War, Diplomacy and Propaganda

Winning the war is never a solely military task as classical authors such as Niccolo Machiavelli or Carl von Clausewitz has long since argued. As the latter author insists, war as such is never an independent phenomenon and cannot become an aim in itself. They could not have however predicted the status which diplomacy and its efficient tool, propaganda, have reached in the subsequent centuries. The use of propaganda during the World War II was a real turning point in this respect: late in the war, when every arms-bearer was badly needed on the frontline, Joseph Goebbels requisitioned some 190,000 soldiers and sailors in order to play the battle scene of the obscure Kolberg Battle during the Napoleonic Wars. With the onset of the Cold War, propaganda really reached its climax: the black and white depiction of enemy, the complexity of strategies, tactics and means, the advance of technology, the dimension of the financial input, all were put into use by all sides for gaining the battle for minds and hearts. This issue of Valahian Journal of Historical Studies aims at improving our knowledge of the multidimensional relations which existed between war, diplomacy and propaganda during the 19th to the 21st centuries, i.e. the patterns of change, the depth and breadth of means and aims.

Topics encouraged:

• The literature concerning the interplay between war, diplomacy and propaganda
• The methodology of research concerning this issue
• Patterns of change and continuity
• War, diplomacy and propaganda during the Napoleonic Wars
• War, diplomacy and propaganda during late Nineteenth century wars
• War, diplomacy and propaganda during World War I
• War, diplomacy and propaganda during the 1930s
• War, diplomacy and propaganda during World War II
• War, diplomacy and propaganda during the Cold War
• War, diplomacy and propaganda at the start of the 21st century