Anna Sofie Hansen Schøning

In the 1970s Danish debates on military history revealed a bifurcated understanding of military history between descriptive and applied military history. Descriptive military history was the study of military history done by academic historians, and applied military his- tory was done by and taught to officers. The divide between descriptive and applied was rooted in the professionalization of history and officer education; it was constructed in order to accommodate the criticism that military history used in officer education did not live up to aca- demic standards. By taking the Danish debates in the 1970s as a point of departure, this article introduces some fundamental challenges regard- ing the use of military history in officer education. Inspired by the Ger- man historian Reinhart Koselleck, the article argues that developments within academic history since the 1970s might have alleviated the con- flict between academic military history and the military history used in officer education. Certainly, these new developments have opened up new approaches to military history.

The article investigates how military history was taught as part of the Danish higher officer education from 1830 to 1920 and how the subject was affected by developments in academic history and the science of war. It argues that military history, as it was taught in the formal officer education, could not be seen solely as a historic subject but also as a subject under the influence of the discipline of military science. Three very different understandings of how military history can contribute to higher officer education are shown through the analysis of textbooks. In the 1830s military history was used to establish national and organisational identity. In the 1880s, military history was used as a means to find, explain and apply universal principles of war and, in the 1910s, military history should be used as a means to gain general insight that could potentially lead to a better understanding of war and warfare.