Department: History ![[clear]](close-x.png "Remove this limiter")
511 matches in the database.
These are records: 1 - 30.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] … [18]
2.
Akin, Yigit.
The Ottoman Home Front during World War I: Everyday Politics, Society, and Culture.
Degree: PhD, History, 2011, Ohio State University
► This dissertation aims to examine the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of the…
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▼ This dissertation aims to examine the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of the home-front experience of the Ottoman people during World War I. It explores the new realities that the war created in the form of mass conscription, a state-controlled economy, government requisitioning of grain and possessions, widespread shortages, forcible deportations and voluntary displacements, death, and grief. Using archival and non-archival sources, this dissertation also focuses on how Ottomans wrestled with these wartime realities. World War I required the most comprehensive mobilization of men and resources in the history of the Ottoman Empire. In order to wage a war of unprecedented scope effectively, the Ottoman government assumed new powers, undertook new responsibilities, and expanded its authority in many areas. Civilian and military authorities constantly experimented with new policies in order to meet the endless needs of the war and extended the state’s capacity to intervene in the distant corners of the empire to extract people and resources to a degree not seen before. Victory in the war became increasingly dependent on the successful integration of the armies in the field and the home-front population, a process that inescapably led to the erosion of the distinction between the military and civilian realms. This process had profound implications for Ottoman society. Each policy formulated for this purpose brought about further intervention by the state in the daily lives of ordinary Ottomans with disastrous consequences. Ottomans, regardless of age, gender, and ethno-religious affiliation, had to cope with deprivation, bereavement, and hardships of all kinds. The unprecedented expansion of the state, however, inevitably created new sites of interaction between the state and society, transforming existing modes of interaction. In tandem with deteriorating social conditions, the increasing encroachment of the state apparatus into the Ottoman people’s lives strained the legitimacy of the Ottoman state, intensified the pressure on the government and the military command, and undermined the mobilization effort. This loss of legitimacy in turn posed a sharp challenge to the state’s authority and its capacity to maintain social and cultural integration.
Advisors/Committee Members: Findley, Carter V.
Subjects: History
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3.
Alarid, Michael Joseph.
Caudillo Justice: Intercultural Conflict and Social Change in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1837-1853.
Degree: PhD, History, 2012, Ohio State University
► This project is the story of the Hispanos in New Mexico who…
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▼ This project is the story of the Hispanos in New Mexico who were caught within the maelstrom of American colonization, of complex peoples with their own power structures who occupied a space in the path of a burgeoning empire. More specifically, this is the tale of how an ethnically distinct, religiously different, and politically and economically savvy people endured the process of American colonization. My focus is 1837 to 1853, and I examine the relationship between Hispanos and incoming immigrants; first from Mexico and later from the United States. I seek to challenge previously held notions about how the process of territorialization played out in Santa Fe County and New Mexico more broadly during both the Mexican and American periods. I argue that the New Mexican “elites” were in actuality Mexican caudillos: local strongmen who utilized their vast kinship networks and wealth to dictate regional policy – providing protection to the local population when it was in their best interest, exploiting and intimidating them when it was not. My approach considers multiple variables, such as class, race, economy, criminality, resistance, and accommodation, as well as how each of these variables influenced the strategies and actions of multiple social groups – New Mexican landholders, poor vecinos, Anglo settlers, and the territorial authorities in Santa Fe County. I utilize quantitative methodologies to analyze the criminal court documents and census data from Santa Fe County. At the same time, I use qualitative sources, such as written and oral historical testimonies, to examine the intersection between class and race in Santa Fe County and New Mexico more broadly. I focus on both the Mexican and early American territorial periods and seek to decipher how territorialization played out along class and ethnic lines among a heterogeneous society experiencing regime change. By centering my study on the vecinos in relation to the New Mexican caudillos and the assortment of recently arrived Anglo settlers, I move away from focusing too heavily on elites, empires, flags, politicians, and soldiers. Instead, my enquiry is concerned with the community itself and how the process of territorialization impacted the majority of New Mexico’s population.
Advisors/Committee Members: Roth, Randolph.
Subjects: History; Latin American Studies
Keywords: New Mexico, Santa Fe, Caudillo, Homicide, Crime, Larceny, Punishment, Hispano
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8.
Alrich, Amy Alison.
Germans Displaced From the East: Crossing Actual and Imagined Central European borders, 1944-1955.
Degree: PhD, History, 2003, Ohio State University
► At the end of World War II the Allies demilitarized, divided, and…
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▼ At the end of World War II the Allies demilitarized, divided, and democratized Germany. The dismantling of Germany involved setting up four zones and eventually two states, the Federal Republic and German Democratic Republic (GDR), and also giving large German territories to Poland and the Soviet Union, which required the initiation of a forced population transfer of the Germans who lived in those areas. Whether they fled as the Soviet troops advanced, or faced the postwar expulsions arranged by the Allies, the majority of Germans from the Eastern territories, approximately 12 million altogether, survived the arduous trek West. Roughly 8 million ended up in West Germany; 4 million went to the GDR. This dissertation comparatively examines the postwar, post-flight experiences of the German expellees in the Federal Republic and GDR in the late 1940s and 1950s. This analysis involves an examination of four categories of experience: official images of the expellees, their self-images, their images as outsiders, and expellees' reaction to these outsider-images. The two Germanies' expellee policies differed dramatically and reflected their Cold War orientations. West Germany followed a policy of expellee-integration, which highlighted their cultural differences and encouraged them to express their uniqueness. The Federal Republic initially sought unification on the basis of 1937 borders; thus expellee identity should be expressed in order to maintain links to the lost territories, which they wished to regain. GDR expellee policy involved silencing their self-expression and forcing them to meld with the existing population. The GDR sought to erase the Germanness of the lost territories and thus allow them to stay in Russian and Polish hands; the expellees in East Germany were forced to give up ties to their homeland. This dissertation thus highlights expellee resettlement policies as they related to the political orientation of the two Germanies and the integration experiences of the resettled Prussian populations. The war-torn Germanies both managed to integrate millions of expellees and have proven to be useful examples for historians and policy-makers in evaluating the ever-recurring and global problem of forced migration.
Advisors/Committee Members: Beyerchen, Alan D.
Subjects: History, European
Keywords: Germany; expellees; forced migration; post-war; integration
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11.
Arena, Joseph A.
The Little Car that Did Nothing Right: the 1972 Lordstown Assembly Strike, the Chevrolet Vega, and the Unraveling of Growth Economics.
Degree: MA, History, 2009, Ohio State University
► In March 1972, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) struck for eighteen days…
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▼ In March 1972, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) struck for eighteen days at the General Motors (GM) assembly complex in Lordstown, Ohio. Previous historical studies have focused on the origins of labor-management conflict at the factory. Drawing upon documents from the UAW’s archives, the business press, and automotive industry trade publications, this thesis contextualizes the strike by linking shop floor conditions with GM’s business strategy, the Nixon administration’s economic policy, and working class life in the Mahoning Valley. The UAW and GM saw the Chevrolet Vega, manufactured at Lordstown, as the domestic industry’s best response to import competition. But bureaucratic imperatives, especially within GM’s management structure, encouraged a series of confrontations between the company and union that culminated in the strike and undermined the Vega’s viability. The thesis expands our understanding of an iconic moment in American labor history and illuminates the ongoing problems confronting the U.S. automobile industry.
Advisors/Committee Members: Boyle, Kevin.
Subjects: American history
Keywords: United Automobile Workers; UAW; Local 1112; Gary Bryner; General Motors; GM; Lordstown; 1972; Chevrolet Vega; Joseph Godfrey; Mahoning Valley; Youngstown; Richard Nixon; automation; Labor History; Business History
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12.
Armanios, Febe Y.
Coptic Christians in Ottoman Egypt: religious worldview and communal beliefs.
Degree: PhD, History, 2003, Ohio State University
► This dissertation explores the beliefs and worldviews among the Coptic Christian community…
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▼ This dissertation explores the beliefs and worldviews among the Coptic Christian community living in Egypt under Ottoman rule (1516-1798 CE), predominantly through the use of Coptic Church documents. Research in this topic has ultimately isolated three groups of Arabic Christian manuscripts which are closely considered here. These sources, written by Copts themselves, show Copts to be major actors rather than groups “marginalized” by the Islamic society at large. The first sources are chronicles that record communal events, noting momentous occasions such as pilgrimages or “miracles” performed by Coptic patriarchs. An example of this material is found in a discussion of the Coptic pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Ottoman period, a ritual that reflects insight into the construction of spiritual meaning among Ottoman-era Copts. Two other categories of sources characterize the massive literary output which was a hallmark of this era. These are hagiographies and sermons, which were read out loud to sizable audiences and which document the performative dialogue between the church hierarchy and its congregation. A hagiography, that of Saint Salib, is considered here as a text of “communal remembrance” from the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods, a time of political transition in Egyptian society. Another, that of the Coptic female martyr Saint Dimyana, illustrates ascetic values reflected in her legend that were popular among Coptic believers. The sermons which are examined in this dissertation were written to instruct the community in appropriate moral codes and behavior during the late eighteenth century. They reveal the Coptic clerical hierarchy’s concerns with the encroachment of “non-Coptic” morals into the community and provide clues to widespread practices among the community in this era. Ultimately, this dissertation speaks to the need to recognize and document the Coptic contribution to Egyptian society and religious life, and it addresses Coptic popular religious practices in relation to other communities; the gendered nature of religious participation; and tensions between clergy and laity within the Coptic community.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hathaway, Jane.
Subjects: History, Middle Eastern
Keywords: Ottoman; Coptic; Religion; Islam; Minorities; Communal Relations; Egypt; Eastern Christianity; Gender; Pilgrimmage; Sermons
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15.
Balabanlilar, Lisa Ann.
Lords of the Auspicious Conjunction: Turco- Mongol Imperial Identity on the Subcontinent.
Degree: PhD, History, 2007, Ohio State University
► Contemporary studies of the Mughal dynasty in India have long been dominated…
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▼ Contemporary studies of the Mughal dynasty in India have long been dominated by nationalist, sectarian and ideological agendas which typically present the empire of the Mughals as an exclusively Indian phenomenom, politically and culturally isolated on the subcontinent. Cross disciplinary scholarship on the Middle East and Islamic Central Asia assigns to the Mughals a position on the periphery. Omitting reference to a Central Asian legacy, scholars instead link the Mughals to the preceeding nearly one thousand years of Muslim colonization in India. This study radically re-evaluates the scholarly and intellectual isolation with which the Mughals have traditionally been treated and argues that the Mughals must be recognized as the primary inheritors of the Central Asian Turco-Persian legacy of their ancestor Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane). Driven from their homeland in Central Asia, the Timurid reugee community, newly settled in South Asia, meticulously maintained and asserted the universally recognized charisma of their imperial lineage and inherited cultural personality. The imperial success of the Mughalsd lay in their ability to identify and reproduce in the Indian context potent symbols of Islamic and Timurid legitimacy which allowed them to affirm their imperial role and develop a meaningful dynastic identity on the subcontinent. Specific institutions and traditions of the Turco- Mongol Timurids:succession patterns, interpretations of Islamic law, the facilitation of migrating Sufi orders, the role of women and Persianate literary culture, can be identified and traced from the centers of Timurid culture in Transoxiana to India, where they were manipulated and adopted by Timur's descendants. The shaping and defining of the imperial identity of the Mughals in India, through the conscious manipulation of the Central Asian legacy of Timur can be seen as a case study of the movement and migration of symbols of legitimacy and the reproduction of identity by a refugee community in permanent exile.
Advisors/Committee Members: Dale, Stephen F.
Subjects: History, General
Keywords: Turco- Mongol; Timur; Mughal Empire; imperial identity
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16.
Ballah, Henryatta Louise.
Listen, Politics is not for Children: Adult Authority, Social Conflict, and Youth Survival Strategies in Post Civil War Liberia.
Degree: PhD, History, 2012, Ohio State University
► This dissertation explores the historical causes of the Liberian civil war (1989-2003),…
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▼ This dissertation explores the historical causes of the Liberian civil war (1989-2003), with a keen attention to the history of Liberian youth, since the beginning of the Republic in 1847. I carefully analyzed youth engagements in social and political change throughout the country�™s history, including the ways by which the civil war impacted the youth and inspired them to create new social and economic spaces for themselves. As will be demonstrated in various chapters, despite their marginalization by the state, the youth have played a crucial role in the quest for democratization in the country, especially since the 1960s. I place my analysis of the youth in deep societal structures related to Liberia�™s colonial past and neo-colonial status, as well as the impact of external factors, such as the financial and military support the regime of Samuel Doe received from the United States during the cold war and the influence of other African nations. I emphasize that the socio-economic and political policies implemented by the Americo-Liberians (freed slaves from the U.S.) who settled in the country beginning in 1822, helped lay the foundation for the civil war. I also argue that the oppressive regime of Samuel Kanyon Doe (1980-1990), the first indigenous non-settler president of Liberia, failed to address the prevailing social, economic and political inequalities that had been fostered by the Americo-Liberians, and this failure provided additional impetus that ignited what seemed clearly to be a time-bomb waiting to explode due to the deep inequality in Liberian society, an inequality that had made a segment of the society already angry with the political status quo. The youth of Liberia were among those who resented the political status quo fostered by the Americo-Liberians and later entrenched by the Doe regime. Thus, contrary to prevailing notions in the bulk of the existing literature that depicts the youth as innocent people drawn into civil conflicts against their will, I argue that Liberian youth considered themselves active members of their society, who must contribute to its transformation even if that meant picking up arms against corrupt leaders.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kobo, Ousman.
Subjects: African History
Keywords: Youth; Civil war; Liberia; Activism; Survival Strategies
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17.
Ball, Rachael I.
An Inn-Yard Empire: Theater and Hospitals in the Spanish Golden Age.
Degree: PhD, History, 2010, Ohio State University
► This study examines the development of commercial theater in important urban locations…
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▼ This study examines the development of commercial theater in important urban locations of the Spanish Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and compares them with their English counterparts. Based on manuscript and printed sources, it argues that the Spanish theaters developed into a well-entrenched and exportable system of public drama through their financial relationship to hospitals in those cities. Unlike in cities in the Anglo-Atlantic, this meant that theater was centrally integrated into the physical space of cities in Spain and its colonies. This relationship also gave Spanish public playhouses an upper hand when dealing with anti-theatrical moralizers. Additionally this study examines the impact that various groups had on the development of Renaissance theaters. Actors, playwrights, troupe directors, hospital administrators, actresses, and audience members, as well as imperial, local, and religious authorities, played a role in the creation of the most productive and most attended public drama of the early modern period.
Advisors/Committee Members: Parker, N. Geoffrey.
Subjects: European history; Latin American history; Theater
Keywords: theater, Spain, cities, hospitals, empire
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20.
Barber, Cary Michael.
A Case for Corruption.
Degree: MA, History, 2010, Ohio State University
► This work sets out to investigate official corruption in Late Antiquity in…
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▼ This work sets out to investigate official corruption in Late Antiquity in general, and in the office of the provincial governor in particular. In light of continued modern scholarship on the subject, as well as changing views concerning late antique governance as a whole, it seems worthwhile to present a study of this type. While attempting to reconstruct the locations of official abuse in the ancient world, this work seeks to emphasize how fundamental features of Diocletian’s administrative reforms, as well as the difficulties of oversight in the ancient world overall, led to the corruption about which our sources so consistently complain. The study primarily utilizes the works of a range of ancient authors from a number of different regions within the empire who lament corruption and its alleged effects. Legal edicts from emperors and inscriptions made by provincial governors are also employed, as well as modern studies on economic and social features of administrative corruption in contemporary nation-states. The work is, however, largely preliminary. By arguing for the prevalence of official abuse, this study creates a foundation for further investigation into the role of corruption in late antique governance, and into its effects on political, economic, social, and religious developments in this period.
Advisors/Committee Members: Sessa, Kristina.
Subjects: Ancient civilizations; Classical studies; History
Keywords: Provincial government; Roman Empire; corruption; Late Antiquity; Imperial Oversight
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24.
Barrett, Rebecca G.
From Welfare to Work: the Precursors, Politics, and Policies of Wisconsin and Federal Work-Based Welfare Reform.
Degree: PhD, History, 2012, Ohio State University
► The idea that the able-bodied poor should be required to work for…
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▼ The idea that the able-bodied poor should be required to work for their aid was not the product of a backlash from the 1960s but was an ideology that existed from the beginning of aid to the poor. The emphasis on work being the solution to poverty, and an extreme aversion to providing cash aid to the poor existed long before the government ever got into the business of public aid. Wisconsin led the nation in work-based welfare reform in the 1980s and 1990s, but the state had been a policy innovator for almost a century; so much so that during the progressive era Wisconsin earned the nickname 'the laboratory of democracy.' One of the areas in which Wisconsin was an innovator was social welfare policy. The nation followed Wisconsin's lead when developing mothers’ pensions, Aid for Dependent Children in 1935, and its replacement, Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, in 1996. This project will trace work-based welfare reform in Wisconsin and nationally demonstrating how Wisconsin was an innovator in social welfare policy both at the beginning of the welfare state and at the end of welfare as we knew it in 1997.
Advisors/Committee Members: Baker, Paula.
Subjects: History; Modern History; Political Science; Public Policy; Welfare
Keywords: welfare; welfare reform; PRWORA; TANF; ADC; AFDC; Tommy Thompson; W-2; Welfare to Work; Wisconsin Works; Wisconsin Welfare; block grants; work-based welfare reform
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25.
Barry, Steven Thomas.
Battle-scarred and Dirty: US Army Tactical Leadership in the Mediterranean Theater, 1942-1943.
Degree: PhD, History, 2011, Ohio State University
► Throughout the North African and Sicilian campaigns of World War II, the…
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▼ Throughout the North African and Sicilian campaigns of World War II, the battalion leadership exercised by United States regular army officers provided the essential component that contributed to battlefield success and combat effectiveness despite deficiencies in equipment, organization, mobilization, and inadequate operational leadership. Essentially, without the regular army battalion leaders, US units could not have functioned tactically early in the war. For both Operations TORCH and HUSKY, the US Army did not possess the leadership or staffs at the corps level to consistently coordinate combined arms maneuver with air and sea power. The battalion leadership brought discipline, maturity, experience, and the ability to translate common operational guidance into tactical reality. Many US officers shared the same “Old Army” skill sets in their early career. Across the Army in the 1930s, these officers developed familiarity with the systems and doctrine that would prove crucial in the combined arms operations of the Second World War. The battalion tactical leadership overcame lackluster operational and strategic guidance and other significant handicaps to execute the first Mediterranean Theater of Operations campaigns. Three sets of factors shaped this pivotal group of men. First, all of these officers were shaped by pre-war experiences. Professional military education, unit training exercises, and commissioning source formed the foundation of how the Army prepared these officers for leadership and combat. This group of officers shared many of the same personal factors that consistently provided sound leadership in North Africa and Sicily. While less tangible than institutional factors, the personal factors include bravery, calmness under fire, vigor, and common personality traits. Finally, the officers’ deft use of doctrine, assigned equipment, mission-oriented orders, and their ability to overcome operational limitations translated into tactical combat effectiveness. The analysis of these three categories above determined that these battalion-level professional officers were the critical cogs for early Allied success in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.
Advisors/Committee Members: Millett, Allan.
Subjects: History; Military History; Military Studies
Keywords: combat effectiveness; battalion leadership; World War II; professional military education; North Africa; Sicily
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26.
Batchelder, William G. IV.
The Courtier, the Anchorite, the Devil and his Angel: Gerald of Wales and the Creation of a Useable Past in the De Rebus a se Gestis.
Degree: PhD, History, 2010, Ohio State University
► The twelfth-century littérateur, courtier, and cleric Gerald of Wales (d. 1223) is…
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▼ The twelfth-century littérateur, courtier, and cleric Gerald of Wales (d. 1223) is an invaluable, if controversial, source for historians of Wales, Ireland, and the Plantagenet monarchy. Because Gerald was descended from both the Cambro-Norman castellans and the native Welsh princes of his half-conquered homeland, his voluminous writings – especially the Itinerarium Kambriae and Descriptio Kambriae – have been scoured by scholars interested in issues of identity and ethnicity. Literary scholars, particularly Monika Otter and David Rollo, have detected in his early works a dense, intra-referential text supportive of multiple, even subversive, interpretations. Less studied has been the De Rebus a se Gestis (c. 1208-1216); this most “autobiographical” of the three accounts Gerald wrote detailing his struggle to obtain metropolitan status for the see of St. David’s (1199-1203) survives in only one, incomplete, copy. The De Rebus a se Gestis has been under-valued and misunderstood; it is not, as one historian has described it, a mere “chronological” account of the St. David’s controversy. A close study of the text, especially when contrasted with other Geraldine sources such as the Symbolum Electorum, reveals an audacious revisionist project undertaken by Gerald to create for himself a useable past. In the De Rebus a se Gestis, Gerald downplayed his decade as a Plantagenet courtier and reinvented himself as a Welsh firebrand. The key to this project of self-reinvention is Gerald’s pious-sounding account of his visit to Wechelen, the anchorite of Llowes. At one level, which I have termed “exoteric,” the “Wechelen story” valorizes Gerald’s ignominious departure from the Plantagenet court (c. 1194) by subsuming his failure beneath a conventional narrative of religious resignation. At another level, which I have termed “esoteric,” Wechelen’s strange tale of a plot undertaken by “the Devil” and a “woman disguised as a nun,” a plot intended both to defame the anchorite and destroy Welsh souls, itself serves to conceal Gerald’s vehement refutation of a rumor that he had, in 1198, encouraged a sanguinary English attack on Welsh rebels besieging Painscastle. The De Rebus a se Gestis lacks a dedicatory preface. Nowhere in the secondary literature has anyone suggested an intended readership for the work. However, textual evidence suggests that Gerald composed it for a native Welsh reader. Furthermore, during the years he is thought to have written the work, 1208-1216, Gerald’s personal circumstances had become straitened; he needed a literary patron, but his usual sources of patronage among the Plantagenet elite had become unavailable. These difficult personal circumstances, considered in the context of both the internal evidence of the work and the surviving record of Gerald’s political activities in Wales years earlier, during the St. David’s controversy, suggest that Gerald composed the De Rebus a se Gestis to win for himself the patronage of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of Gwynedd (1173-1240), the pre-eminent prince of the native Welsh.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hanawalt, Barbara.
Subjects: History; Middle Ages
Keywords: Gerald of Wales; Giraldus Cambrensis; Llywelyn ab Iorwerth; De Rebus a se Gestis; Hubert Walter; Painscastle
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29.
Becker, Katherine A.
THE SWISS WAY OF WAR: A STUDY ON THE TRANSMISSION AND CONTINUITY OF CLASSICAL AND MILITARY IDEAS AND PRACTICE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE.
Degree: PhD, History, 2009, Ohio State University
► The transmission of military ideas across time and the problems arising from…
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▼ The transmission of military ideas across time and the problems arising from tracing diffusion were examined. A major theme was investigating the similarities between Greco-Roman military formations and traditions (eighth century B.C. to 400 A.D.) and those of the medieval Swiss (1315-1544). Only six possibilities could explain the similarities. Stimulus Diffusion was examined as an explanation. This theory suggested that military ideas spread, by word of mouth. It was determined that, in the Swiss case, stimulus diffusion was not a factor, since inherent in the definition of stimulus diffusion is the requirement of an originality (“ideational germ”) on the part of the diffusing society. The evidence suggested the opposite, that the use of pike formations in Italy, Scotland, Flanders, and elsewhere in Europe, had an earlier origin. In order to determine what this earlier origin had been, Hanson’s theory of a “Continuous European Tradition,” with Greco-Roman roots, of fighting in organized columns was explored with the Swiss as a test case. Contact between the Helvetii and Alemanii, along with other Germanic tribes with ties to ancient “Switzerland,” and the ancient Greeks and Romans was established. However, it was determined that a “continuous tradition” of fighting in the classical Greco-Roman style was unlikely due to medieval Feudalism. The possibility the Swiss may have created formations in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries using Greco-Roman military treatises was viable. Similarities between the Swiss long-pike formations (1474-1550) and those described by Asklepiodotus (second century B.C.) were persuasive. Yet, since Swiss long-pike columns were developed in the fifteenth century, and Asklepiodotus appeared in Switzerland in the seventeenth century, alternative pathways had to be considered. The notion that Swiss formations were the result of an egalitarian society was also considered. The ratification of oaths for perpetual support coupled with egalitarian laws, even as more oligarchic cantons joined the original Confederacy of the Forest Cantons, gave the Swiss militias an egalitarian and secular nature. However, the best explanation was battlefield experience. At Laupen (1339) the Swiss, under the leadership of the knight, Erlach, changed their tactics. Heavy losses taken by Swiss halberdiers at Sempach (1386) led officials to push for a decrease in the number of halberds and increase in the number of pikes. A further reorganization of the Swiss formation resulted from a defeat at Arbedo in 1422. Here, dismounted knights created an infantry formation of lances, out-distancing the shorter Swiss halberds and short-pikes. As a result the Confederates reorganized their militias into long-pike formations. By 1474 the standard length of the Swiss pike was eighteen feet long with a ten inch steel head (similar to Hellenistic sarissas). In conclusion: 1) Archeological and literary evidence suggests early Switzerland arose out of, and carried on, Roman culture in some form. 2) Elites sometimes had knowledge of classical texts whose lessons occasionally filtered down to the battlefield. 3) Despite a rich popular military tradition with classical roots, and direct literary inheritance of classical military practice, Swiss formations evolved out of battlefield experience of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.
Advisors/Committee Members: Parker, Geoffrey.
Subjects: Military history
Keywords: Swiss History; Military History; Pike Columns; Dissemination; Classical Knowledge
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