Goals

- knowing the essentials of Belgium's and Western Europe's late modern military history - enabling students to find research subjects grounded on relevant archival sources - showing students good examples of military history writings to emulate

Content

A presentation of : - military history as a field of research - case studies taken from the wars affecting the Belgian territory between 1792 and 1945 and representative of the evolution of war and the art of war - besides the Belgian armed forces (including in foreign service), the major Western military powers involved in Belgian campaigns and battles: Austria, France, Prussia-Germany, Britain and the United States - current debates between academic historians - main archival sources and major secondary works.

Table of contents

FIRST PART - SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY (online on Webcampus) CHAPTER 1 - SOURCES CHAPTER 2 - WORKING INSTRUMENTS CHAPTER 3 - THEMATIC AND SYNTHETIC WORKS CHAPITRE 4 - PERIODS OF THE HISTORY OF WAR SECOND PART - CASE STUDIES, CURRENT DEBATES AND FIELDS OF RESEARCH INTRODUCTION - THE RENEWAL OF MILITARY HISTORY CHAPTER 1 - THE WARS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEON CHAPTER 2 - STRATEGIC THINKING FROM 1815 TO 1914 CHAPTER 3 - THE FIRST WORLD WAR CHAPTER 4 - THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Assessment method

oral examination

Sources, references and any support material

BLACK (Jeremy), Introduction to Global Military History. 1775 to the Present Day, London, Routledge, 2006.

PARET (Peter), dir., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986.

STRACHAN (Hew), European Armies and the Conduct of War, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983.

COUTAU-BÉGARIE (Hervé), Traité de statégie, 5e éd., Paris, ISC-Économica, 2006.

LYNN (John), Battle. A History of Combat and Culture, Boulder, Col., Westview Press, 2003.

MORILLO (Stephen), with Michael F. Pavkovic, What is Military History?, Cambridge, Polity, 2006.

Language of instruction

Français