Ethnic Armies

Description

Ethnic Armies is a combination of essays focused on the subject of polyethnic armed forces from the time of the Habsburgs to the age of the superpowers and is a publication of the proceedings of the thirteenth Military History Symposium, held at the Royal Military College of Canada in March 1986.

Multi-ethnic armed forces have existed since ancient times. The armies of the ancient empires of the Middle East, of the Roman Emperors, and the Mongol Khans, all tended to be conglomerations of diverse ethnic, religious, or racial groups. A fundamental reason for their existence in the past and present is that nations, from their earliest beginnings, tended to be polyethnic. The phenomenon of polyethnic armed forces is a complex one, however, and it is examined throughout this book by its contributors.

Sujets

• History

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 14 décembre 1990
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781554586738
• Langue: English

Extrait

Ethnic Armies
Polyethnic Armed Forces From the Time of the Habsburgs To the Age of the Superpowers
N. F. Dreisziger Editor
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Ethnic armies
Papers presented at the 13th RMC Military History Symposium held at the Royal Military College of Canada in late Mar. 1986. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-88920-993-6
1. Armies - History - Congresses. 2. Ethnic groups - Congresses. 3. Sociology, Military - Congresses. I. Dreisziger, N. F. (Nandor F.). II. Military History Symposium (Canada) (13th : 1986 : Royal Military College).
UB416.E74 1990 306.2 7 089 C90-095416-7

Copyright 1990 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5
Cover design by Leslie Macredie
Printed in Canada
Ethnic Armies: Polyethnic Armed Forces from the Time of the Habsburgs to the Age of the Superpowers has been produced from a manuscript supplied in electronic form by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means -graphic, electronic or mechanical - without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 379 Adelaide Street West, Suite Ml, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1S5.
CONTENTS
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Polyethnicity and Armed Forces: An Introduction N.F. Dreisziger with R.A. Preston
The EthnicQuestion in the Multinational Habsburg Army,1848-1918 Istv nDe k
Race, Ethnicity,and Social Class in the French Colonial Army: The Black African Tirailleurs, 1857-1958 Myron Echenberg
The American Army and the Indian Bruce White
Race and the American Military: Past and Present Edwin Dorn
Brotherhood in Arms : The Ethnic Factor in the Soviet Armed Forces Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone
Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in the Canadian Armed Forces Richard A. Preston
The Unwelcome Sacrifice: A Black Unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1917-19 John G. Armstrong
Index
CONTRIBUTORS
N ndor F. Dreisziger is a professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada.
Richard A. Preston is Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and Honorary Professor in the Department of History at the Royal Military College of Canada.
Istv n De k is a professor of history at Columbia University and a former director of that university s Institute on East Central Europe. His history of the Habsburg Army is now being published by Oxford University Press.
Myron Echenberg is a professor of history and chairperson of McGill University s Department of History.
Bruce White teaches history at the University of Toronto s Erindale College.
Edwin Dorn is with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. He is the editor of the recent volume: Who Defends America? Race, Sex and Class in the Armed Forces (Washington, 1989).
Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone is a professor of political science and a former chairperson of Carleton University s Department of Political Science.
Major John G. Armstrong has served as a historian with the Directorate of History at National Defence Headquarters and with the Department of History at RMC. He currently commands the Administration Training Company of the Canadian Forces School of Administration and Logistics at Canadian Forces Base, Borden, Ontario.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T HE THIRTEENTH MILITARY History Symposium, held at the Royal Military College of Canada 20-21 March 1986, and the publication of its proceedings were made possible through the cooperation of numerous individuals and with the help of several institutions.
Grants to cover the cost of staging the meeting were received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Multiculturalism Sector of the Department of the Secretary of State.
The then Commandant of RMC, Brigadier-General Walter Niemy, and his administrative staff helped with the myriad organizational chores involved in hosting the gathering. Professor Donald Schurman, the then Head of the History Department, as well as my colleagues in the department gave advice and encouragement. Professor Keith Neilson acted as symposium co-director. History Department secretary Mrs. Karen Brown shouldered most of the departmental share of the administration involved in the preparation and holding of the symposium. Mr. James Watt and his staff at the Royal Military College Senior Staff Mess, attended to the entertainment functions during the conference.
Several people helped with the preparation of the manuscript for publication. Mrs. Marilyn Pitre and Ms. Ann LaBrash put parts of the volume into electronic form. Ms. Anne McCarthy did some of the copyediting. Conference participant Professor Jean Burnet followed the book s progress with keen interest. She and the late Robert Harney gave advice on the use of terminology. They, as well as some of the volume s contributors, offered comments on the book s introduction.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from Multiculturalism Canada.
N.F.D. Kingston, 1989
POLYETHNICITY AND ARMED FORCES: AN INTRODUCTION
N.F. DREISZIGER with R.A. PRESTON
M OST ARMED FORCES in the world today are multi-ethnic. They are composed of men and women of different races or cultures, often speaking different languages or dialects. This is true of the largest armed forces in the world, those of the USSR, the United States, China, and India; but the armies of such smaller countries as Yugoslavia, Switzerland, South Africa, Romania, and so on, are also mixed, racially or ethnically. Canada s own armed forces are composed of two major cultural elements, and a similar situation exists in a number of other countries, among them Belgium and Czechoslovakia, as well as in some South American states where native Indians co-habit with the descendants of Europeans.
Multi-ethnic armed forces have existed since ancient times. The armies of the ancient empires of the Middle East, of the Roman Emperors and the Mongol Khans, all tended to be conglomerations of diverse ethnic, religious, or racial groups. The immediate reason for this phenomenon was, for the most part, the fact that for rulers bent on conquest armies were often tools in which the soldiers, and in some cases the entire armed forces of subject nations, were compelled (or cajoled) to serve. But there was, and still is, another and fundamental reason for the existence of multi-ethnic armies in the past and the present. This is the fact that nations, from their earliest beginnings, tended to be polyethnic.
Polyethnicity in ancient and modern societies was the theme of three lectures that Professor William H. McNeill, one of North America s most distinguished historians, delivered at the University of Toronto in 1985. McNeill s main thesis was that, throughout history, the norm of societal existence was not nations made up of members of a single ethnic group but the opposite: states based on the coexistence of different ethnic groups. In ancient times, McNeill observed, civilized societies" were multi-ethnic: foreign conquests, trade, and epidemics worked to make them so. 1 In the period between 1750 and 1920, as McNeill admits, a new ideal emerged that ran counter to this norm. This was the concept of a nationalist base for the political organization of society, and it favoured the creation of nations that were made up of members of a single ethnic group. This ideal gained acceptance in Western Europe at a time when Europe was expanding overseas, and so initiating the mingling of races and cultures on an unprecedented scale. 2
According to McNeill, the experiment in building homogeneous nation states began to be reversed after World War I, even though the worst outbreaks of militant chauvinism took place later. Since 1920, there has been a gradual return to the ideal of polyethnic society. Surveying the world today, McNeill sees the increasing mingling of peoples, the greater ease of international travel and migration, and the growing acceptance of the concept of multi-ethnic societies. Indeed, the only major industrial power that he could find as being an exception to this state of affairs was Japan, and in that country too McNeill saw the presence of forces that might make for developments similar to those taking place elsewhere in the world. 3
Polyethnic states tend to have multi-ethnic armies. This axiom is true of both the ancient and the modern world. McNeill pointed out that in ancient times the constant need for new manpower, to replenish what classical societies lost in warfare (and the plagues that accompanied wars), required the admission of an ever-widening circle of military recruits. 4 Even the armies of some smaller states tended to be multi-ethnic. In the early stages of the development of a city state, these armies were made up of citizen soldiers - though they undoubtedly included in their ranks many immigrants to the city. In the later stages of such a state s evolution, mercenaries were often hired to protect the state and its far-flung interests - and mercenary armies were notorious for their mixed ethnic composition.
The phenomenon of polyethnic armed forces is a complex one. A polyethnic army can be made up of two, three, or more nationalities or racial groups. A force can be both multi-ethnic (meaning that it is composed of more than one cultural group of the same race) and multi-racial. The extent to which armed forces can be polyethnic can also v