Wars and battles
Military History: Wars, Battles and the Decisions Behind Them
Military history is most useful when it explains why something happened rather than listing that it did. These accounts concentrate on the decisions, the logistics and the terrain that settled the outcome.
Battles are remembered for their outcomes and decided by their preconditions. By the time two forces meet, most of what will determine the result has already happened: who chose the ground, who knew what about the other, who could be supplied and for how long, and whether the junior leaders on each side had been trained to act without orders when the plan stopped working.
That is the angle these pages take. A siege that lasted four months and ended in a withdrawal tells you more about logistics and the campaigning season than about courage. An amphibious deployment that ended in a truck bomb tells you about force protection and about missions defined as presence, not as objectives. Both are more instructive than a casualty table.
What gets covered and what does not
The emphasis is on conflicts and engagements involving the US armed forces, with earlier campaigns included where they are still taught or still cited: siege warfare, amphibious operations, the development of combined arms. Where an account is contested, the disagreement is part of the page as opposed to something smoothed over.
Figures are stated with their source and their limits. Casualty numbers from contemporary returns differ from later corrections, and both differ from the other side's claims; a page that gives one number without saying which it is has hidden something.
Sections
Four sections- 01 Wars The conflicts the US military has fought, what each was about, and how each ended.
- 02 Famous battles Individual engagements examined for what decided them.
- 03 Military leaders Commanders whose decisions shaped American practice.
- 04 Military units Divisions, brigades and regiments with a lineage worth following.
Recent accounts
- The Sixth Fleet off Beirut, 1982–1984 The naval half of the Multinational Force, and the day that ended it.
- 11 September 1565: the Great Siege of Malta breaks Four months of siege ended by a fleet running out of season.
- Reconnaissance by fire A tactic old enough to be doctrine and still argued about.
How to read military history critically
Military history is unusually prone to two distortions, and both are easy to spot once you know the shape of them.
The outcome contaminates the account. A decision that worked is described as insight and the same decision taken on the same information is described as recklessness when it failed. The test of a decision is what was knowable at the time, which is why a document written before the result is worth more than a memoir written after it.
The interesting arm crowds out the decisive one. Accounts concentrate on combat and skip logistics, because movement and battle make better narrative than fuel consumption and rail capacity. A campaign that stalled for want of supply reads as a failure of will unless the supply position is in the account.
A third habit is worth adding, because it applies to every page in this section: casualty and strength figures are almost always contested, and the reason is usually definitional and not political. Armies counted differently, categories differed, and post-war deaths from wounds and disease are attributed differently by different authorities. Where a figure matters here, the range is given rather than a false midpoint.
How these pages are built
Each account starts from what is documented and says which parts are reconstructed. Casualty figures are given as the range the sources support rather than as a single confident number, and where two credible accounts disagree the disagreement is stated. Decisions are described as they were made under the information available at the time, not against what became known afterwards, because the second reading explains nothing about why the decision looked reasonable to the person making it.
Where a page covers an event within living memory, it says what remains contested and who contests it instead of settling the question on the reader's behalf.
Outcome is the other word that hides an argument. An engagement can be a tactical success and a strategic failure at the same time, and several of the battles covered here are studied precisely because the two verdicts point in opposite directions.
Where the primary record is kept
Accounts in this section rest on records that are publicly held, and the institutions that hold them are worth knowing for anyone following a subject further. Each service maintains a history organisation: the US Army Center of Military History, the Naval History and Heritage Command, the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base, and the Marine Corps History Division. They publish official histories and hold unit records, oral histories and after-action material.
Individual service records are held by the National Archives, at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. A fire there in 1973 destroyed a large share of the Army personnel files for those discharged between 1912 and 1960, and of Air Force files for part of the period after 1947, which is why reconstructing an individual career from that era often depends on unit records, pay vouchers and medal files.
Official histories are indispensable and have a known limit: they are written with access to the records and from the institution's point of view. The pages here use them for chronology and organisation, and look elsewhere when the question is one the institution had reasons to answer a particular way.
Questions and answers
Why do accounts of the same battle differ so much?
Because the sources differ in what they could see. A unit diary records what one formation experienced; a national history reconciles those diaries after the fact and usually flattens the confusion; a participant account is vivid and narrow. Casualty figures in particular vary between contemporary returns, later corrections and the other side’s claims, and a careful account states which it is using.
How much does technology decide the outcome of a battle?
Less than it appears in retrospect. Logistics, terrain, weather, intelligence and the quality of junior leadership decide most engagements, and a technical advantage that cannot be supplied or maintained is not an advantage for long. The cases where a technology was genuinely decisive are rare enough to be notable.
Are these accounts written from primary sources?
These pages are secondary accounts written from published histories and public records, and they name what they draw on. Where figures or attributions are contested, the page says so and not picking the tidiest number.