The Various Threats Facing British Battlefields. How successful have conservation measures been?

Inhaltsangabe oder Einleitung

This paper discusses the various threats facing British battlefields. The specific question is: How successful have conservation measures been?

There are countless historic battle sites at almost every location around the world, reaching back to the beginning of human history. Wherever these battles took place, they changed the course of history, albeit more or less significantly; military conflicts in general speed up the rate at which history is changed and made. They are relatively short windows in history in which developments, processes, and events that transpire in their aftermath culminate in the direct and indirect causes of respective military conflict. Once their outcomes are realised, those affected often face completely new facts and a changed reality. To a certain extent, this reality has a strong identity‐forming effect on the people who experience it. It also shapes the reality of future generations in a historiographic sense, because the knowledge of the events has been recorded and passed on, whether orally, in writing, or in another way. Of course, not all information that we have access to today is accurate or complete, as time and the initial accuracy of primary sources affects the nature of the information that has survived.

If one takes these considerations for granted and explores the issue more deeply, one comes to the conclusion that wars are, to a great extent, historically relevant as well as being fundamentally decisive in the formation of a national consciousness. The actions and warfare of their own people often heroized and sometimes heroized beyond recognition, hence the adage; “history is written by the winners”. Wars played an invaluable role in the development of peoples, precisely because they greatly influenced people's lives, behaviour, and perceptions; the war had a proverbially existential significance for them.