Search Results

open access

Pierre Daru and the Professionalization of the French Bureaucracy during the French Revolution

Description: Far from the frontlines, the destiny of armies and generals has been considerably influenced by anonymous public servants working long hours behind a desk. On many occasions, these bureaucrats were the actual organizers of victory or the root cause of defeat. Count Pierre-Antoine Bruno Daru (1767-1829), Intendant Général de la Grande Armée, was one such man. The research concerns the critical nature of logistics and military administration in the performance of modern armies. It challenges the … more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Man, Abraham Claudio
Partner: UNT Libraries

The United States Occupation of Mexico City, 1847-1848

Description: The expansionist agenda of the Polk administration culminated in the War with Mexico. The capture of Mexico City in September 1847 left the United States Army with the unprecedented task of occupying an enemy capital for an extended period. After the initial theaters of operation proved unable to secure a peace, Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott commenced a campaign to take central Mexico including the capital city. In March 1847, an army of 11,000 soldiers under Scott landed at Vera Cruz. In six months… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Onyon, David E
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Balkan Imbroglio: The Diplomatic, Military, and Political Origins of the Macedonian Campaign of World War I

Description: The Macedonian Campaign of World War I (October 1915-November 1918) traditionally remains one of the understudied theatres of the historiography of the conflict. Despite its vital importance in the outcome of the war, it is still considered as a mere sideshow compared to the Western Front and the Gallipoli Campaign. This dissertation presents a much-needed re-evaluation of the Macedonian Campaign's diplomatic and political origins within the war's early context. In doing so, this study first co… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Broucke, Kevin R.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Benevolent Assimilation: The Evolution of United States Army Civil Affairs Operations in the Philippines from 1898 to 1945

Description: The history of the United States' occupation and administration of the Philippines is a premiere example of the evolution of the American military's civil administrative approach as it evolved from simple Army security in 1898, through an evolving ‘whole-of-government' method, to what was practically the full military administration of the country by March 1945. The second liberation and subsequent administration of the Philippines by the United States Army was unique, not simply because of the… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Musick, David C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Restore, Reform, React, Revolt: Leopold II and the Risorgimento in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1814-1859

Description: The Risorgimento or "resurrection" of Italy united a collection of independent Italian kingdoms, duchies, and principalities under the auspices of the Piedmontese House of Savoy. No longer was Italy a mere expression géographique, as Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich snidely remarked in 1847, but a united nation state. Studies of the Risorgimento successfully highlight the role of famous Piedmontese and Italian nationalists in demonstrating the success of the movement. However, the sma… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Parkey, Rachel E.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Between Coalition and Unilateralism: The British War Machine in the Mediterranean, 1793-1796

Description: In 1793, the British government embarked on a war against Revolutionary France that few expected would last twenty-five years and engulf all of Europe. Radical French policies provided an opportunity for William Pitt, the British prime minister, to endeavor to cobble a European alliance, including a number of Mediterranean states. These efforts never progressed beyond theory and negotiations because of conflicted policy and tension between the British diplomatic corps and Royal Navy over the … more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Baker, William Casey
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Austrian Army in the War of the Sixth Coalition: A Reassessment

Description: The Austrian army played a crucial role in Napoleon's decisive defeat during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Often considered a staid, hidebound institution, the army showed considerable adaptation in a time that witnessed a revolution in the art of war. In particular, changes made after defeat in the War of the Fifth Coalition demonstrate the modernity of the army. It embraced the key features of the new revolutionary way of war, including mass mobilization, a strategy of annihilation, and … more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Messman, Daniel M
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Testing the Narrative of Prussian Decline: 1778-1806

Description: The story of Prussia's defeat at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt and subsequent reform has dominated the historiography of Napoleonic Prussia. While Napoleon has received the vast majority of historical attention, those who have written on Prussia have focused on the Prussian reform movement or the Prussian army's campaigns against Napoleon. These historians present the Prussian army before 1807 as an ossified relic, a hopelessly backward and rigid army commanded by a series of septuagenarian… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Soefje, Ethan K
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Military Religio: Caesar's Religiosity Vindicated by Warfare

Description: Gaius Julius Caesar remains one of the most studied characters of antiquity. His personality, political career, and military campaigns have garnered numerous scholarly treatments, as have his alleged aspirations to monarchy and divinity. However, comparatively little detailed work has been done to examine his own personal religiosity and even less attention has been paid to his religion in the context of his military conquests. I argue that Caesar has wrongly been deemed irreligious or skeptica… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Adkins, Austin L
Partner: UNT Libraries

'The Marshall System' in World War II, Myth and Reality: Six American Commanders Who Failed

Description: This is an analysis of the U.S. Army's personnel decisions in the Second World War. Specifically, it considers the U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall's appointment of generals to combat command, and his reasons for relieving some generals while leaving others in place after underperformance. Many historians and contemporaries of Marshall, including General Omar N. Bradley, have commented on Marshall's ability to select brilliant, capable general officers for combat command in the war… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Carlson, Cody King
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Collective Security and Coalition: British Grand Strategy, 1783-1797

Description: On 1 February 1793, the National Convention of Revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands, expanding the list of France's enemies in the War of the First Coalition. Although British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger had predicted fifteen years of peace one year earlier, the French declaration of war initiated nearly a quarter century of war between Britain and France with only a brief respite during the Peace of Amiens. Britain entered the war amid both a nad… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Jarrett, Nathaniel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Imagining the Empire: Germany Through the Eyes of Early Modern English Travellers

Description: This thesis is a study of early modern English travel narratives and the ways they presented the German states and their people to the public through the medium of print. It is based on an analysis of forty seven published travel narratives written by men and women who toured Germany and wrote about their experiences. The study situates these writings in the context of the growing sense of national identity in early modern Europe and offers an assessment of how these travel narratives contribu… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Micheals, Isaac
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Commercial Diplomacy: The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and Its Peaceful Effects on Pre-World War I Anglo-German Relations

Description: Slated as an economic outlet for Germany, the Baghdad Railway was designed to funnel political influence into the strategically viable regions of the Near East. The Railway was also designed to enrich Germany's coffers with natural resources with natural resources and trade with the Ottomans, their subjects, and their port cities... Over time, the Railway became the only significant route for Germany to reach its "place in the sun," and what began as an international enterprise escalated into a… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Bukaty, Ryan Michael
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Forgotten Legacies: The U.S. Glider Pilot Training Program and Lamesa Field, Texas, During World War II

Description: Rapidly initiated at the national, regional, and local levels, the American glider pilot training program came about due to a perceived need after successful German operations at the outset of World War II. Although the national program successfully produced the required number of pilots to facilitate combat operations, numerous changes and improvisation came to characterize the program. Like other American military initiatives in the twentieth century, the War Department applied massive amou… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Garner, Christian A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Countess of Counter-revolution: Madame du Barry and the 1791 Theft of Her Jewelry

Description: Jeanne Bécu, an illegitimate child from the Vaucouleurs area in France, ascended the ranks of the Ancien régime to become the Countess du Barry and take her place as Royal Mistress of Louis XV. During her tenure as Royal Mistress, Jeanne amassed a jewel collection that rivaled all private collections. During the course of the French Revolution, more specifically the Reign of Terror, Jeanne was forced to hatch a plot to secure the remainder of her wealth as she lost a significant portion of her … more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Lewis, Erik Braeden
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Conquering the Natural Frontier: French Expansion to the Rhine River During the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797

Description: After conquering Belgium and the Rhineland in 1794, the French Army of the Sambre and Meuse faced severe logistical, disciplinary, and morale problems that signaled the erosion of its capabilities. The army’s degeneration resulted from a revolution in French foreign policy designed to conquer the natural frontiers, a policy often falsely portrayed as a diplomatic tradition of the French monarchy. In fact, the natural frontiers policy – expansion to the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the Alps – emerge… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Hayworth, Jordan R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Establishing the American Way of Death: World War I and the Foundation of the United States’ Policy Toward the Repatriation and Burial of Its Battlefield Dead

Description: This thesis examines the policies and procedures created during and after the First World War that provided the foundation for how the United States commemorated its war dead for the next century. Many of the techniques used in modern times date back to the Great War. However, one hundred years earlier, America possessed very few methods or even ideas about how to locate, identify, repatriate, and honor its military personnel that died during foreign conflicts. These ideas were not conceived … more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Hatzinger, Kyle J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Capital Ships, Commerce, and Coalition: British Strategy in the Mediterranean Theater, 1793

Description: In 1793, Great Britain embarked on a war against Revolutionary France to reestablish a balance of power in Europe. Traditional assessments among historians consider British war planning at the ministerial level during the First Coalition to be incompetent and haphazard. This work reassesses decision making of the leading strategists in the British Cabinet in the development of a theater in the Mediterranean by examining political, diplomatic, and military influences. William Pitt the Younger… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Baker, William Casey
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Pre-professional Institution: Napoleon’s Marshalate and the Defeat of 1813

Description: Napoleon’s defeat in 1813 generates a number of explanations from historians regarding why he lost this epic campaign which ultimately resulted in France losing control over the German states. Scholars discussing the French marshalate of the Napoleonic era frequently assert that these generals could not win battles without the emperor present. Accustomed to assuming a subordinate role under Bonaparte’s direct supervision, these commanders faltered when deprived of the strong hand of the maste… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Smith, Eric C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, Comte De Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée

Description: Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert (1743-1790) dedicated his life and career to creating a new doctrine for the French army. Little about this doctrine was revolutionary. Indeed, Guibert openly decried the anarchy of popular participation in government and looked askance at the early days of the Revolution. Rather, Guibert’s doctrine marked the culmination of an evolutionary process that commenced decades before his time and reached fruition in the Réglement of 1791, which remained … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Abel, Jonathan, 1985-
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Forgotten Glory - Us Corps Cavalry in the ETO

Description: The American military experience in the European Theater of Operations during the Second World War is one of the most heavily documented topics in modern historiography. However, within this plethora of scholarship, very little has been written on the contributions of the American corps cavalry to the operational success of the Allied forces. The 13 mechanized cavalry groups deployed by the U.S. Army served in a variety of roles, conducting screens, counter-reconnaissance, as well as a number… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Nance, William Stuart
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Enemy of My Enemy Is What, Exactly? the British Flanders Expedition of 1793 and Coalition Diplomacy

Description: The British entered the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France in 1793 diplomatically isolated and militarily unprepared for a major war. Nonetheless, a French attack on the Dutch Republic in February 1793 forced the British to dispatch a small expeditionary force to defend their ally. Throughout the Flanders campaign of 1793, the British expeditionary force served London as a tool to end British isolation and enlist Austrian commitment to securing British war objectives. Th… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Jarrett, Nathaniel W.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Revolution in Warfare? the Army of the Sambre and Meuse and the 1794 Fleurus Campaign

Description: During the War of the First Coalition, the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, played the decisive role against Coalition forces in the Low Countries. Created in June 1794, the army defeated the Allies at the battle of Second Fleurus on 26 June 1794 and commenced the Coalition’s retreat to the Rhine River. At the end of the year, Jourdan led the army to winter quarters along the left bank of the Rhine and achieved France’s historically momentous “natural frontier… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Hayworth, Jordan R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Toward an Ecological Understanding of the Vendée: Old Myths and New Paradigms

Description: This work explores the motivations of the two major parties in the civil war in the Vendée from 1793 to 1796. It suggests that traditional understandings overemphasize simplistic notions of the idealistic crusade; the Revolutionaries fought for Republican ideals, while the locals fought to defend traditional Catholicism. This thesis suggests that the major motive for both sides was a fight for survival that was framed and expressed in political and religious terms rather than motivated by them.… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Strietelmeier, Paul
Partner: UNT Libraries
Back to Top of Screen