Starting with the hiding and defence methods and with the tools developed by humans by using stones, wood and bones in order to protect themselves first from the wild animals and then from other human beings and then to hunt on their journey on earth, the experience of war has become diversified as its actors, its objectives, its means, and its methods have changed.

Originally started as the aim of small communities to protect themselves, world military history witnessed the concept of total war at the beginning of the 20th century. Military history/history of war, which has a direct or indirect influence on the political, economic, social, and technological developments and which deals with the development and change in defence and military institutions has become more and more noticeable day by day.

In our country, military history studies started in the same period with its contemporaries in Europe, as an official activity within the Ottoman Army during the First World War. In recent years, the subject of military history has increasingly attracted civilian academics and volunteers.

Since the aim of increasing professional skills of officers outweighed in the official studies on military history, which were started and carried out by “Erkân-ı Harbiyye-yi Umumiyye Riyasheti” (General Staff), “Erkân-ı Harbiyye School” (War Colleges) and “Mehteb-i Harbiyye” (Military Academies) during the Ottoman Period, the military history studies had been rather limited to the history of warfare/operations and thus collaboration with different disciplines had not often been done in these mentioned researches. This type of research involves direct combat and military operations, and focuses on the military forces of the parties, the causes and consequences of the conflict, management and administration of the operation and wars. However, military history emerges as a discipline that expands day by day and engages in human and social science studies such as sociology, economics, psychology, cultural studies, and gender studies.

This discipline includes, but not limited to, military organization history studying issues such as military education/training, recruitment systems, and the formation, operation, and transformation of military institutions; the history of military technology examining the warfare vehicles, equipment, and systems used; history of war and social relations evaluating issues such as the effects of wars and war organization on society; and the strategic thought/history of military doctrine examining the development and change of military concepts and doctrines.

Founding Purpose

The developments in the field of military history, which has started based on personal efforts and curiosity in recent years in our country, should be supported institutionally. In this context, Fatih Institute of Military History has been established within the Turkish National Defence University to ensure that research on history of warfare/military history is to be conducted systematically and continuously.

Designed as a research institute, Fatih Institute of Military History aims to cooperate with its peers around the world on issues such as conducting researches based on first-hand sources with the collaboration of civilian-military researchers in the fields of world and Turkish military history, printing and electronic publication of Turkish military history sources, and periodically organizing scientific events bringing together local and foreign researchers working in this field, organizing trips to battlefields and regions of war history, informing those concerned about the history of Turkish warfare, and developing printed and electronic teaching materials to support professional military education.