Chichele Chair in War History

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The Chichele Professor of the History of War ( English Chichele Professorship of the History of War ) belongs to All Souls College at the University of Oxford in Oxford. It was named after the Archbishop of Canterbury (1414–1443) and founder of All Souls College Henry Chichele , to whom four other chairs are donated in honor. The Oxford Chair for War History , founded in 1909, was filled by well-known military historians and is considered a worldwide model for further chairs of this kind.

history

After the end of the Second Boer War between the United Kingdom and two Boer republics and the time of conflict, developments on the European continent was in 1909 the Chichele Chair of Military History (Chichele Professorship of Military History) at All Souls College, University of Oxford from the baptism upscale.

While diplomacy and at that time constitutional history within the science of history taking by far the dominant position that military history has been neglected. However, the conditions in Oxford to establish this special area were good. A number of historians in the well-known British university town were considered to be affine for military history. a. Sir Charles Harding Firth (Regius Professor of Modern History) and Sir Charles Oman (Chichele Professor of Modern History) and their direct predecessors. The faculty eventually agreed to incorporate military history into the Honors School of Modern History. A few years earlier, Leopold Stennett Amery , the Times war correspondent , and Field Marshal Lord Roberts had succeeded in establishing an Imperial Defense Society at the university . Complemented by High Commissioner Lord Millner , the military historian Spenser Wilkinson was then recommended to Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith as defense advisor. After Sir William Anson's military history teaching license, which had meanwhile been strained, expired, Spenser Wilkinson, an expert on the works of Carl von Clausewitz , was appointed as the first professor in 1909 through the existing connections . Among the personalities on the Appeals Committee was none other than the Secretary of State for War.

The chair was designed to offer a place for both teaching and research. The target group of the established course were prospective politicians, state officials and the military. With his lectures, Wilkinson laid the foundation for the later emerging strategic studies . In his inaugural lecture, he made it clear that military history should primarily focus on wars in history and conflicts between nations.

After Sir Ernest Swinton , who was more a military engineer than a historian, took over the chair , open lines of conflict arose between the historical and political science perspectives of the subject. An appointment by Sir Archibald Wavell could not be realized, organizational and war-related upheavals brought the chair work to a practical standstill from 1939 onwards. A proposed renaming of the chair to Chichele Chair for War History was not met until 1946. After the Second World War , numerous personalities applied for the professorship, which was filled in 1946 with the compromise candidate Cyril Falls , a former war correspondent and supporter of Clausewitz's teaching.

In 1953 a more academic successor was sought. The historian Norman H. Gibbs would then hold the professorship for two decades. During his tenure, the number of students rose rapidly, and he also improved relations with the Ministry of Defense to the effect that more graduates were taken into leading positions in the armed forces.

Renowned historian Sir Michael Howard succeeded Gibbs in 1977. His name is associated with the establishment of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the translation of Clausewitz's main work. His move to the Regius Chair in 1980 delayed a replacement until 1987 with Robert J. O'Neill . Sir Hew Strachan took over the chair from 2002 to 2015 . He was followed by Peter H. Wilson in 2015 .

Holder of the professorship

meaning

In the 1950s there was still no anchoring of a chair in military history in the USA , as was the case in the United Kingdom. Cambridge and the renowned Department of War Studies at King's College London also gained importance later. Oxford took on a worldwide role model for the establishment of naval and military history chairs.

Current figures show that around 80 percent of British Army officers are Oxford graduates. In 2009, two out of five Chiefs of Staff and approximately six generals and two admirals were graduates.

See also

literature

  • John Hattendorf : War History at Oxford: The Study of War History at Oxford, 1862-1990 . In: John Hattendorf, Malcolm Murfett (Ed.): Limitations of Military Power. Essays Presented to Professor Norman Gibbs on his Eightieth Birthday . Macmillan, Basingstoke 1990, ISBN 0-312-04514-X , pp. 3-61.
  • JSG Simmons : All Souls and Oxford Professorial Chairs, with an Excursus on Readerships . All Souls College, Oxford 1987, ISBN 0-901997-03-X , pp. 11 f., 15.
  • Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909-2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204-221.
  • Spenser Wilkinson : Government and the War . Robert M. Mc Bride, New York 1918.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b James Joll , Gordon Martel : The Origins of the First World War . 3rd edition, Pearson Education, Harlow 2007, ISBN 978-0-582-42379-4 , p. 279.
  2. a b c d Hew Strachan : The Study of War in Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 204.
  3. ^ A b c Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 206.
  4. ^ Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 207.
  5. ^ A b c Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 208.
  6. ^ A b Hew Strachan : The Study of War in Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 209.
  7. ^ Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 212.
  8. ^ Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 213.
  9. ^ Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 214.
  10. ^ Hew Strachan : The Study of War at Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 215.
  11. a b c d Hew Strachan : The Study of War in Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 216.
  12. ^ A b Hew Strachan : The Study of War in Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 218.
  13. ^ A b Hew Strachan : The Study of War in Oxford, 1909–2009 . In: Christopher Hood , Desmond King , Gillian Peele (Eds.): Forging a Discipline A Critical Assessment of Oxford's Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968221-8 , pp. 204–221, here: p. 219.
  14. ^ Tyson Wilson: The Case for Military History and Research . In: Military Affairs 21 (1957) 2, pp. 54-60.
  15. Leopold Stennett Amery : My political life . Volume 1: England before the storm, 1896-1914 . Hutchinson, London 1953, p. 221.