Tennessee sesquicentennial. Thank you for attending this session featuring our same topic of the day, the last campaign in tennessee. My name is van wes, i am the Tennessee State historian. And a professor at middle Tennessee State university. It was an easy drive over to join this event today. For our expert historians, they have all come quite a way to join and be part of this event. Im appreciative of that. The way i would like to do this, so we have plenty of time for questions and comments, i am going to introduce all three speakers now in alphabetical order. They all come up in that order. Ok. Our first speaker will be chris lawson. I have known chris for 30 years. It goes back to his excellent work on frank cheetham, and his confederate division in tennessees forgotten warriors. That came out in 1989. He has been involved with us and been very generous of his time here for different civil war and Franklin Battlefield symposiums that we have worked with. Welcome back. Our second
Bell hood was written history and the u. S. Colored troops compared to the sherman marched to the sea. This 90 minute event is part of theseries organized by tennessee sesquicentennial. Thank you for attending featuring our same topic of the day, the last campaign in tennessee. , i am the van wes Tennessee State historian. And a professor at middle Tennessee State university. It was an easy drive over to join this event today. For our expert historians, they have all come quite a way to join and be part of this event. Im appreciative of that. This,y i would like to do so we have plenty of time for questions and comments, i am going to introduce all three speakers now in alphabetical order. Come up in that order. Ok. Be chris speaker will lawson. I have known chris for 30 years. It goes back to his excellent work on frank cheetham, and his confederate division in tennessees forgotten warriors. 1989. Me out in he has been involved with us and then very generous of his time here for diffe
Opposing military leaders. This is about 50 minutes. Our next speaker is holger herwig. Our next speaker is ohholger herwig. He lives in canada where he holds a dual position as professor at university of calgary and Canada Research chair in the center for military and strategic studies. His list of awards and appointments is staggering. Dr. Herwig is a fellow of the Royal Society of canada, a grant recipient from the Alexander Von Humboldt foundation and he has held numerous distinguished visiting appointments such as the visiting professor of strategy at the naval war college, newport, rhode island. Dr. Herwig has an impressive publication list and many of his projects have been transformed into television documentaries. He has published more than a dozen books, inclusive of the First World War germany and austria hungary, 19141918 that won the norm lynn e. Tomlinson prize for best book. Another important book is the marne 1914. Dr. Herwig will speak to us did about battle of the mar
Thank you, bob. I am glad to see so many people escape from the rain inside here. [laughter] i hope that is not the only reason youre here. But it is dry inside. Christmases,time is something that came upon me accidentally. To write expected about the subject or talk about it. I did spend two christmases in korea during the korean war. They were not very exciting christmases. Hardly anybody knew it was until he tended to tokyo army radio and heard recordings like i saw mommy kissing santa claus, which was not very good for morale. [laughter] about christmas and war. My first biography dealt with lawrence of arabia. It came out just as the movie with peter otoole came out. That was a lucky break because people suddenly heard of me. It made it easier to write other books. The 1980s, i began work on a book on the end of world war i on the armistice on november 11, 1918. In the process of doing that research, after many previous books, i discovered there had been a truce, a cessation of ch
Of i mean you could imagine a different outcome. But thats not the way it was. Hello. Ive recently completed, or read, history of world war i by john keegan. And he expressed a view i had not heard before. What he said was before austria issued its ultimatum which was very weak and crumbling even then, sent its ultimatum to serbia, he first contacted the kaiser as to whether the kaiser would support him if he invaded serbia. And the kaiser answered yes. And his view was that was the real spark that brought about world war i and, in essence, caused the allies later to blame germany for the beginnings of the war. I wonder if you have a view on that. Well, i knew john keegan actually just not because we shared a subject. And we talked about this and i think that was a very valuable way of looking at it, to tell you the truth. The only thing i would add to it is what i have been talking about today, which is if willie had been different, if the kaiser had been different, he might not have