CANR
WORK TITLE: THE MOSQUITO
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Winegard, Timothy Charles
BIRTHDATE: Jul-77
WEBSITE: http://www.timothycwinegard.com/
CITY: Grand Junction
STATE: CO
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Canadian
LAST VOLUME: CA 363
http://www.coloradomesa.edu/shared/facprofiles/twinegard.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 27, 1977, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; son of Charles and Marian Winegard; married Becky Raney; children: Jaxson.
EDUCATION:University of Western Ontario, B.A. (English literature), 1998; Nipissing University, B.Ed., 1999; University of Guelph, B.A. (history), 2004; Royal Military College of Canada, M.A., Attended Royal Military College of Canada, 2006; University of Oxford, St. Antony’s College, D.Phil., 2010.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Historian, educator, and writer. Secondary schoolteacher, Ontario, Canada, 1999-2003; University of Oxford, Oxford, England, academic tutor and undergraduate thesis supervisor, 2007-08; Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, faculty associate, beginning 2009; University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, First Nations Studies, faculty associate, beginning 2009; Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction, CO, instructor in history, beginning c. 2013, head coach of men’s hockey team.
MIILITARY:Canadian Forces Reserves, 1st Hussars Regiment, officer, 2001-10.
AVOCATIONS:Playing hockey, guitar, fishing, cooking, and traveling.
AWARDS:Department of National Defence, Security and Defence Forum Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2009-10; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2010-12; short-listed for the SSHRC Postdoctoral Prize.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including Canadian Forces Domestic and Urban Land Operations Manual, Department of National Defence, 2007; Great War Commands: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Army Leadership, 1914-1918, edited by Andrew B. Godefroy, Canadian Defence Academy (CDA) Press, 2010; and Blockades or Breakthroughs? Aboriginal Peoples Confront the Canadian State, 1970-2010, edited by Yale D. Belanger and P. Whitney Lackenbauer Mcgill-Queens University Press, 2014.
SIDELIGHTS
Timothy C. Winegard is a university instructor in history who was once drafted to play professional hockey by the Ontario Hockey League’s Detroit Junior Red Wings. His historical research focuses on native-newcomer relations, indigenous peoples, and Canadian and international military history. He is a contributor to professional journals and popular periodicals. In his first book, Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces, Winegard explores what is considered a definitive moment in Native-Canadian relations.
The Oka crisis took place in 1990 when the Canadian Forces sent troops to confront armed Mohawk Indians at Kanesatake (Oka), Ontario. Winegard provides a history of the encounter based on a variety of sources, including personal interviews and Canada’s Access to Information Act. Winegard begins by providing a history of the European settlement of the Oka area and subsequent issues between the indigenous population and the settlers over the years. He explores aspects of Canada’s domestic use of the military and discusses the various lessons the government and military learned in handling such domestic issues. Oka “isn’t a book for the casual reader, but it offers a great deal to professionals looking to learn more about, and develop a better understanding of, the use of military force in domestic scenarios,” wrote Golda Eldridge in Air Power History.
In his next book, Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War, Winegard explores the role that indigenous peoples who were part of the British Empire played in World War I. These included indigenous people from Canada, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa. Winegard’s comparative study begins with a look at the various indigenous peoples’ legal status in the five countries examined and, in the process, explores issues such as racial assumptions. He also discusses each country’s view of indigenous people in terms of their warrior abilities, showing a causal link between perceptions of indigenous people as warriors, various tribes loyalty to the government, and organization into military units that included all-native and mixed units. For example, in South Africa, the indigenous people received no real military training and were in segregated units that, according to Winegard, presaged South Africa’s apartheid policies.
Winegard goes on to note that the imperial government in London eventually developed manpower policies that lessened the emphasis on racial composition within the military, primarily because the government recognized its great need for more soldiers. Meanwhile, the dominion governments used the war and recruitment of indigenous people to gain more territorial control and autonomy over surrounding areas, such as the Pacific island archipelagos near Australia and New Zealand. Winegard also examines how various indigenous people responded to the war and the demand for their services. He points out this response varied from embracing military service in Canada to a widely divided viewpoint by the Maori in New Zealand, where recruitment was resisted by the elders but embraced by the younger indigenous people.
Winegard also examines the post-war lives of the indigenous people, noting that, even though they gained status during the war, they faced ongoing discrimination after returning home. “In addition to specialists in minority groups during wartime, this book will be an interest to scholars who study the mobilization of resources in an age of total war,” wrote Frederic Krome in the Canadian Journal of History. P.P. Barua, writing in Choice, noted Winegard’s “careful research” and “lucid writing style.”
Winegard continues his study of indigenous peoples’ participation in World War I in his book For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War. When the war broke out, Canada’s First Nations remained true to their tradition of engaging in military alliances with Europeans and pledged both men and money to the war effort. In addition, the Canadian Indian tribes saw their participation in the war effort as a way to remain independent culturally while gaining recognition as Canadian citizens and greater equality on the Canadian home front.
Although the Canadian government at first rejected the First Nations offer, the British Imperial government eventually told Canada that they needed more manpower and that they should begin to actively recruit from the indigenous population. Winegard chronicles the difficult relationship among various governmental ministries and departments and how they affected the 4,000 Indians who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He also discusses how the Indians served in the war, many winning distinction and military honors in the process. Nevertheless, their return home found them once again facing discrimination as they were not awarded the same benefits as white soldiers. J.L. Granatstein, writing in Choice, called For King and Kanata “well researched and well written, a most useful study.”
Winegard published The First World Oil War in 2016. The book shows how oil became a precious commodity during the First World War and the political ramifications this need created. He outlines how warfare changed to take into account the control over oil fields and how it is continued to be used in diplomacy and warfare.
Writing in MBR Bookwatch, John Taylor lauded that this “highly recommended” book is both “exceptionally and impressively well written.” Reviewing the book in Choice, C.M. Henry lamented that “the book is disorganized and repetitive and also replete with errors about the oil industry.” Writing in Canadian Military History, Corbin Williamson claimed that “Winegard convincingly demonstrates that the struggle for control of oil in the First World War and its immediate aftermath led to tensions and unresolved issues that still trouble the Middle East today. Winegard effectively argues for a prominent role for oil in understanding the First World War and the resulting peace settlements.” Williamson concluded that “this work is an important contribution to First World War history and is recommended for interested readers as well as undergraduate and graduate audiences.”
In 2019 Winegard published The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. The account is centered on mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases in this history of how humans are thusly impacted. Winegard chronicles the different types of diseases and the mosquitoes that carry them to show how it replicates, is passed on, and the devastation that it has caused. Winegard shows how mosquito-borne diseases leveled armies from ancient Greece to colonial-era wars in the Caribbean.
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews stated: “Overall, the book is serviceable but less fluent than Sonia Shah’s The Fever, David DeKok’s The Epidemic, [and] Michael Osterholm and Mark Olshaker’s Deadliest Enemy.” The same critic concluded by calling it “an intermittently interesting but overlong book.” A Publishers Weekly contributor reasoned that “despite some flaws, this works as a reasonable general introduction to one miniscule animal’s outsize effect on human history.” Still, the reviewer pointed out its “Western-centric” orientation.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Air Power History, September 22, 2012, Golda Eldridge, review of Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces, p. 60.
Canadian Journal of History, December 22, 2013, Frederic Krome, review of Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War, p. 577.
Canadian Military History, April 16, 2018, Corbin Williamson, review of The First World Oil War.
Choice, July 1, 2012, J.L. Granatstein, review of For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War, p. 2134; August 1, 2012, P.P. Barua, review of Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War, p. 2360; April 1, 2017, C.M. Henry, review of The First World Oil War, p. 1245.
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2019, review of The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.
MBR Bookwatch, December 1, 2016, John Taylor, review of The First World Oil War.
Publishers Weekly, June 3, 2019, review of The Mosquito, p. 54.
Reference & Research Book News, April 1, 2012, review of For King and Kanata.
ONLINE
BC Studies Online, https://bcstudies.com/ (August 25, 2014), Sarah Nickel, review of For King and Kanata.
Canadian Military History, http://canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/ (March 20, 2014), Matthew Barrett, review of For King and Kanata.
Colorado Mesa University website, https://www.coloradomesa.edu/ (July 22, 2019), author profile.
Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University website, http://canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/ (July 22, 2019), author profile.
Timothy C. Winegard website, http://www.timothycwinegard.com (August 25, 2014).
Western University Alumni website, http://www.alumni.westernu.ca/ (August 25, 2014), overview of For King and Kanata.
Dr. Timothy C. Winegard received his MA in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and his PhD in History from the University of Oxford. He served as an officer with the Canadian Forces, including an attachment to the British Army. Winegard is internationally published in the fields of both Military History and Indigenous Studies.
His books include: The First World Oil War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016); For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012); Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); and, Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces (Kingston: Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2008). Tim teaches history and political science at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. As a true Canadian, he is also the head coach of Colorado Mesa University's Hockey Team.
Dr. Timothy C. Winegard holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and is a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado. Winegard served as an officer with the Canadian and British Forces, has lectured on CSPAN, and has appeared on televised roundtables. He is internationally published, including his four previous books, in the fields of both military history and indigenous studies.
Timothy C. Winegard is a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, where he teaches Western Civilizations, American History and the History of Indigenous Peoples. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford under the direction of Sir Hew Strachan, and served nine years as an officer in the Canadian and British Forces.
Education
PhD, University of Oxford
MA, Royal Military College of Canada
BEd, Nipissing University
BA, University of Western Ontario
Biography
Timothy C. Winegard, PhD, received his Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Western Ontario and his Bachelor of Education in history and English from Nipissing University. Winegard went on to earn his Master of Arts in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and his PhD in history from the University of Oxford. An instructor of history at Colorado Mesa University, Winegard teaches United States History, Comparative Politics, Western Civilizations and a milestone class on the historical and current implications of oil. Arriving at CMU in 2012 from his native Canada, he is also the head coach of the CMU men's hockey team.
Winegard served nine years as an officer in the Canadian and British Forces, and is the author of four books and numerous articles and chapters in the fields of both military history and indigenous/native peoples. His main areas of interest, research and writing include military history, global indigenous peoples and cultures, North American colonial history and the comparative history of British settler-societies. He teaches a variety of courses in history and political science. Winegard has traveled extensively across the globe for research, pleasure and with the military, and is an avid Detroit Lions and Detroit Red Wings fan. When not teaching, researching, writing, or coaching, his remaining time is spent with his wife and son.
Curriculum Vitae
Selected Publications
The First World Oil War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming 2015.
For King and Kanata Canadian Indians and the First World War. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012. xxi, 225pp.
Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xviii, 312 pp.
Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces. Kingston: Canadian Defence Academy (CDA) Press, 2008. vi, 309 pp.
CV: https://www.coloradomesa.edu/directory/social-behavioral-sciences/documents/timothy_winegard_cv.pdf
Dr. Timothy Winegard
Affiliation
History/Political Science, Head Coach Men’s Varsity Hockey, Colorado Mesa University
Bio
PhD, University of Oxford
MA, Royal Military College of Canada
BEd, Nipissing University
BA, University of Western Ontario
Dr. Timothy C. Winegard received his Master of Arts in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and his PhD in history from the University of Oxford. He is currently an instructor of history/political science at Colorado Mesa University, where he is also the head coach of the men’s varsity hockey team.
Winegard served nine years as an officer in the Canadian and British Forces, and is the author of four books and over 25 articles and chapters. His main areas of interest, research and writing include military history, global indigenous peoples and cultures, North American colonial history and the comparative history of British settler-societies.
Select Publications
The First World Oil War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming 2016.
For King and Kanata Canadian Indians and the First World War. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012. xxi, 225pp.
Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xviii, 312 pp.
Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces. Kingston: Canadian Defence Academy (CDA) Press, 2008. vi, 309 pp.
Contact
twinegard@coloradomesa.edu
Winegard, Timothy C.: THE MOSQUITO
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2019):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Winegard, Timothy C. THE MOSQUITO Dutton (Adult Nonfiction) $28.00 8, 6 ISBN: 978-1-5247-4341-3
A wandering treatment of one of life's constant annoyances and worse.
"We are at war with the mosquito," writes former military officer Winegard (History and Political Science/Colorado Mesa Univ.; The First World Oil War, 2016, etc.). There's reason for that: There are something like 110 trillion mosquitoes floating around humankind's ankles and nostrils at any given moment, and when you count up the death toll from malaria, Zika virus, dengue fever, and the like, mosquitoes are responsible for some 830,000 human deaths per year, logarithmic orders from the 10 or so humans who fall victim to sharks. Indeed, writes the author, doing the math, as many as half of all the humans who have ever lived may have fallen to mosquitoes, especially in the days before we discovered quinine, gin and tonics, and DDT. The case isn't overwrought; yellow fever alone is a cause for much misery in Africa and has otherwise been "a global historical game-changer." Winegard's drawn-out survey of history covers ground that is largely well known, including the role of mosquito-borne illnesses in the American Revolution and Civil War and the long effort, planned under Julius Caesar but not effected until Benito Mussolini's reign, to drain the Pontine Marshes outside Rome. The author does uncover some lesser-known moments, however, such as the malaria research conducted by Chinese scientists during the Vietnam War, and he's good on why some human populations seem more vulnerable to mosquito-borne illnesses than others. Overall, the book is serviceable but less fluent than Sonia Shah's The Fever, David DeKok's The Epidemic, Michael Osterholm and Mark Olshaker's Deadliest Enemy, and other popular accounts of all the malign things that await us out in the open air. And readers could probably have done without the anemic valediction to the fanged female at the close: "My judgment of her now vacillates between that sincere, loathing revulsion and a genuine respect and admiration."
An intermittently interesting but overlong book that is not likely to make much of a buzz.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Winegard, Timothy C.: THE MOSQUITO." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2019. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A588726823/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=96a9a4c3. Accessed 12 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A588726823
The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
Publishers Weekly. 266.22 (June 3, 2019): p54.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
Timothy C. Winegard. Dutton, $28 (496p) ISBN 978-1-5247-4341-36
Winegard (The First World Oil War), a Colorado Mesa University history and political science professor, delivers an serviceable, Western-centric world history focused on the part played by mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease. He begins by introducing the Anopheles and Aedes species and the yellow fever and variants of malaria that they spread. Winegard then marches forward through history, highlighting events (generally wars) he sees as affected by the insects. When armies suffer enormous casualties due to disease, as they did in ancient Greece or colonial wars in the Caribbean, this connection is obvious and easily acceptable. Other connections are more tenuous, as when Winegard seems to give mosquitoes some credit for the Magna Carta. Further weak points include anthropomorphizing references to the subject which cast mosquitoes as mercenaries, generals, or allies in human conflicts, and occasional indulgence in alliteration ("a marshy morass and a minefield of malarial mosquitoes"). Winegard covers both major points, such as how 18th-century geopolitics were reshaped by the huge losses which malaria and yellow fever inflicted on European troops in the Americas, and trivia, such as Dr. Seuss's anti-mosquito propaganda for WWII GIs. Despite some flaws, this works as a reasonable general introduction to one miniscule animal's outsize effect on human history. Agent: Rick Broadhead, Rick Broadhead & Assoc. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator." Publishers Weekly, 3 June 2019, p. 54. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A588990743/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1357d530. Accessed 12 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A588990743
The First World Oil War
John Taylor
MBR Bookwatch. (Dec. 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
The First World Oil War
Timothy C. Winegard
University of Toronto Press
10 St. Mary Street, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4Y 2W8
www.utppublishing.com
9781487500733, $36.95, HC, 416pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Even in a post-industrial age, oil continues to a compelling source of wealth and economic opportunity. That also continues to make oil the root source of global conflict, toxicity and economic disparity in the 21st century. In the pages of "The First World Oil War", author Timothy Winegard reveals how and when oil first became such a powerful commodity during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the First World War.
Backed up by documented historical research, Winegard deftly argues that beginning with the First World War, it was oil that became the preeminent commodity to safeguard national security and promote domestic prosperity. For the first time in history, territory was specifically conquered to possess oil fields and resources; vital cogs in the continuation of the industrialized warfare of the Twentieth Century.
"The First World Oil War" is an original and pioneering study analyzes the evolution of oil as a catalyst for both war and diplomacy, and connects the events of the First World War to contemporary petroleum geo-politics and international aggression.
Critique: Exceptionally and impressively well written, "The First World Oil War" is highly recommended for both academia and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the role oil began (and continues) to play as a cause for national governments to go to war. Enhanced with the inclusion of illustrations, maps, tables, an appendix (Petroleum Situation in the British Empire, Admiral Sir Edmond J. W. Slade, 29 July 1918), forty-two pages of Notes, an eighteen page Bibliography, and an eighteen page Index, "The First World Oil War" is a seminal historical study that should be part of every community, college, and university library collection. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "The First World Oil War" is also available in a Kindle format ($22.99).
John Taylor
Reviewer
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Taylor, John. "The First World Oil War." MBR Bookwatch, Dec. 2016. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A475325296/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ddfedf18. Accessed 12 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475325296
Winegard, Timothy C.: The first world oil war
C.M. Henry
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 54.8 (Apr. 2017): p1245.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
54-3993
HD9560
CIP
Winegard, Timothy C. The first world oil war. Toronto, 2016. 385p bibl index afp ISBN 9781487500733 cloth, $36.95; ISBN 9781487511708 ebook, contact publisher for price
This book by a professional military historian documents the growing uses of oil for land, sea, and air operations in World War I, making it the "First World Oil War." The major consequence of this "industrialized war of attrition" on the western front is "oil imperialism." Winegard shows how after 1916, oil became not only a means but also an end, shaping British military campaigns and postwar diplomacy. He highlights little-known aspects of the war, such as Dunsterforce, a small, "hush-hush" band of elite volunteers tasked to defend or destroy Baku's oil installations. For the sake of oil, Britain also occupied Mosul two days after signing the Armistice of Mudros with the Ottomans, thereby expanding postwar Iraq. In his enthusiastic account of the marriage of war and oil, however, the author often exaggerates, conflating oil with other British wartime objectives, such as the defense of passage to India. The book is disorganized and repetitive and also replete with errors about the oil industry, such as Saudi Arabia's supplying 14 percent of America's oil by 1935, three years before oil was discovered there. Summing Up: * Optional. Faculty.--C. M. Henry, retired from the University of Texas at Austin
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Henry, C.M. "Winegard, Timothy C.: The first world oil war." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2017, p. 1245. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491257804/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=db2c4f77. Accessed 12 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491257804
April 16, 2018 by: LCMSDS in: Reviews No Comment
Timothy C. Winegard. The First World Oil War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. Pp. 416.
By Corbin Williamson, Air War College
This review appears in Canadian Military History Vol. 27 No. 1 (2018).
Timothy Winegard seeks to highlight the role of oil in shaping the First World War and the resulting peace arrangements by examining a little-known British military force sent to Baku, the capital of modern-day Azerbaijan, in 1918.[1] Drawing upon Australian, Canadian, and British sources, The First World Oil War argues that the war and its immediate aftermath created Anglo-American hegemony over world oil supplies.
The centenary of the First World War brought forward a number of works on the war, with a particular focus on the conflict’s origins. Christopher Clark’s Sleepwalkers (2013) and Thomas Otte’s July Crisis (2014) are two of the more prominent works.[2] Those authors who have dealt with the war’s legacies have focused on topics such as veterans and commemoration.[3] In contrast, Winegard highlights the war’s long-term geopolitical consequences by examining the struggle for oil supplies, which set in motion a number of contemporary challenges such as the heterogeneous origins of Iraq.
While oil did not cause the First World War, the author shows how oil already played an important role in advanced economies by 1914 and shaped wartime strategy and operations. The Royal Navy’s conversion from coal to oil for propulsion led Whitehall to acquire a controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Unlike coal, Britain had few native oil supplies and had to find reserves elsewhere. The First World War witnessed the first instance of military operations focused on seizing territory for the oil beneath it. The British incursion into Mesopotamia in 1914, for example, sought to secure Ottoman oil supplies in modern-day Iraq. Winegard notes that this pattern has continued to shape military plans such as Operation Blue, the German assault into the Caucasus in 1942.
The British sought to secure the oil fields of the Caucasus in the First World War, though without deploying a large force. Instead, Major General Lionel Dunsterville and 450 elite soldiers were sent to secure Baku’s oil fields on the western edge of the Caspian Sea. Baku accounted for roughly half of worldwide oil production at the turn of the century and in 1918 continued to produce oil on a large scale. Russia’s withdrawal from the war after the Bolsheviks began to seize power worried British leaders. Prior to their withdrawal, Russian forces in the Caucasus were linked with British forces in Mesopotamia and the Russian departure created a strategic vacuum into which the Germans or Ottomans might move. If Germany or the Ottoman Empire acquired the Caucasus’ resources, the crushing effects of the ongoing Allied economic blockade would be undermined. The Young Turks hoped that oil could resurrect the Ottoman Empire by uniting Turkic peoples throughout the Middle East. For their part, the Soviets wanted to secure the valuable oil reserves. Whoever controlled the Caucasus could threaten Persia and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s holdings. As a result, the Germans, British, Ottomans, and Soviets all “set their sights on the Caucasus,” especially the Baku oil fields, in 1918 (p. 41).
Winegard also demonstrates the critical role of Indian defence in British strategic planning. If German forces reached Persia, they would be in a position to assault the gateways to India, the crown jewel of the British Empire. While historians often treat the Middle East and South Asia as separate regions, Winegard shows that British leaders could not afford this luxury. They viewed the Middle East, the Suez Canal, and Egypt collectively as part of the western frontier that safeguarded India. Any growth in foreign influence in these areas weakened India’s security from the British perspective. The First World Oil War makes a valuable contribution by highlighting the mental map through which British officials viewed the region.
In response to these potential threats and the growing naval demands for oil, the British senior committee charged with oil policy determined in 1917 that Britain needed to take control “as much as possible” of global oil supplies (p. 101). The increasingly prominent place of oil as one of Britain’s strategic interests was captured in a key July 1918 paper prepared by the Navy’s oil expert Admiral Sir Edmund Slade, which is reproduced in an appendix. British officials also sought to arrange postwar British control of Middle Eastern oil fields and Prime Minister Lloyd George authorised the occupation of Mosul with the intention of retaining control of the region in any peace settlement.
As an initial step to securing the Caucasus, Dunsterville headed north from Baghdad in early 1918 with a small advance party. One of his missions was to mobilise irregular Armenian groups in the Caucasus which were already battling Ottoman forces in response to Turkish and Armenian atrocities in eastern Turkey. The wider region was home to a variety of ethnic groups, complicated by numerous external actors, whose disparate goals Winegard nicely summarises in a list (p. 130).
Dunsterville’s force, commonly referred to as Dunsterforce, relied heavily on experienced Canadian, Australian, and South African soldiers and initially reported directly to the War Cabinet, not the local commanding general. Initially, Dunsterville hoped to reach Baku in twelve days; however, internal squabbling and unforeseen setbacks meant it took seven months, from January to August 1918, for his force to arrive at its destination. During this delay, Ottoman forces launched an offensive into the Caucasus, which strained relations with their German allies who viewed operations against the British in Mesopotamia and Palestine as more important. In response, Germany reached a deal with Georgia, now threatened by Turkish forces, which gave Germany military access to Georgia. The Germans hoped to use Georgia as a springboard for their own offensive towards Baku. By July the Turks were within sight of the Baku oil fields, leading to a coup against the local Baku Bolshevik government. The coup leaders promptly invited Dunsterville into Baku where the Armenian population feared a Turkish occupation. The situation was complex: “The Germans armed the Georgians, while the Bolsheviks countered by arming Muslims in Abkhazia, Chechnya, and Ossetia to invalidate German territorial claims. The British equipped the Armenians to withstand the Turks, while the Turks funneled weapons only to the Muslims of Azerbaijan to eradicate the Armenians” (p. 199).
However, just as Dunsterville reached Baku, he undermined his position by slandering his superior in Baghdad and then evacuating Baku in the face of a Turkish attack. Winegard relates how the Ottomans allowed Azerbaijani troops to enter the city where they massacred thousands of the city’s Armenian inhabitants. Dunsterville was branded as a failure in the press and sent to India. After so much planning, preparation, and scheming, Dunsterforce turned out to be rather anticlimactic.
In the latter half of his book, Winegard surveys the role of oil in shaping the Versailles peace accords, specifically the British insistence on controlling Mesopotamia. He goes on to show the importance of oil in the creation of the state of Iraq during the 1920s. The work then highlights similarities between Britain’s interwar Middle East policy and current day American policies in the region. Both nations struggled to find military solutions to local insurgencies in Iraq while at the same time combating violence in Somalia and Syria. He also demonstrates how arrangements created between oil companies in the 1920s and 1930s continue to shape the modern oil market. He traces another link between the two periods, arguing that the Taliban’s ideological roots “date to the First World War and harken back to oil” (p. 267). The conclusion extends this contemporary focus, noting the role of oil in recent international events, while an epilogue highlights the importance of hydraulic fracturing on oil markets. Winegard convincingly demonstrates that the struggle for control of oil in the First World War and its immediate aftermath led to tensions and unresolved issues that still trouble the Middle East today.
Winegard effectively argues for a prominent role for oil in understanding the First World War and the resulting peace settlements. His use of the Dunsterforce to draw out these themes works on two levels: exploring this little-known piece of First World War military history expands our knowledge of the conflict and the force’s specific mission directly relates to the larger issues the author wishes to raise such as the ongoing competition for oil resources and oil as a source of conflict. The writing style is engaging and draws upon a number of personal accounts held privately to bring the narrative to life. This work is an important contribution to First World War history and is recommended for interested readers as well as undergraduate and graduate audiences.
Notes
[1] The views expressed in this academic research paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, or Air University.
[2] Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (New York: Harper, 2013); and Thomas Otte, July Crisis: The World’s Descent into War, Summer 1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
[3] For a useful survey see Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
Timothy C. Winegard. Dutton, $28 (496p) ISBN 978-1-5247-4341-3
Winegard (The First World Oil War), a Colorado Mesa University history and political science professor, delivers an adequate, Western-centric world history focused on the part played by mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease. He begins by introducing the Anopheles and Aedes species and the yellow fever and variants of malaria that they spread. Winegard then marches forward through history, highlighting events (generally wars) he sees as affected by the insects. When armies suffer enormous casualties due to disease, as they did in ancient Greece or colonial wars in the Caribbean, this connection is obvious and easily acceptable. Other connections are more tenuous, as when Winegard seems to give mosquitoes some credit for the Magna Carta. Further weak points include anthropomorphizing references to the subject which cast mosquitoes as mercenaries, generals, or allies in human conflicts, and occasional indulgence in alliteration (“a marshy morass and a minefield of malarial mosquitoes”). Winegard covers both major points, such as how 18th-century geopolitics were reshaped by the huge losses which malaria and yellow fever inflicted on European troops in the Americas, and trivia, such as Dr. Seuss’s anti-mosquito propaganda for WWII GIs. Despite some flaws, this works as a reasonable general introduction to one miniscule animal’s outsize effect on human history. Agent: Rick Broadhead, Rick Broadhead & Associates. (Aug.)
DETAILS
Reviewed on : 05/15/2019
Release date: 08/06/2019
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 464 pages - 978-0-7352-3579-3