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478 LETTERS IN CANADA: 1965 MILITARY HISTORY Richard A. Preston Is it possibly more than mere coincidence that publication of war history in Canada increased and improved in the year in which the United States stepped up the campaign in Viet Nam? Books published in that year were, of course, started.long before President Johnson decided to escalate; but do some deep-seated causes explain a greater interest in war at a time when the country seems on the edge of total involvement? Is writing an escape mechanism to attempt to ward off a third war? Or is it an unconscious preparation for the inevitable? These questions may be unanswerable. But it is noticeable and noteworthy that the amount and quality of military history reached a new peak in Canada this year. . This conditioned obsession with war, if that is what it is, is not limited to the holocausts of this century. J. Mackay Hitsman's The Incredible Wm· of 1812: A Military History (University of Toronto, pp. xiv, 261, illus., $6.95) has given us what is, to date, the most satisfactory Canadian account of the War of 1812. His book developed out of a defence of the British commander in Canada, Sir George Prevost, who is shown to have been an excellent man to direct the defensive campaign that had to be fought while Britain was engaged with Napoleon, but who could not adjust to the offensive strategy that became possible and necessary in 1814. Dr. Hitsman'sown personal war-service experience, especially during a long period of hospitalization when he had plenty of opportunity to talk-with regular soldiers, and his subsequent caree'r as an historian in the Canadian Army Historical Section, have given him a sound insight into the fundamentals of military organization and strategy and a good knowledge of British military technicalities. He has the knack of keeping his main theme clearly in sight while clothing his narrative in fascinating detail. He has made profuse use of primary sources with a liberal insertion of quotations (though unfortunately this book is not documented), and he offers many excellent analyses and judgments. He sees the defence of Canada as soldiers of that day saw it; and he conveys to the reader a convincing image of military life in the early nineteenth century . The War of 1812 is apparently "incredible" for him because there was so much bungling, so much excessive caution, so !llany mistaken operational plans, and so much inept leadership. His personal belief in the superiority of professional officers and trained men, demonstrated on every page, challenges the traditional militia myth in both Canada SOCIAL STUDIES 479 and the United States. The Incredible War of 1812 is worth-v;,hile for this and very many other reasons. · So also is The Education of a Navy:The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867-1914 (London, Cassell [Toronto: Longman~]. viii, 213, $6.75) by Dr. Donald M. Schurman, everi though it does not really live up to its sub-title but consists rather of a series of studies of the work of six nav:al historians, the two Colomb brothers, Mahan, Laughton, Richmond, and Corbett. All of these were service officers except Corbett who, in Dr. Schurman's opinion, was the most perceptive. But all six (and a few others) exerted great influence on the development of the organization, tactics, and strategic concepts of the Royal Navy by their insistence that history has practical lessons, that. naval warfare is not conducted in a vacuum, and that technical developments had not eliminated the constant factors derived from human qualities, from geography, and from the intelligent use of natural resources. Dr. Schurman finds that the sailors of the War of 1914-1919 learnt much, but· not all, that his historians had to teach; but he also suggests that one of them, Admiral Richmond, continued after the war to preach a naval doctrine that was no longer suitable for the political circumstances of the Commonwealth that the war had spawned. Despite an occasional obscurity in a footnote, this book brims and sparkles with ideas. It is a necessary background for an understanding of the naval developments leading up to...

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