in North Texas. Ariel L. "Allie" Kelley in June defended her dissertation: "Fire Eater in the Borderlands: The Political Life of Guy Morrison Bryan, 1847-1891." She is now a lecturer at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Dr. McCaslin has been appointed to the advisory board of the Texas Rangers Heritage Center in Fredericksburg, Texas, and he continues to serve on the editorial board for UNT Press and the Great Hanging Memorial Foundation in Gainesville, Texas.
Congratulations to MHC Fellow Cody Carlson on the 28 May 2020 successful defense of his dissertation: "'THE MARSHALL SYSTEM' IN WORLD WAR II, MYTH AND REALITY: SIX AMERICAN COMMANDERS WHO FAILED," written under the direction of Dr. Geoffrey Wawro. Way to go Cody!
Congratulations to Lieutenant Colonel Matt Dietz, USAF and an Air Force Fellow, on the 16 April 2020 successful defense of his dissertation: "EAGLES OVERHEAD: THE HISTORY OF US AIR FORCE AIRBORNE FORWARD AIR CONTROLLERS, FROM THE MEUSE-ARGONNE TO MOSUL," written under the direction of Dr. Geoffrey Wawro. Matt will be heading to Colorado Springs at the end of July to begin teaching at the US Air Force Academy. Way to go Matt!
The MHC welcomes its newest MA Student Fellow: Ethan Soefje. Ethan earned his Bachelor of Arts in History and Classical Civilizations in 2015 from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. Ethan's main interest is early modern Germany and Napoleonic military history. He is currently working on his master's thesis under the direction of Dr. Michael V. Leggiere, on the Prussian army during the French Revolutionary Wars. His thesis seeks to challenge the traditional interpretation of the Prussian army as a force in decline before its defeat in the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806). He tests this narrative by examining the armies combat experience during the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-79) and the War of the First Coalition (1792-97). Ethan has presented some of his work on the War of the First Coalition at the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era conference in 2020. Ethan is originally from San Antonio, Texas. He played baseball through his sophomore year at Beloit. His current hobbies include reading, tabletop gaming, and trading card games.
The MHC welcomes its newest PhD Student Fellow: Sarah Jameson. Sarah earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Missouri University of Science and Technology (2013) in Rolla, Missouri and her Master of Arts from Western Kentucky University (2015) in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in American History at UNT where she is a Teaching Fellow for the History Department. She is also an Adjunct Professor teaching history at Brookhaven College in Farmer's Branch, Texas.
Although raised mostly on World War II and Civil War history, Sarah did her undergraduate senior project on the reactions of American soldiers in World War I to the new weaponry introduced in that war. She continued this research into her graduate program. Her Master's thesis is titled "American Soldiers' Reactions to Weaponry and Warfare in World War I" and analyzes how the US Army integrated the new weapons and adapted to the tactics that came with fighting on the Western Front, emphasizing the experiences of the lower echelons. She has presented her research at various conferences such as the Society of Military History Annual Meeting. Sarah's dissertation will examine the American Army in the First World War at the Battle of St. Mihiel. This work will analyze how the soldiers took the lessons learned from previous battles working alongside their allies and how they applied them to operate as an independent army. Her doctoral advisor is Dr. Alexander Mendoza. Dr. Richard McCaslin, Dr. Michael Wise, and Dr. Nancy Stockdale also serve on the committee and she plans to graduate with her PhD in 2022.
Sarah is originally from Waldorf, Maryland. She first discovered her love of history by visiting nearby Revolutionary and Civil War sites as well as volunteering at the U.S. Army Center for Military History. Here in Texas, she has worked with volunteer organizations to visit ill children as their favorite characters. Sarah likes to express her creativity through various crafts and writing fiction which she hopes to one day publish alongside her historical works.
Congratulations to Major Kyle Hatzinger, US Army, and a MHC West Point Fellow, on successfully defending his fine dissertation under Dr. Wawro's supervision. "The Democracy of Death" - a touching & gripping history of American war dead and commemoration.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Christopher Menking for successfully defending his dissertation: "Catalyst for Change in the Borderlands: U.S. Army Logistics during the U.S.-Mexican War and the Post-War Period, 1846-1860," written under the supervision of Dr. Richard McCaslin.
Dr. Wawro's latest book, Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War I (Basic, 2018) was shortlisted in 2019 for the New York Historical Society's Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History. Dr. Wawro spent the entire summer of 2019 in the U.S. National Archives researching the military side of the Vietnam War for his next book. He followed his research in the archives with research on the ground. While on sabbatical in Fall 2019, he traveled all over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, inspecting the main sights of the war. He funded the research and travel with a UNT Scholarly and Creative Activity Award. In addition, he appears in most episodes of Netflix's very successful 2019 original series "The Greatest Events of World War II in Colour." He has filmed several episodes of the Netflix sequel "Road to Victory." He was also featured in a new series on Smithsonian titled "World War II By Drone." Additionally, he filmed multiple episodes for a new A&E series called "How the Nazis Lost the War." Dr. Wawro continues as a regular on The Science Channel -- in two series, "Mysteries of the Abandoned," and "What on Earth?" He also regularly appears on Fox 4 television in Dallas, whenever there is a major national security crisis.
The MHC welcomes its newest US Air Force Fellow, Matt Stampher. Matt is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force serving as a School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS) Fellow at the University of North Texas. He specializes in Ancient History and is studying under Dr. Fuhrmann. Lt. Col Stampher is a Senior Pilot and has logged over 2,900 flight ours, including over 600 combat hours, in RQ-4 and C-17 aircraft. He has served in Operations Enduing Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn. Additionally, he has served as the Director of Operations for RQ-4 Global Hawk operations in the Pacific Theater. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, Lt Col Stampher additionally has a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a Master of Science in Airpower Strategy and Technology Integration and a Master of Philosophy in Military Strategy from Air University. He has been selected to join the faculty of the School for Advanced Air and Space Studies following his PhD Fellowship.
The MHC welsomes its newest West Point Fellow, Captain Brendan Law. CPT Law is originally from Alamogordo, NM and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant from New Mexico State University Army ROTC and a B.A. in History in 2011. After attending the Signal Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Gordon, Georgia, 2LT Law was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC and assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. While stationed at Fort Bragg, 2LT Law served as a platoon leader and executive officer in the 508th BSTB. In November 2014, 1LT Law was selected to serve as the BDE S6 during the deactivation of 4BCT IAW the Army's BCT 2020 transformation order. In May 2015, 1LT Law was transferred to Fort Jackson and served as the Executive Officer for Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 13th INF REG until he was promoted to Captain. After he was promoted, CPT Law served as the Company Commander for C Co, 3-13th INF REG. In August 2017, CPT Law attended the Signal Captain's Career Course and was transferred to the 44th Expeditionary Signal Battalion stationed in Grafenwoehr, Germany. CPT Law assumed command of B/44th ESB in Jun 2017 and remained in command until May 2019. CPT Law is currently assigned to the U.S. Army Student Detachment with duty at the University of North Texas pursuing his M.A. in Military History. Upon completion, CPT Law will serve a utilization tour at the United States Military Academy as an Assistant Professor. CPT Law's awards and decorations include: Meritorious Service Medal (2), Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, and the Basic Parachutist Badge. He is married to Ellisen Law and has one son, Charles Law.
The Fall 2019 Military History Center Executive Council Discussion Series Lecture was held on Monday, 21 October. Speaker Terry L. Thorsen discussed his book, Phantom in the Sky: A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War. According to Terry: "It chronicles my active duty Marine Corps experience from August 1966 until my early release October 1970. In 1969, I had a combat tour in Chu Lai, Vietnam, in the oldest and most decorated squadron in the Marine Corps, the Red Devils of VMFA-232 and flew in the rear seat of the greatest fighter jet of that time. Throughout my training and while in the combat zone, I had numerous opportunities to die from airborne emergencies, enemy fire and rocket attacks on our base. The result is an intriguing story of how I overcame airsickness issues and flew 123 combat sorties earning 10 Air Medals, one Bronze Star Award, two Navy Unit Commendations, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm and the Vietnam Campaign Medal with Device. I am a member of the Military Officer's Association of America (MOAA) and was recently inducted into the Military Order of the World Wars (MOWW)."
The 37th Annual Alfred and Johanna Hurley Military History Seminar was held on 9 November 2019 at Verona Villa in Frisco, Texas with the theme: D-Day, New Insights on its 75th Anniversary. The Speakers were Peter Caddick-Adams and James Holland.
MHC Student Fellow and PhD student Christopher Menking presented a paper titled "Conquered Frontier: How the US Army Helped Change the Geography of the US-Mexico Borderlands" at the 10th Annual Save Texas History Symposium: "X Marks the Spot: New Directions in Texas and Borderlands History" at the historic Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin Hotel in Austin on 13 September 2019.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow and PhD student Lt Col Wilson Blythe Jr. on the publication of his article "Preparing for War? German Military Planning before WWI" in the October 2019 edition of Military History Matters.
Congratulations to Dr. Mervyn Roberts, former MHC Student Fellow (PhD, UNT 2016) for the publication of his article "Operation COUNTENANCE: The 1941 Invasion of Iran and the Clash of Propaganda Narratives" in the March 2019 issue of Iranian Studies.The article was based on research he conducted for two seminars at UNT.
The MHC welcomes its newest Faculty Fellow: Dr. Vojin Majstorović, a historian of World War II, with a specialization in the Soviet Union's Red Army. His research illuminates the Red Army's policies toward perpetrators, survivors, and their property, the military's official line about the Holocaust, the use of Nazi crimes against Jews in Soviet war propaganda, the troops' attitudes to the genocide, and interactions between Jewish survivors and Soviet soldiers. Ultimately, his research aims to reveal how the Red Army ended the Holocaust on the Eastern Front, and what the Soviet victory meant for survivors, perpetrators, and liberators. His forthcoming monograph explores the Red Army's encounter with the Holocaust in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Austria during the last year of the war, with a focus on explaining Soviet-perpetrated sexual violence. His second major project, still in the research phase, concerns how the Soviet armed forces responded to the Holocaust across the Eastern Front. His research is based on archival and personal sources from Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Germany, and the USA. His approach as a military historian is to illuminate my subject matter from multiple perspectives; from the standpoint of frontline soldiers, military commanders in the field, the high political and military leadership in Moscow, and allied armies and civilians who experienced Soviet liberation and military rule. His latest publications are "Red Army Troops Encounter the Holocaust: Transnistria, Moldavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Austria, 1944-1945," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 32, no. 2 (September 2018): 249-271. "The Red Army in Yugoslavia, 1944-1945," in: Slavic Review 75 (2016) 2, 396-421. Dr. Majstorović received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2017. He has held fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at the Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Sharon Abramson Research Grant for the Study of the Holocaust (2019); the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellowship from the Jewish Museum, Prague, Czech Republic (2018); the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute For Holocaust Studies Fellowship, Vienna, Austria (2017-2018); the Centre for Holocaust Studies Fellowship at the Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, Germany (2017).
Congratulations to Dr. Chet for the publication of his third book, a work on the American Revolution titled The Colonists' American Revolution: Preserving English Liberty, 1607-1783. He also published an essay about his research titled "From the Outside In: A Foreigner's Education in American History," in The Athenaeum Review 2, 38-44, and a chapter in an edited volume on Atlantic piracy ("The Persistence of Piracy in the British Atlantic") in The Golden Age of Piracy: Readings on the Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates. Check out his interview on a piracy podcast about Atlantic piracy. For the classroom, Dr. Chet developed a new online class (on piracy and piracy suppression in the Atlantic) for the Fall term 2019.
During the past academic year, Dr. McCaslin's book, Sutherland Springs, Texas: Saratoga on the Cibolo (https://untpress.unt.edu/catalog/3735), received a Publication Award from the San Antonio Conservation Society. He also had a book chapter published, "Pompeo Coppini: Defining the Historical Landscape in Texas," in The Art of Texas: 250 Years, ed. Ron Tyler (https://www.tamupress.com/book/9780875657035/the-art-of-texas/). This publication led to an invited lecture on Coppini in the Texas History Symposium at the Witte Museum, San Antonio (Spring 2019). He delivered other invited lectures to the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, and at Washington-on-the-Brazos to Hood's Texas Brigade Association Re-Activated. He also served as a session commentator for "The Long Arm of the United States Army in Texas" at the Spring 2019 annual meeting of the Texas State Historical Association. Dr. McCaslin's doctoral student, Luke Truxal, defended his dissertation, "Command Unity and the Air War Against Germany," in the fall of 2018, winning a dissertation award from the Department of History in the process, while two former doctoral students, Brian Cervantez and Jody Ginn, published revised versions of their dissertations with the University of Oklahoma Press in 2019. Dr. McCaslin continues to work on a pair of forthcoming books and a chapter in an anthology, while he also directs a half dozen doctoral candidates in writing dissertations and aids several alumni who have dissertations accepted for publication by academic presses.
The MHC would like to thank Colonel Mike McCollum USMCR (Ret) for hosting Dr. Leggiere and five of its Student Fellows at the 3rd Annual American Leadership Address and Luncheon on 4 September 2019 at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Tex. The Guest of Honor, General Alfred M. Gray USMC (Ret), the 29th Commander of the Marine Corps, delivered a powerful lecture on leadership. Over 400 people were in attendance. The Address and Luncheon was hosted by the Metroplex Military Charitable Trust (MMCT). Its mission is to provide economic support to local military personnel of all services--regular, reserve and retired--and to military support charities and volunteer organizations. For more about the MMCT, see: http://www.metroplexmarines.org
Dr. Wawro's latest book, Sons of Freedom: the Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War I, came out in Sept. 2018 and will soon be released in paperback. It was a History Book Club Main Selection, and was recently shortlisted for the Gilder Lehrman Prize for best book in American Military History. Geoff spent the summer researching a new book - on the Vietnam War - in the National Archives in Washington. He also did a lot of television over the summer. He traveled with the History Channel to Denmark in June to shoot a rare and newly discovered Type XXI German U-boat off the coast of Jutland. He also shot several episodes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned" for Discovery Channel.
Dr. Mitchener's article, "Naval Gunfire at Iwo Jima - The Perils of Doctrinal Myopia," will be published in The Sea and the Second World War: Maritime Aspects of a Global Conflict, edited by Marcus Faulkner and Alessio Patalano by the University Press of Kentucky later this year. His manuscript, titled "U. S. Naval Gunfire Support in the Pacific War: A Study of the Development and Application of Doctrine," has been accepted for publication by Brécourt Academic and The University Press of Kentucky. The expected release date is some time during 2019-20. He also served on the steering committee for "Normandy 75: An International Conference," which was on 22-25 July 2019 at the University of Portsmouth, U.K. There, Dr. Mitchener chaired sessions on Bombing, Air Defense, Air Command and Control and NEPTUNE, Admiralty, and Maritime Power and presented "Preliminary Naval Gunfire Support in Operation NEPTUNE: 6 June 1944" during the conference's Naval War College plenary session. He also delivered "An Address in Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings on 6 June 1944" on 6 June 2019 at the Davis Public Library in Plano, TX and "The Attack on Pearl Harbor: The Japanese Background" on 6 December 2018 to the Dallas Council of The Navy League of the United States.
The MHC welcomes new Student Fellow Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson C. Blythe Jr., a strategist with the U.S. Army. His service includes deployments to Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Inherent Resolve. He was the lead author and editor of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Russian New Generation Warfare Study and the Mosul Study Group Report. Additionally, Lt. Col. Blythe was one of the historians on the Chief of Staff of the Army's Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group. He currently leads the Battlefield Development Plan branch at the U.S. Army Futures and Concepts Center, Fort Eustis, Virginia. Lt. Col. Blythe graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor's degree in history. He holds a master's degree in history from Eastern Michigan University where his thesis was on the development of the U.S. Army's AirLand Battle doctrine. He is currently a doctoral candidate in military history at the University of North Texas where he is writing his dissertation, under the supervision of Dr. Wawro, on the application of operational art during III Corps Iraq surge campaign. Lt. Col. Blythe has published articles or presented papers on a number of topics related to U.S. and European military history and military theory. He is a recipient of the Army Historical Foundation's Distinguished Writing Award (2013) and was a finalist in 2018.
The MHC welcomes new Student Fellow Andrew Huebner. Andrew is currently an M.A. student and Teaching Assistant at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. He earned his Bachelor's of Arts in History (2016) with a minor in English from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Andrew currently is working on his master's thesis, titled "Famine Fighters: AEF Veterans and the 1921 Russian Famine." The thesis examines the murky relationship between the American Relief Administration and the U.S. military after the First World War from 1919-1923. The study examines how prior-service and active duty military veterans influenced U.S. humanitarianism and foreign policy by using the 1921 Russian famine relief mission as a case study. His committee consists of Dr. Olga Velikanova (chair), Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, and Dr. Graham Cox. Andrew's research interests also includes Russia in the First and Second World Wars and the ancient Roman Republic. Andrew has published with the Army University Press (AUP) as a part of their case study book set on Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). Additionally, he has presented at several conferences including a special focus conference hosted by the Centre for War Studies at the University College of Dublin. He is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta history honor society and the Society of Military History.
The MHC welcomes new Student Fellow Daniel Messman. Dan is an M.A. student, Teaching Assistant, and Student Fellow of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas. He completed his B.A. in History at Illinois State University (2017), minoring in East Asia Studies. Dan's first passion is for military history, and this love brought him to the University of North Texas. Under the direction of Dr. Michael V. Leggiere, he is writing his thesis on the role of Austria in the Napoleonic Wars, particularly the War of the Sixth Coalition and the generalship of Field Marshal Prince Karl zu Schwarzenberg. Social and political changes revolutionized warfare during the Age of Napoleon, and the experience of Austrian armies and their leadership illustrates the complexity of military revolutions. Other fields of interest include the Western Front in the First World War, Classical Antiquity, and modern China. In his spare time, Dan enjoys shooting pool, reading, and tabletop gaming.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Christopher Menking, whose chapter "Dietary Interactions along the Texas Borderlands: How U.S. Soldiers Experienced Food during the U.S.-Mexico War and the Postwar Era," will be published in Battlefields and Homefronts: Expanding Boundaries in Food and Warfare, 1840-1990, University of Arkansas Press, in Spring 2020.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Tiffany Smith Chamberlain! Tiffany defended her dissertation and graduated in Spring 2019. The dissertation, "Uncle Sam Does Not Want You: Military Rejection and Discharge during the World Wars," written under the direction of Dr. Wawro, won the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in War and Society award. She currently is an Associate Professor of History at Tarrant County College and an adjunct at Texas Woman's University. She published a review, "The Smell of War: Three Americans in the Trenches of World War I," in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, in 2018.
The MHC was well-represented at the 2019 Society for Military History Conference, which was held this year in Columbus, Ohio from May 9-12. Including faculty, alumni from our graduate program, and current graduate students, thirteen scholars with UNT affiliation took part in eleven panels over the course of the conference. These included Professor and Chair Harold Tanner, speaking on Chinese Ways of War; Professor Michael Leggiere presenting "Napoleon and the Strategy of the Single Point in the 1813 Campaign;" Christopher Menking (MHC Student Fellow) presenting "Wagon and Forage Masters: The Influence of Civilian Contractors on South Texas After the U.S.-Mexico War;" Luke Truxal (UNT PhD) with a paper on "Weaponizing Refugees: Targeting Civilian Railroads in Romania, 1944;" Kevin Broucke (MHC Student Fellow) discussing his research on "A Fraternity of Arms: Franco-Serbian Relationships during the First World War Era;" MAJ William Nance (UNT PhD), with a paper on "Learning Out of Contact: The United States Cavalry in the Great War Era;" Matt Dietz (MHC Student Fellow), speaking on "How America Understands Its Air Force: The U.S. Air Force in the American Mind;" Jordan Hayworth (UNT PhD), presenting a paper entitled "Strategic Turning Point in the French Revolutionary Wars: Lazare Carnot and the 1794 Campaign;" Cameron Zinsou (UNT MA) presenting research on "Prelude to Occupation: French Army Quartering in Montélimar, 1939-40; Dave Musick (MHC Student Fellow) discussing "American Stability Operations in the Philippines 1944-1946;" Michael Hankins (UNT MA), with a paper entitled "To Fly, Provide, and Restore: Building Civilian-Military Connections through Humanitarian Airlift;" Jared Donnelly (UNT MA) chairing and commenting on a panel on "The Citizen vs the Soldier? Cold War Conflicts and Their Legacy; and Bruce Cohen (UNT MA), who presented The JWV and the RJF: Parallel Origins and Tragic Contrasts."
In Fall 2018, MHC Student Fellow Luke Truxal received the Outstanding Dissertation in Military History award from the UNT Department of History for his dissertation "Command Unity and the Air War Against Germany" during the Second World War. Luke also graduated in Fall 2018--great job Luke! Currently he is an adjunct at Columbia State Community College in Tennessee.
Lt.-Colonel Matt Dietz has remained extremely busy since starting his doctoral work at UNT as an Air Force Institute of Technology PhD Fellow at the MHC, where he specializes in Modern Air Power, Military Theory and Strategic Thought, and is studying under Dr. Wawro. His dissertation entitled "Hit My Smoke: The History of the US Air Force Airborne Forward Air Controllers" is currently in work to be completed in the summer of 2020. In the meantime, Matt has presented the following papers: "Blame Canada: The Failed Strategy of the Quebec Invasion" 27th Annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference, University at Buffalo, March 2018. "The Air War in Korea" University of North Texas, March 2018. "Pilots and Protestors: How Vietnam Protests and the Air War in Vietnam Influenced Each Other" 14th Annual Ohio University History Graduate Conference, Ohio University, March 2018. "Blame Canada: The Failed Strategy of the Quebec Invasion" 9th Annual Texas A&M History Conference, Texas A&M University, March 2018. "Air Force Bases in Texas: The Training Ground for American Airpower" Texas State Historical Association 2018 Annual Meeting, San Marcos, TX, March 2018. "Pilots and Protestors: How Vietnam Protests and the Air War in Vietnam Influenced Each Other" 1968 and the Tet Offensive, The Vietnam Center and Archive and the Institute for Peace & Conflict at Texas Tech University, April 2018. Winner of best Graduate Student Paper Award. "The Air War in Vietnam" University of North Texas, April 2018. "Guided Bomb Diplomacy: American Airpower Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World" International History and Diplomacy Conference, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, May 2018. "Adopting Air Power: How the US Army Integrated Airpower During World War I" Lake Dallas Public Library Summer Lecture Series, June 2018. "Adopting Airpower: How the US Army Integrated Airpower During World War I" Western Conference on British Studies, San Antonio, TX, September 2018.
In Fall 2018, Dr. McCaslin's book on Sutherland Springs received a Publication Award from the San Antonio Conservation Society. His doctoral student, Luke Truxal, whose dissertation was on Allied air power in Europe during World War II, graduated in December. McCaslin also delivered talks on World War I in Cuero, Frisco, and Farmer's Branch, while he spoke on the Civil War to the Civil War Roundtables in Fort Worth and Dallas, the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, and Hood's Texas Brigade Association Reactivated. This spring (2019), McCaslin will serve as commentator for a session on the US Army in Texas at the Texas State Historical Association, and he will speak to the Civil War Round Table in Shreveport.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellows Kevin Broucke and Cody Carlson, both are studying under Dr. Wawro, for passing their doctoral comprehensive exams in Spring 2019! Way to go! Kevin has been active on the conference trail, presenting at the Centre for War Studies Conference: Post-War Transitions in Europe Politics, States and Veterans (1918-1923), held at University College Dublin, Ireland on March 28-30, 2019, "A Friendship Forged in Fire: French and Serbian Soldiers and Veterans during the First World War and Interwar period" and at the Imperial Legacies of 1919 Conference, held at University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, on April 19-20, 2019, "Perceptions and Realities of the 'Mediterranean East' by the French Soldiers who served in the Dardanelles and Macedonia."
MHC Student Fellow Hailey Stewart is writing her dissertation on Anglo-Hanoverian foreign policy in the eighteenth and nineteen centuries and is an adjunct at the University of Texas--Arlington. In the summer of 1918, she conducted research at the Niedersachsisches Landesarchiv (Hanover) and the British Library. In Spring 2019, Hailey participated in a round table discussion on identity and empire at the UNT Imperial 1919 conference in April.
Congratulations to UNT Student Fellow Kevin Broucke, a PhD student working under Dr. Wawro's direction. His article, Spearhead to Victory: "Marshal Jean Lannes and the Reserve Corps at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807," was published in Napoleonic Scholarship: The Journal of the International Napoleonic Society. You can read Kevin's article here: https://gallery.mailchimp.com/866adf3922a0f12a80ff859b5/files/e4c8b312-cf51-4f2c-a467-04c583c13d48/Napoleonic_Scholarship_2017.pdf. Kevin also presented "A French Proconsul in Damascus. General Henri Gouraud (1867-1946) and the establishment of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 1919-1923" at the 2018 Annual Conference of the Middle East Studies Association. Way to go Kevin!
Congratulations to Dr. Wawro for his 11/8/18 article in the Wall Street Journal digital marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-reinvention-of-warfare-1541692623
The Military History Center at the University of North Texas held the 36th Annual Alfred and Johanna Hurley Military History Seminar Saturday, 17 November 2018 at the Denton campus. The theme was "1918: The 'Miracle' of Allied Victory and German Defeat Reexamined on its 100th Anniversary." Our morning speaker was Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, Professor of History at the University of North Texas and Director of the Military History Center. The title of Dr. Wawro's talk was "How the U.S. Army Won World War I." The luncheon address was delivered by Dr. Spencer Jones, Senior Lecturer in Armed Forces and War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. Dr. Jones also serves as the Regimental Historian for the Royal Regiment of Artillery. The tile of Dr. Jones talk was "The Broadsword: The British Army in the Hundred Days' Campaign, 1918." We hope you will join us. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. with registration and a continental breakfast.
The Military History Center is pleased to partner with Families of WW II Veterans and to announce the Annual Families of WW II Veterans Golf Tournament & Fundraising Event on Thursday, 8 November 2018 at Old American Golf Club, 1001 Lebanon Road, The Colony, TX 75056. Families of World War II Veterans holds an annual fundraising event to help raise scholarship funds and educate a new generation about World War II and its historical significance. It is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the heroes of World War II and honoring veterans' sacrifices by creating scholarship opportunities. To register or learn more, please visit http://www.familiesww2veterans.org/form/
Congratulations to Dr. Wawro on his excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/opinion/how-hyphenated-americans-won-world-war-i.html
Dr. Wawro spent most of the summer of 2018 finishing his new book, which launches on Sept 25- Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War I. The book has been adopted as a main selection of the History, Military, and Library of Science Book Clubs. In May, he shot several episodes of a new Netflix series in New York tentatively titled "The Greatest Events of WW2 Colorized." He also shot the first episode of the new Paul Wesley Netflix series "Medal of Honor" in which he discusses Sylvester Antolak and the Battle of Anzio. In June-July Dr. Wawro traveled to the Palau Islands, Japan, Germany, and France to feature in several episodes - Peleliu, Fortess Japan, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge - of the National Geographic Channel's popular series "Nazi Megastructures." https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/geoffrey-wawro/sons-of-freedom/9780465093922/
The MHC would like to welcome its newest Student Fellow, Cody Carlson. Cody earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history (2005) and his Master of Arts degree in Modern European and American History (2009) from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He is currently a Teaching Assistant for UNT's History Department. His undergraduate work focused equally on American and European history, primarily in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cody continued to look at American and European History for his graduate work at the University of Utah, although his primary research and interests focused on Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Second World War in Europe. As an undergraduate and again as a graduate student in 2005 and 2009 respectively, Cody studied at the Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. While in Berlin he studied the European Union, the Cold War, and Nazi Germany. His Master's thesis is titled "Hitler & Stalin: Military Command Relationships and the Course of World War II on the Eastern Front." The thesis examines the relationships between the dictators and their generals, the armies as political institutions, and how events on the battlefield effected these processes. Dr. Ronald Smelser and Dr. Edward J. Davies II served on Cody's Master's committee. Cody also taught as an adjunct professor of history at Salt Lake Community College for six years, and was nominated for a Teaching Excellence Award in 2011 and again in 2013. Cody is currently researching the American army and generalship in the Second World War. Specifically, he is examining the circumstances surrounding American military disasters in the war, and the decisions to relieve or not to relieve the responsible generals. This work will consider events at the Kasserine Pass in 1943, the Falaise Pocket in 1944, and more. Cody's doctoral advisor is Dr. Geoffrey Wawro. Dr. Michael V. Leggiere, Dr. Graham Cox, and Dr. Randolph B. Campbell also serve on Cody's committee, and he hopes to graduate with his PhD in 2020. Cody is originally from Midvale, Utah. He was a member of Salt Lake City's Laughing Stock improvisational comedy troupe at the Off Broadway Theater for over twenty years, and performed in over 70 productions on many other stages as well, including Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley City, Utah. He recently founded the improvisational comedy troupe The Implazables in Cleburne, Texas. Cody is also quite passionate about board gaming, and it was playing the board game Axis & Allies that first piqued his interest in history and the Second World War as a teenager. He has reviewed board games on Youtube as The Discriminating Gamer since 2014.
A big congratulations to Dr. Seligmann, Chairman of the Executive Council of the Military History Center, for his appointment to the Board of Directors for the Historical Society of New Mexico, one of the very, very few members ever appointed from out of state. Founded on December 26, 1859, the Historical Society of New Mexico is the oldest historical society west of the Mississippi River. During the Civil War, it suspended activities, but soon resumed its role in preserving New Mexico's history. During the territorial period (1851-1912), its members included merchants, educators, lawyers, and politicians. Many of its members published historical accounts of the Spanish, Mexican and American periods. Today, the Society makes available grants to local historical societies in the state to help their programs and to provide speakers for meetings. Scholarships help students, undergraduate and graduate, to pursue their studies in New Mexico history. The various awards recognize outstanding work by student, professional and avocational historians.
Dr. McCaslin wrote the "Foreword" for Palmito Ranch: From Civil War Battlefield to National Historic Landmark, by Jody E. Ginn and William A. McWhorter (Texas A&M, 2018). He also delivered invited lectures on Texas in the Civil War and World War I to the Fiftieth Anniversary Symposium of Hood's Texas Brigade Association Re-Activated (November 2017), the Region XIII Discovering Texas History Conference of the Texas State Historical Association (November 2017), the DeWitt County Historical Commission Lecture Series (November 1917), the Alamo Tri-Centennial Lecture Series (February 2018), the Scottish Rite History Symposium (May 2018), and the Allen Public Library Lecture Series (July 2018). He had two doctoral students successfully defend dissertations on military history during the past year: Jack Andersen on a Texas regiment in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century, and Luke Truxal on bombing strategy in Europe during World War II.
Dr. Mitchener has given the following talks: "The Doolittle Raid" on 19 April 2018 to the Navy League of the United States, Dallas Chapter; "The Battle of Midway" on 21 June 2018 to the Navy League of the United States, Dallas Chapter; and "Commemoration of the Birthday of the United States Coast Guard" on 24 August 2018 to the Navy League of the United States, Dallas Chapter.
MHC Student Fellow and PhD candidate Luke Truxal will be presenting a paper titled: "Abandoning the Oil Plan: Carl Spaatz and the Second Iasi-Kishinev Offensive" on 20 September 2018 at the Northern Great Plains History Conference.
MHC Student Fellow and PhD candidate Hailey Stewart received a graduate student support grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences to research at the Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv in Hanover and the British Library in London to continue her doctoral research on Britain's eighteenth century continental and colonial policies viz-a-viz Hanover.
MHC Student Fellow and PhD candidate Kevin Broucke will present a paper titled "A French Proconsul in Damascus. General Henri Gouraud (1867-1946) and the establishment of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 1919-1923" at The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas on 15-18 November 2018. https://mesana.org/pdf/18-preliminary-program-10-10.pdf
The MHC is pleased to announce that Mr. Barry Brown has accepted our invitation to join the Executive Council of the Military History Center. Barry, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, brings several decades' worth of experience in the world of banking, finance, and the United States Navy! Shortly after college, he began his banking career in Houston, Texas in 1982. Over the past 36 years he has gained expertise in team building, relationship building, and market expansion with extensive experience in budget management, financial reporting, and credit structure. He currently serves as CEO of the Plano market for Citizens Bank, a 70-year old family owned community banking organization headquartered in Kilgore, Texas. In addition to a long banking career, he served 29 years in the United States Navy Reserve, retiring in 2016 at the rank of Captain. He is a veteran of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. His Navy career in logistics provided opportunities to work in global supply chain processes, planning and execution of multiple location missions across vast geographies. He has expertise in procurement and contracting on large scale projects from basic subsistence supplies to major weapons systems. Barry has served on multiple and varied boards of directors and advisory boards. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Southeastern Louisiana University Foundation, overseeing the endowment of his alma mater. He is immediate past chairman of the City of McKinney's Armed Forces Memorial Board and sits on the current Board of Directors of the Navy League of the United States, Dallas Council. He serves as a deacon at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. Welcome aboard, Barry. We are delighted to have your friendship and grateful for your knowledge and generosity.
A big congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Luke Truxal for publishing two peer-reviewed articles: "Bombing the Romanian Rail Network," Air Power History Magazine, Volume 65 No. 1 (Spring 2018): 15-22 and "The Politics of Operational Planning: Ira Eaker and the Combined Bomber Offensive in 1943," Journal of Military Aviation History, Volume 1 (2017): 1-22. Luke is almost done with his dissertation, which is being directed by Dr. McCaslin.
Congratulations to MHC Student Fellow Christopher Menking for presenting "Gone to Texas: U.S. Soldiers Who Moved to Texas after the U.S.-Mexico War," at the 122nd Annual Meeting of the Texas State Historical Association, Spring 2018 and for publishing "Brazos Santiago: The Forgotten Gateway of Texas, 1836-1874," in the peer-reviewed journal, Military History of the West, October 2017.
A salut to MHC PhD Student Fellow Lt-Colonel Matt Dietz (USAF) for presenting "Blame Canada: The Failed Strategy of the Quebec Invasion" at the 27th Annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference hosted by the University at Buffalo, Buffalo NY.
Kudos to Dr. Tanner, who was invited to be one of the external reviewers for a doctoral thesis at the IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy this year. The defense was conducted on 9 March 2018. The thesis, by Sergio Miracola, is entitled "Chinese Strategic Culture: The Origin, Organization, Operationalization, and Evolution of People's War Doctrine." Dr. Tanner also chaired a panel on "A Military Republic: The Militarization of China's State-building, Nation-building and Modernization Efforts, 1912-49" at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies on 25 March 2018. At the annual meeting of the Chinese Military History Society (held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society for Military History), he participated in a round-table discussion on 5 April on the topic "Is There a Chinese Way of War." The other panelists included: Dr. Sherman Xiaogang Lai (Royal Military College of Canada), Ke Chunqiao (Academy of Military Science, People's Liberation Army), Xiaobing Li (University of Central Oklahoma), & Peter Lorge (Vanderbilt University). Colonel Ke is a currently serving PLA officer. The other two Chinese panelists are PLA veterans. Not bad company to be keeping!
Congratulations to Dr Chet for completing the manuscript of his third monograph: "The Colonists' American Revolution: Preserving the Constitution of English Liberty, 1607-1783." He also participated in a panel discussion on American Revolution pedagogy at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians in sunny Sacramento from 12-14 April. In classroom matters, Dr. Chet developed UNT's first upper-level online course on the American Revolution: (HIST 4490) The American Revolution, scheduled for Summer 2018. He also completed and submitted another chapter, scheduled for publication in 2018 ("The Persistence of Piracy in the British Atlantic," in The Golden Age of Piracy: Readings on the Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates, ed. David Head (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018), 111-125). https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-Piracy-Enduring-Popularity/dp/0820353256
Dr. McCaslin had an active speaking schedule this year, delivering 25 talks. He spoke at the Alamo, Bullock State History Museum, Frisco Heritage Museum, Farmer's Branch Senior Center, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNT and gave a keynote talk at the Texas History Symposium, which was held at the Scottish Rite Temple in Dallas. Among the organizations to whom he spoke were the Sons of the Republic of Texas, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Daughters of the American Revolution, Dames of the Court of Honor, Colonial Dames, Hood's Texas Brigade Association Reactivated, DeWitt County Historical Commission, Wednesday Study Club (Sanger), and Westerners International (Fort Worth). His topics included Texas in the Civil War and World War I, Robert E. Lee, Washington-on-the Brazos, Pompeo Coppini (memorial statues), Waldine Tauch (memorial statues), Frederick Remington and the Buffalo Soldiers, Texas Rangers, John S. "Rip" Ford, and the CSS Hunley (submarine). Dr. McCaslin has previously published books and articles on many of these subjects. Two more of his doctoral students completed their dissertations (Mick Miller on the XIT Ranch and Jack Andersen on the 33rd United States Volunteer Regiment in the Philippine Insurrection), while MHC Student Fellow Luke Truxal's dissertation on Allied airpower strategy in Europe during Word War II is approaching completion under Dr. McCaslin's direction.
The MHC held the 3rd Annual War Studies Symposium on Wednesday, 25 April 2018 from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm at the SpringHill Suites Marriott Denton (1434 Centre Place Dr.). The title of the talk was: "The Washington War: FDR's Inner Circle and the Politics of Power that Won World War II." Our guest speaker was Dr. James G. Lacey, who serves as Professor and Director for War, Policy, and Strategy as well as Political Economy at the Marine Corps War College. Prior to his appointment to the War College in June 2010, he spent six years at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington D.C. A widely published senior analyst, Dr. Lacey worked on a number of projects concerning the economics of war, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, strategic communications, and long-term US strategic policy. He was an active duty military officer for twelve years, serving in the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, and United States Army Europe Headquarters. He retired from the Army Reserves in 2005 after 24 years of service. Dr. Lacey has extensive experience in several Wall Street firms focusing on "capital market operations." He is a successful professional journalist with columns in National Review, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Affairs, New York Post, and New York Sun for almost two years. He was a journalist with Time Magazine and was an embedded reporter with the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has extensively published in financial, military and opinion journals. In addition, Dr. Lacey has taught graduate level courses in Military History and Global Issues at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities. He has also lectured and conducted seminars at numerous academic and policy institutions across the United States. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from The Citadel and a Ph.D. in Military History from Leeds University. His dissertation focused on the economic underpinnings of U.S. strategy in the Second World War. His book publications include: Iraqi Perspective Project (2006); Takedown - The 3rd Infantry Division's 21-Day Assault on Baghdad (2007); Terrorist Perspective Project (2008); Global Jihad (2008); Cannons of Jihad (2008); Pershing (2008); The Making of Peace(2009); Keep from All Thoughtful Men (2011); The Making of Grand Strategy (2011); The First Clash: The Greco-Persian Wars (2011); The Moment of Battle (2013); Great Strategic Rivalries (editor, 2016); The Washington War(2018); and The Gods of War (2018). Dr. Lacey is also the author of over one-hundred articles and studies on history, strategy, economics, global events, etc. He regularly publishes in Military History Magazine, Military History Quarterly, and the Journal of Military History.
The UNT Military History Center Executive Council Lecture Series brought DR. BRIAN MCALLISTER LINN Professor of History, Ralph R. Thomas Professor in Liberal Arts at Texas A&M to campus to present "Elvis's Army: GIs and the Atomic Battlefield" on Thursday, 12 April 2018. A long-time friend of the MHC and one of its Advising Fellows, Dr. Linn's presentation was based on his latest book, Elvis's Army: Cold War GI's and the Atomic Battlefield, Harvard University Press, 2016. Some 120 students, faculty, and friends of the MHC attended his engaging talk. Professor Linn was born in the Territory of Hawai'i and completed his graduate work at The Ohio State University. He is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and an Olin Fellowship at Yale University. He has been a visiting professor at the Army War College and a Fulbright Fellow at the National University of Singapore and the University of Birmingham. He is the past president of the Society for Military History and has given numerous papers and lectures in the United States and internationally. Professor Linn is the author of five groundbreaking books including The Echo of Battle: The Army's Way of War (Harvard, 2009) described as "a masterpiece" by Andrew J. Bacevich, who refers to Linn "as the preeminent military historian of his generation."
The MHC is proud of two of its Student Fellows: Hailey Stewart and Kevin Broucke, both of whom presented papers at the 85th Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History in Louisville, Kentucky hosted by the University of Louisville. Hailey presented "George III and Napoleon's Invasion of Hanover in 1803" while Kevin presented "Macedonia, 1918: The Year of Victory." UNT MHC alumnus Jordan Hayworth of the US Air Force Air Command and Staff College was also on the program.
The MHC is pleased to announce that its friends at the Ft. Worth Aviation Museum held the 4th Annual Hops and Props Festival on 28 April 2018 at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum 3300 Ross Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76106. The 2018 theme is "Top Gun" in recognition of the dedication of our F-14 Tomcat fighter and F-5E Tiger II, featured in the movie "Top Gun." http://fortworthaviationmuseum.com/category/event/hopsandprops/
Congratulations to Dr. Wawro on the forthcoming publication of his 6th monograph: Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War I . The American contribution to World War I is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, and yet it has all but vanished from view. Historians have dismissed the American war effort as largely economic and symbolic. But as Dr. Wawro shows in Sons of Freedom, the French and British were on the verge of collapse in 1918, and would have lost the war without the Doughboys. Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, described the Allied victory as a "miracle"--but it was a distinctly American miracle. In Sons of Freedom, prize-winning historian Geoffrey Wawro weaves together in thrilling detail the battles, strategic deliberations, and dreadful human cost of the American war effort--first defending Paris, and then cutting the German army's lifeline in the Meuse-Argonne. A major revision of the history of World War I, Sons of Freedom resurrects the brave heroes who saved the Allies, defeated Germany, and established the United States as the greatest of the great powers.
https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Freedom-Forgotten-American-Soldiers/dp/04650...
The MHC is pleased to announce that Student Fellow Alumnus, Dr. Mervyn Roberts, just had his book, The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, published by the University Press of Kansas. Merv's PhD research focused on Psychological Operations during the Vietnam War. He defended his dissertation, "Let the Dogs Bark: The Psychological War in Vietnam, 1960-1968" in February 2016 and proceeded to graduate in May 2016. His book is based on his dissertation, which examines the efforts of the North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and others to employ psychological warfare in Vietnam. Merv began studies at UNT in 2004 between deployments to Afghanistan where he operated in Helmand province and Eastern Afghanistan as PSYOP Team leader assigned to the Combined-Joint Special Operation Task Force. He has published widely on the topic of Special Warfare and also published Villages of the Moon: PSYOP in Southern Afghanistan, based on a journal he kept in 2002/03. Dr. Roberts holds a BA in History from the University of Hawaii. He is also a graduate of the Special Operations Language Course in Farsi and was one of the older fellows to make it through Airborne School. Congratulations Merv!
The MHC would like to extend a warm welcome two new members of the Executive Council: Steve Murdock and Marshall Lilly. Steve is a biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry executive who has held key leadership roles in the development and commercial success of several billion-dollar products such as Cialis, Celebrex and Ambien. Steve is a twenty-six year US Navy veteran, retiring as a Captain. He served aboard destroyers and is a Surface Warfare Officer. Captain Murdock also commanded three Naval Reserve units and was on the staff of Pacific Command, Atlantic Command, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations and US Seventh Fleet. Steve graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with an A.B. in Sociology. He and his wife Mary live in the Seattle area. They have a grown family of two sons, one daughter and one granddaughter. Although Steve lives in Seattle, he is no stranger to our programs. You have probably already met him while he was attending one of our events with his dad, Al. Welcome Steve! For Steve's full bio, see: /images/history.unt.edu/files/all/steve_murdock_1.pdf. Marshall represents the injection of youth that we need to attract younger members to our group. Marshall is Vice President of Management and Acquisitions for L3 Properties, a commercial real estate firm dealing in acquisition, sales and leasing of strip centers, raw land and development in the DFW area. He grew up bouncing back and forth from South Carolina and Denton, Texas. He began his academic career at the University of Dallas. While at U.D., he was a student athlete, playing baseball and basketball. He was fortunate to have received five division one scholarship offers to play baseball, including North Carolina State. He chose the University of Dallas because it's a Catholic school and it was close to his family. Eventually, he transferred to the University of North Texas, where he double majored in History and Archaeology. While at UNT, he founded a chapter of Theta Chi fraternity. He was also very active in the History honor society of Phi Alpha Theta. As of Spring 2016, he became the alum adviser for the Theta Chi chapter at UNT. After his undergraduate career, he completed a Masters in Ancient History. His thesis work focused on Julian the Apostate and the last pagans of Rome. Welcome Marshall. For Marshall's full bio, see: /images/history.unt.edu/files/history/marshall_lilly.pdf
Dr. Leggiere presented a paper at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, which was held February 22-24 at The Hilton Penn's Landing Hotel located on the Philadelphia Waterfront. Dr. Leggiere's paper concerned the Army of Silesia's crossing of the Elbe River on 3 October 1813. Also presenting at the conference were MHC Student Fellow alumni Drs. Nate Jarrett, Jordan Hayworth, and Jon Abel.
On February 24th Dr. Imy received a "10 Under 10" Award honoring the top 10 alumni of the past 10 years from Metropolitan State University of Denver. In addition, she will present her research on the British Indian Army to the UNT Borders and Migrations Mentoring Group on 29 March 2018. Dr Imy will organize and participate in a round table on "War and Society: Reinventing the Field" at the Western Association of Women Historians at the UC Davis Campus on April 27th, 2018.
The Fall 2017 Executive Council Discussion Series Lecture was presented by Dr. Frederick C. Schneid, Professor and Chair of History at High Point University on 14 November 2017. Dr. Schneid presented: "French and American Relations: From the American Revolution to the War on Terror." Dr. Schneid has published extensively in these fields and is author and/or editor of sixteen books. He was commissioned by the Italian Army Historical Service to write an official military history, The French-Piedmontese Campaign of 1859, (2014) for the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification, published in Italian and English. Professor Schneid's books include, ed., European Armies of the French Revolution (2015); The Second War of Italian Unification, 1859-1860 (2012); ed., The Projection and Limitations of Imperial Powers: 1618-1850 (2012); The Napoleonic Wars (2012); ed., Conscription in the Napoleonic Era: A Revolution in Military Affairs? (2008); Napoleon's Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition (2005); Napoleon's Italian Campaigns, 1805-1815 (2002); Soldiers of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy (1995). Professor Schneid has been an invited speaker at Oxford University, the Fondation Napoléon in Paris, Université de Paris XII, The United States Military Academy at West Point and The United States Army War College.
The MHC held the 35th Annual Alfred and Johanna Hurley Military History Seminar on Veterans Day, 11 November 2017 at the UNT Student Union. The title of the Seminar was: "From Passchendaele to Petrograd, 1917: The Year the Germans Almost Won the First World War." Speakers were Dr. Nick Lloyd, Senior Lecturer, Defence Studies Department, King's College London, who presented: "Passchendaele: 100 Years On" and Dr. Sean McMeekin, Professor of History, Bard College, who presented: "The Hostile Takeover: The Bolsheviks Conquer the Russian Imperial Army."
Dr. Wawro presented " Fresh Perspectives on the 100th Anniversary of World War I" at the 2017 Save Texas History Symposium in Austin on 16 September. He discussed how Haig shattered the newly expanded British army on the Somme and Passchendaele in 1916-17. Nivelle shattered the already gasping French army on the Chemin des Dames in 1917. The Germans knocked out the Russians and effectively the Italians in 1917, and looked likely to win the war in 1918 with massed forces and new tactics on the Western Front. "Miraculously," as Haig put it, the Allies not only survived the German spring and summer offensives of 1918, they won the war. It was no "miracle." It was owed to the intervention of the U.S. Army in the Meuse-Argonne and the Second Battle of the Marne.
Dr. Cox presented the talk "Seeking Justice for the Holocaust: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert C. Pell, and the Limits of International Law" on 28 September 2017 hosted by the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance His talk focused on how the United States was able to seek justice abroad after World War II without addressing racial inequality at home. Following World War II, the Allies had the responsibility of creating an international legal protocol to prosecute Nazi officials at Nuremberg. Dr. Cox discussed how U.S. policymakers limited the scope of new international law seeking justice for the Holocaust to avoid creating precedents that might boomerang on the United States and its own policy of racial segregation. By linking "crimes against humanity" with "aggressive war" and "conspiracy" to protect American sovereignty against accusations about its own unequal social order, US policymakers simultaneously and hypocritically proclaimed the United States as the moral leader of the postwar new world order.
The MHC is partnering with the Texas World War I Centennial Commemoration Commission in an effort to support each other's programs. As part of that effort, the MHC is pleased to announce that the Texas World War I Centennial organization is part of the National World War I Centennial Commission (WWICC). Texas is committed to commemorating the role of Texas and Texans in the Great War, especially as we approach the 100 year anniversary of U.S. involvement in 2017-2019. In Texas our goals are: Information and Awareness: increase awareness of the general public about the role of Texas and Texans the Great War and of Texas WWI commemorative events, monuments and historic locations. Act as a clearinghouse for information on Texas in WWI and as a resource for individual and groups around the State in planning and publicizing commemorative activities. Commemorative events: work with key constituents and stake-holders around the State in all possible arenas (historical organizations, museums, educational institutions, the arts, military bases, libraries, veterans groups, civic organizations, municipalities, etc.) to plan and execute commemorative events that seek to engage the broadest spectrum of Texans. Education: engage with the public and with professional educators to assist them in accessing National WWICC educational resources. Partner with educators to promote student projects that commemorate the contribution of Texas and Texans during the Great War. State Commemorative Body. Work with Stated leaders to establish an official commemorative body to coordinate with the National WWICC and to endorse key State Agencies to assist in supporting the World War I centennial commemoration in Texas. Continuing and upcoming events include: AN EXHIBIT ILLUSTRATING THE IMPACT OF WWI ON NORTH TEXAS, FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 7/9/2017 THROUGH 10/20/2017 AT THE FORT WORTH CENTRAL LIBRARY. Texas and Collin County WWI Centennial Commemoration 2 March 2017 - 11 November 2018; Ike in WWI 6 April 2017 - 26 November 2017; TEXAS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR EXHIBIT - INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES 6 April 2017 - 11 March 2018. For more information, see: Texas World War I Centennial Commemoration.
The MHC is partnering with the all-volunteer Metroplex Military Charitable Trust (MMCT) in an effort to support each other's programs. As part of that effort, the MHC is pleased to announce that the MMCT will launch its Leadership Speakers Program on Thursday, 19 October 2017 with a presentation by Colonel Anthony (Tony) Wood, USMC (Ret) at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, located at the southeast corner of Love Field, from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM. Colonel Wood will tell the story of the unsung (civilian) heroes of the evacuation of Saigon on 29 April 1975. He has told this story to business leaders and at corporate seminars throughout the country. This presentation will be of particular interest to college students studying US history. The MMCT plans to have corporate sponsors underwrite tables and individual seats so that UNT and other college students can attend the event for free. Mike McCollum, Col USMCR (Ret) and Managing Trustee of the MMCT will coordinate with Dr. Leggiere. If you are not a UNT student but would like to attend the program, you can register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/military-speaker-series-unsung-heroes-of-saigon-registration-32927865131
Since 1990, the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Military Charitable Trust (MMCT) has been an avid supporter and creator of extremely worthwhile military charities in the region. From supporting the Veterans Resource Center at the Dallas VA Hospital, to creating the Metroplex Veterans Legal Services legal clinics, to underwriting expenses for the local Toys for Tots campaigns, to helping train, educate and lead cadets in local high school Jr ROTC programs, MMCT's volunteers have worked tirelessly for almost 3 decades to improve the lives of our community's veterans and of youngsters working towards becoming future military leaders. Program Preview: http://www.metroplexmarines.org/speakers/
The MHC is partnering with the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth in an effort to support each other's programs. As part of that effort, the MHC is pleased to announce that the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is hosting a program series on the "Future of War." The first talk will be on Monday, 9 October 2017 and the guest speaker will be Dr. Robert Latiff (ret.) Major General, U.S. Air Force; Adjunct Faculty Member, University of Notre Dame; Director of Intelligence Community Programs, George Mason University's School of Engineering. The title of Dr. Latiff's talk is "Preparing for the New Global Battlefield." A reception at 6:30 PM will be followed at 7:00 PM by the program and a book signing. The event will take place at Jones Day, 2727 N. Harwood St., Dallas, TX 75201. The cost is $15 for Members and $30 for for Non-Members but the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is pleased to offer the discounted member price of $15 to any UNT students, faculty, or alumni interested in attending. For more information see: https://www.dfwworld.org/events?calendar=true&cgid=1&ceid=5430&cerid=0&cdt=10%2f9%2f2017.
The second talk of the series will be held on Thursday, 19 October 2017 at the Hotel Crescent Court (400 Crescent Ct., Dallas, TX 75201). The speaker, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London, will present "The Future of War: A History." The event will start with a 6:30 PM Reception followed at 7:00 PM by the program and book signing. Registration is $25 for Members and $40 for Non-Members but once again the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is pleased to offer the discounted member price of $25 to any UNT students, faculty, or alumni interested in attending. For more information see: https://www.dfwworld.org/events?calendar=true&cgid=1&ceid=5447&cerid=0&cdt=10%2f19%2f2017
Questions? Please contact Tom Blute, Special Programs Coordinator, World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth, 325 North St. Paul Street, Suite 4200 | Dallas, Texas 75201, P: (214) 965-8416, tblute@dfwworld.org. You can find more information the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth about at www.dfwworld.org.
Dr. Lowe's first Ph.D. student (1994), Jane Johansson, now on the faculty at Rogers State University in Oklahoma, was awarded the Founders Award for 2017 by the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, VA. The Founders Award recognizes superior contributions in historical editing. This is a prestigious honor for her and for UNT. Previous winners include such nationally prominent historians as Ira Berlin of the University of Maryland, Gary Gallagher of the University of Virginia, John Blassingame at Yale, and the editors of the Jefferson Davis Papers at Rice University.
Dr. Leggiere was asked by the Musée de l'Armée in Paris to participate in a project/exhibition that will take place in 2018 (5 April - 22 July called "Napoléon's Strategy." It is about Napoléon's ways of thinking, preparing and leading a campaign, and Napoléon's contributions to the art of warfare. One of his contributions will be to write an essay that focuses on one of Napoléon's most famous foes, Blücher. His essay will be one of four short texts that address the subject of Napoléon's strategy by looking at "those who fought him, defeated him and, learned from him (or not). The other essays will be about Wellington, Kutuzov and Archduke Charles.
The MHC would like to welcome its newest Student Fellow, Christopher Menking. Chris earned his Bachelor of Arts in History (2010) from Texas A&M University and his Master of Arts in History (2013) from the University of North Texas. Chris is currently a doctoral student and Teaching Fellow at the University of North Texas as well as a dual credit instructor at Tarrant County College. While at College Station, Chris's undergraduate interest was primarily in American military history and Russian revolutionary history. Chris studied abroad in France, Germany, and Russia as part of his education in these fields. Chris's interest in Military History began at an early age. Both of his grandfathers served in the Second World War, one in the European theater and one in the Pacific theater. This interest, combined with growing up in South Texas, helped focus his later academic work on the U.S.-Mexico War. His Master's Thesis, titled "Remembering the Forgotten D-Day: The Amphibious Landing at Collado Beach during the Mexican War," examined both the logistical feat that managed to put ashore 10,000 U.S. soldiers in five hours as well as the joint-operational doctrine that was used during the landing itself. Chris's main field of study is logistics during the U.S.-Mexican War and the influence of the U.S. Army in the interwar period, 1846-1860. He focuses primarily on South Texas, investigating the influence of the supply depots, trade networks, and the Quartermaster Department on the region during and after the war. By integrating the two fields of military history and the newer borderlands history, he seeks to analyze the conflict and its results in a way that will illuminate how events during this period left lasting influences on this border region today. Chris's doctoral advisor is Dr. Richard McCaslin. He also works closely with Dr. Andrew Torget, Dr. Alexander Mendoza, and Dr. Mendiola-Garcia. Chris is originally from Alice, Texas and is married to Erin. When he is not teaching or researching, he enjoys trying new restaurants around Dallas/Fort Worth and woodworking.
This spring Dr. McCaslin published a book on Sutherland Springs with UNT Press; that's the hometown of Joseph B. Polley, the Texas Brigade veteran whose letters McCaslin edited for re-publication with the University of Tennessee Press in 2008. Dr. McCaslin also delivered a paper at the Texas State Historical Association conference, then chaired a session and commented on another at the Society for Military History conference. Among his hosts for other talks have been the Texas Map Society, the Texas chapter of the Military Order of Stars & Bars, and the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.
Dr. Tanner presented a paper titled: "PLA Counter-Insurgency Operations in Tibet" at the annual meeting of the Chinese Military History Society at Jacksonville, Florida, on 30 March 2017. He will give a presentation titled "Loose Cannon or Status Quo Conservative? Donald Trump and American East Asia Policy" as part of a round-table discussion on "New Leadership with New Partners in Asia" at the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity 2017 in Jeju City, Republic of Korea on 31 May 2017.
Congratulations to Dr. Cox, who presented a paper at a conference titled: PURSUING THE ROOSEVELTIAN CENTURY: INVESTIGATING A HISTORICAL FRAME, sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies, Middelburg, The Netherlands 30 November - 1 December 2017! This conference builds on the experimental MOOC, 'The Rooseveltian Century', produced by Giles Scott-Smith and Dario Fazzi in 2016. The event, the first to be held at the newly-founded Roosevelt Institute for American Studies, has two main purposes. Firstly, it will uniquely combine research on each of the three principal Roosevelts within an overarching historical investigation into their influence and legacies. Secondly, it will frame the debate around the central themes, motifs and images that can be represented by the term Rooseveltian Century, identifying the longer-lasting meaning and importance of this frame in current-day (international) politics. Dr. Cox's presentation is titled: "FDR and Seeking Justice for the Holocaust." According to Dr. Cox: "Considerable scholarship has examined the degree to which President Franklin Roosevelt failed/succeeded in saving Europe's Jews from complete annihilation during WWII. Much less has been devoted to FDR's role in the legal effort to seek justice for war crimes and the Holocaust. This paper examines FDR as protagonist in what ultimately became The Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and by association reveals his consequent impact on post-WWII visions of international justice and human rights. Eleanor Roosevelt was not the only Roosevelt who had an impact on postwar human rights advances." Participants include: Frank Costigliola (University of Connecticut), Michael Cullinane (Northumbria University), Mario Del Pero (SciencesPo), Mary Dudziak (Emory University), Sylvia Ellis (University of Roehampton), Petra Goedde (Temple University), Justin Hart (Texas Tech University), Lisa McGirr (Harvard University), Kiran Patel (University of Maastricht).
The MHC held its 2nd Annual War Studies Symposium on Thursday, 25 May 2017 at the Cavanaugh Flight Museum at 11:00 am. The theme of the Symposium was: "1967- Make or Break Year in the Vietnam War." Our esteemed speaker was Dr. Andrew Wiest, Professor of History and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi.
A total of eight UNT names were on the program at the 2017 annual meeting of the Society for Military History, including three current graduate students (Sarah Jameson, Michael Stout, and Chrristopher Menking), two Student Fellows (Tiffany Smith and Nate Jarrett), two alumni (Jordan Hayworth and Jared Donnelly), and one faculty member (Dr. McCaslin). Tiffany presented "Mending the Wounds of Industrial Warfare: Royal Army Medical Corps Doctors and the Co-Operative Diffusion of New Medical Knowledge in the Great War, 1914-1918." Way to go!
Dr. Imy offered a graduate studies course in Fall 2017 on the topic of "War, Gender and Religion in the British Empire" on Wednesdays from 2-4:50. This course explores the global legacies of the British Empire. It asks students to interrogate two of the lasting myths about the Empire that still dominate international attitudes. First, many regard Britain's predominance in the nineteenth and early twentieth century as a "Pax Britannica" marked by relative world peace. Second, contemporary audiences take for granted that Britain became an increasingly secular nation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both of these myths perpetuate imperial nostalgia for Britain as a rational, secular, world power that rarely resorted to violence. Yet over the course of the twentieth century, while Britain was a leading superpower, the world was torn by increasingly violent and divisive military conflicts. By placing diverse imperial contexts front and center, this course explores how hierarchies of race, gender, and belief shaped the British Empire's engagement with many regions of the world. What did it mean to be a secular empire as British missionaries traversed the globe? How were legal systems tools of differentiating between imperial subjects who were Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Zoroastrian, or Sikh? It considers various cases studies--from religious interventions of the East India Company to the hierarchies of belief in the "Scramble" for Africa--to understand how colonial hierarchies contributed to global tensions in both imperial and world wars. Students with an interest in colonization, religion, gender, race, and warfare will benefit directly from the thematic approach of the course. It will also globalize students' knowledge by speaking to a variety of regional contexts, including South Asia, the Mediterranean, Anglo-American relations, Britain and Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
The MHC would like to welcome its newest Student Fellow: Kevin Broucke! Kevin's main field of study is the French Army in World War I. His dissertation, tentatively titled: Triumph in the Balkans: The French Army in the Macedonian Campaign of World War I, 1915- 1918, will specifically review the events that took place in the Balkan Theater of the First World War. Kevin intends to prove the vital role of French arms as a central part of the Allied victory in World War I. Kevin's doctoral advisor is Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, but he also works closely with Dr. Michael V. Leggiere. Kevin will complete his PhD in 2020. Kevin originally hails from Marseille, France and is married to Chrystal. When he is not studying in Denton, he promptly returns to Montreal to spend time with his wife and their four children.
Congratulations to Nate Jarrett, whose article "False Start: Britain and Coalition Warfare in 1794," was published in Vol 24, Issue 2, April 2017 of the journal War in History. This article analyses Britain's struggle to conduct warfare as a member of a coalition during the first war against Revolutionary France. It focuses on Anglo-Austrian planning in the winter of 1793-4 and the effort to implement these plans in the spring of 1794. Scholars have attributed the coalition's defeat in Flanders to Austro-Prussian distractions in Poland and the botched British attempt to supersede this through subsidies. In contrast, this article illustrates that delays in planning, preparations, and operations hamstrung the coalition's 1794 campaign in Flanders in the spring, before the diplomatic and military reversals of the summer. Way to go Nate!
Major Dr. William Nance's (PhD UNT December 2013) dissertation was published by the University of Kentucky Press under the title: Sabers through the Reich: World War II Corps Cavalry from Normandy to the Elbe as part of Kentucky's Battles and Campaigns Series. In Sabers through the Reich, Major Nance provides the first comprehensive operational history of American corps cavalry in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) during World War II. The corps cavalry had a substantive and direct impact on Allied success in almost every campaign, serving as offensive guards for armies across Europe and conducting reconnaissance, economy of force, and security missions, as well as prisoner of war rescues. From D-Day and Operation Cobra to the Battle of the Bulge and the drive to the Rhine, these groups had the mobility, flexibility, and firepower to move quickly across the battlefield, enabling them to aid communications and intelligence gathering and reducing the Clausewitzian friction of war. https://www.amazon.com/Sabers-through-Reich-Normandy-Campaigns/dp/0813169607/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490931055&sr=1-3&keywords=william+nance. Way to go Bill!
Dr. Merv Roberts (PhD UNT May 2016) had his dissertation "Let the Dogs Bark: The Psychological War in Vietnam, 1960-1968" accepted for publication by the University Press of Kansas. The book will examine North Vietnamese, Viet Cong and other groups involved in psychological warfare in Vietnam. Congratulations Merv!
Dr. Mendoza participated in the Great War Centennial Commemoration Lecture Series hosted by Angelo State University. This nationwide initiative connects veterans, veterans' family members, and the general public in an attempt to explore and examine the ongoing relevance of issues that the Great War generation faced. On Thursday, 20 April, Dr. Mendoza discussed "Texas's Ethnic Minorities During World War I." The program is part of World War I and America, a two-year national initiative of Library of America presented in partnership with The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the National World War I Museum and Memorial, and other organizations, with generous support from The National Endowment for the Humanities. For additional information, please contact the Department of History at 325-942-2324 or email at warstories@angelo.edu.
Congratulations to Student Fellow Nate Jarrett for defending his dissertation, "Collective Security and Coalition: British Grand Strategy, 1783-1797," in March 2017. On 1 February 1793, the National Convention of Revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands, expanding the list of France's enemies in the War of the First Coalition. Britain entered the war amid both a nadir in British diplomacy and internal political divisions over the direction of British foreign policy. After becoming prime minister in 1783 in the aftermath of the War of American Independence, William Pitt the Younger pursued financial and naval reform to recover British strength and cautious interventionism to end Britain's diplomatic isolation in Europe. He hoped to create a collective security system based on the principles of the territorial status quo, trade agreements, neutral rights, and resolution of diplomatic disputes through mediation. While his domestic measures largely met with success, Pitt's foreign policy suffered from a paucity of like-minded allies, contradictions between traditional hostility to France and emergent opposition to Russian expansion, Britain's limited ability to project power on the continent, and the even more limited will of Parliament to support such interventionism. Nevertheless, Pitt's collective security goal continued to shape British strategy in the War of the First Coalition, and the same challenges continued to plague the British war effort. This led to failure in the war and left the British fighting on alone after the Treaty of Campo Formio secured peace between France and its last continental foe, Austria, on 18 October 1797.
Dr. McCaslin received the Myrick Distinguished Service Award from the Civil War Round Table of North Louisiana in Fall 2016 in recognition of his academic efforts to promote the study and understanding of the Civil War in the United States. He published another book, titled Sutherland Springs: Saratoga on the Cibolo about the hometown of the Mustang Grays, who served in the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War.
On 20 February 2017, Dr. Chet joined a panel of experts on the history of piracy, irregular warfare at sea, and maritime law to discus the historical roots of lawlessness at sea sponsored by the International Security Studies program at Yale University. Fellow panelists were Captain Shannon Kopplin of the U.S. Naval Justice School and Commander Benjamin Armstrong of the U.S. Naval Academy. Ian Urbina, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times, discussed his experience reporting the recent series "The Outlaw Ocean" prior to Dr. Chet's panel.
The MHC would like to welcome Hailey Stewart! as a Student Fellow! Hailey's main field of study is eighteenth-century British politics and diplomacy with an emphasis on Britain's relationship with the continent. Her dissertation will analyze the political policy of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, to discern his perspective on a colonial versus continental British policy. King George I, Frederick's grandfather, believed that the English throne was valuable in aiding the interests of Hanoverian expansion and security on the continent. Frederick's adoption of a continental policy while also siding with the British opposition that generally supported anti-Hanoverian legislation reveals a discrepancy in his conception of politics. By evaluating this relationship, she intends to reconcile the prince's favorable attitude toward the Hanoverian connection in British politics and determine if he incorporated British colonial interests into his political ideology. Hailey's doctoral advisor is Dr. Marilyn Morris, but she also works closely with Dr. Michael V. Leggiere the Deputy Director of the Military History Center.
On Saturday, 12 November 2016, the MHC held the 34th Annual Alfred and Johanna Hurley Military History Seminar, with the theme "NATO: The Past, Present and Future of the Atlantic Alliance." The esteemed speakers were Professor Alberto R. Coll, Director of European and Latin American Legal Studies at DePaul University College of Law and Professor Andrew Natsios, Executive Professor and Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at the George H.W. Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University. Dr. Coll presented: "Why We Need NATO: A Grand Strategy Perspective" while Professor Andrew Natsios presented "NATO and Russia."
Before joining DePaul in 2005, Dr. Coll chaired the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he also served for five years as Dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies. Born and raised in Cuba, he graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1977 with a B.A. in History, and later earned his J. D. and Ph.D. in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. In 1982 Professor Coll joined the faculty at Georgetown University, where he taught international relations, law, and organization. In 1986 he was appointed Secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the Naval War College, becoming in 1989 the youngest holder of the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law, the college's oldest chair. From 1990 to 1993, Professor Coll served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, overseeing the Defense Department's policy, strategy, and $3 billion budget for special operations forces and "low-intensity" conflict, including all counterterrorism forces. For his work, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Professor Coll is the author of The Wisdom of Statecraft and editor of several books on international relations and security issues. He is the author of prize-winning articles in the American Journal of International Law and the Naval War College Review, as well as articles in the Harvard Journal of International Law, the University of Pennsylvania's Journal of International Law, Washington Quarterly and other journals. He has served as consultant to the Rand Corp., the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the United States Information Agency, and numerous defense and intelligence organizations in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. From 2004 to 2005, Professor Coll was anchor of Global View, a weekly one-hour television show on world affairs featured by A&E's History Channel. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Virginia Bar, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Before joining the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M's George H.W. Bush School of Government, Andrew Natsios was Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 2006-2012 and former Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2001-2006. He serves as Co-Chairman Emeritus of the Committee on Human Rights in North Korea, a research center in Washington DC. And is a Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and International Development at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He also served as US Special Envoy to Sudan in 2006-2007 to deal with the Dafur crisis and the implementation of the South Sudan peace agreement. Retired from the US Army Reserves at a Lt. Colonel after twenty-three years of service, Professor Natsios is a veteran of the Gulf War. From 1993 to 1998, he was vice president of World Vision US, the international non-government organization. Earlier in his career, Professor Natsios served in the Massachusetts State Government as a member of the House of Representatives in Boston for twelve years and later as Secretary of Administration and Finance, the chief financial and administrative officer of the Commonwealth. He also served in 2000-2001 as the CEO of Boston's Big Dig, the largest construction project in American history, after a cost overrun scandal. Professor Nastios is the author of three books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997); The Great North Korean Famine (2001); and his latest book, Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know, published in 2012 by Oxford University Press. He has contributed to thirteen other books. He received his Bachelor of Arts in History from Georgetown University and his Masters in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Professor Natsios was commissioned Second Lieutenant at Georgetown University (ROTC) in 1971.
Dr. Wawro has appeared in a number of television programs recently, notably six episodes of The Last Days of the Nazis on History and H2, six episodes of Hitler: The Life on American Heroes Channel. He is writing a new history of American involvement in the First World War titled: The Silent Slain: Allied Collapse and America's Defeat of Germany in World War I. His last book, A Mad Catastrophe (2014), was shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, featured in the Wall Street Journal and was named one of the "best history books of 2014" by the Financial Times, Toronto's National Post and The Providence Journal. In July 2016, Dr. Wawro spoke at the 150th Anniversary of the Austro-Prussian War Symposium in the Czech Republic. In 2015, he gave a talk titled "Vietnam: The War that just won't go away" at a The '60s: Turmoil and Transformation Symposium in Bismarck, North Dakota. In late 2014, Dr. Wawro was a guest of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, where he gave a talk on his book A Mad Catastrophe, about Austria-Hungary's collapse in the First World War.
Dr. Mierzejewski's latest book, A History of the German Public Pension System: Continuity Amid Change was published by Lexington Books in 2016. His article "Taking from the Weak, giving to the Strong: The Jews and the German Statutory Pension System, 1933-1945," is forthcoming in Holocaust and Genocide Studies in 2017. His book review of Jaron Pasher's Holocaust versus Wehrmacht. How Hitler's Final Solution Undermined the German War Effort (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2014), appeared in Central European History 49 (March 2016): 286-88.
So far in 2016 Dr. McCaslin has published a book, Washington-on-the-Brazos (Texas State Historical Association, 2016), and a book chapter ["A Texas Reign of Terror: Anti-Unionist Violence in North Texas," Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance: The Other Civil-War Texas, ed. J. Frank De la Teja (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016)]. He has spoken to the Civil War Round Tables in Baton Rouge, Alexandria (LA), Austin, Fort Worth, and Dallas, and he is scheduled to speak to the Hood's Texas Brigade Association (Reactivated) in November 2016. He served as commentator for a session at the Society for Military History in the spring of 2016, and he will deliver a paper at the Texas State Historical Association in the spring of 2017.
Dr. Cox is presenting a talk titled "Seeking Justice at Nuremberg" on Wednesday, 8 November 2016 at 2:00pm in the History Department Library for the Human Security Workshop Series.
The Inaugural War Studies Symposium was held on 20 April 2016 in Denton. Brigadier General (Ret.) Dr. Robert A. Doughty presented:
"The Battle of Verdun: Fresh Perspectives on the 100th Anniversary of the Great War"
General Doughty served as Professor and Head of the Department of History at the United States Military Academy from 1985 to 2005. He retired in July 2005 after forty years of service in the U.S. Army. General Doughty graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1965 and received his Ph.D. from Kansas University in 1979. Following his commissioning as an Armor officer, Bob served with distinction in a variety of command and staff positions, including two assignments in Germany and a combat tour in Vietnam. His awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, and Combat Infantry Badge. In the late 1970s, he served as an instructor at the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth and was instrumental in establishing the Combat Studies Institute. Bob returned to West Point in 1981 as an Academy Professor in the Department of History and served as the chief of the European History Division. He became the Deputy Head in 1984 and the Head the following year. Under Bob's leadership the Department of History developed one of the finest undergraduate history programs in the nation. In 1995-96, he held the Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History at the U.S. Army Military History Institute. In 2009, he presented the Harmon Memorial Lecture in Military History at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. He is the author of numerous articles and four books and has co-authored a military history textbook. His book, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939, won the American Historical Association's Paul Birdsall Prize in 1986 while his book, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War, won the New York Military Affairs Symposium's 2005 Arthur Godzeit Book Award followed by the Western Front Association's 2006 Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. Book Prize and the Society for Military History's 2006 Samuel Eliot Morison Prize as well as the Society's 2007 Distinguished Book Award. Born in Tullos, Louisiana, he and his wife of forty-two years, Diane, live in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Dr. Mendoza has a book under contract, tentatively entitled Propaganda and the American Civil War with ABC-CLIO.
Dr. Wawro is working on his sixth book, tentatively titled Mud Men: The American Army in the First World War. He will spend the summer in European and American archives, and was recently awarded a UNT research grant as well as a US Army General Matthew Ridgway grant to fund the research. He continues his work on the Review Board of the History and Military Book Clubs, as well as his work as co-editor of the Cambridge Military Histories. In November 2015, Dr. Wawro gave a talk titled "Vietnam: the war that just won't go away" to a conference on the 1960s at Bismarck State in North Dakota. Dr. Wawro has been invited by the Czech government to give a keynote address to the Austro-Prussian War 150th Anniversary Symposium in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic in July 2016.
In October 2015, Christopher Fuhrmann was the keynote speaker at a conference at the Frei Universität Berlin, where he spoke on state surveillance and resistance in the Roman world. This was an event sponsored by the research group TOPOI, which brought together leading experts on surveillance, from different fields and historical eras. Fuhrmann also continues work on a side project, "The Roman Empire's Forgotten Civil War: The Jewish Diasopora Revolt of AD 116-117"; he spoke on this topic at the January 2016 annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta.
Dr. McCaslin in 2015 published a book chapter ["Bitter Legacy: Military Operations in the Indian Territory during the Civil War," in The Indian Territory in the Civil War, ed. Brad Clampitt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015)] and an article in an academic journal ["'A Curious War': Franklin A. G. Gearing in the Civil War," East Texas Historical Journal 53 (Fall 2015)]. He also chaired a military history session at the Consortium on the Revolutionary era, served as commentator for a session at the Society for Military History, and delivered a lecture at the annual symposium sponsored by Hood's Texas Brigade Reactivated. This spring he has another book coming out [Washington-on-the-Brazos: Cradle of the Texas Republic (Texas State Historical Association, 2016)] as well as a book chapter ["A Texas Reign of Terror: Anti-Unionist Violence in North Texas," Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance: The Other Civil-War Texas, ed. J. Frank De la Teja (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016)].
Dr. Lowe gave a talk at the UNT Emeritus College in September 2015 titled "Technology and the Battlefield in the American Civil War."
Dr. Lowe's Student, Tom Mack, completed his dissertation, a regimental history of the 45th Illinois Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, and received his Ph.D. degree in December 2015
Dr. Harold Tanner published his fourth book, Where Chiang Kai-shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948 with Indiana University Press in July 2015. The book describes the process by which Chinese Communist commander Lin Biao isolated and defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces in Manchuria over a two-year period in 1946-1948. This study draws on internal Chinese Communist sources, US military and State Department archives, Chiang Kai-shek's diaries and other sources to combine analysis of Chinese Communist operations on the ground with the deteriorating dynamics of Chiang Kai-shek's relations with George Marshall and the Truman administration. The resulting account gives us insights into not only into the Chinese civil war, but also into the history of 20th century China and of U.S.-China relations.
Dr. Mitchener attended the Asia-Pacific War conference in Canberra, Australia from 9-11 July 2015. He delivered a paper titled "Preliminary Naval Gunfire and Artillery Support at Tinian: An Analysis and Comparison."
The Military History Center held the 7th Air Power Symposium Luncheon on 13 May 2015. Our featured speaker was Dr. Michael S. Neiberg of the US Army War College, who gave a presentation titled: "Potsdam: Diplomacy in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons." Dr. Neiberg is a Professor of History in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, where he holds the Stimson Chair of History and Security Studies. Dr. Neiberg was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Educated at the University of Michigan (BA) and Carnegie Mellon University (MA and PhD), he has taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he was awarded the 1999 Outstanding Academy Educator Award, and the University of Southern Mississippi. He has been a Guggenheim fellow, a founding member of the Société Internationale d'Étude de la Grande Guerre, and a trustee of the Society for Military History. With backgrounds in social history, military history, French history, and American history, Neiberg has published widely on the theme of war in the world, especially in the era of the two world wars. His books include Making Citizen-Soldiers: ROTC and the Ideology of American Military Service (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000); The Western Front (London: Amber Books, 2007); The Second Battle of the Marne (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011); The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944 (2012);The Military Atlas of World War I (London: Amber Books, 2014); and Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe (New York: Basic Books, 2015). Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of War in 1914 was named one of the five best books ever written on World War I by the Wall Street Journal and is available in Turkish and Portuguese translations. The Second Battle of the Marne received the Tomlinson Prize for best English-language book on World War I. The Western Front is available in Swedish, German, and Polish translations. Making Citizen-Soldiers: ROTC and the Ideology of American Military Service was the finalist for the Thomas J. Wilson Prize and named as an Association of American University Presses "Book for Understanding our Times."
