Sir Hew Francis Anthony Strachan ( ), (born 1 September 1949) is a British
military historian
Military history is the study of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships.
Professional historians no ...
, well known for his leadership in scholarly studies of the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...
and the history of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. He is currently professor of international relations at the
University of St Andrews. Before that Strachan was the
Chichele Professor of the History of War Chichele is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Henry Chichele ( 1364–1443), English religious leader
**Chichele Professorship
*Thomas Chichele
Sir Thomas Chicheley (25 March 1614 – 1 February 1699) of Wimpole Hall, Cambridge ...
at
All Souls College, Oxford
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of ...
.
Early life
Strachan was born in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Scotland. He was educated at
Rugby School
Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.
Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...
, then in 1968 was a merchant seaman for three months, working his passage around the world on ships of
Ben Line Steamers Ltd. He then spent three years at
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus"), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th century through to the early 19th centur ...
, graduating
BA in 1971 and proceeding to M.A. in 1975. In 1973, he joined a survey of antiquities in the
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
.
Career
In 1975, Strachan was elected a research fellow of Corpus Christi College, and in 1977–1978 was a senior lecturer in war studies at the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town o ...
. In 1978, he returned to his Cambridge college as a tutor.
He became admissions tutor and then senior tutor of Corpus Christi College, and in 1992 was elected a life fellow. He was
Professor of Modern History at the
University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
from 1992 to 2000, then migrated to
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
as
Chichele Professor of the History of War Chichele is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Henry Chichele ( 1364–1443), English religious leader
**Chichele Professorship
*Thomas Chichele
Sir Thomas Chicheley (25 March 1614 – 1 February 1699) of Wimpole Hall, Cambridge ...
at
All Souls.
He was director of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War from 2004 to 2015, and published a series of important articles on strategy, as well as editing books which have arisen from the project.
He is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
and the
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history.
Origins
The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...
. He was appointed a
deputy lieutenant of
Tweeddale
Tweeddale (Scottish Gaelic: ''Srath Thuaidh/Tuaidhdail'') is a committee area and lieutenancy area in the Scottish Borders council area in south-eastern Scotland. It had also been a province in the Middle Ages. From 1975 to 1996 it was a local ...
in 2006. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Panel of the
Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies. In addition, he is on the Chief of the Defence Staff's strategic advisory panel, the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board, and is an advisory fellow of the
Barsanti Military History Center
Olinto Mark Barsanti (November 11, 1917 – May 2, 1973) was commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, commanding during the Tet Offensive and during subsequent operations around Bien Hoa and Huế. He commanded th ...
at the
University of North Texas. He was on the council of the
National Army Museum and is currently a trustee of the
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
. In 2016, he became Patron of
Western Front Association. He is a visiting professor of the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy in Trondheim and in 2009 was the Sir Howard Kippenberger Professor at Victoria University Wellington. He sits on the advisory board of the Centre for War and Diplomacy at
Lancaster University
, mottoeng = Truth lies open to all
, established =
, endowment = £13.9 million
, budget = £317.9 million
, type = Public
, city = Bailrigg, City of Lancaster
, country = England
, coor =
, campus = Bailrigg
, faculty ...
.
On 20 May 2014, Strachan was appointed as
Lord Lieutenant of Tweeddale
This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Tweeddale. The office replaced the Lord Lieutenant of Peeblesshire in 1975.
*''Scott had been Lord Lieutenant of Peeblesshire''
* Sir Robert Scott 1975–1980
*Lt-Col. Aidan Spro ...
, in succession to
Captain David Bingham Younger.
In 2015, he left Oxford to serve as professor of international relations at the
University of St Andrews.
Research
Strachan's early research and published work focussed on the history of the British Army, and he was awarded the
Templer Medal for ''From Waterloo to Balaclava'' and the
Westminster Medal for ''The Politics of the British Army''. Commissioned by the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
to write a history of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
to replace
C. R. M. F. Cruttwell
Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell (23 May 1887 – 14 March 1941) was a British historian and academic who served as dean and later principal of Hertford College, Oxford. His field of expertise was modern European history, his most ...
's one-volume ''
A History of the Great War, 1914-1918'', Strachan completed the first of three volumes, ''
The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms'' in 2001 to wide acclaim and is acknowledged as one of the world's authorities on the subject. Accompanying the print publication of his one volume survey ''The First World War'' (2004) was a multi-part documentary series for television entitled
''The First World War'', with some episodes being titled after the chapters in the written work. This set was also released on DVD by Image Entertainment.
According to Jonathan Boff, he became "the most influential British historian of the First World War of his generation." He broke through traditional intra-disciplinary boundaries and national borders. He tirelessly encouraged others, both inside academia and out. His impact produces histories of the Great War that are global and multi-dimensional, while rooted in the detail of military operations. The results exemplify the new military historiography.
Strachan is editor of the ''Great Battles'' series published by
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
.
Views
In January 2014, Strachan told ''
The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'' that President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
's failures in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
and
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
have shown that he is "chronically incapable" of military strategy. He said, "
Bush may have had totally fanciful political objectives in terms of trying to fight a global War on Terror, which was inherently astrategic, but at least he had a clear sense of what he wanted to do in the world. Obama has no sense of what he wants to do in the world."
Awards and honours
In 2005 Strachan was bestowed with the
Honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad h ...
of
Doctor of the University
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad ho ...
(D.Univ) from the
University of Paisley. He was
knighted
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...
in the
2013 New Years Honours List for services to the
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...
. In 2016, he won the
Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. He was appointed as the
Lord Lieutenant of Tweeddale
This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Tweeddale. The office replaced the Lord Lieutenant of Peeblesshire in 1975.
*''Scott had been Lord Lieutenant of Peeblesshire''
* Sir Robert Scott 1975–1980
*Lt-Col. Aidan Spro ...
on 7 June 2014 by
HM Queen Elizabeth II.
In July 2017, Strachan was elected a
Fellow of the British Academy
Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are:
# Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom
# ...
(FBA), the United Kingdom's
national academy
A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the hu ...
for the humanities and social sciences.
In 2018, Strachan received the Morison Prize from
The Society for Military History.
Selected publications
* ''British Military Uniforms, 1768–1796'' (Arms and Armour, 1975)
* ''History of the Cambridge University Officers Training Corps'' (1976)
* ''European Armies and the Conduct of War'' (London, 1983)
* ''Wellington's Legacy: The Reform of the British Army 1830–54'' (Manchester, 1984)
* ''From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology and the British Army'' (Cambridge, 1985)
* ''The Politics of the British Army'' (Oxford, 1997)
* ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War'' (ed.) (Oxford, 1998)
* ''The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms'' (Oxford, 2001) (first of an expected three volume history)
* ''Military Lives'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
*
The First World War: A New Illustrated History' (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
* ''The First World War'' (Viking, 2004) (single volume survey of the war)
* ''The First World War in Africa'' (Oxford, 2004)
* ''German Strategy in the First World War'' in Wolfgang Elz and
Sönke Neitzel: ''Internationale Beziehungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert'', pp. 127–144 (2003)
* ''Clausewitz's On War: a Biography'' (Atlantic Monthly Press 2007) .
* with
Holger Afflerbach: ''How Fighting Ends. A History of Surrender''. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 2012, .
* ''The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective'' 2013.
* ''British Generals in Blair's Wars'', eds. Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron and Hew Strachan (Ashgate Publishing, 2013).
Prefaces :
* ''Flesh and Steel During the Great War: The Transformation of the French Army and the Invention of Modern Warfare'', Michel Goya (Pen and Sword Military, 2018) -
* ''A Military History of Scotland'', eds. Edward M. Spiers, Jeremy Crang, Matthew Strickland ( 2013).
Media
* Channel 4 DVD: ''The First World War – The Complete Series'' OCLC: 63265523 (region 1), 883640397 (region 4) ASIN: B0009S2K9C (based on his book)
See also
*
The First World War (TV series)
References
Further reading
* Boff, Jonathan. "Sir Hew Strachan and the Study of the First World War." ''War in History'' 27.4 (2020): 605–616.
* Herwig, Holger H. "Strachan and the Great War: A Lifelong Quest." ''War in History'' 27.4 (2020): 590–604.
* King, Anthony. "Hew Strachan and the Sociology of War." ''War in History'' 27.4 (2020): 575–589.
* Scheipers, Sibylle. "Strachan on Clausewitz: Setting Standards for Research and Study." ''War in History'' 27.4 (2020): 560–574.
* ''Contemporary Authors Online'', 2007
* ''Debrett's People of Today'', 2007
* ''Who's who'', 2009
External links
Interviewon ''The First World War'' at the
Pritzker Military Museum & Library
The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its sp ...
Europe, Geopolitics and Strategy with Professor Sir Hew Strachan2015 lecture at
Brussels School of International Studies
{{Infobox university
, name = Brussels School of International Studies
, native_name =
, latin_name =
, image_name =
, motto =
, established = 1998
, type = Public
, endowment =
, staff ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strachan, Hew
1949 births
Academics of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Living people
Historians of World War I
Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Academics of the University of Glasgow
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Fellows of the Royal Historical Society
Knights Bachelor
British military writers
British military historians
Chichele Professors of the History of War
People educated at Rugby School
Academics from Edinburgh
Lord-Lieutenants of Tweeddale
Fellows of the British Academy
Writers from Edinburgh