Dr. Alexander Burns @KKriegeBlog Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Dr. Alexander Burns

@KKriegeBlog

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Historian of the eighteenth-century Atlantic World, American Continental Army, and Military Europe.

Appalachia

https://t.co/ur5URBolIZ

Joined February 2018

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@KKriegeBlog

Dr. Alexander Burns

8 months

A quick 🧵on my @WarOnTheRocks piece, out this morning. I wrote this 1) to draw attention to the collapse of my discipline/history pre-1800 and 2) because as I think about Ukraine today, multiple themes from the late Seven Years War resonate. 1/10

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Learning Lessons from the Prussian Past? - War on the Rocks

The past, famously, is a foreign country. Unfortunately, it often seems that “foreign wars” fought before 1900 are too distant to find their way into our

warontherocks.com

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@KKriegeBlog

Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

And now, the nit-picky history details/battle thread. TL;DR Ridley Scott's Napoleon movie is probably, in all seriousness, worse for Napoleonic Warfare than The Patriot is for eighteenth-century warfare. I'm going to focus on military history here in this one. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

A thread of threads. 20 misconceptions about the Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence). Americans (proud to be one) are often quite ill-informed about the military struggle which led to our independence from Great Britain. This isn't your father's rev war. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

Recently, Ridley Scott, when asked about historical inaccuracies in his films said: "How do you know, where you there? Napoleon had 400 books written about him. Maybe the first was the most accurate... there is a lot of speculation." A 🧵on how historians know what we know. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

8 months

I'm just over a year late to this discourse. Thinking of it again bc of debate over drones their impact the battlefield. A Cavalry charge 🧵 TL;DR: watching some extras duke it out is not a substitute for a source-driven understanding of what occurred on the battlefield. 1/30

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🏛Steven🏛

2 years

The devastating power of cavalry

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Dr. Alexander Burns

6 months

This academic year marks a decade of teaching military history in higher education for me. I'd like to reflect upon the demographic that keeps me employed: my students who are "into" military history. I'm going to try to limit myself to observations rather than judgement. 🧵1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

4 months

I was prepared for Godzilla minus One to be a more cerebral Godzilla movie. I was absolutely not prepared for the emotional rollercoaster of this film. 100% WEPT through this sequence. The depiction of family devastation and reconnection in the postwar environment is MOVING.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Ok Napoleonic media cravers/new followers. I'm not just a cinema hater. If you need a Napoleon fix, what should you watch? Don't watch Russian versions of War and Peace, or even the 1970s Waterloo movie. Just go watch the 2016 BCC War and Peace. 🧵 1/6

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Dr. Alexander Burns

5 months

Ok. Manor Lords review time, @LordsManor . In short, I LOVED IT. But, maybe not for the reasons you might initially think. A review 🧵on the indie peasant sim/city builder that took the internet by storm. It's been compared to Total War, but is something else. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

I'm going to write two threads about the Napoleon movie. The first one (this one) will evaluate it as a movie. The second will be a nit-picky history thread about the details and battles. TL;DR it was not great. Golda was a masterpiece by comparison. 2 stars. 1/17

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

Man this is rough. The British Army was not the largest or most highly trained army on earth during the Revolutionary War. It was a large European army of a great power, but France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia all had larger armies, and some were better quality.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

7 months

I attended an academic conference (History) this weekend. There was a panel, run by brave graduate students, on the job market. I had to choke back my emotions, and I wasn’t the only one. A report on how the kids (and by that: adults with advanced degrees) are doing. 1/23

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

For students, wargamers, reenactors, etc, I think one of the hardest things to grasp about the eighteenth-century wars that I study is the lack of nationalism on the part of combatants. Modern films, games, etc, usually filter this layer in, when it wasn't there. 🧵 1/

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

We'll start, as before, with the good. The majority of the military uniforms we see up close, (on Napoleon) are well-made and show signs of being hand finished. Some of them could fit better. Once again, the grenadier uniforms in the 18 Brumaire Coup look nice. 2/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

I promise I won't spend this whole thread whinging about the stuff I would have included, but WHERE IS THE 1796 ITALY CAMPAIGN? WHERE IS THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG? WHERE IS THE 1813-1814 as a whole??? 1814 is epic, and we just don't get it. 6/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

8 months

A huge part of military history education is getting students to realize, "no, I probably wouldn't beat the Romans if I travelled back in time", bc people in the past actually develop military structures that are fairly effective given their social and technological limitations.

@AyoCaesar

Ash Sarkar

8 months

If you travelled back in time, supplied with all the modern day knowledge that you have (but no technology), do you reckon you could defeat the Romans in battle if given command of another ancient army?

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Austerlitz is probably the most memorable sequence of the film. It (and Waterloo) is trash from a historical perspective, but visually stunning. Command and control is completely ignored. Napoleon says something in an indoor voice, and thousands of troops execute it. 9/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Basically my entire life on the internet

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

I'm tired, and it's close to midnight (I can hear Ridley Scott's rejoinder "get a life" ringing in my ears.) So, more or less in chronological order from the film, the battles and details. Sir Ridley: Mortars did not look like that. 3/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

4 months

Waterloo, Waterloo, Waterloo. With greatest love and respect to my Napoleonicist friends, June 18th is also the anniversary of the Battle of Kolin in 1757, so I'm going to do a thread on a battle you haven't already heard everything about. 1/28

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Historians agree that almost no (like 2-5) soldiers died by falling through ice at Austerlitz. That doesn't get in the way of turning this the retreat over the Satschan ponds into the main story of the Battle of Austerlitz. "The Sun of Austerlitz" is conspicuously absent. 10/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Shooting the Pyramids with roundshot/360 no scoping the Mamluk commander in one salvo is indeed, a fast way of saying "Napoleon took Egypt." Well done, Sir Ridley. The director's cut is all but assured to include a Marengo sequence. 7/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

My Twitter feed rn

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

The brainwashing of pedigree (where you went to college, how prestigious it was) is everywhere in academia. This has never been brought home further than when I lost a colleague (a good friend, veteran, and wonderful man) in January. 1/11

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Napoleon's Marshals are also quite absent from this film. There are a number of men who stand around Napoleon in feathery hats. Junot is a character. The idea of Marshals isn't referenced until Napoleon is a prisoner after Waterloo, blaming them for his defeats. 12/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The Whiff of Grapeshot/13 Vendémiaire sequence actually is a pretty great depiction showing what grapeshot does to a mass of bodies. Yikes. The cannons do recoil throughout the film. Progress from the 1970s Waterloo movie, but in almost every other way, a regression. 5/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

A🧵on societies and the armies they produce. Militaristic societies (Sparta/Prussia/Germany) don't produce infallible armies. Also, volunteer soldiers from liberal democratic nations aren't a magic bullet for military effectiveness either. Idolizing both is a problem. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

ALSO WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ALL OF THESE FLAGS. The camps are absolutely tiny, but there seems to be a national flag flying from every tent. Or every trench line. Or in everyone's hand. Jeepers, Obi-Wan, that's a lot of flags. 11/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Like most bad movies, bayonets are fixed inconsistently. Skirmishers are kind of used, and the British do look rather nice in battalions for about 2 seconds. For some reason, fire by rank is used. Nary a column on the battlefield, but plenty of absurdities. 25/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

I loved Napoleon's comment on the low-quality of conscripted troops in the French Revolution. This works nice with a thread I wrote. Also, LOVED the prevalence of striped trousers on the troops in the Toulon sequence. 4/25

@KKriegeBlog

Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

A🧵on societies and the armies they produce. Militaristic societies (Sparta/Prussia/Germany) don't produce infallible armies. Also, volunteer soldiers from liberal democratic nations aren't a magic bullet for military effectiveness either. Idolizing both is a problem. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Christmas is fraught with tough family conversations, particularly to do with religion and politics. This year, I have decided to diffuse tension by interjecting commentary on the political issues only I care about: opposing the policies of Louis XIV. I'll do some examples:

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The next scene is LITERALLY the abdication paper in 1814. At this moment I literally yelled, 'WHAT' in the theater. I would have felt bad if the woman in the middle of my row hadn't literally got call earlier in the movie. Napoleon abdicates. 18/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The cavalry charge that is used to represent Borodino here likely came from Marengo, based on Napoleon's physical appearance and costuming. 8/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Both sides are entrenched in multiple lines. Infantry are descending towards the plain, artillery on the crest. A 95th Riflemen has a bead on Napoleon with his (SCOPED?) rifle. 20/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Napoleon's charisma is notably absent from this film, as I noted in my other thread on the movie (not the history/battles) but I did love the short sequence of him handing out bread on the march to Moscow, referencing men at Austerlitz. 13/25

@KKriegeBlog

Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

I'm going to write two threads about the Napoleon movie. The first one (this one) will evaluate it as a movie. The second will be a nit-picky history thread about the details and battles. TL;DR it was not great. Golda was a masterpiece by comparison. 2 stars. 1/17

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The idea that a majority of the Grande Armée died on the way into Russia due to disease is not referenced. Borodino is 30 seconds long. I have rarely been more bitterly disappointed. Napoleon charges in footage likely meant to depict Marengo. 15/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Napoleon is very upset that Alexander is not waiting for him in Moscow. Like, so mad. Then he goes to bed. Then Moscow is on fire. What is this movie? Then they retreat from Moscow. Suddenly, everything is very cold. Napoleon's early retreat is not mentioned, bc 17/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

The serious and rigorous academic work that historians do, oddly enough, is the equivalent to responding to Scott: "we weren't there, but we talked to someone who was." Conversing with the dead, seeing which dead eyewitness are the most credible, is what historians do. 25/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Between the lack of La Haye Sainte, Hougoumont, the WW1 style confrontation emerging, and Mustachioed Mr. Sharpe above, your correspondent was containing his disapproval with great difficulty. 21/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The French infantry are repulsed, Ney begins his cavalry attack. At that point, Wellington gives the order "Prepare to receive cavalry." The British infantry then LEAVE (!!!!!!!) their palisaded entrenchments, advance 10 meters, and form square in the open. 23/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

We finally march on Moscow, in a depiction of the Grande Armée that is notably less grand than the 2016 BBC War and Peace. Dismounted Cossacks with janky mortars attack the army in hit and fade attacks, nailing prisoners to trees. 14/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

I did absolutely love the Russian military uniforms, correctly depicting the troops wearing the gaitered trousers of the 1812 campaign. Score one for the best legwear. 16/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

8 months

The entire historical field is in crisis, but pre-1800 is even worse. Mini-🧵 We are running out of historians who work before 1900/1800. In 2014-2017, the discipline shrunk by 27%. We only lost 12% of people working post-1800, we lost 45%!!! of the people working pre-1800. 1/5

@BretDevereaux

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux

8 months

Gonna pull this out actually - the United States is training 31.9% fewer PhD historians per year now than we were in 2011. That's an enormous drop! And in time, it'll be felt in shortages of history teachers at the secondary level (because who do you think trains them?)

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

A 🧵 on Napoleonic Wars reading recommendations. Lots of folks asked for a Napoleon biography, or single book. I'll give you some options below. I also haven't been called a nerd this much since 8th grade. Jokes on you, I was homeschooled. You're trapped in here with me now. 1/20

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Fortunately, Napoleon brings up a reserve (the guard are never named in the movie) and the whole thing degenerates into mindless Hollywood hand-to-hand combat until the Prussians arrive. Yay. 24/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Standard Elba sequence. Return due to Alexander visiting Josephine. Hmmmm. Queue Waterloo. It rains, not just during the night before the battle, but literally until the moment Napoleon orders the attack. Hmmmm. 19/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

Some of the pushback I got on my recent Napoleon thread was that it was a movie, lighten up. Fair. Historians don't just love raining on Sir Ridley Scott's parade. We actually do like history movies. A short🧵on a historical(ish) movie I LOVED. I loved the Northman. Why? 1/11

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

2023 in review. I'm collecting some of my threads on here. I'm a historian who works on armies, societies, and battle in the eighteenth century. If you like George Washington or Frederick "the Great" and what we get wrong about their soldiers and battles these are for you. 1/

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The French begin their bombardment. The infantry go forward. We get 5 seconds with Blücher. (No, "raise the black flags, my children".) After seeing the Prussian army on the march, your correspondent felt a little better that he had paid to watch this disaster. 22/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

The narrative that eighteenth-century soldiers were slow moving, ineffective automata who were only capable of engaging the enemy at insanely close range and quickly moved into hand-to-hand combat is one of the most widespread and damaging myths in military history. 1/6

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Dr. Alexander Burns

29 days

When I was getting my MA in History, Winston Churchill was being criticized for his role (still debated) in the Bengal Famine. Now he is being criticized for... not making peace with Hitler in 1940? Send help. We are not ok.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

5 months

For the last 10 years, I've been interested in the history of the British Regiment that fought the Revolutionary War in the American Midwest, the 8th (King's) Regiment. I was able to present on the history of the regiment at a conference last year (video below). Short🧵1/8

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

..more importantly, what of his question and implied criticism? How can historians know what we know? After all, we weren't there. Historians use a process called the historical method (we are bad at naming things) to contextualize the past, and separate fact from fiction. 3/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

A firepower Friday thread. One of the most persistent and inaccurate views of this period is that infantry firefights occurred at extremely close range: 50 yards or less. TL;DR, firefights often occurred at longer range, between 100-300 yards. Please, tell your friends. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Them: We need public-facing scholarship that reaches a broad audience. Me: Military history continues to be one of the few sub-fields that reaches a broad audience. My undergraduate history advisor: "I outgrew military history at age 10." Them: Yes, only bros like that.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

9 months

Men between 28-38: Is it possible for you to read the word “Triarrii” and not hear the voice from the 2004 video game Rome Total War? Asking for a concerned friend

@DrMichaelJTayl1

Dr. Michael J. Taylor

@DrMichaelJTayl1

9 months

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Dr. Alexander Burns

5 months

Were the industrial revolution and its consequences a disaster for the human race? Were we better off pre-capitalism? Was life better before nationalism? The post below combined with the pesky resurgence of "medieval peasants had more days off than you" has inspired a 🧵. 1/25

@SchattigeDer

Actaeon Press

5 months

"We have to get away from the concept of the nation as it was developed by the French Revolution." ~ Ernst Jünger

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

Today, a thread on how to evaluate popular military history. Just how accurate is that history book you are reading? How can we evaluate the claims that historians make? We are going to explore this through the use of of some examples, both positive and negative. 1/33

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

Finally, historians aren't just whiners. We love historical films like Master and Commander, The Northman, and the Duellists, which go to great lengths to build a realistic historical world, but then tell a fictionalized story in that world. 24/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

1813 and 1814 exist. They are the most interesting and dramatic part of these wars. Stop pretending they don’t exist, filmmakers.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 months

People did not take turns firing in the Revolutionary War or Napoleonic Wars, if anything, combat was the equivalent of mag dumping: shooting as fast as possible without listening to your officers

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

This shouldn't stand in the way of Sir Ridley Scott telling a good story, but a good story isn't quite the same thing as history. Simply saying to historians, "were you there" or "multiple books have been written, we can't know what happened" isn't serious. 23/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

19 days

If I could brag, for a minute, at my university, we've gone from essentially no wargaming to a historical club with 20 members in 2 years. The club is now official, they had a table at "club day" and got a ton of student interest. The children yearn for historical gaming, folks.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

30 days

A thread on those statue accounts, that always have something to say about peasant days off, or life under feudalism, or Cortes taking over Mexico, or what is wrong with the modern west. You know the ones I mean. My best advice is love/enjoy history but be careful. 🧵1/22

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

Although the idea is that Americans nobly volunteered for the war (and many did) that army was destroyed in the 1775-1777 period, and conscription (a draft) played an important role after 1776. This is the single best book on our army: check it out. 4/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

War is cruelty, but can we refine it? Lately, I've seen people claiming both that civilian casualties are never acceptable, or opposingly that brutality is acceptable as a means of ending violence sooner. A 🧵 on limited war, total war, and William T. Sherman. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

8 months

There has been some lively discussion regarding witchcraft trials today, addressing the horror of the deaths of 40,000-60,000 women who were murdered as a result of these trials, mostly between 1500 and 1700. I enjoyed this chart and took the liberty of modifying it. 1/11

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@fakehistoryhunt

Fake History Hunter

@fakehistoryhunt

9 months

@xruiztru You might want to mention that the huge majority of these executions happened after 1500. People often connect the witch hunts to the middle ages while they were mostly a modern era thing.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

8 months

Exciting times.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

I'm a history professor who studies the military history of George Washington's time: ~1739-1789. I teach at a small liberal arts college with a revolutionary mascot, and absolutely love my job, and our history. Spent the week in Philly, seeing cool Americana. 2/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

First of all: this isn't going to be a thread hating on Sir Ridley Scott. The guy is an incredible film maker, and his new Napoleon movie is sure to be entertaining. Historical inaccuracies and all, I am sure it will make a lot of money. But... 2/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

7 months

FX’s Shōgun is masterclass in telling a story that is culturally and chronologically foreign without dumbing things down. Authenticity is compelling and it sells. If you have to oversimplify your historical story to make it approachable, my advice is trust your audience more.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

5 months

TFW the roguish and not-put-together student who has been very active and sometimes brilliant in class discussion all semester fails their final paper due to AI usage, and you give them an F in the class. Super relatable, I know.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

9 months

This discourse got to me this time. So, here are examples of military technology/tactics as iconic as the Macedonian Phalanx followed by what beat it, in ~order. (western not global, semi-serious) How would you even defeat this? 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

So I am a social historian, most of the wargamers and reenactors I talk like talking uniforms. 🧵 How impractical were 18th century uniforms? How can we take armies that wore bright colors, lace, and powdered wigs seriously? TL;DR, uniforms were often practical and adaptable.1/15

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

The key part of this process for most historians is reading sources. Historians engage with two types of sources, primary sources and secondary sources, in order to obtain knowledge about the past. We'll talk about primary sources first, particularly eyewitnesses. 4/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

A Friday myth-busting Hessian thread. Did you know these troops fought in Scotland during the Jacobite uprising of 1745? There are many myths regarding the Revolutionary War, but none seem as widespread as the idea that the "Hessians" were "mercenaries". 1/37

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

Today is 265th anniversary of the Battle of Carillon. A small entrenched French force under the Marquis de Montcalm defeated a much larger British force under James Abercrombie. Sometimes, you see claims made about superior French tactical adaptation to North America. 1/5

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

Did Napoleon personally lead cavalry charges? Did Napoleon drown hundreds of men with artillery fire at an icy lake during the Battle of Austerlitz? Did Napoleon fire his cannons at the Pyramids? The answer to all of these questions is no. 22/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

7 months

I greatly enjoyed the "fascism doesn't win wars" discourse today. However, I don't think those of us who live in liberal democracies will win bc of who we are either. A 🧵on one of the reasons the fascists lost WW2, and my worries about American military power today. 1/22

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

A🧵on societies and the armies they produce. Militaristic societies (Sparta/Prussia/Germany) don't produce infallible armies. Also, volunteer soldiers from liberal democratic nations aren't a magic bullet for military effectiveness either. Idolizing both is a problem. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 months

Yes, that's right Google: when I search for James Longstreet, I definitely think of him as former US Minister Resident to the Ottoman Empire.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

Historians read sources with a particular set of questions in mind. When, where, how, and by whom was the source made? Why was the source created? Historians would argue that only by asking these questions can we evaluate a source. Let's examine a practical example. 5/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

The 13ème Demi-Brigade (Mouton) moves in column to assault the Russian center at Eylau, colorized

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@buitengebieden

10 months

What is going on here? 😅

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Dr. Alexander Burns

6 months

There are hats and there are hats, and then there is this hat.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

In order to succeed as a historian, you have to go further than your predecessors, examining more sources, and drawing on previously unused or underused sources. Only by aggregating the evaluations of all of these sources can you hope to reconstruct the past. 18/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

First of all, we didn't win the war bc we had rifles and they didn't. Mel Gibson is a fictional character, even if riflemen played an important role in engagements like King's Mountain, they were less important in George Washington's army after 1776 3/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

After his magnificent thread on British firepower @RobbieMacNiven pinged me to explain why the perception was the Continental Army firepower was better than the British. TL;DR, it wasn't because they used rifles. Here are some of the insights from my current book project. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

6 months

Big Histo trying to hide the truth “We did not learn about this in school.” Sounds like you didn’t take my American to 1877 or Western History from 1500 courses

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

A final thought on Russia: it was nearly Russian troops, instead of Hessians, who came to fight us alongside the British. You read right, we almost got Red Dawn: 1776 as the origin story of America. Can we get this made into a movie? I'll consult. 10/25

@KKriegeBlog

Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

A thread on the possibility of Russian troops invading the United States. No, in 2023, or in Red Dawn. This is the grandfather of US-Russian invasion fantasies: the 1775 negotiations for Russian troops to aid the British during the American War of Independence. 1/27

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

A 🧵on redcoats, reenactors, and revisionist history. Representations of the past are powerful. How did the British army fight, and how can we know? Many people will never read a scholarly book, but they will attend a film, watch a reenactment, or play a game. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

In college, I got into an argument with a student who confidently assured me that Washington would have defeated Napoleon. I have a soft spot the man on the $1 Bill, but yikes, exceptionalism is a helluva drug. To use Obi-Wan's phrase, Washingtons were Napoleon's speciality.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

In writing a history, such as the life of Napoleon, historians read HUNDREDS of eyewitness accounts like Plumb's letter above. Scott's idea that older books were more accurate and modern books are false is not at all the case. 17/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

There are misconceptions about our enemies: the British and the "Hessians". First of all, we didn't win the war bc we hid behind trees and sniped the British who foolishly stood in lines out in the open. They took cover too. 6/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

A myth-tackling thread. Looking at the British redcoats, modern Americans often claim that they were, "Too dumb to take cover." TL;DR, during the whole eighteenth century (and in Europe too), the British would lie down under fire and take cover on the battlefield. 1/17

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

Indeed, misconceptions of how the British army fought the war abound. They were a fast, flexible, and tactically aggressive force, which gave Washington a run for his money, defeating us in many of the major battles of the war. 7/25

@KKriegeBlog

Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

A 🧵on redcoats, reenactors, and revisionist history. Representations of the past are powerful. How did the British army fight, and how can we know? Many people will never read a scholarly book, but they will attend a film, watch a reenactment, or play a game. 1/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

Rest in Peace to the star (Ryan O'Neal) of still, 48 years later, the best major English-language film to depict the Prussian army in the Seven Years War. Can we get that fixed, Hollywood? "Will you take the bounty, sir? Or will you be given up?" (I know its not that scene)

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Dr. Alexander Burns

7 months

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Gregory Brew

7 months

Show the greatest “I’m about to die” moment in cinema.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

11 months

This is a letter from Thomas Plumb, a common soldier in the 22nd Regiment, who wrote home to his family in England from Rhode Island, on Feb. 22nd, 1777. 6/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

1 year

It rarely works. Instead, if you live in a liberal/democratic society read military history, invest in logistics, and keep an open mind about conscription. Conscript soldiers have done the vast majority of LSCO since 1792. Also build more artillery shells. 25/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

The Libertarian Party jokingly characterized American soldiers as drunken farmers, and that might ring more true than they realize. Americans were motivated to fight by both patriotic and materialistic appeals. 5/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

A few days ago, I did a thread on firepower in the Continental Army. On Friday, appropriately, I am going to do a thread on alcohol and the army. Americans (now and then) looked down on the "hireling and mercenary" troops from Europe. But their drinking habits were similar.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

Likewise, the British didn't have the best army in the world at this point, even if they had the best financial mechanisms to support it. Who did? Probably Prussia or Russia. 8/25

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Dr. Alexander Burns

2 years

So, who had the best army in ~1720-1790 period, and why was it Russia? In all seriousness, as many of you pointed out, the poll was rather ridiculous, and the concept of “best” inane, but it was a fun way to generate some conversation on these armies. A poll results thread. 1/18

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Dr. Alexander Burns

3 months

I'm not sure there is anything wrong with enjoying your life and rollerblading. Normalize enjoying your life and rollerblading. I hope I don't reach my late 70s, and as I'm lying in my hospital bed, think, "man, I could have written more articles." 9/11

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Dr. Alexander Burns

9 months

My university wargame club began a Thirty Years War Campaign today, started with the Battle of White Mountain. Catholic/Imperial forces under Tilly, Burqury, and Wallenstein advanced against Hussite/Bohemian troops under Anhalt and Thurn. 1st, Thurn’s cavalry were defeated.

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Dr. Alexander Burns

10 months

It is a modern miniseries with high production values, star power, enjoyable romance, and reasonable battle scenes. Seriously, its got: Brian Cox Lily James Gillian Anderson Paul Dano James Norton Jim Broadbent Not to put too fine a point on it, but these folks can act. 2/6

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