One of the interesting things about history is that no matter how rubbish the opinions and analysis of many professional historians they are still worth reading for their access to loads of interesting facts. For example just two days ago I was browsing in a second hand book shop and I skimmed through one of Norman Stone's books. Usual Norma Stone far right revisionism: Stalin was a monster just like Hitler, we (we?) should have kicked the Soviets out in 1945, ... blah, blah, blah. But tucked away on one page was a chunk of real history. A table comparing the different fronts using some kind of notional man-year system (I was skimming) . On that scale (just from memory) the Eastern Front scored 400, the Western Front after D-Day scored 16, and North Africa scored 5. Now you can quibble with the methodology (and I will below) but basically the famous Desert War of British Military legend didn't exist, statistically speaking! How's that? Well 5 is 1.25% of 400. Most estimating systems would accept a 3 % margin of error and measuring the 'weight' of different military campaigns is just that: an estimation. The Desert War doesn't even reach half of a typical margin of error so practically speaking doesn't exist. Effectively that means that Tripoli, O'Connor, Malta, El Alamein etc, had no measurable effect on the war. Now that is only by one measure but a more subjective assessment of the War would come to the same conclusion (as I already had).
On the same thread, the West after DDay (16 remember) is equivalent to 4% of the Eastern Front; barely above the statistically significant!
Now you may think it's a bit of a cheek to take a quickly skimmed table off a page, add a dollop of measurement theory and dismiss a major campaign of the war. But at least it is a fact based analysis instead of the usual approach: starting from how we won and then selecting facts to suit.
p.s. One minor flaw in this method. The British and the Americans (especially the Americans) chucked wads more firepower per soldier than the Russians. So a man-month measure won't be a perfect comparator. But look if you double 1.2% you're still at 2.4%.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
A World At War?
No this is not a blog about the the so-called "War on Terror". This blog is about a real war that fortunately is long over but still fascinates many people including yours truly. World War Two was the largest conflict in human history and recent enough for it's effects to be still unfolding. I started this blog for the reason I suspect most people blog on any serious subject; you've read 'the experts' and now you want to have your own say. I named it after the classic BBC series on the subject (shows my age).
Now is a particularly good time for this particular topic because paradoxically the further we get from WW2 and the more that's written about it the worse it gets. The recent trend in 'pop' history has encouraged this with so-called history books selling on their emotional appeal of a by-gone age of heroes. The more the US and Britain get bogged down in the disasters that are Iraq and Afghanistan the more the public clamour for tales of victory from the good old days of WWII. There is little appetite for real history so little real history gets told. Germans have been forced to come to terms with some of the truth of their WW2 but as the old saw has it history is written by the victors so the standard history of WW2 has a very US and British look to it.
It could be argued that pop history isn't what counts but academia is little better. You don't get a chair of history in Harvard or Oxford by writing a brilliant book on Allied war crimes in the War or by an unflattering comparison of US and British armies with their Japanese (or even Soviet) compatriots.
Now is a particularly good time for this particular topic because paradoxically the further we get from WW2 and the more that's written about it the worse it gets. The recent trend in 'pop' history has encouraged this with so-called history books selling on their emotional appeal of a by-gone age of heroes. The more the US and Britain get bogged down in the disasters that are Iraq and Afghanistan the more the public clamour for tales of victory from the good old days of WWII. There is little appetite for real history so little real history gets told. Germans have been forced to come to terms with some of the truth of their WW2 but as the old saw has it history is written by the victors so the standard history of WW2 has a very US and British look to it.
It could be argued that pop history isn't what counts but academia is little better. You don't get a chair of history in Harvard or Oxford by writing a brilliant book on Allied war crimes in the War or by an unflattering comparison of US and British armies with their Japanese (or even Soviet) compatriots.
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