War Horse by Louis A. DiMarco

[selewis]

Lou, on a slightly different topic, I see that your "Loosing the Moral Compass" about the Algerian War is receiving a lot of favorable commentary. I see it cited in a lot of different places. I know I enjoyed it very much when I read it.

It must be an odd thing to be cited so favorably on topics which, at first blush, vary so much!

Thanks for bringing it to my attention Pat. Here is the link: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Para ... imarco.pdf

Thanks for the thoughtful article Lou.

Sandy

[dimarcol]

Sandy,

Glad to hear you're enjoying the book. I think your comments on the use of the exterior horses on the ancient battle wagons is worth considering. I believe that no definitive purpose has been determined for the non-pulling horses is partly because we don't know much about the tactics and employment of the wagons. Also, historians are making guesses based on a very limited number of primitive depictions --and there is no assurance that the artist may just have not included some critical details of harness or wagon design.

Pat,

The Algerian paper was originally written for the army / marine corps counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24. It turned out to be too long and too detailed for the purposes of the manual, but the writing team encouraged me to get it published independently and that has worked out well. In addition to being a source in some important debates on torture, its being used in a variety of places that I would never have imagined. You would probably be interested to know that it’s a reading in several law school courses on law and the war on terror. It is also included in a law school text book on ethics and law in India. Goes to show how widely a published paper can get disseminated –especially now in the age of the internet.

[Pat Holscher]

Pat,

The Algerian paper was originally written for the army / marine corps counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24. It turned out to be too long and too detailed for the purposes of the manual, but the writing team encouraged me to get it published independently and that has worked out well. In addition to being a source in some important debates on torture, its being used in a variety of places that I would never have imagined. You would probably be interested to know that it’s a reading in several law school courses on law and the war on terror. It is also included in a law school text book on ethics and law in India. Goes to show how widely a published paper can get disseminated –especially now in the age of the internet.

I think I may have heard a reference to it on a NPR report, but I just caught a snippet of the report.

It is really interesting. Philip notes in his comments on your book that your profession comes through, in that you examine the War Horse as a weapons system. In your text on the Algerian War, I found the same to be true. Your commentary there shows a military insight in to much of the same topics that the author of the A Savage War of Peace (which you recommended in an earlier post I posted here, prior to my having read it) addressed.

Very often, in histories on military topics, this is lacking. Amongst the thousands of books written about WWII, for example, only rarely does anyone comment in depth about the nuts and bolts of the war from the prospective of actually fighting and supplying it. That's an omission in the standard texts that really comes through when we read works like yours that do cover it. And it's not just the cliche that "professionals study logistics", but a lot more than that.

Examining the moral aspects of the French struggle in Algeria is an extremely interesting topic. And very topical too, given our current wars.

[Pat Holscher]

Lou, when looking into the Algerian situation, did you study other aspects of the French war there?

[dimarcol]

Pat,

The short answer to your question is yes. Though not the focus of the article on torture, I have looked closely at the French intelligence system set up in Algeria, French counterinsurgency concepts at the time, very closely at the biographies of key French commanders (which are very interesting), and French army tactics. I have done a detailed analysis of the battle of Algiers. What I concluded, that is part of the torture article, is that the French were very battle focused --and not focused on war in its entirety. That includes the strategic level. At the strategic level economics, politics (foreign and domestic), and perceptions (including public opinions, international perceptions and media) are all as important as military war fighting --especially in an insurgency situation. Tactical military warfighting has to be in sync with the strategic considerations. French senior military leadership did not seem to understand this. On the other hand, DeGaulle seems to have gotten it. I have a power point slide presentation on the battle of Algiers if you are interested I can send it to you or post it (if that's even possible).

BTW... there was no significant use of horse cavalry by the insurgents, though I have read of both French and insurgents using horses on occasion as a means of transport ... just to touch base with the original topic

[Pat Holscher]

BTW... there was no significant use of horse cavalry by the insurgents, though I have read of both French and insurgents using horses on occasion as a means of transport ... just to touch base with the original topic

I've seen that as well. That is, I've seen references to horses and mules being used for transport, including one instance in which the Algerian political leadership traveled a very long distance by mule, but no formal cavalry use. It seems to me that I may have seen slight, obscure, reference to some use of mounted men by the French, but in an ad hoc mounted infantry role. I think I might have posted something on that a long while back, and will bump it up when I get a chance.

One thing that the author of A Savage War of Peace states is that DeGaulle came to oppose the ongoing war in Algeria because he felt it was such a primitive war that it held back the modernization of the French Army. It's a really odd area of inquiry, but there may be something to the idea that this was his view. DeGaulle wanted to build a fully modern Army, but in order to do that, he had to have a theater of deployment in mind for that to make sense. He thought that, if France could do that, it would regain prestige in the world. So he wanted jet fighters, atomic weapons, and armor. None of that, however, was of any use in Algeria. The French did deploy some armor, but it was largely ineffective against a guerrilla army. And the French air force found that WWII vintage U.S. bombers were of more utility in Algeria than jets.

There were other things he had in mind too, of course, including the fact that the French had wasted political opportunities in the 1920 to 1950 time frame that would have allowed it to more fully integrate Algeria and satisfy Algerian desires, for which there was no going back. But the army element of it is really odd. There's lots of example of army's suffering as they were built for a different war than they were fighting, but the Algerian War provides, in DeGaulle's period, of an army partially loosing a war because the political leadership of its nation wanted to build to fight a different type of war, and the ongoing war didn't fit the bill.

[Pat Holscher]

By the way, in some ways (while I'm taking it badly off topic) the Algerian topic in here does sort of relate back to the main topics of your book. You address the horse in all aspects, including as a weapons system, and conclude with the most recent 20th Century examples. In some late examples of mounted warfare, where the wars retained more primitive conditions, or more scares resources, mounted troops have remained, and the combatants have gone down that road. In Algeria, confronted with a more primitive war, DeGaulle went the other way (but for a lot of other reasons as well).

[Pat Holscher]

It's been mentioned above, but I wanted to add again, in addition to the excellent text, I've really enjoyed the selection of photographs in this book.

Interesting photographs really do add to a text. A good text is a good text, illustrations or no, but good photos are the icing on the cake.

Lou, how did the photo selection process work?

[dimarcol]

The photo selection process was largely a function of budget. In my case my budget was limited to almost 0 so I was limited to copy-right free photos. At first I thought that with no budget I would have a hard time illustrating the book but as it turned out, with the assistance of the internet, I was able to collect almost all the photos from the individuals who took them with their permission. A great assist were horse breeders who gave me copies of pictures of their best mares and stallions. The only cost ended up being literally hundreds of hours spent looking for photos, arranging for copy-right, and then formatting the photos electronically for the publisher. Ultimately, I could have done a better job with the photos if I had more time but at some point you have to stop and get the book done and out.

My intent was to illustrate four aspects of the horse and rider in each of the ten chapters: horse breed or type, tack and equipment, rider and uniform, and the horse in battle. I think I came close in all of the chapters. I ended up with about 140 photos that I wanted to use. My publisher was looking at about 30 --but he supported me and we ultimately included about 90 or so photos and sketches in the book. One of the different choices I made was to use reenactors for some photos. I found that for the Romans, civil war period and the Mongolian archers the reenactors' photos more clearly illustrated the points I wanted to make than any contemporary illustration could. One of the other great things about the publisher was that he inserted the photos and maps in the text rather than having a separate photo section. In that way it more effectively supports the reading.

I did all the battle maps myself. They are not really maps but rather sketches, although I did attempt to keep scale pretty close. In most cases I imported a map into powerpoint, traced the major features, than added the battle information onto the map. Originally they were just going to be guides for a professional illustrator but I guess they were good enough the publisher decided to use my originals. I wish I had done more of them but they were also very time consuming to make. Finally, I did a few of the other sketches in the book myself; mostly of tack --again, I wish I would have done more of that but time was the constraint. If I ever do something like this again I might find a local artist to support me with custom art work --I think it might be worth the cost.

[Pat Holscher]

The photo selection process was largely a function of budget. In my case my budget was limited to almost 0 so I was limited to copy-right free photos. At first I thought that with no budget I would have a hard time illustrating the book but as it turned out, with the assistance of the internet, I was able to collect almost all the photos from the individuals who took them with their permission. A great assist were horse breeders who gave me copies of pictures of their best mares and stallions. The only cost ended up being literally hundreds of hours spent looking for photos, arranging for copy-right, and then formatting the photos electronically for the publisher. Ultimately, I could have done a better job with the photos if I had more time but at some point you have to stop and get the book done and out.

My intent was to illustrate four aspects of the horse and rider in each of the ten chapters: horse breed or type, tack and equipment, rider and uniform, and the horse in battle. I think I came close in all of the chapters. I ended up with about 140 photos that I wanted to use. My publisher was looking at about 30 --but he supported me and we ultimately included about 90 or so photos and sketches in the book. One of the different choices I made was to use reenactors for some photos. I found that for the Romans, civil war period and the Mongolian archers the reenactors' photos more clearly illustrated the points I wanted to make than any contemporary illustration could. One of the other great things about the publisher was that he inserted the photos and maps in the text rather than having a separate photo section. In that way it more effectively supports the reading.

I did all the battle maps myself. They are not really maps but rather sketches, although I did attempt to keep scale pretty close. In most cases I imported a map into powerpoint, traced the major features, than added the battle information onto the map. Originally they were just going to be guides for a professional illustrator but I guess they were good enough the publisher decided to use my originals. I wish I had done more of them but they were also very time consuming to make. Finally, I did a few of the other sketches in the book myself; mostly of tack --again, I wish I would have done more of that but time was the constraint. If I ever do something like this again I might find a local artist to support me with custom art work --I think it might be worth the cost.

Thanks Joe, in both instances, the photos and the maps, it came out very well.

[Pat Holscher]

I'm bumping this up given the recent thread on the Gordon Russell remount.

The extent to which the story of the horse is the story of the War Horse. Not to put to fine a point on it, but those pasture pets, pet "ponies", pleasure horses and the like are very much the results of people using the horse to try to gain an advantage, or stay alive, in war. It really influences to a great degree what we see in the riding horse of today.

[Pat Holscher]

http://horsesoldier.wordpress.com/2009/ ... ry-review/