by Holly A. Mayer

On May 28, 1754, British colonists, Frenchmen, and Indians traded shots in a western Pennsylvania clearing. Those pops in the wilderness opened what the colonists called the French and Indian War and what expanded into the Seven Years’ War. Last year, in 2004, a consortium of historical institutions commenced a grand commemoration of the 250th anniversary of that conflict. Yet why should we remember that war? Why should we commemorate any war? It is not to glorify war itself, but to hold a wake to celebrate peoples and events that are worth remembering and to hold a vigil against the dangers that have caused war. We commemorate so as to know, use, and connect to the past.

It is not enough simply to recollect the names of people, places, and battles. Wars are the results of actions in peace, and they leave legacies that affect following generations culturally, socially, politically, and economically. We study war to understand its causes, courses, and consequences. That information is not only valuable for diplomatic negotiations and military engagements, but for a whole lot more. Thus we study war in order to know ourselves and others: the persons and societies that start, fight, and end wars.

Fred Anderson in Crucible of War (2000) wrote that the Seven Years’ War was “the most important event to occur in eighteenth-century North America.” Champions of the American Revolution may want to dispute that—it merits vigorous debate—but Anderson makes a good argument, backed by pages upon pages of evidence, for the significance of this war. His narrative bristles with the decisions of leaders, actions of followers, strategies, tactics, blood, and brotherhood. It shows connections between the military and political, individual, tribal, and national maneuvers. It also notes how events then set the groundwork for later events, especially for the American Revolution.

Anderson’s book is part of a vast literature on war. Works on the Seven Years’ War compose a considerably smaller segment of that literature than those on the 20th century’s world wars or the earlier American Civil War but, taken together, books on war fill thousands of feet of shelf space in libraries and book stores. Indeed, historians of more peaceful endeavors sometimes grit their teeth and growl over what may appear to be warmongering. Unfortunately, some books on war are sensationalist, pandering to base interests in violence, destruction, and bloodshed, and others are simplistic when they present war as two dimensional, with one side as all good and the other as all bad. Yet most authors recognize and try to reveal the complexities of war.

Authors following traditional trails in military history point out how key leadership traits, tactical and strategic successes and errors, as well as logistical and organizational issues affect the fog and firestorms of war. Others blaze new paths and show how various societies’ ideas and practices further complicate war even as war then challenges convictions and mores. Those who do so are not just historians. Ethicists, sociologists, political scientists, contemporary commentators, novelists, and dramatists all find much food for thought in the subject of war. Most have been men, including Tom Brokaw who recently wrote about how the Great Depression and particularly World War II established the values and training that made a great people and nation (The Greatest Generation [1998]). George Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, did not see much greatness in England’s and Europe’s wars over a century ago. His comedic play Arms and the Man (1894) struck a serious note with its recognition of how people removed from the atrocities of warfare tend to ignore them in favor of romantic ideals of war. Women, reflecting the fact that war is not and cannot be the prerogative of one gender, have also studied its effects. Susan Sontag in Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) looked at how war is understood through the pictures that illustrate it. She added to Virginia Woolf’s earlier insight (in Three Guineas [1938]) that men and women looked at images of war differently. Such writers about war, whether celebratory or critical, challenge the notion that war stands apart from society, from so-called everyday life. That may be the case for battles, but not for armies and wars, at least not in the modern era.

There is debate about whether armies reflect the societies and cultures out of which they are formed. If they do, the debate continues on how much. The matter of how much, in turn, tends to be time or crisis dependent. Comparisons of military institutions, missions, and orders of battle reveal both shared transnational traits (a generalized military ethos) as well as modifications reflective both of the governments they serve and the societies they protect or oppress. The British and French armies had much in common as they fought each other in the Seven Years’ War. Each also had difficulties in dealing with the different establishments and expectations of their Indian allies and colonial adjuncts. Two hundred years later the American and Soviet armies shared certain ideas about military culture and building their forces even as they differed on the structure of command and the deployment of troops.

Scrutiny specifically of military personnel, ranks, and exercise of authority exposes how such organizations converge with or diverge from their own social systems. Knowing who fights in a war and who does not says a great deal not only about those individuals but about their societies. Is service due to a draft; and if so, is the draft equitable? Is service a matter of volunteering? If so, who volunteers? Furthermore, who becomes an officer and why? Until recently, soldiers and sailors in America (as elsewhere) were overwhelmingly the country’s sons. But how did their compatriots, both contemporary and later, view them? Were they bastard, prodigal, or heroic sons? As women started to serve in uniform, were they denigrated as harlots or cheered as heroines? Finally, ultimately, how has military service affected the civic identity of individuals? Comparisons of who served in the American War for Independence, Civil War, World War II, and the Vietnam War (and all the wars in between and since) provide interesting commentaries on the celebration versus realization of equality and opportunity in the United States.

Wars test civil and martial values, theories, and institutions touted in peacetime. They pit communal goals against personal ones as the national identity and ideologies confirm or challenge an individual’s self-image and values. Convergence and conflict emerge as a nation recruits and individuals respond. Some accept the call because they believe in the cause or out of a sense of self-sacrifice (duty), while others do so because of self-interest (serving oneself while incidentally serving others). Some, on the other hand, reject the call because they have other convictions about duty or what is in their nation’s, community’s, or personal best interest.

The tensions between such forms of tribalism and individualism have often been particularly intense in the United States. That is because of how Americans have tried to balance a republican ideology of protecting liberty from aggressive power (whether internal or external), public virtues of solidarity and sacrifice, and a modern society that celebrates individualism, interest group politics, materialism, and social and economic mobility. The sanctification of the citizen-soldier alongside the suspicion of a standing, regular army is a long-standing example of this balancing act, while the U.S. Army’s “Army of One” recruiting campaign is a recent one.

Both acceptance and rejection of a nation’s decision for war and then call to arms, as well as the public’s reactions to such decisions, reveal social, religious, and political beliefs, as do the responses of citizens, both in and out of the military, to how their forces actually fight. In war, nations are always faced with the conundrum of what their forces can do versus what they will do or are doing. The question encompasses not only armaments, logistics, manpower, and strategies, but also the matter of ethical conduct in the extremity of combat. How do concepts of civilization or moral behavior play out in the decisions of leaders and actions of followers? Is all fair in war? A society’s responses reveal its cultural values.

 So too do a people’s responses to the consequences of war. Governments fall and persons die in war, but how do people live through that and other results? They must address national success or failure as well as individual survival and loss. They have to fit their experiences within their views of themselves and their world. Some may conclude that human history is but a record of preparing for war, waging war, and recovering from war and that naught will change. Others more optimistic may decide that the study of such a cycle may ultimately lead to breaking it.

We study war because we do not fully know all of its attending dynamics of change, conflict, and resolution. We study it not just to learn about military policies, but for information and understanding about national and human character. The study of war fosters examinations of various concepts, including those of virtue, civilization, and progress. Ultimately, however, perhaps we not only study but commemorate wars because they encompass extremes, from the most banal to the most extraordinary, in life, death, and human endeavor.

 Become a Member of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania and receive Pennsylvania Legacies.

Image:  Fall of Braddock, Winthrop Sargent, ed., The History of an Expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1755 under Major-General Edward Braddock (Philadelphia, 1855).