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[Middle English, from Latin mīlitāris, from mīles, mīlit-, soldier.]
militarily mil'i·tar'i·ly (-târ'ə-lē) adv.
adjective
adj. of, relating to, or characteristic of soldiers or armed forces: both leaders condemned the buildup of military activity.
n. (the military)the armed forces of a country.
militarily adv.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
Nickname of Haydn's Symphony no.100 in G (1793-4), so called because it uses ‘military’ instruments and has a trumpet call in the second movement.
Early modern military engineering co-evolved with the siege tactics that characterized European warfare from the late fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. By 1530 the assimilation of heavy gunpowder weapons was matched by the development of fortifications that could withstand cannonball bombardment. Campaigns usually focused on the taking of a city, although an aggressor's single most potent tactic was often to starve the inhabitants. Early modern siege warfare, precisely because of its relatively static, game-like quality, offered a broad stage for the activities of the engineer. Opportunities abounded for engineers who could maximize the capabilities of machines and gunpowder, effectively organize the immense workforce of trench diggers, ease the enormous burden of siege train baggage on campaign, or design an "impregnable" fortress in peacetime. As military engineers sought to define a science at the core of their new profession, the sphere of military engineering opened up an avenue of advancement both for men and for ideas about how the world of resisting walls and projectiles—matter and motion—worked.
The New Weapons
Gunpowder weapons were known to Europe by the 1320s. The earliest "cannons" were usually large barrel- or pot-like receptacles made of forged metal, mounted on a cumbersome cart and charged with irregular balls or projectiles. By 1500 most of the innovations that were to determine the form of muzzle-loaded cannons had been introduced. Cannons were cast of bronze (and, shortly thereafter, iron) to specific lengths and calibers. These ranged from the very smallest falconet, at a barrel length of six feet and a caliber of just over two inches, to long slender culverins, to heavy four-ton cannons. (Mortars and, later, howitzers were also cast.) They were then mounted on specialized carriages on pivots (trunnions) that were placed at standardized distances from the rear of the cannon. Indeed, the invention of standardized trunnions, with the increased ease of aim and accuracy they allowed, has been credited as the secret behind the terrifying reputation of Charles VIII's artillery when in 1494 the French monarch swept through Italy from the Alpine border to Naples.
Even given the impressive advances of the sixteenth-century cannon over its precursors, cannons still presented numerous difficulties that added to the inherent unpredictability of warfare. Each cannon was unique, owing to inconsistencies in metallurgy, boring, and other factors of its production. Cannons shot differently, depending on the gunpowder and how hot they became. They might crack in battle or, worse, explode prematurely if they were handled improperly. The heaviest bombards required dozens of draft animals to haul them; legions of men, employed to maneuver and plant cannons, attended the artillery train.
Innovations in the design of ordnance that might ameliorate these conditions were usually owed to gun makers. Members of the Alberghetti family, for example, requested numerous patents over the generations in which they headed the foundry at the Venetian arsenal. The single greatest improvement to the cannon was effected by the boring machine invented by Jean Maritz (1680–1743) in the mid-eighteenth century. The cannon barrel was rotated by a machine powered by horses, while a bit was advanced into the front of the piece. Before this time, cannons were each cast in a unique mold with an earthen core to make the hollow. The hollow tube was then smoothed on a vertical reaming machine. The boring machine allowed many cannons to be cast from the same mold, thereby helping to standardize shots among cannons. Moreover, because the bore could more precisely fit the size of the cannonball, it nearly halved the space between the inside wall of the barrel and the cannonball moving through it (windage). This greatly increased accuracy and power.
Military Architecture
While a number of gunfounders, or their sons, became military engineers, the profession was much more rooted to the tasks of the Renaissance city architect. Architects had traditionally acted as the designers of fortifications and military machinery. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) had to take time off from the construction of the Duomo in Florence in order to follow troops at war with the nearby city of Lucca. Architect, engineer, painter, and sculptor Francesco di Giorgio (1439–1501) is credited with the development of one of the most important innovations in defensive architecture, the angled bastion on which effective defensive fire could be mounted; Michelangelo (1475–1564) further developed its offensive capacity. Among the most active workshops in fortifications design were those of Antonio da San Gallo the Younger (1485–1546) and Michele Sanmicheli (1484–1559).
In the context of the decades-long Italian wars (1494–1559), in which huge armies and their siege trains battered Italy, the style of fortification that would dominate continental European warfare for the next two centuries emerged. Italian architects developed the main features of the trace Italienne, a polygonal circuit of walls with spade-like bastions built at each angle, by the early sixteenth century. The tall, crenellated walls of medieval fortifications had offered little resistance to cannon. Lower, thicker walls, reinforced by piling dirt against them (the "scarp," which was sometimes faced with masonry) better deflected and absorbed cannonballs and permitted the use of defensive cannon fire. Bastions provided a platform for cannons that allowed defenders to rake the curtain walls with fire (enfilade) and cover neighboring bastions. By the middle of the century, platforms in the curtain walls ("cavaliers") were added so that defenders could enfilade bastion walls, or fire into the bastion should it be taken by the enemy; a low flat wall outside the surrounding ditch, but fitted with parapets ("covered way"), enabled defenders to reconnoiter the activities of attackers and served as a staging area from which to conduct sorties.
In the course of the following 150 years, the depth of defensive works was developed enormously. Maurice of Nassau, prince of Orange (1567–1625), under the tutelage of the mathematician Simon Stevin (1548–1620), developed further outworks, particularly the ravelin, a fortified point that offered more angles for defensive fire outside the main walls. Fortification designs increasingly resembled star patterns, with a series of ditches, berms, and angled ravelins radiating from the polygonal perimeter of the city walls. The concern for depth of defensive works continued in the French corps of engineers and was brought to a baroque height by the followers of the great military engineer Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707).
Early modern fortifications systems were meant to act as a machine, each part interacting with another. By the onset of the seventeenth century, especially as the focus of European war was then centered on the struggles in the Netherlands, where broad flat land offered an empty canvas for the geometrical designs of engineers, the fortress was designed to take advantage of every possible angle from which any conceivable weapon could be employed. Built into the construction of a town wall and its outworks were plans for every foreseeable method of approach and point of breach by an enemy. Fortifications were tactics, but tactics that operated through a knowledge of mathematics, construction, and gunnery.
On Campaigns
If, ideally, the role of the engineer in fortifications was to build into his design a retort to any plan of attack, the role of the engineer in the field was to alter the methods of attack in an unexpected and more efficacious way. It is for this reason that Vauban's most significant contribution to the warfare of his age was not his fortification design, but his novel system of trenches, dug in a zigzag or parallel way so that assailants could reach within range of rampart walls while remaining under cover, and his use of the ricochet fire of mortars to scatter defenders within their own walls. Techniques for driving forward a sap were in themselves a sort of exercise in earthwork construction: trench diggers moved forward, placing baskets filled with earth or rocks (gabions) before them and building up earthen walls along their sides, so that attacking troops could be moved toward the walls, or mines could be laid at the fortification's base. Ingenuity in this regard was considered so valuable that military men sometimes debated whether the shovel was not a more important instrument than the gun.
Management of guns and gunpowder devices was another of the main concerns of the military engineer. Engineers were usually attached to the artillery corps. Their skills in maneuvering machines that weighed anywhere from four hundred to eight thousand pounds were paramount. At the highest levels, engineers were artillery generals, although this rank was usually achieved by noble commanders trained in the engineers' arts and sciences so that, at least, they could command their forces and supervise the engineers under them.
The Science of Military Engineers
Military engineering was transformed into a new profession around the relatively new arts of gunpowder warfare, and many of its practitioners insisted that it was a practice founded on science. By the end of the sixteenth century, an extensive literature on the various practical and intellectual demands of artillery warfare had rolled off the presses. Mathematics and measure were central to the new science of military engineering. In part, this was so because of the mathematical practices traditionally used by architects in their surveying, reconnaissance, and design activities. Military engineers and those who served them were among the most prolific producers of mathematical instruments and practical mathematical knowledge in the early modern period.
Ratio and measure, in fact, appeared to govern most of the new technical tasks, from the recipes for gunpowder (saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal), to the charge of the cannon (from one-half to two-thirds the weight of the ball), to the measure of range, to proportioning of fortifications. The book knowledge at new academies for the training of cadets, such as the Accademia Delia in Padua, centered around mathematics. Mathematicians began to intervene in the sphere of military engineering as teachers of foundational (and elementary) mathematical skills and as inventors of new mechanical and ballistic knowledge.
Nicolò Tartaglia (1500–1557) was the first mathematician to seek to regularize the unpredictable art of gunnery through mathematics. Galileo Galilei (1546–1642), a student and a sometime teacher of military engineers, also tackled questions that originated in gunnery, even if his solutions were universalized and reframed to address phenomena far outside it. Galileo's "geometrical and military compass" was inspired by the "problem of caliber" (by which one could figure out the proper ratios among weight of gunpowder charge, weight of ball, and bore size), but it could carry out a great number of computational tasks. His years-long study of projectile motion and materials strength culminated in the publication of his last work, Discourses on Two New Sciences (1638), and contained his breakthrough formulations of kinematic motion. Ironically, the mathematical study of projectiles had yielded the philosophical marvel of a terrestrial physics compatible with Copernicanism, but, as Galileo recognized, it was not a useful guide to cannon shot since tables based on his work could not account for air resistance and other technical factors. One of Galileo's disciples, Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647), did produce tables and instruments for mortar fire. Theoretically derived values are relatively accurate for these short-barreled, upward-shooting artillery pieces.
The problems of air resistance were taken up by Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Using Newton's work, Benjamin Robins (1707–1751) thoroughly investigated musket fire, both theoretically and experimentally. Robins's ballistic pendulum allowed him to demonstrate the dramatic effect of air resistance on the trajectory of a musket bullet and show that muzzle velocity is the most important parameter of artillery performance. However, although his work was translated by Leonard Euler (1707–1783) into German, with commentary, and into French, even engineers who knew Robins's work continued to use range as the significant parameter for another generation.
Institutionalization and Reform
In the eighteenth century, technical schools were established for the development of national corps of military engineers. The French led, with formal engineering schools established by the artillery in 1720. These schools offered both practical and theoretical training, the latter again fashioned around a curriculum of mathematics. Graduates from the engineering schools in France became some of the country's leading scientists and political (or, at least, bureaucratic) leaders.
Meanwhile, European warfare began to move away from ponderous siegecraft. Armies had grown larger and more disciplined, and open battle, including more extensive use of field cannon, increased the mobility of warfare. While lighter field cannons had been experimented with since the sixteenth century, the effectiveness of light cannon in battle was dramatically demonstrated through the success of the Prussian army under Frederick II the Great (ruled 1740–1786). Following the successes of Frederick against the Habsburgs, Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein (1696–1772) commissioned a mathematics professor and captain in his artillery corps to redesign a system of guns that included cannons with shorter barrels and thinner walls on redesigned carriages. After the humiliating defeat of the French in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), they looked to the experience of one of their engineers who had been in Austrian service, Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval (1715–1789).
Gribeauval, eventually to become the first inspector-general of the artillery, instituted a number of reforms against the traditions of a much more developed system of military organization, artisanal production, and technical training than existed anywhere else in Europe. In the 1760s Gribeauval advocated similar technological reforms to those adopted in Austria. He also tried to establish the manufacture of gunlocks made with interchangeable parts and oversaw a revamping of the technical schools. The curriculum in engineering schools would teach algebraic analysis, Newtonian science, and the descriptive geometry of technical drawing. The values and mathematical emphasis of this education was foundational to the later establishment of the high écoles, models of technical education from the start and a source of French leaders to this day.
Bibliography
Alder, Ken. Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763–1815. Princeton, 1997.
Architettura militare veneta del Cinquecento (Centro Internazionale di Studie di Architettura "Andrea Palladio" di Vicenza). Milan, 1988.
Hale, J. R. Renaissance War Studies. London, 1983.
Hall, Bert S. Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe. Baltimore, 1997.
Hogg, Ian. The History of Fortification. New York, 1981.
Mac Lennan, Ken. "Liechtenstein and Gribauval: 'Artillery Revolution' in Political and Cultural Context." War in History 10, no. 3 (2003): 249–264.
Parent, Michel, and Jacques Verroust. Vauban. Paris, 1971.
Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge, U.K., 1988.
Pepper, Simon, and Nicholas Adams. Firearms and Fortifications. Chicago, 1986.
Steele, Brett D. "Muskets and Pendulums: Benjamin Robins, Leonard Euler, and the Ballistics Revolution." Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 348–382.
—MARY HENNINGER-VOSS
A relaxation of formal requirements for wills for members of the armed services while in actual military service. Page, Wills §1.3, 6; §20.26, 321-24 (2d ed. 2000). The will may be oral or written, Page, Wills §1.3, 6 (2d ed. 2000), sometimes without witnesses, Page, Wills §20.25, 318, 320 (2d ed. 2000) and can be made by minors. Atkinson, Handbook of the Law of Wills ch. 9, 371-72 (2d ed. 1953). The will is not contingent on the physical condition of the testator/testatrix at the time the will is made. Page, Wills §20.25, 320 (2d ed. 2000).
Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.
— George Marshall (1880-1959).
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Military has two broad meanings. In its first sense, it refers to soldiers and soldiering. In its second sense, it refers to armed forces as a whole. Over the years, military units have come in all shapes and sizes. They have been as small as a handful of medieval peasants banded together for battle under their feudal lord or as large as the invasion force created in 1944 for D-Day. They can be as rigidly organized as the impis of Shaka Zulu or virtually autonomous like the Knights Templar during the Crusades. Some states - for instance, Sparta or more recently Prussia - have even placed military prowess at the heart of government.
The business of soldiering is as old as recorded history itself. Some of the most enduring images of the classical world portray the power and feats of antiquity's military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of pharoah Ramesses II's reign and is celebrated in bas relief on his monuments.[1] A thousand years later, the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might that he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. [2] The Romans were keen on military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings as well as a large number of lavishly carved triumphal arches and columns celebrating their victories.
In our own era, world wars and countless other major conflicts have changed the political landscape beyond recognition. Empires have come and gone; states have grown and expired. Enormous social changes have been wrought and military power continues to dominate international politics. The role of the military today is as central to society as it ever was.
The first recorded use of military in English, spelled militarie, was in 1585.[3] It comes from the Latin militaris (from Latin miles meaning "soldier", that is, someone skilled in arms, or engaged in military service or in warfare). [4] [5]
As an adjective, military originally applied only to soldiers and soldiering, but it soon broadened to apply to land forces, in general, and anything to do with their business.[3] The names of both the Royal Military Academy (1741) and United States Military Academy (1802) reflect this. However, about this time, it started to be applied to armed forces as a whole[3] and nowadays expressions like "military service", "military intelligence" and "military history" reflect this broader meaning.
As a noun, the military usually refers generally to a country's armed forces or sometimes, more specifically, to the senior officers running them. [4][5]
Military science is the study of warfare in all its aspects. By focusing on aspects of warfare - for instance, its technical, psychological, and practical components - it aims to improve the prospect of success in combat.
Armed forces may be organized as standing forces (e.g. regular army), which describes a professional army that is engaged in no other profession than preparing for and engaging in warfare. In contrast, there is the citizen army. A citizen army (also known as a militia or reserve army) is only mobilized as needed. Its advantage lies in the fact that it is dramatically less expensive (in terms of wealth, manpower, and opportunity cost) for the organizing society to support. The disadvantage is that such a "citizen's army" is less well trained and organized.
A compromise between the two has a small cadre of professional
Military intelligence can be defined as the process of gathering of information about the enemy threats, strengths and weaknesses. Intelligence activities are conducted at all levels from tactical to strategic, during peacetime and in war. The process of intelligence has four phases: collection, analysis, processing and dissemination. In the United Kingdom, these are known as Direction, Collection, Processing and Dissemination. The most elementary military intelligence is the collection of order-of-battle data which consists of information about the basic structure of a military and the amount of weaponry.[6]
The line between strategy and tactics is easily blurred, and deciding which is which can sometimes be a matter of personal judgment. Very broadly, strategy is deciding what to attack; tactics is deciding how to attack it. In other words, strategy is the thought, and tacts is the deed. The conversion of stategy into tactics is sometimes called the operational art.
Military strategy concerns itself with the conduct of warfare, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy. The term comes from the Greek strategos, strategy was seen as the "art of the general". Military strategy is usually long term, and takes the broad view.
Military tactics concerns itself with the methods for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. The term is derived from the Greek Taktikē, (meaning literally "matters pertaining to arrangement" [3]). Military tactics are usually shorter-term, and are focused on the specific task in hand.
One of the oldest surviving military literary works is The Art of War by the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu.[7] Written in the 6th century BC, the 13-chapter book has had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military planning, business tactics, and beyond.
Both the Classical Greeks and Romans wrote prolifically on military campaigning. Amongst the best known works are Julius Caesar's commentaries on the Gallic Wars and the Roman Civil war, written about 50 BC. Two major works on tactics come from the late Roman period: Taktike Theoria, by Aelianus Tacticus, and De Re Militari ("On military matters") by Vegetius. Taktike Theoria examined Greek battle methods, and was most influential in the Byzantine world and during the Golden Age of Islam. De Re Militari formed the basis of European military tactics until the late 17th century. Perhaps its most enduring maxim is "let he who desires peace prepare for war."
In his seminal book titled On War, the Prussian general and leading expert on modern military strategy Carl von Clausewitz defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war."[8] According to Clausewitz, "strategy forms the plan of the War, and to this end it links together the series of acts which are to lead to the final decision, that, is to say, it makes the plans for the separate campaigns and regulates the combats to be fought in each."[9] Hence, he placed political aims above military goals, ensuring civilian control of the military. Military strategy was one of a triumvirate of "arts" or "sciences" that governed the conduct of warfare: the others being military tactics, the execution of plans and manœuvering of forces in battle; and military logistics, the maintenance of an army.
Military tactics can take the form of ambushes, encirclements,
Military logistics is the management and planning of the supply chain.
Military transport is part of logistics. It would pertain to equipment trans-shipped via a sister service, or an individual detached for a technical school operated by a sister service, or the travel orders and authorization of such an individual to proceed via a sister services vehicles, as well as the loan of vehicles (staff cars, Hum-Vees, military trucks) operating from the primary base command.
When Stone Age man first took a sliver of flint to tip his spear, he was applying technology to improve his weaponry. Since then, the advance of mankind and the advance in weaponry has been irretrievably linked. Stone weapons gave way to bronze, and then bronze to iron. With each technological change has come an advantage: sharper weapons, harder weapons, more durable weapons.
The Greeks and Romans brought technology to the front with the invention and development of siege engines. Then came the age of chivalry, with knights - mounted on destriers and encased in ever-more sophisticated armour - dominating the field. In the meantime, in China, gunpowder had been invented and was increasingly being used in military applications. It was the arrival of cannon in Europe and advanced versions of the long bow and cross bow - which all had armour-piercing capability - that put an end to the dominance of the armoured knight. After the long bow (which required great skill and strength to use), came the musket (which could be used effectively by anyone after short training). In time, the successors to muskets and cannon, in the form of rifles and artillery would become core battlefield technology.
As the speed of technological advance accelerated in the civilan world, so warfare became more industralised. The newly-invented machine gun and repeating rifle brought awesome new fire power to the battlefield and in part explains the high casualty rates of the American Civil War. The next big breakthrough was the new highly-mobile, recoilless field gun, the French Soixante-Quinze in the late 1800s. During World War I, the need to break the deadlock of the trenches saw the rapid development of many new technologies, particularly in military aviation and tanks.
World War II however, perhaps marked the most frantic period of weapons development in the history of humanity. Massive numbers of new designs and concepts were fielded, and all existing technologies were improved between 1939 and 1945. It was during this time that the atomic bomb was created.
After World War II, with the onset of the Cold War, the constant technological development of new weapons was institutionalized, as participants engaged in a constant race to develop weapons and counter-weapons. This constant state of weapons development continues into the modern era, and remains a constant draw on the resources of most nations.
Ultimately, the most powerful of all invented weapons is the MIRV ICBM armed with nuclear warheads.
Not all military technology has proved practical in the long term. Two such inventions, the parachute hat and the gun helmet, failed to catch on. The gun helmet was fitted with a rifle but the recoil broke a man's neck during early trials.[10] A more recent example is the gay bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.[11]
Military history is often considered to be the history of all conflicts, not just the history of proper militaries. It differs somewhat from the history of war with military history focusing on the people and institutions of war-making while the history of war focuses on the evolution of war itself in the face of changing technology, governments, and geography.
Military history has a number of purposes. One main purpose is to learn from past accomplishments and mistakes so as to more effectively wage war in the future. Another is to create a sense of tradition which is used to create cohesive military forces. Still another may be to learn to prevent wars more effectively.
The relationship between the military and the society it serves is a complicated and ever-evolving one. Much depends on the nature of the society itself and whether it sees the military as important (as for example in time of threat or war) or a burdensome expense (as typified by defence cuts in time of peace).
Militarist ideology is the doctrinal view of a society as being best served (or more efficient) when it is governed or guided by concepts embodied in the culture, doctrine, system, or people of the military.
Under the justification of potential application of force, militarism asserts that a civilian population is dependent upon — and thereby subservient to —the needs and goals of its military. Militarism is sometimes contrasted with the concepts of comprehensive national power and soft power and hard power.
Most nations have a separate code of law which regulates certain activities allowed only in war, and provides a code of law applicable only to a soldier in war (or 'in uniform' during peacetime). An early exponent was Hugo Grotius, whose Rights of War and Peace (1625) had a major impact of the humanitarian development of warfare. His theme was echoed by Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king-general (1594–1632).
Modern-day ethical constraints are much more developed. For instance, the Geneva Conventions concern themselves with the treatment of civilians and prisoners of war. International protocols restrict or ban the use of certain weapons, notably nuclear and biological warfare. International conventions define what constitutes a war crime and provides for prosecution of war crimes. Individual countries also have elaborate codes of military practice, an example being the United states' Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Military actions are sometimes justified by furthering a humanitarian cause. The term military humanism is used to refer to such actions.
Antimilitarism is a doctrine opposed to war between states in particular and, of course, militarism. Following Hegel's exploration of the relationship between history and violence, antimilistarists argue that there are different types of violence, some of which can be said to be legitimate and others non-legitimate. Anarcho-syndicalist Georges Sorel advocated the use of violence as a form of direct action, calling it "revolutionary violence", which he opposed in Reflections on Violence (1908) to the violence inherent in class struggle. Sorel thus followed the International Workers' Association (IWA, aka the First International) theorization of propaganda of the deed.
War, as violence, can be distinguished into inter-states' war and civil war, in which case class struggle is, according to antimilitarists theorists, a primordial component. Hence, Marx's influence on antimilitarist doctrine will come upon as no surprise, even though it would be doubtful to make Marx accountable for the whole antimilitarist tradition. However, it would also be unwise to believe in the myth of an eternal antimilitarist spirit, present in all places and time, since modern military institution is a historic achievement, related to the formation, in the 18th and 19th centuries, of nation-states. Napoleon's invention of conscription is a fundamental progress in the organization of state armies. Later, Prussian militarism would be exposed by 19th century social theorists.
Soldiers and armies have been at the heart of popular culture since the beginnings of recorded history. In addition to the countless images of military leaders in heroic poses from antiquity, they have been an enduring source of inspiration in literature. Not all of this has been entirely complementary and the military have been lampooned or ridiculed as often as they have been idolised. The classical Greek writer, Aristophanes, devoted an entire comedy, the Lysistrata, to a strike organised by military wives where they withhold sex from their husbands to keep them from going to war.
In Medieval Europe, tales of knighthood and chivalry - the officer class of the period - captured the popular imagination. Writers and poets like Taliesin, Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas Mallory wrote tales of derring-do featuring Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot and Galahad. (Even today, books and films about the Arthurian legend and the Holy Grail continuing to appear.} A century or so later, in the hands of writers such as Jean Froissart, Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare, the fictional knight Tirant lo Blanch and the real-life condottieri John Hawkwood would be juxtaposed against the fantastist Don Quixote and the carousing Sir John Falstaff. In just one play, Henry V, Shakespeare provides a whole range of military characters, from cool-headed and clear-sighted generals, to captains, and common soldiery.
 Emperor Augustus Caesar in a martial pose (1st century) |
 The Flight of Pompey after Pharsalus, by Jean Fouquet |
 Medieval view: Richard II of England meets rebels |
 Sir John Hawkwood (fresco in the Duomo, Florence) |
 Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff by Eduard von Grützner |
 "The Cruel Practices of Prince Rupert" (1643) |
The rapid growth of movable type in the late 16th and early 17th centuries saw an upsurge in private publication. Political pamphlets became popular, often lampooning military leaders for political purposes. A pamphlet directed against Prince Rupert of the Rhine is a typical example. During the 19th century, irreverence was at its height and for every elegant military gentleman painted by the master-portraitists of the European courts (for example, Gainsborough, Goya and Reynolds), there are the sometimes affectionate and sometimes savage caricatures of Rowland and Hogarth.
This continues in the following century, with publications like Punch in the British Empire and Le Père Duchesne in France, poking fun at the military establishment. This extended to media other print too. An enduring example is the Major-General's Song from the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera, Pirates of Penzance, where a senior army officer is satirised for his enormous fund of irrelevant knowledge.
 Colonel John Hayes St. Leger (detail) by Sir Joshua Reynolds |
 Rowlandson often satirised the military |
.jpg) "A modern major general" (Pirates of Penzance) |
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 Red Army recruiting poster (1920) |
 Hell's Angels movie poster (1929) |
The increasing importance of cinema in the early 20th century provided a new platform for depictions of military subjects. During the First World War, although heavily censored, newsreels enabled those at home to see for themselves a heavily-sanitized version of life in the front line. About the same time, both pro-war and anti-war films came to the silver screen. One of the first films on military aviation, Hell's Angels broke all box office records on its release in 1929. Soon, war films of all types were showing throughout the world.
The First World War was also responsible for a new kind of military depiction, through poetry. Hitherto, poetry had been used mostly to glorify or sanctify war. The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, with its galloping hoofbeat rhythm, is a prime late Victorian example of this, though Rudyard Kipling had written a scathing reply, The Last of the Light Brigade, criticising the poverty in which many Light Brigade veterans found themselves in old age. Instead, the new wave of poetry, from the War poets, was written from the point of view of the disenchanted trench soldier. Leading war poets include: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, John McCrae, Rupert Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg and David Jones. A similar movement occurred in literature, producing a slew of novels on both sides of the Atlantic including notably All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun. A much-later satirical take on World War I is provided by the film, Oh! What a Lovely War.
The propaganda war that accompanied World War II invariably depicted the enemy in unflattering terms. Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany excelled in producing heroic images, placing their soldiers in a semi-mythical context. Examples of this exist not only in posters but also in the films of Leni Reifenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein. Alongside this, World War II also inspired films as varied as Bridge on the River Kwai, The Longest Day, Catch-22, Saving Private Ryan, and The Sea Shall Not Have Them. The next major event, the Korean War inspired a long-running television series M*A*S*H. With the Vietnam War, the tide of balance turned and its films - notably Apocalypse Now, Good Morning Vietnam, Go Tell the Spartans and Born on the Fourth of July - have tended contain critical messages.
There's even a nursery rhyme about war, the Grand Old Duke of York, ridiculing a general for his inability to command any further than marching his men up and down a hill. The huge number of songs focusing on war include And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and Universal Soldier.
 An idealised image invites Dutchmen to join the SS |
 Caricature Japanese soldier in a US propaganda poster |
 Nazi Poster depicting American "liberators" as monster |
 North Korean soldier from the 1950s |
 Joseph Heller's anti-war novel, Catch-22 |
 1960s poster for the film Oh! What a Lovely War |
Militaria are another way of depicting the military. Militaria are antique artifacts or replicas of military history people, firearms, swords, badges, etc collected for their historical significance. Today, the collecting of militaria items such as toy soldiers, tin soldiers, military models is an established hobby among many groups of people.
![Battle Formation and tactics of Macedon - Courtesy of The Department of History, United States Military Academy [1]](http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FImage%3AMacedonian%2520battle%2520formation.gif)
