Masters in Military History

The goal of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the relationship between the Royal Navy, more particularly its Channel Squadron, and Ireland. By examining the visit of the Channel Squadron, under the Command of Sydney Dacres, in September 1863 the development of 'General Deterrence' is explored. 'Immediate Deterrence' is further reinforced by the imposition of a Naval Cordon around the vulnerable southern and western coasts at the height of the 'Fenian Conspiracy' between 1865 and 1868. In this light, the establishment of the Royal Naval Yard in Cork Harbour at the end of the decade can be viewed as a return to the idea of 'General Deterrence' and a formalization of the economic relationship between the Admiralty and Ireland.

This research paper was presented to the Trinity College, Dublin English Dept Staff-postgrad Seminar series in November 2014. It emerges from work undertaken in a PhD module focusing on "Editorial Practices".
It aims to assess the usefulness of David Worrell's use of Assemblage Theory in gaining a better understanding of Georgian theatre. It examines the relationship between "Sentimental" and "Laughing" comedies, and considers Kelly's position relative to the success of Oliver Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer".
It concludes that Assemblage Theory is a useful, but problematic concept, particularly in the light of Kelly's movement between different written media and genres, and suggests that the text might serve as a useful undergraduate text with which to explore the genre.

This Masters in Education thesis, completed in 1978 by John Devitt, examines the teaching of English in Ireland. It has chapters including:
1. Historical Retrospect
2. Towards a Subject Ideology for English
3. Prelude to Curriculum Change
4. The Impact of External Assessment on the Literary Curriculum
5. Towards a Pedagogy of Poetry
6. The Examining of English Literature at Leaving Certificate Level
Conclusion, Appendix, and Bibiliography

It is uploaded here as the original in the Trinity College Dublin Library is unavailable, and since my father's death in 2007 numerous requests for the thesis have been made. While it is now somewhat dated, it is hoped that, methodologically at least, that it may be of use to researchers who are interested in this area. With thanks to Colm MacGearailt for the digitisation of the type script. Further inquiries can be made to [email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2015.1085703
This article examines the role played by the Royal Navy in the deterrence and suppression of Irish nationalist movements in the early Victorian period, particularly Daniel O’Connell’s 1843 ‘Repeal Association’ and the 1848 Young Ireland Rising. The navy was seen as ‘encouraging the loyal and overawing the disaffected’ both in how it acted, and in how these actions were reported in the media. The article charts the Irish administration’s growing dependence on the navy to guarantee internal security and undertake a broad range of counter-insurgency functions. These ranged from troop transportation to blockading, and from famine relief to coastal and riverine activity to suppress localized threats. It argues that attempts to socio-economically integrate Ireland with the navy were key to its potency as a coercive force in Irish waters. It also suggests that Ireland came to hold an increasingly significant position within the Admiralty’s strategic decision-making process, concurrently fulfilling a dual role of naval counter-insurgency and home defence. All of these activities are placed within the competing frames of ‘naval’ and ‘gunboat’ diplomacy, but it is suggested that the domestic focus of Royal Navy activity in Irish waters means that the term
‘naval counter-insurgency’ describes their activity in a more comprehensive manner.


Key words: naval diplomacy, naval counter-insurgency, Daniel O’Connell, Repeal Association,
Young Ireland, famine relief, Victorian Royal Navy, Admiral Charles Napier

This article examines the impact of Irish nationalism on the tiny, mid-Atlantic island-colony of Bermuda. It begins by uncovering the numerous institutional, literary, military, naval, and penal connections between the islands in order to establish the context for later Irish-American threats to the island. It examines the place of the island within the nationalist conceptions of the broader British Empire - both in explicit opposition to and implicitly in support of the colonial administration.

It continues by tracing three different plots against the island, starting with the New York based Irish Republican Union's plot to free Young Irelander John Mitchel from captivity there in 1848. Next, it moves forward to the Fenian counter-intelligence that promised an invasion of the island in April 1866. It concludes with an examination of the plan (and reaction to) the Dynamiter’s 1882 attempt to attack Bermuda’s world famous HM Floating Dock, one of the Royal Navy’s most geo-strategically significant, and impressive pieces of colonial defensive infrastructure.

The final, published version of this article can be found here: http://muse.jhu.edu/article/629423

PhD Thesis examining the role of the Irish Executive and other branches of British state and military power in responding to the Fenian Rising in 1867. Includes chapters that examine: the Suspension of Habeas Corpus, the Irish Constabulary, the British Army and Militia, and the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Coast Guard.

Guadalcanal, in the words of Marine veteran Lester Clark, was "an unlikely arena" for the first major offensive undertaken by the United States Marine Corps as an amphibious fighting force. Instead of an opportunity to prove the theories put forth in the 1930s, Marines found themselves engaged in a "small war" that more closely resembled campaigns in Haiti and Nicaragua. The necessary adaptations to fight a protracted land battle – and with serious deficits in training, supplies, and operational intelligence – were made on the fly, and helped to shape the practical doctrine of the Marine Corps in the war against Japan.

This paper was submitted and accepted as a capstone thesis for a Master's Degree in Military History at Norwich University in 2015.

Second Lieutenant Elwood Ray Bailey was shot down over Guadalcanal in 1942. For more than seventy-five years, his family believed his body was lost at sea. A chance discovery re-wrote the ending to Bailey's story, and he was repatriated in 2017.

An earlier version of this article received the 2019  General Roy S. Geiger Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

The battle for the Tarawa atoll - and, specifically, the V Amphibious Corps assault on the island of Betio during World War II-resulted in an enormous and highly publicized loss of American lives. Grieving families were assured that every possible care was given to their fallen Marines and sailors, and photographs of beautiful cemeteries appeared in magazines and print. This belied the reality of the situation: most of the "graves" were only memorials, and a postwar effort to recover the dead was markedly unsuccessful. Representatives from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps pointed fingers until Navy inspector general Charles A. Lockwood issued a report blaming "a series of errors. .. and a series of unavoidable circumstances" for the fiasco. This article examines the factors contributing to the nonrecoverability of hundreds of the fallen and describes the challenges facing researchers and archaeologists who continue the search for the lost graves of Betio.

The battle for the Tarawa atoll-and, specifically, the V Amphibious Corps assault on the island of Betio during World War II-resulted in an enormous and highly publicized loss of American lives. Grieving families were assured that every possible care was given to their fallen Marines and sailors, and photographs of beautiful cemeteries appeared in magazines and print. This belied the reality of the situation: most of the "graves" were only memorials, and a postwar effort to recover the dead was markedly unsuccessful. Representatives from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps pointed fingers until Navy inspector general Charles A. Lockwood issued a report blaming "a series of errors. .. and a series of unavoidable circumstances" for the fiasco. This article examines the factors contributing to the nonrecoverability of hundreds of the fallen and describes the challenges facing researchers and archaeologists who continue the search for the lost graves of Betio.

This paper shows the U.S. Army's influence on the employment of armor by the Marine Corps and its doctrinal progression in the Pacific Theater of Operations. It explains why the battle for Tarawa became the primary element that shed light on flawed the interwar doctrine founded on fundamentally different principles of employing tanks in combat.

To show doctrinal progress and indicate changes, it highlights key sources such as Tables of Organization (T/Os) for tank battalions, compares Army and Marine Corps field manuals during the inter-war and post-war period, and references commentary in after action reports and veteran interviews. With this information, the assault and inland operations on Tarawa becomes a starting point for tracking doctrinal change followed by summaries of tank operations throughout the Central Pacific culminating with the strategic discussion amongst FMF PAC leaders at the Tank Matter’s Conference that convened in May 1945. The result of this conference was a revised table of organization for the Marine Corps that lasted through the Vietnam War and the publication of the manual for Marine Corps Amphibious Operations: Employment of Tanks (Phib-18) in 1946.

This paper concludes that Tarawa was the key element proving that the interwar tank doctrine of the Marine Corps Tentative Manual for Landing Operations was founded on Army tactical principles creating a dramatically different understanding of how tanks were effectively employed to support amphibious operations.

The battle of Tannenberg was a defining victory for Germany in the first months of World War I. It led to the destruction of an entire Russian Army and provided hope to a nation that was soon to be bogged down in a stalemated war. The victory at Tannenberg was due in large part to the ability of General Paul von Hindenburg, and his Chief of Staff General Erich Ludendorff. The two leaders employed the Army’s framework of operational art by recognizing how their operations in East Prussia nested with Germany’s Grand Strategy. They visualized tactical actions to support that strategy and acted on them in a Prussian style of Auftragstaktik. They employed three primary elements of operational art that gave them an edge over their Russian adversary. First, they understood the terrain and its impact on the tempo of forces around the Masurian Lakes. Secondly, this understanding enabled them to sequence their maneuver and mass combat power through phasing and transition. Finally, they maintained an appropriate balance of risk by understanding the political and strategic environment and made decisions that exploited opportunities relying on information from subordinates and new aerial reconnaissance. Ultimately the ability of Hindenburg and Ludendorff to visualize and direct tactical actions in strategic context makes them practitioners of what the US Army calls operational art.

Understanding operational art in American doctrine helps to illustrate a critical stage in American military history when the notion of fighting campaigns transformed into what many considered waging war. This change can also be described as a transition from warfare, fighting a series of battles, to war, developing strategy to achieve a political aim. In a global society with rapid communications and multiple media outlets, today’s practitioners of the operational art must be able to plan tactical engagements and understand, interpret, and implement policy as a military strategy in order to fight a winnable battle. The US Army, recognizing this, revised its definition of the operational art in 2015 to include the development of strategy, and the integration of ends ways and means. This change elucidates a fundamental difference in the Army’s understanding of the theory of war and warfare, and how it plans and executes campaigns. This paper will show that the Army theory of war has transitioned from a procedural, Jominian interpretation, to a Clausewitzian theory that addresses the complex strategic and political implications of a new global environment. The change is seen through American military history as operations became more complex and ambiguous for military leaders. The essay will provide historical evidence using the theorists of Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini, Carl von Clausewitz, Georgii Isserson and operations during the American Civil War, World War II and today’s Global War on Terrorism to support this idea.

1917 was a period of crisis. A revolution in Russia forced the nation to withdraw from the Great War, the French Army was consumed by mutinies, and coalition operations remained disjointed and unable to break the stalemate in France. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George established the Supreme War Council as a Coalition body of political and military leaders that would develop a unified strategy for the Coalition and end the war with Germany. Many historians argue that the Supreme War Council failed to provide the effective command structure needed by the coalition. The premise of this paper, however, is that the Supreme War Council did not fail in developing unified command, rather that it enabled development of a theater strategic approach.

Members of the Supreme War Council wanted to provide strategy, but became overwhelmed with issues concerning shipping, material, and command. A German Offensive initiated in March 1918 brought the coalition into crisis. As a result, Marshal Ferdinand Foch was appointed the Supreme Allied Commander charged with commanding and formulating theater strategy for the coalition in France and Italy. Foch halted the German offensive, and the Supreme War council focused on prioritizing and coordinating resources needed by the operational artists to regain the initiative. This enabled Foch to orchestrate an effective a coalition counter-offensive that brought Germany to the negotiating table.

When pre-armistice negotiations began in 1918, political influence and national interests began to take priority over coalition strategic objectives. Following the signing of the armistice and the occupation of the Rhineland, immense political influence and diverging national interests degraded the coalition. By 1923 deteriorating Franco-German relations caused by harsh reparations brought about the American premature withdrawal from the Rhineland.

The interplay between the Supreme War Council, Ferdinand Foch, and his operational level commanders provides relevance to the current force. It explains how the principles of mission command and multinational operations in Joint, Army, and NATO doctrine are still relevant and if not appropriately addressed in planning, can fracture a coalition. It also expresses the dangers and complexity of political influence on military strategy within a coalition and measures that can exacerbate the long-term success of a multinational organization.