Military Art and the Art of War: Can We Get Art Historians to Study Military History?

One of my favorite past-times at home or on the road is to visit art galleries in search of artwork that might offer some insights about war, warfare, and its practioners. However, I have learned that these excursions also present the risk of coming within earshot of art museum docents, guides, and experts as they explain the military scenes and subjects depicted, all too often exposing gaps in their knowledge of military history, war, and warfare.

One my first such experiences was at the National Gallery of Art exhibition Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art. This exhibit brought together a small selection of works tracing the career of this American artist, including some of his Civil War drawings and paintings. Of particular interest to me was “Home Sweet Home”, depicting two Union Army soldiers in a moment or relaxation in camp. Also in this exhibit was “The Sharpshooter on Picket Duty”. This image first appeared as an engraving in Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862. It depicts a Union Army sharpshooter in a tree drawing a bead on a long-range target, a scene captured during McClellan’s Peninsular campaign which sought but failed to capture the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia.

As I was studying the two paintings, a National Gallery guide led a group of visitors into the small gallery. The guide presented a general and not inaccurate description of the two paintings, though he skipped over a number of details that I had found particularly interesting and was clearly not as immersed in the Civil War. He was apparently unaware that the sharpshooter in the painting was an image from the Peninsular campaign and insisted on linking it to the later Battle of Antietam fought in western Maryland, apparently not knowing that Winslow Homer was actually present during the former campaign. As for the campfire scene in the first-named painting, my examination of the canvas quickly convinced me that one of the soldiers had placed his tin cup on the fire to make himself a cup of coffee – something I had myself done as a Civil War Reenactor and Living Historian. I also knew from my study and from my reenacting experience that the Union Army (and most modern reenactors) almost literally ran on coffee.

As the guide continued to examine “Home Sweet Home,” he referred to the tin cup on the fire as a small pot and declared that the soldiers were making stew. At this point I was unable to restrain myself and said loudly enough to be heard by the guide and the small group of visitors that actually the soldier was making himself some coffee in his tin cup. The guide ignored my comment even when I repeated it more briefly, refusing to even acknowledging my existence. I listened a little longer to his discussion of the paintings before leaving the room unacknowledged and apparently unheard, though I surrendered enough to impulse to tell one of the museum guards that “this fellow may know art but he knows next to nothing about the Civil War.”

The National Gallery’s web site presents this painting for online viewing (link above) with a zoom feature that allows the viewer to enlarge details of the image for closer examination. Using this feature I have found that you can actually make out the curve of the top of the handle of the tin cup just above the rim at the back of the cup as it sits on the fire. You can take advantage of this capability to conduct your own examination of the image and draw your own conclusion. I should add, however, that in the catalog for the 1988 San Francisco exhibition Winslow Homer: Paintings of the Civil War there are citations from a number of critics’ comments upon “Home Sweet Home” dating from its first public showing in 1863. Among these, T.B. Aldrich wrote in The New York Illustrated News (16 May 1863) that this work:

“…shows a Federal camp at supper time. The band in the distance is playing ‘Home Sweet Home’ in the immediate foreground are two of the boys, one warming the coffee at the camp fire, and the other dreamily watching the operation….”

More recently I found myself in similar circumstances at the Seattle Arts Museum where I went to see the traveling exhibit Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery. This is a great exhibit of selected works from the Yale University collections that have been put on the road instead of into storage while their permanent home is undergoing renovations. The exhibition included two works of particular interest: “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill,” painted by John Trumbull, and a photograph of unfinished pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, taken during the American Civil War. Examining the placard describing the photograph of the pontoon bridges I found that it referred to the “unsuccessful siege of Fredericksburg,” described as unsuccessful because the bridges were never completed – according to the caption writer. Unfortunately for the Union troops involved, the “siege” actually did succeed as the bridges were completed, the Army of the Potomac crossed the river, and on December 13, 1862, engaged the Confederates entrenched on the heights beyond the town of Fredericksburg. The Civil War Preservation Trust website hosts an excellent presentation on the campaign and battle that goes into detail both on the bridges and the resulting battle.

As disappointing as I found the erroneous caption, it wasn’t until I returned to examine the photo again that I had another of those encounters with a guide. A Seattle Art museum guide was discussing John Trumbull’s painting “The Death of General Warren” (aka “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill”) depicting the battle fought on Breed’s and Bunker’s Hills in Charlestown opposite the city of Boston on 17 June 1775. At the approximate center of the canvas, the American patriot General Warren is lying in the arms of a comrade who is pushing away the bayonet of a British soldier attempting to thrust it into the dying American’s body. That soldier is also restrained by a British officer, Colonel John Small, who reportedly recognized the prominent American rebel and actually called out to him to surrender to avoid being killed in the final moments of the battle.

The guide attributed the British colonel’s act of restraint to a sense of community and kinship between the British and the American colonials. However, other accounts of the battle make it clear that such a sense of kinship was not universally shared among the British. As the leader of the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, Warren was a recognized leader among American patriots and his death was welcomed by many British officers. General Gage is reported to have said Warren’s death alone was worth the death of 500 other rebels. Another British officer, Captain Lane, who had been engaged in the running battle between Concord and Lexington and Boston before participating in the repeated assaults on the American positions, boasted that he had happily buried Warren in an unmarked common grave and hoped that he would never be found and identified. Finally, while elaborating on this point, the guide never chose to mention that the artist John Trumbull actually painted this work while in London, England a few years after the revolution and while studying there under the British artist Benjamin West – known for his own dramatic portrayals of British Army victories – a fact that can reasonably be concluded to have had some influence on how John Trumbull chose to portray the British Army on his own canvas.

These experiences have not totally dampened my enjoyment of these military scouting trips in the world of the fine arts. Just recently I toured a now closed National Gallery of Art exhibition – Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age – which brought together a collection of 17th century Dutch works focused upon the cities and urban scenes of the then newly independent United Provinces. These presented great views of the extensive fortifications that protected many of these cities from the forces of Spain during their independence struggle. There were also several canvases that presented the Dutch soldiers and militia in full regalia and kit, offering excellent information regarding their armaments, uniforms (such as they were), and even their level of drill and military training. But the sum total of my experience in such excursions is to tread warily when an art expert or even art historian describes for you the details of military history, war, warfare, etc. based upon the art work presented by that expert. Try doing some research of your own or find a military historian or expert on the war or period presented and compare the museum works to what these experts can tell you about the relevant military art.

Note: For the works of Winslow Homer, I have found two especially good sources: Winslow Homer, Paintings of the Civil War, by Marc Simpson with contributions by others, published by The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the publishers Beford Arts, to accompany the 1988 exhibit of the same name (ISBN 0-88401-060-0 paper/ISBN 0-938491-15-6 cloth). For his engravings, I have The Wood Engravings of Winslow Homer, edited by Barbara Gelman, published in 1969 by Crown Publishers (LoC 73-75096).

A Napoleonic Hat Trick: Three Basic Readings on the Life and Career of Napoleon Bonaparte, Europe’s Greatest Soldier

Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography by Vincent Cronin

The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of History’s Greatest Soldier by David G. Chandler

A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars prepared by Brigadier General Vincent J. Esposito and Colonel John Robert Elting


I recently finished reading Vincent Cronin’s Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography and realized that having done so, I now had the answer to a common question of what should you read if you don’t know anything about Napoleon. This biography in combination with the two other works listed above would provide the reader with a basic knowledge of who Napoleon was, what he tried to accomplish in his political and military careers (and personal life), and why in the end he failed.

Published in the early 1970s, I long resisted reading Vincent Cronin's biography because of the work's reputation as too sympathetic to the subject. However, as part of an ongoing reading program on military history I finally picked up Cronin's volume as the first of a series of biographies of Napoleon that I will be reading. Having completed it, I really wonder now how well the others will match up against this book. Cronin is sympathetic to his subject but he does not hide this from the reader and only in the later chapters did I find myself in disagreement or at least questioning his account of Napoleon's intentions, thoughts, and/or feelings.

The author subtitled this "An Intimate Biography" and in a general way he meant it. The work is not limited to or even focused solely upon Napoleon's military career nor to his entanglements with women, but touches upon all aspects of the life of a man who in his 52 years was a soldier, general, head of state, statesman, lawmaker, lover, pater familias to an extended family, and a father several times over. No one aspect of Napoleon's life dominates the narrative but instead each in turn is made the central focus of the story as that part of his life comes to the fore. This is an especially appealing element of Cronin's book given these many varied roles filled by Napoleon.

And yet the word "intimate" does not offer either empty titillation nor guarantee that we are really and completely inside this man's head at any moment. I believe that this reflects the above-mentioned flaw of being too sympathetic to Napoleon Bonaparte. The author often steps forward to declare what Napoleon thought or felt at a particular moment or about a specific subject, issue, or event and yet I found myself resisting these claims. Vincent Cronin provides neither footnotes nor endnotes, though he does offer a section on Sources and Notes that goes chapter by chapter to identify and explain the basis for his statements and conclusions in the text. There is also an interesting and not un-useful essay "Memoir-Writers and Napoleon" that reviews the background and history of the most important and/or frequently used first-person memoirs from Napoleon Bonaparte's contemporaries.

If you are not a military historian and really only wish to read one book about Napoleon Bonaparte, this biography would be an excellent choice - with the understanding up front that you will find herein a favorable and even sympathetic image of a man who during his life inspired bitter and prolonged opposition and even hatred among Frenchmen as well as others in Europe and the world.

. . . . . .

David Chandler’s book is the best single volume English-language military history focused upon Napoleon’s military career. He begins with an introductory essay “Napoleon – The Man and the General: Qualities and Defects” in which the author presents a summary view of Napoleon and sets the stage for the complete work. The rest of the book is a generally chronological account and review of Napoleon’s military career. Chandler starts with Napoleon Bonaparte’s education and early military career, capped by his service in Italy. The chronological narrative is then interrupted by a section presenting Napoleon’s “philosophy of war” and his methods of making war at both the tactical and strategic level including a discussion of the sources and inspirations for these. The author then proceeds to present Napoleon’s entire military career, devoting a section to each conflict or major campaign – always focused upon those theatres in which Napoleon was personally active. (Therefore, theatres such as the Peninsula receive significant attention only for the period in which Napoleon was present.)

The narrative of Napoleon’s military career is rounded out via 10 appendices addressing the orders of battle for the Army of Italy and the Grande Armée of successive campaigns among others, as well as notes on various battles and on the Empire’s aristocrats and a Glossary of Military terms. There are also over 15 pages of end notes and a five page bibliography.

In his treatment of Napoleon Bonaparte, Chandler is not unsympathetic to his subject but is not as uncritical perhaps as Cronin is in his biography. Perhaps this is because a discussion of Napoleon’s military activities is always founded as much on what he actually did and what happened as it is on Napoleon’s explanations of his intentions. This allows both the author and the reader to more readily draw conclusions from the facts rather than from the he-said and then he-said of after the fact memoirs
.
. . . . .

The final contribution to this triad is A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars which presents both a military history and some 169 maps of the campaigns and battles that occurred between France and the other nations of Europe during this period – 1796-1815. This work is focused upon the strategic and what today we call the operational levels of war and therefore its maps only present the engaged armies down to the Corps, division, and occasionally brigade level. However, its comprehensive treatment of Napoleon’s campaigns and battles makes this a unique work in English.

This atlas has appeared in a modified form in more recent years whereas my copy is one the original 1965 edition (Second Printing) examples. However, both versions are in a 13 inches by 10 inches landscape format which gave the editors a good canvas upon which the sketch out the movements of the armies across Europe’s battlefields. The atlas includes a set of biographical sketches of the major military and political figures of the Napoleonic era. There is also a 10 page list of recommended readings in various languages, each accompanied by a one sentence description of that work’s contents and thrust. Although a bit dated today having been compiled in 1965, this list is a useful resource for any scholar, student, or even casual reader who wants to know more about a particular individual, battle, or campaign.

A Review - The First Tithe by Israel Eldad

The First Tithe, Israel Eldad, translated and with a Foreword and Notes by Zev Golan. Jabotinsky Institute, Israel, 2008. Originally published in Hebrew as Maaser Rishon, © 1950, 1963, 1975 by the author


Israel Eldad was as a member of the three-man Central Command of the underground Lehi organization and its principal ideologue. The publisher of this English version of his memoirs emphasizes Eldad’s shared experiences with figures such as Menachem Begin and Golda Meir, among others, and with underground organizations such as the Irgun and the Hagana. His story includes escape from Nazi-occupied Europe, imprisonment by the British authorities in Palestine, escape from prison, and life in the underground resistance to that British authority while evading recapture until the end of the British mandate and Israel’s independence. Eldad’s account of these experiences has reportedly never before appeared in English.

What author Israel Eldad has presented here, in Zev Golan’s translation into English from the original Hebrew, is neither history nor autobiography, but rather a memoir in a rather classic sense. While generally chronological, Eldad’s narrative is not bound by clock or calendar or limited by objective reality. Rather Israel Eldad tells the story of his life and his work as he recalls it – and as it occurs to him in the telling. He also writes with few concessions to any readership that does not read Hebrew or which might disagree with his views – an attitude that appears consistent with his lifelong struggle to see realized the vision of an independent Jewish state as conceived by him and the Lehi movement. As a result this narrative often challenges but rarely bores the reader.

Eldad’s story is set within Israel’s struggle for independence. That struggle and the subsequent fight for the survival of the young state were first brought to my attention by the 1967 Six Day War. Still in high school at the time, my friends and I immersed ourselves in the details of the dramatic outcome of that remarkable conflict. This interest lead to more reading and research into the historical background of Israel’s existence; the international conflicts, negotiations, and deals; the wars, its military forces and their weapons, the history of persecution, and the Holocaust, etc. This included such modern popular novels as John Hersey’s The Wall and Leon Uris’ Mila 18 both about the Warsaw Ghetto as well as Leon Uris’ Exodus and James Michener’s The Source. I even uncovered in my local library a copy of the White Paper that collected the original memoirs and documents written by the fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943.

However, I found this a challenging work to read much less to review. It was difficult, not for any fault in the translation, but because of the author’s intent and his statements that made it clear to me that I was not a member of his intended audience. In fact, the deeper I read into the book the more I came to wonder if I wasn’t in fact a part of his “anti-audience” – a member of that community against which he was trying to warn his intended audience. His viewpoints and ideas were frequently at odds with my other sources and my resulting understanding of the historical and political events being described. The challenge was only increased when I read in the publisher’s press release that Israel Eldad was “one of the founding fathers of Israel” but by his own words in the book he rejected this modern state called Israel. Eldad described Israeli independence as the defeat of his Lehi movement which had called for an independent state – a sovereign kingdom of Israel – that incorporated Jerusalem and Jordan, as well as parts of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

I recognized that Eldad’s narrative conflicted at many points with my previous readings – many of which reflected the attitudes of the British who controlled Palestine or which reflected the views of other more mainstream elements within the Zionist movement and the Jewish diaspora, and the Jewish community in the United States. My initial surprise in this regard centered on the realization that I had long known of Eldad’s Lehi organization under the sobriquet of “the Stern gang,” a label that supports the reader’s dismissal of the group as being of little value and no further interest, clearly reflecting the viewpoint of the British authorities. From this point on, I read with the understanding that I had passed through a looking glass that separated what I had previously understood about Israel from this new perspective on the nation, its people, and its history.

Eldad’s account of his life’s work on behalf of Lehi clearly supports the long-familiar concept – “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” As an ideologue and advocate supporting Lehi’s fighters in the struggle against Britain’s presence in Palestine and against any other apparent or potential restraint or obstacle to the realization of their vision for an independent Jewish state, Eldad conceded little to nothing in the vehemence of his arguments. The fighters of the Lehi movement were responsible for an escalating series of dramatic and bloody attacks upon the British authorities and even the UN, and its ambitions for further attacks were even greater. And while it is important to remember that his words reach us from a vastly different world almost half a century past, I must point out the following passage:

“And if the British Parliament and Buckingham Palace and the Foreign Office have not yet been blown sky high, this is not because we do not want to provoke or anger them, or because we are afraid of the results, but only because our boys in London have not yet submitted the practical plans to us, though they are working on them and we are awaiting for their letters, and we are sending explosives from France to England.”

There is within these words an echo of another conflict more familiar to me and which repeatedly came to mind as I read Eldad’s declarations on behalf of his cause. The last words above call to mind a 19th Century Irish song which promised “that there’ll be rifles in England that don’t come from France” declaring that the long struggle for Irish independence would be taken up in England’s own green fields.

However, these words above have to be read as very ancient and very modern. In our 21st Century post 9-11 world they have to be interpreted literally and cannot be set aside as a mere exercise in agit-prop political rhetoric. Today such a statement would be acted upon by the intelligence and security services (at least most of us would hope so). Even when first written these words must have held similar if less urgent interest for the authorities of the day.

Another parallel between the IRA and Lehi in their relations with British authority is found in Eldad’s account of how his movement’s fighters rejected the right of the British to put them on trial, the legality of their rule in Palestine, and thereby the authority of the British to determine what might or might not constitute illegal activity such as bearing arms. Irish rebels have long taken similar positions up to and including those members of the IRA brought to trial in the 1980s. By Eldad’s account, Lehi and the IRA also shared a common fund-raising technique – bank robbery. Despite Eldad’s explicit rejection of such comparisons, the parallels are further demonstrated by the IRA attack on then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the 1987 Conservative Party conference and the 1979 assassination of Prince Phillip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten. Neither the IRA nor Israel Eldad considered anyone beyond their reach.

According to the publishers, The First Tithe appeared in five editions in the original Hebrew. This first edition to appear in English was released on Israeli Independence Day, May 8, 2008. In addition to translating this work from the original Hebrew, Zev Golan has added endnotes and other explanatory data that make the work more accessible to the non-Israeli reader. While I may regret he expressed decision to drop certain passages that appeared in the Hebrew original because of the difficulty of translating and explaining their references to the Talmud and other source, his efforts to make this work more generally available are to be commended.

Even a single book as dramatic as The First Tithe is unlikely to change the reader’s views or even to result in a deeper understanding of a complex subject. However, a single book can compel the reader to understand that the subject of that work is indeed far more complex and less cut and dried than previously realized. In this, Israel Eldad and Zev Golan have succeeded and I personally have at least advanced to that recognition as a result. If you are interested in a deeper understanding of the situation that confronts us in the Middle East today, you need to read this book.