Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/February 2023/Book reviews




 * By Hawkeye7

John Barton was the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College from 1991 to 2014, and has been an ordained and serving priest in the Church of England since 1973. He is a prolific writer on the bible and theology. in this book, he tackles a difficult and at times controversial topic with lucid prose and a depth of linguistic and theological knowledge. He is acutely aware of theological issues, but they are highlighted as more obstacles the translator must overcome.

This a book about the process of translation, a familiar problem here on Wikipedia. Some of us have experienced the difficulty of translating articles from English into other languages or vice versa. Some of us have used foreign language sources, most of us are acquainted with translated sources, and nearly all of us have come across foreign-language terms like panzer.

The author contemplates two philosophies of translation: formal and functional. The former brings the reader to the text, the latter takes the text to the reader. To take a military history example, should "generalleutnant" be translated as "lieutenant general" (formal translation) or "major general" (functional translation)? (My preference is to not translate, as meaning will be lost; many readers don't know what the difference is anyway, and on Wikipedia a full explanation is only a mouse click away.)

If we can only read sources in English, then we are at the mercy of translators. Occasionally, we can view clunky translations, such as in Germany and the Second World War. This problem is particularly acute when poor translation or mistranslation can lead the reader into misunderstanding. A pet peeve of mine is Carl von Clausewitz, which has become a fixture of American military studies. Commonly quoted is '"war is the continuation of politics by other means" but a better translation is ""war is the continuation of policy with other means".

Anyone complaining of the difficulty of translating from 19th century German into 20th century English will get little sympathy from the bible translator, who has to deal with Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic and Koine Greek texts written over the course of a thousand years, the most recent of which is nearly two thousand years old now. The texts contain poetry as well as prose, and in some cases errant nonsense. The needs of the readers are various: some read for private study, some read the bible out aloud in services and, in the case of the psalms, some parts are sung. Many readers have unreasonable expectations of the translator.

The history of bible translation goes back two thousand years. Parts were translated into Greek before the New Testament and indeed some parts of the Old were written. The New Testament writers knew and quoted the Bible from the Greek translation, which we call the Septuagint. The book considers the argument that perhaps Christians should use a translation of the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Bible.

This book chronicles the many obstacles, traps and pitfalls that await a translator of any work. What do we do when we have more than one source? Should we omit bits that we don't like (like the violent ending of Psalm 137)? Where the source uses a particular word, should the translator consistently use the same word (thereby giving the translation a coherence the source lacks)? (This is a particular problem with Hebrew, which has a much smaller vocabulary than English.) Should the translator try to replicate the rhythm or onomatopoeia of the source? (Like starting sentence after sentence with "And", a Hebrew idiom.) Should we use gender-inclusive language? (Which makes the text more palatable to the modern reader, but sometimes at the expense of historical accuracy.) Above all, there is the issue of paraphrase, of how to get the meaning across without messing it up.

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 * By Hawkeye7

This a book about the alliance between the United States and Britain during World War II. This is a subject a lot has been written about, but it is one worthy of the attention given to it here. Often it has been covered in the context of grand strategy or operations. Here, the spotlight is on the alliance and how it functioned. This is not only crucial to any understanding of the war, it is also worthy of professional study in its own right, as alliances are certain to be a feature of future conflicts.

The United States Army and the British Army were not strangers to each other; they had formed part of an alliance in World War I, and that had involved cooperation at the tactical and operational level. It is not unfair to say that this had received little attention between the wars. It is still not well understood today. On the internet, where people ask questions like "How can the moon be so large if it looks so small?", the military history equivalent is something like "Why didn't Eisenhower pull rank on Montgomery?"

This line of thinking illustrates a complete misunderstanding of Eisenhower, and of the war in general. Pulling rank was not possible in the literal sense; Montgomery always outranked Eisenhower. (Not that he ever made anything of this, although his driver used to annoy Kay Summersby by parking in Eisenhower's spot.) As the book relates, this is a feature of cooperation between two different armies: since they have different policies regarding ranks and organisations, there will inevitably be cases where one anomalously outranks the other. As the book notes, a common one was that in the British Army a brigade was commanded by a brigadier, who outranked his American counterpart, a colonel in command of a regiment.

Although the British Army became addicted to North American supply as early as 1941, with the passing of the Lend Lease Act, there is a common misconception about the relative influence of the two countries. American war production was prodigious, but it did not overtake British production until the last half of 1943. Similarly, in 1942 and 1943, the contribution of the US Army was smaller than that of the British. Only in 1944 did the main body of the US Army take the field, and only then could American interests steer the alliance. In 1943, Eisenhower was fully aware that in a conflict with Montgomery, he would be the one who got sacked, as Montgomery was the one who was a national hero. Things would be very different in 1945.

Yet that would be selling Eisenhower short, and failing to appreciate his genius as a supreme commander, which is one of the themes of the book. Eisenhower worked hard to keep the alliance functioning smoothly. He was aware of national prejudices; both armies believed that their methods and equipment was better. In creating a truly integrated SHAEF staff, Eisenhower was breaking new ground. Many Americans resented his intolerance of criticism of their ally (even in private letters home) and considered that he favoured the British.

Eisenhower knew that Montgomery and Patton were difficult to handle. He also knew that they were his best generals. It was to them that he turned during the German Ardennes Offensive. In that campaign, as this book relates, Eisenhower showed his mettle as a commander. He deployed his reserves. He placed Montgomery in command of the American armies north of the German penetration, and he ordered Patton to attack from the south. Both moved swiftly, mainly because they had already acted without needing orders. Placing Montgomery in charge was a difficult political decision, but militarily it was the right call; he soon took a "grip" on the situation. And too, Montgomery treated his American subordinates with great consideration; an American in the same situation would likely have relieved Courtney Hodges. Later, during the Rhine crossing, he supported American William H. Simpson over the British Miles Dempsey.

There are some minor mistakes in the book. Canadian readers will be disappointed by the misidentification of the Canadian divisions involved in the Dieppe raid and the Allied invasion of Sicily. It also fails to note that while the Ninth United States Army returned to American command on 4 April 1945, the XVIII Airborne Corps remained. There was never a time in the campaign in Northwest Europe when substantial American forces were not under British command.

The book has its limits. It concentrates on cooperation at the operational level and then only on ground operations in the European theatre. It omits or only mentions in passing many other areas of cooperation, such as technical and scientific cooperation, like the development of radar and poisonous gases and the British contribution to the Manhattan Project. The critical role of North American supply to the British war effort receives more than a passing mention, but much more could be written about it. Logistical cooperation also rates only a nod, and the apparatus of cooperation at the strategic level through mechanisms the Combined Chiefs of Staff could have received more attention. More books could therefore be written on the subject of the alliance and how it operated. The rapid dismantling of the wartime alliance is also worthy of further attention. For what it does tackle though, it does in an engaging, interesting and impartial manner.

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