Historic Battlefields

Words used to describe the Battle of Culloden have always been written with lurid viscerality, from contemporary reports of the dramatic carnage on the moor to scholarly assessments of its enduring effects, still felt both in Scotland and amongst the global community today. To many, it was a sacred last dance that played out over hallowed ground, featuring fateful manoeuvres and noble sacrifices that conjure poignant physical and emotional reactions for those who still flock to visit the field. Some consider Cùil Lodair to have been the death knell of the Highland clan system, and to others it forged the seal on the permanence of union. 275 years later, the myths associated with Culloden are nearly indistinguishable from what we consider to be the facts. Accordingly, myth-busting by both academic and popular historians has become a full-time occupation in the wake of the interest ignited by the Outlander books and television series. Scottish tourism has enjoyed a massive swell in its coffers thanks to this phenomenon alone; Culloden, in a way, has therefore once again put Scotland back on the map and at the forefront of broader collective thoughts about the nation’s future. The battlefield and visitor centre remains a site of pilgrimage for tourists, re-enactors, annual commemorators, and those members of the global diaspora who have ‘come home’. Pitched hostilities continue to be waged to either build upon or preserve the land that formed the context of the battle. Many know the story of the action and what took place in the years afterward, but why we do we still care about the Battle of Culloden nearly three centuries on? This short talk will offer some thoughts about our memory of historical Jacobitism and why this windswept moorland still means so much to so many today.

, Director and Trustee Edinburgh and SouthEast Scotland, and myself, Archaeological Advisor and Trustee for South West Scotland and Glasgow, made a visit to the battlefield at Auldearn. In the wake of extensions to the A9 motorway, crossing both this battlefield and that at Culloden, potentially damaging what came to appear as an almost perfectly preserved contemporary landscape, we felt it was necessary to carry out a walking brief to understand the nature of the battle and the impact such changes would effect. This is the result. After a failed attempt on Dundee, Montrose's forces were forced to retreat northwards back towards the Royalist heartlands of highland Scotland. Reaching Auldearn, Maccolla's Irish brigade and the troops under Gordon garrisoned the village, the rest of Montrose's forces spread out to the East, a feature that would make concentration of forces in the morning difficult to achieve. Unbeknownst to them, they had been outflanked by the Covenanting forces of Sir John Hurry, after last seeing his covering force at dusk the previous day. Despite this a light picket was placed around the village, but due to bad weather during the night, this gradually, against Montrose orders, withdrew into the village. 7 miles away, near Cawdor, Hurry's forces had joined with the garrison of Inverness and Seaforth's highland levies. Undertaking a forced march north East along the present route of the A9, they stopped at Nairn to clear their muskets, thus supposedly breaking the element of surprise and informing Montrose's forces. Hurry's forces were made up of 5 regiments of foot, 2 of horse, a third of which were raw, numbering in the region of 3300-5000 men. Opposed to them, Montrose force was made up of Maccolla's Irish, the Strathbogie regiment and foot and cavalry under Gordon, numbering between 1400-2000 men. Auldearn's cottages and yards stretch for a quarter mile North to South, its modern setting bisected East-West. This acts as a very good marker defining the modern extent of the village, demarcated by a boxgrid system of development, the Northern extent a mishmash of streets, yards and buildings with no clear system-we got lost trying to navigate these several times. The battlefield is clearly demarcated between the extremities of the motte marking the original position of Auldearn castle, now marked by a 17 th century dovecote (every 17 th century site needs one-although its complete lack of use for interpretation of the site is a major oversite) and the brooding ridgeline in local crop fields of Garlic Hill. It is believed that it was here, on the motte and between Kinnudie farm, half a mile to the East, that Hurry's forces deployed at the start of the engagement at 7am, in particular Campbell of Lawer's black coated regiment. The site provides a good overview of the main valley area. What it does not provide though is a clear line of site through the village to the rear or flanks of anyone using it as a strategic position.

Los yacimientos olvidados: registro y musealización de campos de batalla is a project that aims to encompass all aspects of battlefield archaeology, in order to be a reference work in this study area. Therefore, a detailed historiographical study about this branch of archaeology has been made, from early origins until the present day, allowing us to gain a deeper understanding of the evolution of battlefield archaeology. Two methodologies, archaeological and museographical, are proposed for the treatment of this particular type of archaeological site. In order to prove the viability of both methodologies, a theoretical application has been carried out in two research examples from different periods, demonstrating both the project’s methodological validity and reinforcing our theories.

Two registers were made regarding battlefields ¬- one historical and another archaeological. The purpose of this was to catalogue all possible existing sites in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula from Roman times through to the Spanish Civil War, which will hopefully serve as a point of reference for future researchers. Through this book, people will be able to understand the great potential of Spanish battlefields and their heritage. Furthermore, Spain could be regarded as a very important country regarding battlefield archaeology.

The Catalaunian Fields is a battle well known for the role of terrain in the battle, with Jordanes' description of the engagement focusing almost in its entirety on the hill. With the location of the battlefield now known and new research having recently come to light, the role of terrain on the battle can now be accurately assessed and used as an example to show the importance of terrain in battles as a whole. Ancient Warfare 13.2, October 2019.

Nine days after the German invasion in Belgium and four days before the fall of the fortifications around Liège, a remarkable confrontation took place in Halen (province of Limburg) between the cavalry brigade of general von der Marwitz and the only cavalry division of the Belgian army, led by general De Witte.
The fact that the landscape in the region of Halen is very varied influenced the choice of the location as well as the course of the battle. The combat, better known as the “Battle of Silver Helmets”, lasted for an entire day and for a long time threatened to end as a disaster for the Belgians. A late intervention by the infantry turned the tide and by dusk the German army  for the first time - retreated for a few kilometres. Dozens of dead and wounded soldiers as well as hundreds of dead horses were left behind on the battlefield.
Although the battle of Halen is only a footnote in Belgian war history, the location is not without importance. The small-scale independent victory of the Belgian army was at the same time one of the last great cavalry charges in European military history. This archaic 19th century way of warfare abruptly ended in Halen.
There are still several relics referring to this exceptional battle in the open landscape between Halen and Loksbergen: a military cemetery, a museum, different memorials, a farmstead, cleared and relocated Belgian and German military graveyards, mass graves for horses... Still, this war heritage actually is almost completely unprotected and thus vulnerable. Only the memorial on the Halen church square and the military cemetery are protected as monuments. The historical ‘IJzerwinning’ farm, where heavy man-to-man fighting has taken place, was demolished in 2013 and replaced with a new building. The western part of the battlefield still consists of arable land, as it was on the eve of World War I. Only to a limited extent this original arable land has been changed into pastures or half-standard orchards. In regional planning, parts of this landscape are marked as agricultural land of significant landscape value.
It is probably only possible to manage this historical battlefield in a well-considered way and to prevent its further degradation, in close consultation with environmental planning. Parallel with this attempt to secure the heritage values and awaiting the first convincing results of such action, an effort should be made to use the classic protection by means of sectoral legislation: the new Flemish heritage decree. War memorials at Halen, which have not yet been listed for protection, could thus be protected as monuments. A classic landscape protection could be considered in order to protect at least the centre of the battlefield. Furthermore, the cleared or relocated military cemeteries are quite important, as well as the mass graves for horses. These locations should be marked in an archaeological inventory.
Before World War I got stuck in a trench warfare which was to last four years, a war of charges raged through Belgium. Very few physical traces have been preserved of those first weeks of the war. Moreover, this faint link between the Great War and the actual landscape is rapidly fading and about to disappear. Now more than ever the monumental, landscape and archaeological war heritage must be respected as a unique last witness which could keep the memory of the Great War alive. If we want to put our war past in a right perspective for future generations, it is crucial to take action in order to preserve and protect less tangible heritage such as the battlefield at Halen.

Kbor Klib, the battlefield of Zama.



The purpose of this short paper is to provide supporting evidence drawn from the histories of; Polybius, Livy, Appian and Cassius Dio to identify the location of the battlefield of Zama as being at Kbor Klib as proposed Duncan Ross.

Las Navas de Tolosa is one of the most important battles of Spain’s history, from both an historical and heritage point of view. The combination of both components makes the medieval battlefield the best place for the development of museographic works, which must be subsequent to field work.
For this reason we believe that Las Navas de Tolosa may be the starting point for future projects about musealisation of Spanish battlefields, it would be an approach to those countries that know the value of these archaeological sites.

In February 1916 a small group of German army pioneers approached the looming bulk of Fort Douaumont near Verdun, at the time considered impregnable. This article describes the remarkable events surrounding its almost single-handed capture  by one of these men and the complacency amongst the French army's high command which led to this debacle.

“The Sinews of Memory:’ The Forging of Civil War Memory and Reconciliation, 1865 – 1940,” explores the creation of historical memory of the American Civil War and, its byproduct, reconciliation. Stakeholders in the historical memory formation of the war and reconciliation were varied and many. “The Sinews of Memory” argues reconciliation blossomed from the 1880s well into the twentieth-century due to myriad of historical forces in the United States starting with the end of the war leading up to World War II. The crafters of the war’s memory and reconciliation – veterans, women’s groups, public history institutions, governmental agents, and civic boosters – arrived at a collective memory of the war predicated on notions of race, manliness, nationalism, and patriotism. In forging a specific memory of the Civil War, the aforementioned stakeholders in the process utilized veterans’ fraternal organizations, joint encampments of veterans, physical space, pilgrimages to sites of memory, and cultural products such as cinema to bind the former belligerent regions, both North and South, together. Out of the effort at reconciliation, a white, predominately middle-class, memory of the war emerged.

Nell’articolo Fortificazione campale e ordini di battaglia. Un esempio piemontese del 1743, pubblicato nel Fascicolo N. 7 (giugno 2021), della Nuova Antologia Militare viene illustrato un procedimento di contromarcia per file, che avrebbero dovuto attuare le truppe sabaude durante l’azione di fuoco prevista per interdire la progressione di un contingente franco-spagnolo sulle Alpi piemontesi. In seguito a rilievi critici e riflessioni successive si è rivelato opportuno correggere quanto detto in merito alla manovra di contromarcia

The battle of Agincourt has stimulated a great deal of historical research over the centuries since it was fought. The archaeological potential of the battlefield, on the other hand, has attracted far less attention and can be summed up through the study of two general investigations: the excavations undertaken in 1818 by John George Woodford (1785-1879), and the archaeological surveys and excavations which I have carried out since 2002. Woodfords notes, maps and illustrations have impacted upon this work. Indeed, much of what we think we know about the battlefield has been shaped by Woodford.

Abstract

Battlefield sites are important cultural heritage attractions and serve to enhance local, regional and national tourism resources. They are able to stimulate powerful emotional responses in some visitors and have deep, if contentious, personal and collective meanings. This paper investigates a particular type of feeling that is thought to exist when visitors experience the past. The phenomenon of numinosity is defined as a deeply transcendental and connective experience which is stimulated by an engagement with the past. Applying this concept to battlefield sites this paper explores the extent to which this experience is present amongst visitors. Beginning with an assessment of the place of battlefields as dark sites the paper proceeds by discussing the theory of numinosity and how there has been some empirical analysis of the concept at battlefield sites. This is then developed by presenting the results of a study into numinosity at battle sites in Britain. The paper concludes by showing how numinosity is a rare phenomenon and suggests that we should adopt a more nuanced understanding of it. Instead of maintaining a homogenous interpretation of the phenomenon the paper concludes that, when present, there might be a number of different gradations of the numen. 

Keywords: Battlefields; numen; numinosity; dark tourism

Dès l’aube du XIVe siècle, l’incroyable essor des corporations de métiers à Liège a laissé son empreinte dans la défense de la cité. Celles-ci fournissent de nouveaux contingents pour la sauvegarde des murs de la ville. La capacité militaire des métiers s’accroît aussi avec l’extension des droits de bourgeoisie à la banlieue en 1343 et 1429, fournissant aux corporations un nouveau vivier de membres potentiels. A l’origine, les bras armés de ces corporations semblent plutôt être une émanation de l’ancien ost urbain, qui se répartissait par vinâves (quartiers). Mais contrairement à cet ost, demeuré bien obscur, on connaît un peu mieux leurs prérogatives militaires et leurs atours. Au fil du temps, les métiers liégeois montrent leurs limites dans l’exercice de leur fonction protectrice. Pour y remédier, les deux derniers tiers du XVe siècle
voient ainsi la mise au premier plan d’autres corps de défense. Présentant une puissance similaire à celles des plus grandes villes de Flandre de la même époque, les métiers de Liège et leurs milices semblent avoir suivi une destinée… tout aussi équivalente.



Guilds and Urban Defence : the Example of Liege

From the beginning of the fourteenth century, the extraordinary growth of the craftsmen guilds from the city of Liège had a knock-on efect on urban defense : guilds provided new troops for the town’s safety. This new military capacity continued to increase with the extension of the bourgeoisie’s rights to the suburbs in 1343 and 1429, giving the guilds another large pool of potential members. Originally, the armed men of the guilds seem to have been drafted from the old urban ost, which was divided into wards. But unlike these irst barely known urban troops, we know a little more about their military privileges and their attire. Over time, the serious shortcomings of the craftsmen guilds with respect to their defensive duties began to reveal themselves, and to remedy this, other defense forces were placed at the forefront during the last two thirds of the ifteenth century. With a manpower equivalent to that of the guilds of the largest cities in Flanders at this time, the guilds of Liège and their militias seem to have met a similar fate to their counterparts in these areas.

Emotions play a central role in warfare. Nearly all soldiers who encounter combat zones experience intense emotional reactions. Some of these emotions are negative, such as fear, panic, anger, rage, or shame, while others are more positive, including pride, elation, joy, or exhilaration. These emotional responses are usually characterized by physiological and psychological changes that affect the bodies and minds of soldiers facing close-range fighting encounters. Researchers have documented a number of physiological effects that accompany intense emotional reactions on the battlefield, including hormonal increases, heavy breathing, increased heart rate, dilation of the pupils, and the loss of urinary control, among others. These similarities in biological responses have led some scholars to make generalizations about the inherent uniformity of emotional reactions on the battlefield. However, recent studies indicate that emotional dynamics in the combat zone are more complex and flexible. In particular, much contemporary historical, sociological, and anthropological scholarship shows that the emotional responses of soldiers are highly variable and context-dependent. Although some physiological reactions are present in many battlefield situations, they too, like psychological effects, tend to be specific to time and place. In other words, there are pronounced historical and cultural differences in the emotional responses of soldiers in combat zones. Facing the same realities of the close-range fighting, soldiers tend to display different emotional reactions and these reactions are more variable as the cultural and historical contexts change. Military organizations have become aware that emotions are central to the behavior of soldiers on the battlefield and they continue to devise new methods to control and shape the emotional reactions of soldiers.

The Trojan War and the Gallipoli Campaigns are two pivotal battles that took place on the shores of the Dardanelles. They are similar in several respects: Both battles involve several groups coming from different places. Some of the
tactics employed during the Gallipoli campaigns are reminiscent of those used during the Trojan War. Many allied soldiers, as their memoirs and letters reveal, knew well the Trojan War and the deeds of its heroes. Their writings also reveal that they compared themselves to the ancient Greek heroes that fought at Troy. They also thought the Gallipoli Campaign as a sort of New Trojan War.

An account of the events of 1 September 1939 when the first shots of World War Two were fired on the small Polish armaments depot at Westerplatte on the outskirts of Gdansk. Also commentary on the open-air and indoor museums at the site. From Military History Monthly (November 2015) 62, pp. 68-70.

בשנים האחרונות גברה ההתעניינות המחקרית באירועי מלחמת העולם הראשונה לרגל שנת המאה לפריצתה. מרבית המחקרים שנכתבים אודות המלחמה עוסקים בהיבטים צבאיים, חברתיים, טכנולוגיים ותרבותיים של המלחמה מנקודת מבט מערכתית-נושאית.  המאמר הנוכחי, לעומת זאת, עוסק באירועי מלחמת העולם הראשונה ערב 'מערכת מגידו' בדרום השרון מנקודת המבט של הזיכרון המקומי. 
    המאמר פותח בבחינת אירועי הקרבות במרחב כפר-סבא – ואדי פאליק )נחל פולג(, ובאופן ספציפי דן ב"קרב על הפאליק"- פריצת הקווים העות'מאנים באגפו המערבי של קו החזית. לאחר מכן, יעבור הדיון להתמקד בַּשאלות "כיצד תושבי האזור חוו את מלחמת העולם הראשונה"? ו"מה הם עקבותיה של המלחמה בנוף הפיזי ובזיכרון הקולקטיבי של תושבי האזור"? שאלות אלו קשורות יחדיו במישור ההיסטוריוגראפי וההיסטורי.
    המאמר מתבסס על ספרות זיכרונות ותיעוד של היסטוריה בעל-פה בערבית ובעברית, כמו גם על מקורות ארכיוניים מקומיים מתקופת המנדט, חומר קרטוגראפי-ויזואלי ומשארים בשטח. מקורות אלה לא זכו להתייחסות במחקר בחלקם מפאת פערי גישה לשוניים, נושאיים או פיזיים. נבקש להראות, כי נקודת מבט זו תורמת להשלמת התמונה הרחבה יותר של המלחמה באזור השרון, המצטיירת לנו במסגרת דיונים ברמה המערכתית-נושאית. ניווכח, כי למורשת המלחמה משמעויות אתנוגראפיות, כלכליות, חברתיות וביטחוניות החורגות מהמימד ההיסטורי גרידא. כמו כן, קיימים קווי דמיון מפתיעים בין החוויה היהודית והחוויה הערבית של המלחמה, באופן שיוצר שותפות גורל בין שתי הקהילות שחיו בשרון באותה העת.
    במאמר זה אין בכוונתי להציג סקירה שלמה של אירועי המלחמה להיבטיה השונים, אלא להתמקד באופן סלקטיבי במספר אירועים, מרחבים פיזיים ומרחבי זיכרון.  תיאור שלם יותר של ההיבטים ההיסטוריים של המלחמה קיים במקורות עליהם הסתמכנו.

The Western Front has become, once again, and after 100 years, an important and increasingly popular tourist destination. The Centenary is already encouraging large numbers of visitors to engage with this highly poignant landscape of war and to commemorate the sacrifice and loss of a previous generation. Interest is also being sharpened in the ‘places of war’ as battle-sites, trench-systems, bunkers and mine craters gain a clearer identity as war heritage.

For the first time this book brings together the three strands of heritage, landscape and tourism to provide a fresh understanding of the multi-layered nature of the Western Front. The book approaches the area as a rich dynamic landscape which can be viewed in a startling variety of ways: historically, materially, culturally, and perceptually. To illustrate these two dominant interpretations of the region’s landscape – commemorative and heritage – are highlighted and their relationship to tourism explored. Tourism is a lens through which these layers can be peeled away, and each understood and interacted with according to the individual’s own knowledge, motivation, and degree of emotional engagement. Tourism is not regarded here as a passive phenomenon, but as an active agent that can determine, dictate and inscribe this evocative landscape. 

The Western Front:  Heritage, Landscape and Tourism is a timely addition to our increasing interest in the First World War and the places where it was fought. It will be indispensable to those who seek a deeper understanding of the conflict from previously undervalued perspectives.

Author biography

Stephen Miles is an Affiliate Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow’s Crichton Campus in Dumfries. He studied at the universities of Durham and Sheffield before undertaking a PhD at the University of Glasgow which he completed in 2012. He has previously written on ‘dark’ tourism and sense of place at conflict sites.

See reviews of this book at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Front-Landscape-Heritage-Archaeology/dp/1473833760

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2017.1303983

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Spain has been the scene of multiple armed conflicts throughout history, from the Punic Wars and Roman Civil Wars to the War of Independence and the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. As a consequence, different places in our geography turned into battlefields. Unfortunately, and despite their importance, Munda (45 BC), Navas de Tolosa (1212), Almansa (1707), Bailén (1808), Arapiles (1812) or Ebro (1938) have become an unknown and not valued heritage. Therefore, their heritage relevance and their educational and tourist potential are ignored. This situation contrasts with that of other European or American countries, such as Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Canada or the United States of America. This paper analyses the cultural heritage management and the situation of the Spanish battlefields throughout different international examples, as well as it formulates a management approach integrated into the National Plan for Cultural Landscape.