Since it's establishment in 1933, the Society for Military history has held an annual meeting at which members could gather together to hear lectures on various topics of millitary history, as well as meet each other in person. This years conference, held at Fredericksburg, Virginia, included enough lectures related to Latin American military history to make a brief report off the meeting of interest to the readers of El Dorado. The Society for Military History, formerly the American Military Institute, is the premier scholarly organization for the study of military history in the United States. The Society produces a quarterly publication entitled "The Journal of Military History" [formerly "Military Affairs"] which offers articles, information on research projects and grants, book reviews and a very useful section on pieces related to military history appearing in other periodicals. Anyone interested in Learning more about this Society should write to the following: The Journal of Military History George C. Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA. 24450. U.S.A. There were a number of reasons why this years conference included so many lectures related to Latin American military history. The most obvious was that 1992 was the 10th anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas War. This, however, dovetailed nicely with the conference's overall theme of combined operations. The theme itself was related to the hosts of the meetings, the Marine Corps Command and Staff College of the Marine Corps University, which is located nearby at Quantico, Virginia. Naturally there were a number of Papers presented which dealt with the Marine's experiences with combined operations, included the numerous examples of U.S. intervention in the Caribbean. The lectures were arranged in groups of two or three, according to a common theme. These lecture groups were spread out over the weekend, with three sessions of lectures on Friday, two on Saturday and one on Sunday. As there could be as many as six 'Lecture grours ofgered during each session 'there were 32 in all], one had to make some very hard choices. The first lectures related to Latin American military history were presented during the first session on Friday, under the lecture group entitled "From Colonial Warfare to Military Intervention: American joint Operations, 1898-1992." Lawrence Yates presented his paper "U.S. intervention in the Caribbean Area: A Comparison of three Joint Cnerations: Dominican Republic 1965 [Powerpack], Grenada 1983 [Urgent Fury], and Panama 1989 [Just Cause]." Unfortunatelv, from this Society's point of view, Yates' focus was on the forces of the United States, with regard to the issues of preparation for these types off operations and political influence on the measures acceptable for use in the field, rather than on the Caribbean opponents which the U.S. forces faced. Nonetheless, an understanding of how U.S. forces approached these post-war interventions is necessary for an overall understanding of these conflicts. For example, in comparing "Powerpack" with "Urgent Fury" and "Just Cause", Yates noted that greater restrictions were placed on the use of firepower during the earlier operation than with the later two. Unfortunately I was unable to attend James Davis lecture "General Andres Terres: An American Mole in the Mexican Army, 1847," as it was presented as part of another lecture group which was also offered on the first session on Friday. The next paper related to Latin American military history was delivered during the second session on Friday among a grour) of lectures entitled "British Expeditionary Operations in the Pre- Dreadnought Era". This was Robert Glass' "English Combined Operations in the 17th century: Two Expeditions to Hispaniola, 1655 and 1695." Glass argued convincingly that both of these expeditions failed, not so much because of enemy resistance, but rather, because of the conflict between the joint Army and Navy commanders. In each case the expedition's leaders, from their respective services, misunderstood, or willfully ignored, the difficulties of the other service. During the 1655 expedition, for instance, Admiral Sir William Penn refused to provide the Army commander, Robert Venables, with additional pikes with which to arm recruits from the West Indies, despite the Navy's surplus. In turn, during both expeditions, the Army commanders insisted on making landings where it would be most advantagous for them, without regard for the danger in which these positions would place the expedition's ships. As Glass relates, the only benefit England achieved from these operations was the capture of Jamaica by the first expedition, after its repulse on Hispaniola. While the third session on Friday contained no lectures related to Latin American military history, an entire lecture group offered during the first session on Saturday focused on a Latin American topic; "Nicaragua: From Marine Intervention to the Eisenhower Era". The first paper, by Jon Hoffman, entitled "Counter Insurgency along the Coco: Edson, Aviation and Light Infantry versus Sandino", covered both the operations carried out by Capt. Merrit Edson along the Coco river, and how the lessons he and his superior, Maj. Harold Utley, learned were codified in the Marine Corps "Small War Manual" of 1940. In the second paper, "Marines and Costenos: Marine-Civil Relations in Nicaragua's 'Eastern Area', 1926-1933", David Brooks explored the geographic, cultural and social divisions within Nicaragua which effected the course of the United States' war against Sandino. In particular, he contrasted the peaceful culture of the Mosquito Indians on the Eastern coast with the Hispanic population of the West coast, among whom fractional violence was a fundamental part of their culture. The last paper within this group was Michael Gambone's "Between Patronage and Partnership: The Evolution of the U.S. Nicaraguan Military Relations, 1953-1961". Gambone noted the clumsy manner in which the U.S. provided Nicaragua with Military aid, going so far as to appoint an advisor named William Walker during the anniversary of the infamous filibuster's reign! The second session on Saturday consisted of a single special lecture on Marine Corps operations during Desert Storm and Sea Angel [emergency aid provided to Bangladesh in response to a Typhoon in 1991], this was presented at Quantico. The final session on Saturday also provided an event lecture group devoted to a topic of Latin American military history; "The South Atlantic [Falklands/Malvinas] War of 1982: The Argentine Perspective". Three papers were delivered, each one covering the activities of one of the services. William Atwater, in his lecture on the Argentine Army, listed the numerous factures which handicapped the performance of both the Army individually and the armed forces as a whole; faulty assumption that Britain wouldn't fight; serious inter-service rivalry which ruled out co-operation; and a high command which lacked virtually every professional skill necessary to conduct a modern campaign. As such, Atwater sees the poor performance of the Argentine conscripts largely as a reflection of the failure of Argentina's military leadership to do their job. The second paper, on the Argentine Navy, was presented by the reigning U.S. expert on Latin American naval affairs, Dr. Robert Scheina. Scheina raised a number of interesting points, including the fact that Argentine Naval Intelligence had accurately predicted the British response to the Argentine invasion, even down to the landing at San Carlos, but this information was subsequently ignored. He emphasized the important role that the submarines of both sides played, and noted that but for a green crew and faulty torpedos, the Argentine sub "San Luis" could have made a disproportionate impact on the course of the war. Lastly, he pointed to the fear of Chilean intervention as the basis for Argentina's conservative naval strategy. While it would be difficult to draw any conclusions about the general approach to warfare in Latin America from such a diverse group of papers, the very presence of so many works on this subject does suggest that the study of Latin American military history within English speaking circles is improving. This conclusion is reinforced by the mention, during the introduction to his lecture, of Dr. Scheina's latest project, a broad based work on the general military history of Latin America [it should be noted, though, that in a conversation following his lecture, Dr. Scheina mentioned that this project still has a long way to go before publication!. All of this, together with the success of Ell Dorado itself, suggests that the study of Latin American military history is alive and well and with a very promising future ahead of itself. [Nice to hear about Dr. Scheina's research project, it will be definitely be one of "The" books to buy, just hope it takes less than 5 years to be published. Also thanks Paul for visiting this Society's annual meeting and writing the above report for all of our members who could not attend, including myself. T.D.H.] Back to Table of Contents -- El Dorado Vol V No. 2 Back to El Dorado List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by The South and Central American Military Historians Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com