Military History Magazine
Military History Journal, 2020 edition, is published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Military Sciences in collaboration with the Swedish National Defence University. The editor is Academy member Björn Körlof. This year's edition contains six major articles and three book reviews.
The articles begin with an article that deals with the often dramatic conditions of one of our border towns during several wars. This concerns Strömstad, located not far from the Norwegian border and which has thus experienced the reality of war to the core during virtually all the wars that have affected the Nordic region. The article is written by naval officer Nils Modig, who has also published an extensive description in book form of Strömstad as a border town during the many wars the city has been involved in.
The next article is about the Bosnian War and the Swedish battalion operation there in the form of BA01. The authors of the article, Colonel Ulf Henricsson and Lieutenant Colonel Alf Görsjö, focus in their description on the UN mandate given for the operation, how the Swedish operation was to be organized militarily and the difficulties the force commanders on the ground had in mastering the political and military restrictions that in various intricate respects followed the operation. The article is in many ways illuminating regarding the border zone between politics and military decision-making and highly interesting in terms of insights into the controversial conditions that prevailed in this regard during the operation in Bosnia.
In the third article we move to the military music that was organized in the Swedish army during the 1700th century, the so-called “game”. The article illustrates with several examples the role that military music had even during military engagements and as an emotionally unifying element during the army’s marches and bivouacs. The music that gradually came to be associated with the various provincial regiments has its prehistory here and constitutes an essential part of Swedish music historical culture. The article is written by Ann – Marie Nilsson, who received her doctorate at the University of Gothenburg in musicology with a thesis on medieval hymn melodies, but has also written books on wind music with a focus on the octets (“military octets”) and sextets of the Swedish health resorts.
In the fourth article, Professor Lars Ericson Wolke gives us an insight into the slow phase-out of the horse in the cavalry that took place in the Swedish army during the 1900th century. We gain an insight into the transition from cavalry and mounted infantry to bicycle-borne infantry that began as early as the end of the 1800th century but that large parts of the army's units used during the years of readiness, and in the case of bicycles even well into the Cold War. But the main part of the article highlights the tactical-theoretical discussion that continued for many years regarding whether or not the horse should be in the army. Speed, mobility in difficult terrain, silence, load capacity, weapon-carrying capacity, etc. were several of the elements in the debate that pitted cavalry units against other types of units. At the same time, rapid material development was taking place within various combat forces around the world in terms of motorized units, armored units, helicopters and nuclear weapons, which made mounted units gradually increasingly obsolete. The economic considerations that were made regarding the gradual decommissioning of these units clearly illustrate the caution with which the army leadership gradually tried to transition to armored vehicles, more motorized modes of transport, first tractor-drawn troop transport carts and gradually more fully motorized vehicles with a high level of protection.
The fifth article deals with the emergence of the Swedish total defense model. The author of the article is Bo Rickard Lundgren, a member of the Swedish Academy of War Sciences, who has many years of experience in total defense in various positions. He follows the development of the total defense idea from the First World War and its successive integration into planning and in forms of cooperation between the military and civilians at all levels of the public management system. Total defense reached its perfection in many respects during the final stages of the Cold War, but was destroyed with astonishing speed and completeness during the early 2000s. The description is of great importance for understanding what is now required to rebuild our total defense and ensure that both of its branches can function if necessary.
The sixth article is closely related to the previous article. It highlights how an important part of the total defense, namely the emergency police, came to be developed as a complement to the regular police for needs that could be traced not least to the beginning of a war, when the defense forces would quickly mobilize under a tangible risk of hostile influence. But the important task of maintaining order and security during operations by the civil defense is also described. The author of the article, former head of the National Criminal Police Lars Nyhlén, expertly and concisely highlights various aspects of the background to the emergency police's organization, training and activities in civil defense and not least some intricate international law but also domestic political problems that were and are connected with the police's operations during high alert and war.
All the articles have been reviewed by a group of very competent "scientists" who have carried out the review without knowing who the article author is. This year's issue concludes with three interesting reviews of recently published books, written by the first two by Professor Lars Ericsson Wolke and the last by Associate Professor Fredrik Eriksson. Both are active at the Swedish National Defence University.
