Cameron Winter - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Cameron Winter
Journal of African Military History
The paper examines the repulse of fifteenth century Portuguese slave raids in the Senegambia by t... more The paper examines the repulse of fifteenth century Portuguese slave raids in the Senegambia by the armed forces of the empires of Great Jolof and Imperial Mali, within the context of the ongoing Military Revolution debate and with an emphasis on the military organization and weaponry deployed by both sides. Despite the claims of some historians about early European advantages in naval warfare, any such superiority on the part of the European vessels was not demonstrated in these encounters, with the war-canoes and poisoned arrows of the Jolof and Malian marines proving highly effective against the caravels, cannons, and crossbows of the Portuguese sailors. The African militaries of the Senegambia region were well-organized, well-disciplined, and more than capable of defeating European marauders. If Europeans did develop notable military advantages over West Africans in the sixteenth century, they had not yet begun to do so in the fifteenth.
In 1876 and 1879, the American and British armies suffered extremely similar disasters at, respec... more In 1876 and 1879, the American and British armies suffered extremely similar disasters at, respectively, the Battles of the Little Bighorn and Isandlwana. Though these two colonial reversals have often been compared to one another in passing, no serious comparative work on them has been done. This paper aims to change that, while placing both battles within the larger frameworks of their respective wars and arguing that it was the similarities in American and British perceptions of their Indigenous foes that led to the defeats at the Little Bighorn and Isandlwana, as well as the other difficulties that both campaigns encountered. It will be argued that both the American and the British battleplans relied upon the assumption that their enemies would flee from an army of white men and planned accordingly, a belief that led to catastrophic reversals when the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Zulu instead took offensive action. Only by overcoming this detrimental prejudice and adjusting their plans...
COLONIAL IDEAS, MODERN WARFARE: HOW BRITISH PERCEPTIONS AFFECTED THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE OTTOM... more COLONIAL IDEAS, MODERN WARFARE: HOW BRITISH PERCEPTIONS AFFECTED THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE OTTOMANS, 1914-1916 Cameron Winter Advisor: University of Guelph, 2017 Professor R Worringer This thesis is an investigation of British campaign against the Ottoman Sultanate during the first two years of WWI. Despite Britain’s purported superiority in all things military and technological, the Ottomans dealt the British several stinging reverses at the Dardanelles and in Mesopotamia, culminating in the capture of a British division at Kut. It is the argument of this thesis that these failures on the part of the British were the direct result of Britain’s colonialist attitudes towards Muslims, and that a reading of both the secondary literature and available primary materials demonstrates this thoroughly. By examining memoirs, diaries, cabinet documents and minutes of War Council meetings, it becomes clear that Lord Kitchener, Winston Churchill, Austen Chamberlain, and other British leaders s...
Canadian Journal of Autism Equity, 2021
Using the career of infamous Confederate General Braxton Bragg as a case study, this article pose... more Using the career of infamous Confederate General Braxton Bragg as a case study, this article poses questions about how we search for and discuss possible examples of Autistic people in history. The article contends that we need to reconsider what we hope to accomplish when posthumously diagnosing historical figures and the way in which those discussions are structured, cautioning against both the hunt for role models and the tendency towards defining people by their disability.
Journal of African Military History
The paper examines the repulse of fifteenth century Portuguese slave raids in the Senegambia by t... more The paper examines the repulse of fifteenth century Portuguese slave raids in the Senegambia by the armed forces of the empires of Great Jolof and Imperial Mali, within the context of the ongoing Military Revolution debate and with an emphasis on the military organization and weaponry deployed by both sides. Despite the claims of some historians about early European advantages in naval warfare, any such superiority on the part of the European vessels was not demonstrated in these encounters, with the war-canoes and poisoned arrows of the Jolof and Malian marines proving highly effective against the caravels, cannons, and crossbows of the Portuguese sailors. The African militaries of the Senegambia region were well-organized, well-disciplined, and more than capable of defeating European marauders. If Europeans did develop notable military advantages over West Africans in the sixteenth century, they had not yet begun to do so in the fifteenth.
In 1876 and 1879, the American and British armies suffered extremely similar disasters at, respec... more In 1876 and 1879, the American and British armies suffered extremely similar disasters at, respectively, the Battles of the Little Bighorn and Isandlwana. Though these two colonial reversals have often been compared to one another in passing, no serious comparative work on them has been done. This paper aims to change that, while placing both battles within the larger frameworks of their respective wars and arguing that it was the similarities in American and British perceptions of their Indigenous foes that led to the defeats at the Little Bighorn and Isandlwana, as well as the other difficulties that both campaigns encountered. It will be argued that both the American and the British battleplans relied upon the assumption that their enemies would flee from an army of white men and planned accordingly, a belief that led to catastrophic reversals when the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Zulu instead took offensive action. Only by overcoming this detrimental prejudice and adjusting their plans...
COLONIAL IDEAS, MODERN WARFARE: HOW BRITISH PERCEPTIONS AFFECTED THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE OTTOM... more COLONIAL IDEAS, MODERN WARFARE: HOW BRITISH PERCEPTIONS AFFECTED THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE OTTOMANS, 1914-1916 Cameron Winter Advisor: University of Guelph, 2017 Professor R Worringer This thesis is an investigation of British campaign against the Ottoman Sultanate during the first two years of WWI. Despite Britain’s purported superiority in all things military and technological, the Ottomans dealt the British several stinging reverses at the Dardanelles and in Mesopotamia, culminating in the capture of a British division at Kut. It is the argument of this thesis that these failures on the part of the British were the direct result of Britain’s colonialist attitudes towards Muslims, and that a reading of both the secondary literature and available primary materials demonstrates this thoroughly. By examining memoirs, diaries, cabinet documents and minutes of War Council meetings, it becomes clear that Lord Kitchener, Winston Churchill, Austen Chamberlain, and other British leaders s...
Canadian Journal of Autism Equity, 2021
Using the career of infamous Confederate General Braxton Bragg as a case study, this article pose... more Using the career of infamous Confederate General Braxton Bragg as a case study, this article poses questions about how we search for and discuss possible examples of Autistic people in history. The article contends that we need to reconsider what we hope to accomplish when posthumously diagnosing historical figures and the way in which those discussions are structured, cautioning against both the hunt for role models and the tendency towards defining people by their disability.