The Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, and the frontier were tremendously strong forces in influencing the American Revolution. Acting in concert, these forces made a Revolution inevitable. The Enlightenment directly influenced revolutionary thoughts. Ideas of natural rights, sensibility, and equality stemmed from enlightened thought. The Great Awakening and religious revivals of the mid- eighteenth century brought hope and salvation to the commoner. This evangelical style religion upset the formal churches and institutions and undermined existing church authority. The frontier offered vast,...

Clausewitz offers his paradoxical trinity as a viable framework for analyzing the inherent complexities of warfare. The three interdependent, dynamic aspects of the trinity must be balanced against each other if a successful plan for war is to prevail. Additionally, Clausewitz addresses the dynamics of insurgencies and counter insurgencies. With these two analytical frameworks, an examination of a specific campaign becomes plausible. The German war on the Soviet partisans in the occupied territories of the Eastern Front from 1941-1944 reflected the interplay of the trinity. Primordial...

The Confederate Cavalry that remained with the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia during the initial days of the Gettysburg Campaign failed to assume Stuart's eastern flank reconnaissance and security mission when he was unable to perform it. Evidence shows that there is shared responsibility for this failure among commanders at the brigade, division, corps, and army levels. Much of the blame of their failure to perform reconnaissance and security is placed on the Confederate Cavalry Commander, J. E. B. Stuart. What is often overlooked are the actions of the cavalry formations that...

Between 1870 and the start of World War I the technical development of weapons (machine guns, infantry rifles, and artillery) advanced tremendously. During the same period, the German army studied new tactics and the effects of using these modern weapons. Due to the relatively slow advance of tactics development there was a disparity between modern weapons capabilities and infantry tactics by the start of the war. Necessity being the mother of invention, the Germans acted aggressively in finding a way to defeat the advanced firepower that had emerged. Through experimentation and training, and...

An analysis of Washington's Winter Campaign with particular emphasis on the Second Battle of Trenton and the actions of Colonel Edward Hand. The analysis will show that the actions of Colonel Hand not only saved General Washington and his army from assured destruction, but prevented the extinction of the Revolution as well. Analysis is conducted through two prisms. The first being that of an infantry officer in the Marine Corps with 12 years of experience and the second being the modern tenets of Maneuver Warfare.

The Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, and the frontier were tremendously strong forces in influencing the American Revolution. Acting in concert, these forces made a Revolution inevitable. The Enlightenment directly influenced revolutionary thoughts. Ideas of natural rights, sensibility, and equality stemmed from enlightened thought. The Great Awakening and religious revivals of the mid- eighteenth century brought hope and salvation to the commoner. This evangelical style religion upset the formal churches and institutions and undermined existing church authority. The frontier offered vast,...