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[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

Your country needs you

... to send me submissions for the next Military History Carnival! This will be posted at Airminded on 14 October, one week from today. I have a few suggestions already, but need more. Any posts published in the previous month and which involve military history in some way will be considered. From the Carnival's home page:

Military is defined very broadly. It includes all levels of armed conflict — there will be no rigid definition of what is and isn’t a war — and all military experiences during peacetime. At the risk of offending latin purists, it includes navies and air forces as well as armies. Weapons, tactics, strategy, uniforms, insignia, equipment etc are all interesting and important, and so are relationships between war and society, culture, race, gender, sexuality, disability, and the non-human. Preparations for and aftermaths of wars are as significant as the wars themselves. Opposition to war needs to be considered alongside the conduct of war. Representations of war in literature, films, TV, games etc are just as valid objects of study as empirical evidence of reality (although fictional representations should be related to the real world — no fictional universes please).

About the only restriction is that here, history means "before 1 January 2001".

So please nominate posts for inclusion, either by emailing me directly at bholman at airminded dot org, or by using the form.

Image source: London Opinion, 5 September 1914 (I think -- the original magazine cover from which all imitations ultimately derive. The image itself is from World War Pictures).

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But then computers so often don't ...

OK, so earlier today I upgraded my WordPress theme, Tarski, in preparation for an update to WordPress itself. After 3 hours, much cursing and many broken plugins, I mostly got things working and looking the way they were before. Then, about 6 hours later, I noticed that the Similar Posts plugin also wasn't working, so (hoping for a quick fix) I upgraded that to the latest version. This turned out to be a bad idea, because then all pages started showing up completely blank -- including admin ones. Presumably Similar Posts did something bad to the php then: that happens sometimes. So I went in with ftp and deleted Similar Posts. No change. I deleted the old Similar Posts too. Still no change! Now I'm worried that the mysql database has been hosed somehow (which would serve me right, as I decided I couldn't be bothered backing it up earlier in the day). I reverted to the previous version of Tarski, the one I'd been using before I touched anything today. No change. Finally I reverted to a really old version of Tarski, some six months old, and that finally undid the damage. (The WordPress Default theme works as well.)

So the database actually is ok (and is now backed it up, of course ...) But this all makes no sense. It was clearly Similar Posts which caused the whole problem, so why did I have revert Tarski to an ancient version to fix it? Bleh. I was quite happy with Tarski, but the way it's being developed means that I have to rewrite more and more of it in order to make it do what I want. So maybe I'll have to look around for another nice, clean theme.

It might just be some sort of caching thing, or I might have another look tomorrow and figure out what the problem really was, but for the moment things Airminded will not quite be itself until I can do something about it. Apologies for any inconvenience!

Update: fixed now. The problem was some extra code relating to Similar Posts which was residing in Tarski's constants.php file, which explains why I had to go back to an old version of Tarski (when I wasn't using Similar Posts), but not why going back to the previous version of Similar Posts didn't work, when it had been a few minutes earlier ... But as a bonus, in the process of getting Similar Posts to work again, I now understand Tarski's new way of doing things better, so it has a reprieve :)

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[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

Six months ago, I used Cliopatria's list of history blogs to assess the state of the military portion of the historioblogosphere. My original plan was to do this every year, but because things move fast online I'll update it every six months instead. I won't waffle on too much about my methodology (if it can be called that!); for that, please refer to the original post, as well as for the plots from March 2006.

Blogs: numbers

First, let's look at the number of blogs in the military historioblogosphere. This increased by just over 50% in six months, i.e. an annualised rate of more than 100%, which is considerably faster growth than in the year to March 2007. This is now only slightly slower than the rate of growth of the blogosphere as a whole, which as of April 2007 was doubling every 320 days (as measured by Technorati. Of course that rate may have changed by now). Some 13% of the blogs in the March 2007 list don't appear in the current version, which, sustained over a year, would be a touch higher than the churn rate last time.
...continue reading →

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Military History Carnival #6 is up at Armchair General. The stand-out post this month is a rebuttal of the alleged decline in military history at American universities, undertaken by David Stone at The Russian Front (which is an ambitious -- and very stylish! -- new group blog on Russian military and diplomatic history, the editor-in-chief of which is none other than Scott Palmer of The Avia-Corner). Stone uses some actual data to show that, no, as far as we can tell, there were more military historians in US history departments, in absolute terms, in 2005 than there were in 1975: nearly three times as many, in fact. The total number of historians employed has risen even more dramatically, so the proportion of military historians has in fact decreased (from 2.4% to 1.9%). So there's still room to argue that there's a relative decline going on. But I suspect the real complaint of the declinists is, as Stone discusses near the end of his post, that there's less "real" military history being done -- less operational-type stuff and more of the war-and-society variety. As somebody whose research is firmly of the latter school I'd hardly complain if that were so (which is not to say at all that operational history is unnecessary, unimportant or uninteresting); but again, some decent statistics (as opposed to cherry-picking and anecdotes) are needed to show whether this is even true or not.

Also noted from this carnival, a new blog: War and Game, dealing with both wargaming and history. It's an eclectic mix of topics, including some very airminded ones -- see for example the current top post on what was nearly the RAF's first-ever raid on Berlin in November 1918. Looks like a blog worth following.

By the way, the next Military History Carnival will be appear here on Airminded on 14 October! So please send me nominations by email at bholman at airminded dot org or use the form.

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Way out

So, after just under two months in London, it's time to leave. Tomorrow morning I'm on the train1 to York, then after that, Hexham (near Hadrian's Wall), Edinburgh, Rome2 before finally getting back to good old Melbourne-town on 18 September. It should be a great way to cap off what has already been a fantastic trip, and will also give me a chance to unwind a bit before I plunge into the task of assessing the material I've gathered here in London.

So what have I been up to? From my posts it probably seems as if I've spent all my time sightseeing, but (in case my supervisor is reading this!) actually that was only one or two days a week. Apart from attending two conferences, giving one presentation, and meeting with a number of aviation historians, the rest of the week was usually spent in some archive or library, including:

I got to see most of what I wanted; though an extra day at RAeS and the RAF Museum would have been most useful, and I never made it to places like the Marx Memorial Library or the British Film Institute. And I may even spend half a day at the National Library of Scotland while in Edinburgh, though that's looking doubtful now. I printed or photocopied over 3000 pages, mostly from microfilmed newspapers, and took nearly 1600 photos of documents. And that's excluding the transcriptions I made of other documents which didn't seem worth filling out a form to get photocopied. I have no idea if this is a lot in relative terms, but in absolute terms the idea of going through all that is making me feel faint!

There have been a few surprises along the way. The most surprising thing, and a pleasant surprise at that, was bumping into Alex Dickson at the RAF Museum, who is doing his PhD on the origins of the RAF Volunteer Reserve; we eventually realised that we'd corresponded some time back, but completely by chance he had come down from Scotland to visit the RAF Museum on the one day that I was there, and to look at the same papers too! Sometimes it's a very very small world indeed.

Another surprise was that in this day and age (viz, the Internet Age) I should have to print out 3000 pieces of paper (the university library at home allows you to save to a USB stick, though the process is slightly cumbersome). And because I can't carry 3000 pieces of paper with me, I had to send them home in a big box, along with some books, totalling 25kg: I don't even want to say how much that cost! And because I was paranoid about the big box going missing on the way to Australia (and therefore wasting most of my trip here), I took the precaution of taking photos of each and every page beforehand. Some of them may be a bit blurry, but it will be far better than nothing if disaster strikes. Digital technology to the rescue, that's great and all; but it seems like there are one or two intermediate steps which could be eliminated here!

But the most surprising thing I learned here was how to put on a tie -- surprised that I had to do it at all! I've never needed to wear one before and would have quite happily gone to my grave never having learned how to tie one. But one of the conferences I went to was at RAF Cranwell; and even civilians needed to adhere to a minimum standard of dress ("Planters") while in the main building. Including, for men, the wearing of a tie. So first I had to buy a tie, which vaguely went with the shirts I brought with me, then learn how to put it on (the night before the conference). Of course that wasn't hard at all, but it wasn't anything I had expected to be doing here in London either.

Thanks to everyone who has shown me great hospitality while I've been here; you've helped make this trip memorable and not just productive! I look forward to catching up with you all some time in the future, here most likely, or in Melbourne if you ever happen to visit. I should have some form of net access while traveling, so I don't expect a real blog hiatus, though how much I'll be able to post is another question. Probably more travel blogging, I'm sorry to say: I promise there will be plenty more of the traditional Airminded fare when I get back to Australia! Er, and more travel blogging too, I suppose.

  1. I know: not very airminded of me. [↩]
  2. That one is by plane! [↩]

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As part of the BBC's Summer of British Film, The Dam Busters will be showing next week at selected cinemas across the UK. I'll be seeing it, with at least one Airminded regular, at the Peckham Multiplex next Tuesday at 7.30pm, for the surprisingly reasonable price of 99p. Any readers who would like to come along would be most welcome; give me a shout in the comments or directly, and we'll arrange ... something.

It's always a pleasure to see classic movies the way they were meant to be seen, on the big screen. (Although "big" is a relative term, especially here given that it's at a multiplex!) And it is a classic: bombers, boffins, bouncing bombs, a stirring musical score and an unflinching portrayal of Bomber Command's area bombing policy. Well, obviously that last part is a lie -- but it's still well worth seeing.

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I don't often link to interesting posts from Modern Mechanix because once you start, where do you stop? But I am compelled to point out this one which reprints an October 1934 Modern Mechanix and Inventions article about an American (presumably) idea for a solar-powered flying airfield.

Modern Mechanix October 1934

It's as simple as putting a landing strip for aeroplanes on top of an airship, and covering the rest of the top surface with 'solar photo cells' (i.e., solar panels). The article suggests that one application would be that 'Planes could land on the dirigible, floating over the sea, to refuel for trans-ocean passenger service'.

So, going one way, this links to other contemporary ideas for routinising flight over the Atlantic (in particular), such as the seadrome and Project Habbakuk. In another direction, it links to modern solar-powered airships designed for stratospheric surveillance. And finally, it links to real-life flying aircraft carriers such as the USS Macon and fictional ones such as HMS Whatever-it-was in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

There's no information given in the article about whose idea this was. The suspicion arises that it was invented purely to justify putting an airship on the front cover ... not too different from this post, really!

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For a long, long time, there was only Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls: the poster. Then there was ZvP: the movie mashup, followed by ZvP: the cartoon mashup. And now there's ZvP: the webcomic, along with ZvP: the t-shirt!

I obviously wasn't responsible for creating any of this. I wasn't even the first to blog about ZvP. But through the stochastic wonders of the blogosphere, my post about it was picked up by blogs more popular than my own, which then spread the word to a much larger audience, with the results that you see above. So I do feel as though I can claim a very modest share of the credit for this ZvP revival!

And I may just have to buy the t-shirt ...

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The fifth Military History Carnival is up. A lot of good stuff; the post I enjoyed most was at History is Elementary, on the evolution of camouflage in the First World War -- it's not only informative but enables us to vicariously share in the pleasure of teaching. And all that camouflage reminds me of Fed Square back home ...

Ships painted in dazzle camouflage schemes, in particular, look incredible, but I wonder if people at the time found them jarring and disconcerting? These did not look like the familiar symbols of British naval might that people had grown up with. Just another alienating marker of hyperindustrialised warfare to add to the pile, I guess, and I'm sure the topic has been done to death, historiographically speaking.

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Military History Carnival Edition Four has clearly been timed to catch me in transition from the southern to the northern hemisphere, so I'm a couple of days late in posting about it. For me, the most interesting post was Philobiblon's on the suggestion that the so-called Glorious Revolution was successful because the Dutch ships were more technologically advanced than the English ones -- in particular, they were faster and so were able to sweep in and unload their troops before the Royal Navy had time to react. This reminds me of Palmerston's remark in 1845 to the effect that steam power made the same scenario possible at that time. I wonder if 1688 influenced his thinking on this matter?