DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

 

LEVEL TWO UNDERGRADUATE MODULE

 

IP35320

 

WARFARE AFTER WATERLOO: MILITARY HISTORY 1815-1918

 

Module Convenor: Professor Martin S. Alexander

Edward Llwyd Building Room S2a (second floor)

E-mail: saa@aber.ac.uk

Tel. 01970- 622693

Internal UWA extension 2693

Office Hours: as posted (two per week)

Credit level: 20 credits

Military and Strategy Cyber HQ

 

ASSESSMENT

* One essay (2,500 words): worth 40 % of overall mark

* A 2-hour exam (unseen question paper), in which you must answer two questions from eight: worth 60 % of overall mark

 

 

LECTURE SCHEDULE

There are 2 lectures a week, for the first 8 weeks of the semester only

 

Lecture                        Subject

1          Legacies of Napoleon

(Areas of Study: Napoleon’s system of operational manoeuvres; how his opponents had eventually adapted to cope with him; guerrillas and ‘people’s war’ in the Napoleonic era; conscripts vs. professionals; the theories of Clausewitz)

 

 2 The Concert of Europe and Limited War: the Crimea

(Areas of Study: the ‘Concert of Europe’ and the practice of Limited War; the ‘Balance of Power’ and how to uphold it; were the British generals in the Crimea ‘Butchers and Bunglers’?; disease and the health of armies; impacts of new technologies; replay of Napoleonic war or foretaste of ‘modern’ war ?)

 

3 The Wars of German Unification 1864-71

(Areas of Study: the evolution of battle tactics as a result of new weapons; the Elder Moltke and the rise of the Prussian Great General Staff; German operational methods and the ‘kesselschlacht’; sources of Austrian and French weakness,1866/1870; ‘Volkskrieg’/People’s War in 1871)

 

4 The American Civil War 1861-65

(Areas of Study: amateurs at war and the problem of improvising mass citizen armies; the impact of railways; the effects of terrain; reasons for the move to a ‘raiding’ strategy; Confederate superior generalship versus Northern industrial muscle; attritional war: the strategies of U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman)

 

5 European Interventions in Africa & Colonial ‘Small Wars’

Lecture and film excerpt

(Areas of Study: Logistics problems in colonial campaigning; distance, disease and communications; limitations inherent in the Victorian concept of pacification, colonisation and ‘indirect rule’; weapons and tactics; the circumstances in which non-Europeans could win – case study: The Zulu War 1878-79)

 

6 Developments in Naval Warfare, 1815-1918

Two lectures

(Areas of Study: wooden walls to steel dreadnoughts: a revolution in shipbuilding; the rise of naval theorists – Mahan and Corbett; the ‘Jeune école’ in France and the debate on composition of fleets for winning and exercising sea-control; the rise and impact of torpedoes and submarines; armour versus big guns: naval arms races; naval bases, dockyards and coaling stations: navies and empires; Jutland – ‘missed opportunity’; trade defence in time of war: the U-Boat campaigns of 1915 and 1917 and the rediscovery of the convoy)

 

7 The Revolution in Armament, 1879-1914

(Areas of Study: role of the 2nd Industrial revolution and its impact on armaments development; specific developments in arms technology; impact of technology on logistics, communication and administration; implications for strategy and tactics; military reforms and the creation of professional general staffs)

 

8 Opening Moves in the Great War, August 1914

(Areas of Study: Anglo-French planning and strategy; expectations and realities of war in 1914; impact of technological and industrial development on warfare; ‘War by Timetable’; the problem of ammunition expenditure and re-supply; the ‘Race for the Sea’ and end of mobility)

 

9 Trenchlock on the Western Front, 1915-16: Douglas Haig and Tommy Atkins

Lecture, and video screening: ‘The Somme’

(Areas of Study: The phenomenon of ‘Trenchlock’; the development of mass civilian armies; the ‘Shell Shortage’ crisis; the rise of artillery; the persistence of ‘breakthrough’ strategic thinking and the realities of attrition; trench and artillery weapons development; assessing the Somme)

 

10 France’s War: ‘Aux armes, citoyens…’

(Areas of study: the spirit of the offensive and the weakness of French artillery; Joffre’s Plan XVII and the miscalculations of 1914; bearing the brunt: 1915; Verdun, 1916: ‘They Shall Not Pass!’; the failure of the Nivelle offensive and the French mutinies, 1917; new commanders, new techniques: Pétain, Estienne, Debeney, tanks and the Air Division: the restoration of French military effectiveness in 1918

 

11  The Entente’s Exhaustion, 1917

(Areas of Study: From Arras to Ypres; the power of defence; the development of modern deep battle and the operational ‘set-piece’ attack; changes in tactics and the creation of the platoon system; logistics and the ‘industralisation’ of war; the soldiers’ experience of war; assessing Cambrai)

 

12  The Kaiser’s Collapse, 1918

Lecture and video-screening

(Areas of Study; The Entente in defence and the problem of manpower; the German spring offensives; development in Entente command, control, co-operation and strategy; ‘The Yanks are coming’; The Entente bites back: July-August 1918; the development of the ‘symphony’ of all-arms co-operation; the restoration of mobility? – Sept.-Nov. 1918; Reflections on WW1 

 

The lectures are intended to raise certain issues, indicate areas of debate and interest, and major disagreements among historians  - generally to introduce you to the topic. They must be supplemented by your own reading.

 

ESSAYS

Each student must select ONE essay from the list below, and answer this for the assessed element of the module. The essay must be 8 sides of A4 paper (double-spaced, in 12 point font) i.e. approx. 2,500 words, in length. Remember to number the pages just before you print out !

 

Deadline for essay submission:  2.30 p.m. on TUESDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2003

 

All essays must be handed in to Rachel Galloway at the Department of International Politics General Office, Edward Llwyd Building.

 

Choose your essay sooner rather than later – this deadline is in Week 8. But an early start on a definite topic will help you space out your reading/note-taking. You will also benefit more from the lectures, and save yourself a “can’t find the books” panic-attack in weeks 7/8 (!)

 

Once your essay has been marked, you will receive tutor’s comments about content, argument style etc. on the standard Interpol Essay Comments pro-forma. You will not get the submitted copy of the essay back. Therefore ensure you keep another for yourself (a) to relate it to anything said in detail on the Tutor Comments Sheet and (b) to help you revise later for the exam.

 

 

              ESSAY QUESTIONS:

 

1.                        Did changing technology or deeper thinking about sea-power have the greater impact on navies and naval warfare, c. 1815-1905?

 

2.                        Assess the parts played by the rival recruiting systems, command and staff structures, technology, and tactics in explaining Prussia’s defeats of Austria (1866) and France (1870)

 

3.                        Explain why the battles of the American Civil War (1861-65) were generally indecisive

 

4.                        Why did ‘Western’ armies periodically suffer embarrassing operational defeats against non-European native peoples, c. 1860-1899, but still tend to win the wars ?

 

5.                        How far did the Second Anglo-Boer War  (1899-1902) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) offer sight of fundamental shifts in the nature of wars ?

 

6.                        How close to success did the Schlieffen Plan come in 1914?

 

7.                        Was the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaign of 1915 a good idea badly executed, or a poor idea in the first place – and why ?

 

8.                        What went wrong with the British plan for a great triumph on the Somme in July 1916?

 

9.                        Did the allies win the war on the Western Front in the autumn of 1918 – or did the Germans lose it ?

 

10.                ‘Navies hugely disappointed the powers that had invested in them most heavily.’ Discuss with particular reference to the 1916 Battle of Jutland and the 1917 German U-Boat offensive

 

 

SEMINARS

These run FORTNIGHTLY for each group, and last 90 minutes each time. Students prepare for the seminars by working in 3-4 person ‘syndicates’ out of class hours on pre-assigned topics. (Each seminar group thus normally consists of 3 or 4 ‘syndicates’).

 

Every syndicate chooses a member as its ‘rapporteur’ (changing this nominee from one seminar to the next). The rapporteur must pre-circulate to the tutor and every student in his/her seminar group a 1-side bullet-point ‘summary presentation’ as an e-mail attachment. The rapporteur will have about 4 minutes to present the summary to the seminar, to prompt questions, disagreements (!) and discussion.

 

Making these presentations is a very important part of developing your ‘transferable skills’ for life/work after university. Try to enhance them with maps, an OHP diagram, a handout for other class-members, or even use a short video-clip in support of your points. 

 

Topics for the fortnightly seminars are:

 

SEMINAR ONE (Legacies of Napoleonic warfare)

a)      Command, operational systems, tactics

b)      Manning the military: army and navy recruitment

c)       Strategic thought: Clausewitz – ‘Absolute’ war vs. ‘Real’ war; war’s political purpose; the ‘Paradoxical Trinity’; the People in Arms

d)     Logistics and Intelligence: the Cinderellas of military organisations… and of military history?

 

SEMINAR TWO (Mid-19th Century Warfare)

a)      Organising for War: general staffs, conscription and fortifications

b)      The industrialisation of war: telegraphs, steamships, railways, rifles

c)       The Crimea (1854-56) and Wars of German Unification

d)      The American Civil War, 1861-65

 

SEMINAR THREE (Between sport and slaughter: armies and navies in ‘Britannia’s heyday’, 1871-1914)

a)      European Armies and the ‘Native Encounter’ (Case Study: The Zulu War, 1878-79)

b)      The Leverage of Sea Power and the emergence of maritime strategic thought (Mahan & Corbett)

c)       Things to Come? The Boer War (1899-1902) and Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)

d)      Clash of Arms: The Battle of the Frontiers, Aug-Sept. 1914

 

SEMINAR FOUR (Towards Total War: The Western Front, 1914-18)

a)      ‘Trenchlock’ and modern siege warfare: the supply/transport conundrum

b)      Elan vital vs. Stormtroops?  French & German approaches to winning on the Western Front

c)       ‘Who’s in charge here?’ Command, control and communications

d)      Battle tactics and the ascent of the ‘learning curve’: Arras, Messines and Ypres, April-November 1917

 

SEMINAR FIVE (Towards Total War: “Sideshows” and Sea Warfare)

a)      ‘Forgotten’ Allied victory: the Western Front, July-Nov. 1918

b)      The attractions of the Indirect Approach: Was Gallipoli a good idea badly executed, or a poor idea in the first place?

c)       Why did the British public and R.N. officers feel so disappointed by the outcome of the Battle of Jutland (1916)?

d)      How serious a threat to Britain was the 1917 German U-Boat offensive, and why?

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pressure on books can sometimes be intense. Plan your reading with this in mind. The Hugh Owen Library will not hold all the titles listed; you will have to use the National Library of Wales and Inter-Library Loan. Demand means that you may not be able to obtain a book precisely when you want it. Do not imagine that in the week prior to essay submission, all the books will be available – THEY WON’T ! You need to plan ahead and start reading for your essay early in the semester. Work and take notes steadily towards it. Don’t leave it till the week before the submission deadline ! If you experience problems locating a text listed here you should seek help from the appropriate specialist staff in the Hugh Owen Library – Meirion Derrick (meirion.derrick@aber.ac.uk) and Judy Lile (jvl@aber.ac.uk).

 

You should strongly consider purchasing some of the general books, as well as significant books for your essay and seminar presentation(s). An inexpensive way of doing this is to operate within your ‘syndicates’. Each syndicate, not each student, can then buy several books on a pooled-funds basis. Agree which books you will buy in yours, add up the cost and work out the required contribution from each member. Thus 3 or 4 students can buy half a dozen specialist books quite cheaply between them.

 

 

WEB-SITES – A WARNING

These are numerous in most fields of military history – and especially plentiful concerning the American Civil War (1861-65). That is a subject which in the USA still arouses fierce passions and the taking of sides. Be especially wary of the ‘ulterior motives’ of many ACW sites if you go ‘surfing’. In general, many web-sites are highly dubious, unreliable or set up to promote partial views and “carry the torch” for certain causes and myths. They should carry an “academic health warning”! You must be even more discriminating and critical in using the web than when using books and articles in scholarly journals…

 

Anyone with web-authoring software can register a domain name and create their own site… on any subject. These do NOT go through the quality filter of pre-publication “peer-review” or “academic refereeing” that protects standards in scholarly books and articles. It’s therefore a “Virtual No-Man’s-Land” out there, heavily mined and booby-trapped, and likely to cause academic casualties among inexperienced military history students.

 

There are, however, some good sites on the First World War (1914-18) and examples include:-

 

The Canadian Armed Forces College guide: http://www.cfcsc.dnd.ca/links/milhist/wwi.html

 

Tom Morgan’s ‘Hellfire Corner’ site: http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/welcome.htm

 

The Imperial War Museum site: http://www.iwm.org.uk

 

The Australian War Memorial site: http://www.awm.gov.au

 

              The Western Front Association site: http://www.westernfront.co.uk

 

Nevertheless always cross-check the information, arguments and ’line’ with what’s in books and learned journal articles on the same subject. In time, and with your increasing knowledge, you will become adept at judging the strengths, weaknesses -- and sometimes downright tendentiousness -- of web-sites you decide to ‘hit’.

 

Finally, you may find it useful to visit my own site, one part of which consists of scores of links to other military history and defence policy sites:  Military and Strategic History Cyber HQ’ at http://users.aber.ac.uk/rbh/strategy/

 

 

SCHOLARLY JOURNALS

 

If you are not yet familiar with journals, rectify this NOW ! They are an essential tool. Often an article is an entirely legitimate ‘short-cut’ to the heart of a major new interpretation of an issue or controversy. Articles also typically form the first outlet for crucial new research findings; or are where major new documentation freshly released from archives is made available.

 

Some common uses of articles by social science/humanities academics:-

 

·            ‘Trailing’ or heralding in 20-30 pages a forthcoming book that has been years in the making and will soon be published -- a way for you to get a ‘preview’ of the rethinking of a problem or historical episode.

·            An article may appear after the publication of a major book – in which case they sometimes summarise the larger work in a convenient, digestible, 20-30 pages.

·            Articles sometimes are written to bring to light facets of the research that would not ‘fit’ logically within the framework adopted for the book

·            Articles publish research that would have seen a book greatly exceed the word-length insisted on by the author’s publisher!

 

So – for all these reasons – it is ESSENTIAL you familiarise yourself (if you have not already) with the main journals in the field of your studies. The abbreviations below indicate the main ones used in this module.

 

 

Abbreviations of titles of journals in this Module Handbook:-

 

INS = Intelligence and National Security (Publisher: Frank Cass)

JCH = Journal of Contemporary History (Publisher: Sage)

JMilH = The Journal of Military History (Publisher: George C. Marshall Foundation/Virginia Military Institute)

JSS = Journal of Strategic Studies (Publisher: Frank Cass)

WH = War in History (Publisher: Arnold/Hodder-Headline)

 

 

‘TEXTBOOKS’, AND ‘ESSENTIAL’ vs. ‘RECOMMENDED’ reading – some guidance:

 

Re: “textbooks”, for any one topic/seminar or essay, use ONE to gain familiarity with the issues, with ‘what happened/when’, with the elementary ‘who was who’ of commanders etc.  You might spend, typically, a half-day laying the groundwork and gaining understanding and a sense of the chronology from your preferred ‘textbook’.  Then move straight on to as much of the specialist books and articles as you can manage. DO NOT USE MORE THAN ONE ‘TEXTBOOK’ PER SEMINAR OR ESSAY.

 

              In each section of the Bibliography below, a small number of works are marked ‘E’ (ESSENTIAL) – the rest are all ‘R’ category (strongly RECOMMENDED). Be aware that the readings in this handbook constitute only a tiny, selected fraction of the good scholarly work published on each topic. Do not, therefore, make the mistake of thinking that ‘this is a lot’ -- still less that ‘this is IT’ !

 

For SEMINARS, you should read at least part of all (or nearly all) ESSENTIAL works; for your essay topic, you need IN ADDITION to draw from and familiarise yourself with half a dozen more books and/or articles from the RECOMMENDED items on that section of the Bibliography.

 

It is simple: READ AS MUCH AND AS WIDELY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN, AND START READING/NOTE-TAKING AS SOON AS THE MODULE BEGINS.

 

 

 

1)         The Legacies of Napoleonic Warfare

 

E:

MacGregor Knox, ‘Mass politics and nationalism as military revolution: The French Revolution and after’, ch. 4 in MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (Cambridge UP, 2001), 57-73

John Gooch, Armies in Europe (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), chs. 2-6

Paddy Griffith, Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to the Near-Future (2nd edn, Novato, CA: Presidio, 1991)

Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (London: Routledge: 1983 and pb. reprints to date)

Christon I Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger Herwig & Tim Travers, A World History of Warfare (Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2002)

 

 

R:

Charles Townshend (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War (Oxford UP, 1997), esp. chs. 4-5

Paddy Griffith, The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789-1802 (London: Greenhill, 1998)

Philip J. Haythornthwaite, The Napoleonic Sourcebook (London: Arms & Armour, 1991; pb. reprint 1995), esp. Section II: ’Weapons and the Practice of War’, 70-122

William McElwee, The Art of War: Waterloo to Mons (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974)

Geoffrey Parker, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare (Cambridge UP, 1995)

Alvin Bernstein & MacGregor Knox (eds), The Making of Strategy. Rulers, States and War (Cambridge UP, 1994)

Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton UP, 1986)

Carl von Clausewitz (ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret), On War (Princeton UP, 1976)

Michael Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford UP, 1983)

 

 

 

2)         Nineteenth Century themes

 

E:

Geoffrey Wawro, Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792-1914 (London: Routledge, 1999)

David Gates, Warfare in the Nineteenth Century (Harlow: Longman, 2001)

Martin van Creveld, The Art of War. War and Military Thought (London: Cassell, 2000), chs. 4, 5 and 6

idem, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge UP, 1977)

idem, Technology in War from 2000 BC to the Present (London, 1991)

Kenneth Macksey, Technology and War: The Impact of Science on Weapon Development and Modern Battle (London, 1986)

John A. Lynn (ed.), Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present (Boulder & London: Westview, 1993), esp. chs. 1 & 2,  9 &10

Jeremy Black (ed.), European Warfare 1815-2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002)

Edward M. Spiers, The Army and Society, 1815-1914 (London, 1980)

Daniel Moran (ed.), The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilisation since the French Revolution (Cambridge U.P., 2003)

 

 

R:

Geoffrey Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe, 1770-1870 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1998), esp. ch. 12 and chs. 15-24

Brian Bond, War and Society in Europe, 1870-1970 (Fontana, 1984)

Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, The Army in Victorian Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977)

Christopher Bartlett, Peace, War and the European Powers, 1814-1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan)

Joseph Sinclair, Arteries of War. A History of Military Transportation (Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1992), esp. chs. 1, 2, 4, 5

Dennis E. Showalter, ‘Prussia, Technology and War: Artillery from 1815 to 1918’, in Ronald Haycock and Keith Neilson (eds.), Men, Machines and War (Waterloo, ONT: Wilfrid Laurier U.P., 1989), 115-151

Hew Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy: The Reform of the British Army, 1830-1854 (Manchester UP, 1985)

Paddy Griffith, Military Thought in the French Army, 1815-1851 (Oxford UP, 1989)

Brian Bond, The Victorian Army and the Staff College (London: 1972)

M. A. Ramsay, Command and Cohesion. The Citizen Soldier and Minor Tactics in the British Army, 1870-1918 (New York: Praeger, 2002)

 

 

 

3)         The Russian or ‘Crimean’ War (1854-56)

E:

Andrew Lambert, ‘Preparing for the Russian War: British strategic planning, March 1853-March 1854’, War & Society vol. 7:2 (Sept. 1989), 15-39

idem, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1855-1856 (Manchester UP, 1990)

Hew Strachan, ‘Soldiers, strategy and Sebastopol’, Historical Journal XXI:2 (1978), 303-25

Winfried Baumgart, The Crimean War, 1853-1856 (2000)

Trevor Royle, Crimea. The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856 (London: Little, Brown & Co., 1999)

Paul Kerr, The Crimean War (Basingstoke: Boxtree/Macmillan, 1997)

Robert B. Edgerton, Death or Glory. The Legacy of the Crimea (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999)

 

R:

Alan Palmer, The Banner of Battle: The Crimean War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987)

Frederick W. Kagan, The Military Reforms of Nicholas I: The Origins of the Modern Russian Army (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999)

David M. Goldfrank, The Origins of the Crimean War (Harlow: Longman, )

John Sweetman, Raglan: From the Peninsula to the Crimea (London, 1993)

idem, Balaclava (London: 1990)

William C. Fuller, Jr., Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600-1914 (New York: Free Press, 1992), chs. 5, 6, 7

R. H. G. Thomas, The Russian Army in the Crimean War 1854-56 (1991)

Brison D. Gooch, The New Bonapartist Generals in the Crimean War. Distrust and Decision-Making in the Anglo-French Alliance (The Hague: Martinus Niijhoff, 1959)

 

 

 

4)         The Wars of German Unification (1864-71)

E:

Dennis E. Showalter, Railroad and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology and the Unification of Germany (1975)

idem, ‘The Prusso-German RMA, 1840-1871’, ch. 6 in Knox and Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (CUP 2001), 92-113

William Carr, The Origins of the Wars of German Unification (Harlow: Longman, 1995 )

Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 (Cambridge UP, 1996)

Scott Lackey, ‘The Habsburg Army and the Franco-Prussian War: The Failure to Intervene and its Consequences’, WH 2:2 (July 1995), 151-179

Arden Bucholz, Moltke and the German Wars, 1864-1871 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2001)

Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War. The German Invasion of France, 1870-1871 (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961; reprinted with a new Intro. as a Routledge pb., Sept. 2001)

 

R:

Lothar Gall, Bismarck: The White Revolutionary. Vol. I, 1815-1871 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1976)

Gordon A. Craig, Königgratz, 1866 (1966)

Dennis E. Showalter, ‘Army and Society in Imperial Germany: The Pains of Modernization’, JCH 18 (1983), 583-618

Richard Holmes, The Road to Sedan. The French Army, 1866-1870 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer/Royal Historical Society, 1984)

Thomas J. Adriance, The Last Gaiter Button: A study of the mobilization and concentration of the French army in the war of 1870 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1987)

David Ascoli, A Day of Battle. Mars-la-Tour, 16 August 1870 (London: Harrap, 1987; and Birlinn Books reprint, 2001)

Robert Tombs, The Paris Commune, 1871 (Harlow: Pearson, 1999)

idem, The War against Paris, 1871 (Cambridge UP, 1981)

Stig Forster and Jörg Nagler (eds.), On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861-1871 (Cambridge UP, 1997)

 

 

5)                        The American Civil War, 1861-65

E:

Reid Mitchell, The American Civil War 1861-65 (Harlow: Pearson, 2001)

Brian Holden Reid, The American Civil War and the Wars of the Industrial Revolution (London: Cassell, 1999)

Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1989)

Gary W. Gallagher, The American Civil War. The War in the East, 1861-May 1863 (Oxford: Osprey, 2001)

David Kirkpatrick, ‘Slow Train to Vicksburg: the Confederate capability for strategic reinforcement in 1863’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 142:4 (Aug. 1997), 76-81

Russell F. Weigley, A Great Civil War. A Military and Political History, 1861-1865 (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000)

Peter J. Parish, The American Civil War (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1975), Chs. V, VI, VII, X, XI, XII, XV, XVIII

Eric T. Dean, Jr., ‘The Awful Shock and Rage of Battle: Rethinking the Meaning and Consequences of Combat in the American Civil War’, WH 8:2 (April 2001), 149-165

Grady McWhiney & Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (Tuscaloosa, AL: Univ. of Alabama Press, 1972 – reprinted 1982 & 1988)

Mark Grimsley, ‘Surviving Military Revolution: The US Civil War’, ch. 5 in Knox and Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution (CUP, 1971), 74-91

 

R:

Susan-Mary Grant and Brian Holden Reid (eds.), The American Civil War: Explorations and Reconsiderations (Harlow: Pearson, 2000)

Brian Holden Reid, Training, Tactics and Leadership in the Confederate Army of Tennessee: The Seeds of Failure (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom. The Civil War Era (Oxford UP, 1988 & Ballantine Books)

Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988/1992)

Andrew Haughton, Training, Tactics and Leadership in the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Seeds of Failure (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

Steven E. Woodworth, Davis and Lee at War (Lawrence, KS: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1995)

Gabor S. Boritt (ed.), Jefferson Davis’s Generals (Oxford UP, 1999)

Philip Katcher, The Army of Robert E. Lee (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1994)

 

There’s a wealth of evocative & revealing first-hand accounts of the ACW in editions of contemporary Union and Confederate rankers’ diaries and correspondence. Well worth ‘reading in’ are:-

William C. Davis (ed.), Diary of a Confederate Soldier: John S. Jackman of the Orphan Brigade (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1990)

William Gilfillan Gavin (ed.), Infantryman Pettit. The Civil War Letters of Corporal Frederick Pettit (New York: Avon Books, 1990)

W. Springer Menge and J. August Shimrak (eds.), The Civil War Notebook of Daniel Chisholm. A Chronicle of Daily Life in the Union Army, 1864-1865 (New York: Orion Books, 1989)

Emil & Ruth Rosenblatt (eds.), Hard Marching Every Day. The Civil War Letters of Private Wilbur Fisk, 1861-1865 (Lawrence, KS: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1992)

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (Penguin – a great novel of the war by a journalist, made into a 1950s Hollywood movie starring Audi Murphy)

 

 

6)                        Colonial Warfare: European-Native Encounters

E:

Bruce Vandervort, Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830-1914 (London: UCL Press/Taylor & Francis, 1998)

Philip J. Haythornthwaite, The Colonial Wars Sourcebook (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1995)

Brian Bond, Victorian Military Campaigns (London: Hutchinson, 1967)

Howard Whitehouse, Battle in Africa, 1879-1914 (Camberley: Field Books, 1987)

Donald R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965 & reprints)

Ian Knight, Brave Men’s Blood: The Epic of the Zulu War 1879 (1990)

Ian Knight and Ian Castle, Isandlwana: Zulu War  and  idem, Rorke’s Drift: Zulu War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 2001)

John P. C. Laband (ed.), Lord Chelmsford’s Zulu Campaign, 1878-79 (Stroud: Alan Sutton/Army Records Society, 1994)

 

 

R:

Lawrence James, The Savage Wars: British Campaigns in Africa, 1870-1920 (London: Robert Hale, 1985)

Douglas Porch, Wars of Empire (London: Cassell, 2000)

Byron Farwell, Queen Victoria’s Little Wars (New York: W.W. Norton, 1972)

Adrian Greaves & Brian Best (eds.), The Curling Letters of the Zulu War: ‘There Was Awful Slaughter’ (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 2001)

Edward M. Spiers (ed.), Sudan: The Reconquest Reappraised  (London: Frank Cass, 1998)

John Meredith, Omdurman Diaries 1898. Eye-Witness accounts of the Legendary Campaign (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books)

David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860-1940 (London: Macmillan, 1994)

David B. Ralston, Importing the European Army: The Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions to the Extra-European World, 1600-1914 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1990)

Philip D. Curtin, Disease and Empire: The Health of European Troops in the Conquest of Africa (Cambridge UP, 1998)

 

 

7)         The Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902)

E:

Bill Nasson, The South African War, 1899-1902 (London: Arnold, 1999)

idem, ‘Waging Total War in South Africa: Some Centenary Writings on the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902’, JMilH 66:3 (July 2002), pp. 813-828

Stephen M. Miller, Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption in South Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1999)

Field-Marshal Lord Carver, The National Army Museum Book of the Boer War (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1999 & Pan pb., 2000)

Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (London: Weidenfeld, 1979)

Donal Lowry (ed.), The South African War Reappraised (Manchester UP, 2000)

 

 

R:

Keith Wilson (ed.), The International Impact of the Boer War (Chesham: Acumen, 2001)

Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey (eds.), The Boer War: Army, Nation and Empire. The 1999 Chief of Army/Australian War Memorial Military History Conference (Canberra: Army History Unit, 2000)

David Omissi and Andrew Thompson (eds.), The Impact of the South African War, 1899-1902 (London: Palgrave, 2002)

John Gooch (ed.), The Boer War: Direction, Experience and Image (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

Deneys Reitz, Commando. A Boer Journal of the Boer War (London: The Folio Society, 1982)

Martin Cassidy, The Inniskilling Diaries 1899-1903 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 2001)

André Wessels (ed.), Lord Roberts and the War in South Africa, 1899-1902 (Stroud: Alan Sutton/Army Records Society, 2000)

Keith T. Surridge, Managing the South African War, 1899-1902: Politicians versus Generals (London: Aldgate, 1998)

Fransjohan Pretorius (ed.), Scorched Earth (Capetown: Human and Rousseau, 2001)

 

 

 

 

 

 

8)         Wooden Walls to Dreadnoughts: developments in navies and naval power, 1815-1914

E:

Ch. 6 ‘Naval Warfare’, in Martin van Creveld, The Art of War. War and Military Thought  (London: Cassell, 2000), 146-159

Lawrence Sondhaus, Naval Warfare, 1815-1914 (London: Routledge, 2000)

Holger H. Herwig, ‘Luxury Fleet’: The Imperial German Navy, 1888-1918 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1980)

idem, ‘The Battlefleet Revolution, 1880-1914’, Ch. 7 in M. Knox and W. Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution (CUP, 2001), pp. 114-131

Donald M. Schurman, The Education of a Navy. The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867-1914 (London: Cassell, 1965), ch. 4 ‘The American: Admiral Alfred Mahan’ pp. 60-82; ch. 7 ‘Civilian Historian: Sir Julian Corbett’, pp. 147-84

 

R:

Richard Harding, Seapower and Naval Warfare, 1650-1830 (London: UCL Press/Taylor & Francis, 1999)

R. Gardiner (ed.), Steam, Steel and Shellfire, 1815-1905 (London, 1992)

Andrew Lambert, Battleships in Transition: the creation of the steam battlefleet, 1815-1860 (London, 1984)

J. R. Hill, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy (Oxford UP, 1995)

C. I. Hamilton, Anglo-French Naval Rivalry, 1840-1870 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)

Holger H. Herwig, ‘The Influence of A.T. Mahan upon German Sea Power’, ch. 6; & John H. Maurer, ‘Mahan, World Politics and Naval Rivalries, 1904-1914’, ch. 13, both in John B. Hattendorf (ed.), The Influence of History on Mahan. The Proceedings of a Conference marking the centenary of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s ‘Influence of Sea Power upon History’ (Newport, RI: US Naval War College Press, 1991), pp. 67-80 and 157-76

Donald M. Schurman, Julian S. Corbett, 1854-1922: Historian of British maritime Policy from Drake to Jellicoe (London: Royal Historical Society, 1981)

Mark R. Shulman, Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Power, 1882-1893 (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1995)

Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Allen Lane, 1976)

Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy. Financial Limitation, Technological Innovation and British Naval Policy, 1889-1914 (London: Routledge, 1989)

Jonathan Steinberg, Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battlefleet. Yesterday’s Deterrent (London: MacDonald, 1965)

Peter Overlack, ‘German Commerce Warfare Planning for the Australian Station, 1900-1914’, War & Society 14:1 (May 1996)

 

 

 

 

9)         The Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)

E:

Ian Nish, The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War (Harlow: Longman, 1985)

David Walder, The Short Victorious War. The Russo-Japanese Conflict, 1904-5 (London: Hutchinson, 1973)

Mark R. Peattie & David C. Evans, ‘Sato Tetsutaro and Japanese Strategy’, Naval History (Fall 1990), 34-39 (Copy available to consult from Martin Alexander)

 

R:

J. N. Westwood, The Illustrated History of the Russo-Japanese War (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973)

William C. Fuller, Jr., Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia, 1881-1914 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1985)

Eric Grove, Big Fleet Actions. Tsushima – Jutland – Philippine Sea (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1995), chs. 1 & 2

 

 

 

10)      War Plans, Things to Come and the approach to World War I

E:

Stig Förster, ‘Facing “People’s War”: Moltke the Elder and Germany’s Military Options after 1871’, JSS 10 (1987), 209-30

Maureen P. O’Connor, ‘The Vision of Soldiers: Britain, France, Germany and the United States observe the Russo-Turkish War [1877-78]’, WH 4:3 (July 1997), 264-295

Gary C. Cox, ‘Of Aphorisms, Lessons and Paradigms: Comparing the British and German Official Histories of the Russo-Japanese War’, JMilH 56 (1992), 389-401

Paul M. Kennedy (ed.), The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1979)

Brian Bond, ‘Doctrine and Training in the British Cavalry, 1870-1914’, in Michael E. Howard (ed.), The Theory and Practice of War. Essays presented to Captain B.H. Liddell Hart (London: Cassell, 1965)

Tim Travers, ‘The Offensive and the problem of innovation in British military thought, 1870-1915’ JCH 13 (1978), 531-53

Arden Bucholz, Moltke, Schlieffen and Prussian War Planning (Oxford: Berg, 1991)

Gunther E. Rothenberg, ‘Moltke, Schlieffen and the Doctrine of Strategic Envelopment’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavellli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton UP, 1986), 296-325

Holger H. Herwig, ‘From Tirpitz Plan to Schlieffen Plan: some thoughts on German military planning’, JSS  IX (1986), 53-63

Dennis E. Showalter, ‘From Deterrence to Doomsday Machine: The German Way of War, 1890-1914’, JMilH 64:3 (July 2000), 679-710

Annika Mombauer, ‘A Reluctant Military Leader? Helmuth von Moltke and the July Crisis of 1914’, WH 6:4 (July 1999), 417-46

 

 

 

R:

Ian Drury, The Russo-Turkish War, 1877 (London: Osprey, 1994)

Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth trans. E. Wilson (London: Praeger, 1958)

Terence Zuber, ‘The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered’, WH 6 (1999), 6:2 (1999), 262-305

Terence M. Holmes, ‘The Reluctant March on Paris: A reply to Terence Zuber’s “The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered”’, WH 8:2 (April 2001), 208-232

Terence Zuber, ‘Terence Holmes Reinvents the Schlieffen Plan’, WH 8:4 (2001), 468-476

Terence M. Holmes, ‘The Real Thing: A Reply to Terence Zuber’s “Terence Holmes Reinvents the Schlieffen Plan’, WH 9:1 (Jan. 2002), 111-120

Daniel J. Hughes, The King’s Finest: A Social and Bureaucratic Profile of Prussia's General Officers, 1871-1914 (New York: Praeger, 1987)

Eric Dorn Brose, The Kaiser’s Army. The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870-1918 (Oxford UP, 2001)

Scott W. Lackey, The Rebirth of the Habsburg Army: Friedrich Beck and the Rise of the General Staff (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995)

W.S. Hamer, The British Army and civil-military relations, 1885-1905 (Oxford UP, 1970)

John Gooch, The Plans of War. The General Staff and British Military Strategy, c. 1900-1916 (London: Routledge, 1974)

Jeremy Black, Warfare in the Western World, 1882-1975 (Chesham: Acumen, 2002)

D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983)

Peter Gatrell, Government, Industry and Rearmament in Russia, 1900-1914. The Last Argument of Tsarism (Cambridge UP, 1994)

John Bushnell, ‘The Tsarist Officer Corps, 1881-1914: Customs, Duties, Inefficiencies’, American Historical Review 86 (1981), 753-780

Gerd Krumeich, Armaments and Politics in France on the Eve of the Fist World War. The Introduction of Three-Year Conscription 1913-1914 (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1984)

David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War. Europe, 1904-1914 (Oxford UP, 1996)

David G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton UP, 1996)

Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912-1913. Prelude to the First World War (London: Routledge, 2000)

Manfred M. Boemeke, Roger Chickering, Stig Förster (eds.), Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999)

Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War, 1914 (London: UCL Press, 1995)

Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge U.P., 2001)

Daniel J. Hughes, ‘Schlichting, Schlieffen and the Prussian Theory of War in 1914’ JMilH 59 (1995), 257-77

 

 

 

11)                The First World War

 

A)  General:

E:

Gerard J. DeGroot, The First World War (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2001)

Ian F. W. Beckett, The Great War 1914-18 (Harlow: Pearson, 2001)

Martin Gilbert, Atlas of World War I. The Complete History (New York: Oxford UP, 1994)

Arthur Banks, A Military Atlas of the First World War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 2001)

Michael Howard, ‘British Grand Strategy in W.W.I’, in Paul M. Kennedy (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace (Yale UP, 1991), 31-41

idem, ‘The Great War’, The National Interest no. 64 (2001), accessible on-line at: http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/64/howard.html

John Gooch, ‘Soldiers, Strategy and War Aims in Britain, 1914-1918’, in Barry Hunt & Adrian Preston (eds.), War Aims and Strategic Planning in the Great War (London: Croom Helm, 1977)

Jere Clemens King (ed.), The First World War (New York: Walker and Co., 1972), esp. chs. I, V, VII, IX

 

 

 

 

R:

Jay Winter et al. (eds.), The Great War and the Twentieth Century (London Yale U.P., 2001)

Spencer C. Tucker, The Great War, 1914-1918  (London: UCL Press, 1998)

Roger Chickering & Stig Forster (eds.), Great War, Total War. Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (CUP, 2000)

Hew Strachan, The First World War vol. 1 (Oxford UP, 2000)

Lee Kennett, The First Air War, 1914-1918 (New York: Free Press, 1991)

John H. Morrow, Jr., The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation, 1909-21 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993)

 

 

B)         Land war aspects & campaigns

E:

Michael E. Howard, ‘Men against Fire: The Doctrine of the Offensive in 1914’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton UP, 1986), 510-526

Stephen Van Evera, ‘The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War’, International Security 9 (1984), 397-419

Jonathan B. A. Bailey, ‘The First World War and the birth of modern warfare'’, in MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2001), Ch. 8, 132-153

Gary D. Sheffield, The Somme (London: Cassell, 2003)

John Terraine, White Heat. The New Warfare, 1914-1918 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1982)

Allan R. Millett & Williamson Murray (eds.), Military Effectiveness. Vol. I: The First World War (London & Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1988)

 

 

R:

Ed Skelding and Michael Stedman, Great Battles of the Great War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 2000)

Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive. Military Decision-Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1984)

Michael Evans, The Human Face of Warfare: Killing, Fear and Chaos in Battle (Allen & Unwin)

Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing. Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth century Warfare (London: Granta, 1999)

John Keegan, The Face of Battle (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976)

Edward M. Spiers, Chemical Warfare (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986), Ch. 2, 13-33

idem, ‘Chemical Warfare in the First World War’, in Brian Bond (ed.), Look to Your Front! Studies in the First World War (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1999), 163-78

John Keegan, ‘Towards a Theory of Combat Motivation’ and John Ellis, ‘Reflections on the “Sharp End” of War’, in Paul Addison & Angus Calder (eds.), Time to Kill. The Soldier’s Experience of War in the West, 1939-45 (London: Pimlico, 1997), chs. 1 & 2, 3-18

 

 

THE BRITISH

E:

Paddy Griffith (ed.), British Fighting Methods in the Great War (London: Frank Cass, 1996) esp. ch. by Jonathan B. A. Bailey ‘British Artillery in the Great War’

Albert Palazzo, ‘The British Army’s Counter-Battery Staff Office and Control of the Enemy in World War I’, JMilH 63:1 (Jan. 1999), 55-74

Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front. The British Army’s Art of Attack, 1916-1918 (New Haven/London: Yale UP, 1994)

Paul M. Kennedy, ‘Britain in the First World War’, in Allan R. Millett & Williamson Murray (eds.), Military Effectiveness. Vol. I: The First World War (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1988), ch. 2, 31-79

Sanders Marble, ‘General Haig dismisses Attritional Warfare, January 1916’, JMilH 65:4 (Oct. 2001), 1061-5

David French, ‘Who Knew What, and When? The French Army Mutinies and the British decision to launch the Third Battle of Ypres’, in Lawrence Freedman, Paul Hayes, Robert J. O’Neill (eds.), War, Strategy and International Politics: Essays in Honour of Sir Michael Howard (Oxford UP, 1992), 133-53

Brian Bond & Nigel Cave (eds.), Haig: A Reappraisal 70 Years On (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1999)

B. Bond (ed.), Look to Your Front: Studies in the First World War (1999) esp. chapts. by I. Beckett, K. Grieves, J. Lee, P. Simkins

Keith Simpson ‘The reputation of Sir Douglas Haig’, Ch. 6 in Brian Bond, The First World War and British Military History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 141-62

Tim Travers, ‘A Particular Style of Command: Haig and GHQ, 1916-1918’, JSS 10 (Sept. 1987), 363-76

idem, ‘Learning and Decision-Making on the Western Front, 1915-18: The British Example’, Canadian Journal of History (1983)

 

 

 

 

R:

Peter Simkins, Kitchener’s Army. The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-1916 (Manchester UP, 1985)

Martin Middlebrook, The First Day of the Somme, 1 July 1916 (London, 1971 and Penguin pb. reprint)

Jonathan Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice. The Battle of Arras 1917 (London: Leo Cooper, 1990)

Nigel Steel & Peter Hart, Passchendaele. The Sacrificial Ground (London: Cassell, 2000)

Tim Travers, The Killing Ground. The British Army, the Western Front and the emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900-1918 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1987)

idem, How the War Was Won. Command and Technology in the British Army on the Western Front, 1917-1918 (London: Routledge, 1992)

Shelford Bidwell & Dominick Graham, Firepower: British Army weapons and theories of war, 1904-1945 (London, 1982)

Ian Malcolm Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, 1914-1919 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998)

Mike Young, Army Service Corps, 1902-1918 (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 2000)

K. W. Mitchinson, Pioneer Battalions in the Great War. Intelligent and Organised Labour (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1999)

Tony Ashworth, Trench Warfare, 1914-1918: The Live and Let Live System (London: Macmillan, 1980; Pan pb. reprint, 2000)

Gary D. Sheffield (ed.), Leadership and Command: The Anglo-American Experience (Oxford: Brassey’s, 1997)

Nikolas Gardner, ‘Command in Crisis: The British Expeditionary Force and the Forest of Mormal, August 1914’, War & Society 16:2 (Oct. 1998)

idem, ‘Command and Control in the “Great Retreat” of 1914: The Disintegration of the British Cavalry Division’, JMilH 63:1 (Jan. 1999), 29-54

Lawrence James, Imperial Warrior: The Life and Times of Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby, 1861-1936 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993)

William J. Philpott, ‘Britain and France go to war: Anglo-French relations on the Western Front, 1914-1918’, WH 2:1 (March 1995), 43-64

Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Command on the Western Front: The Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1914-1918 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992)

Richard Holmes, The Little Field Marshal. The Life of Sir John French (London: Jonathan Cape, 1981)

John Terraine, Douglas Haig, the Educated Soldier, 1861-1928 (London: Hutchinson, 1963)

idem, 1914-18. Essays on Leadership and War (Reading: Western Front Association, 1998), esp. essays 1, 2, 3, 5 & 7

Geoffrey Powell, Plumer: The Soldiers’ General (London: Leo Cooper, 1990)

Gen. Sir Charles Harington, Plumer of Messines (London: John Murray, 1935) -- by Plumer’s very able chief of staff

Brig-Gen. John Charteris, At GHQ, 1914-18 (London: Cassell, 1931) -- a diary by Haig’s chief of intelligence, containing much of great interest on relations between senior commanders, views of politicians and snapshots of British, French and german troop morale etc.

Jeffery Williams, Byng of Vimy. General and Governor-General (London: Leo Cooper/Secker & Warburg, 1983)

A. J. Smithers, Sir John Monash. The Biography of Australia’s Most Distinguished General (London: Leo Cooper, 1973)

 

There is a vast number of first-hand diaries, recollections and published volumes of trench letters, many still in print. These include the famous books by Robert Graves (Goodbye to All That), Siegfried Sassoon (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer), Frank Richards (Old Soldiers Never Die), Harry Beaumont (Old Contemptible), John Reith, (Wearing Spurs) and Guy Chapman (A Passionate Prodigality). For something rather more ‘earthy’, try George Coppard, With a Machine-Gun to Cambrai; and Orders are Orders. A Manchester Pal on the Somme. From the Account of Albert William Andrews of the 19th Manchesters, written in 1917, ed. by Sue Richardson (pubd. by Neil Richardson, 1987 – copy consultable by request from Martin Alexander)

 

 

                             THE FRENCH

E:

Douglas Porch, ‘The French Army and the Spirit of the Offensive, 1900-1914’, in Brian Bond and Ian Roy, War and Society. A Yearbook of Military History (London: Croom Helm, 1976), 117-143

idem, ‘The French Army in the First World War’, in Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, vol. 1, ch. 6, 190-228

David Englander, ‘The French Soldier, 1914-1918’, French History I:1 (March 1987), 49-67

Anthony Clayton, Paths of Glory. The French Army 1914-18 (London: Cassell 2003)

Malcolm Brown, Verdun, 1916 (Stroud: Tempus Books, 1999)

 ‘Pétain’, in Correlli Barnett, The Swordbearers. Supreme Command in the First World War (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1975), 193-265

Anthony Clayton, ‘Robert Nivelle and the French spring offensive of 1917’, Ch. 3 in Brian Bond (ed.), Fallen Stars. Eleven Studies in Twentieth Century Military Disaster (Oxford: Brassey’s, 1991), 52-64

Leonard V. Smith, ‘War and “Politics”: The French Army Mutinies of 1917’, WH 2:2 (July 1995), 180-201

David French, ‘Watching the Allies: British intelligence and the French mutinies of 1917’ INS 6:3 (July 1991), 573-92

 

 

R:

Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory: Verdun, 1916 (Macmillan, 1961)

Ian Ousby, The Road to Verdun. France, Nationalism and the First World War (London: Jonathan Cape, 2002)

Stephen Ryan, Pétain the Soldier (Cranbury, NJ: A. S. Barnes, 1969)

David Mason, Verdun (Moreton-in-Marsh: Windrush Press, 2000)

David J. Dutton, ‘The Fall of General Joffre (December 1916): an episode in the politico-military struggle in wartime France’, JSS 1 (1978)

 

An excellent first-hand account by a field-grade officer (captain/major) is:- Henri Desagneaux, A French Soldier’s War Diary, 1914-1918 (Leeds: Elmfield Press, 1975, trans. Godfrey J. Adams); a perspective on the Western Front’s first year, from a French infantry lieutenant who became an eminent medieval history professor at the Sorbonne, is Carole Fink (ed.), Marc Bloch. Letters and Diaries, 1914-1915 (Cambridge UP, 1989); a classic by a subsequent leading interwar French Communist and pacifist is Henri Barbusse, Under Fire (London: J.M. Dent, 1926)

 

 

 

                             THE AMERICANS

E:

Timothy K. Nenninger, ‘American Military Effectiveness in the First World War’, in Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, vol. I, ch. 4, 116-56

idem, ‘Unsystematic as a Mode of Command: Commanders and the Process of Command in the American Expeditionary Forces, 1917-1918’, JMilH 64:3 (July 2000), 739-68

Paul F. Braim, The Test of Battle: The American Expeditionary Forces in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1987)

Donald Smythe, ‘John J. Pershing, General of the Armies’, in Michael Carver (ed.), The War Lords. Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1976)

James J. Cooke, Pershing and his Generals: Command and Staff in the AEF (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997)

 

R:

Jennifer D. Keene, ‘Uneasy Alliances: French Military Intelligence and the American Army during the First World War’, in Martin S. Alexander (ed.), Knowing Your Friends. Intelligence inside Alliances and Coalitions from 1914 to the Cold War (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 18-36

James J. Cooke, The Rainbow Division in the Great War, 1917-1919 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994)

Donald Smythe, General of the Armies: The Life of John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1986)

David F. Trask, The AEF and Coalition War-Making, 1917-1918 (Lawrence, KS: Univ. of Kansas Press, 1993)

Edward M. Coffman, The War to End all Wars: The American Military Experience in World War One (Oxford UP, 1968)

Douglas E. Johnson II and Rolfe L. Hillman, Jr., Soissons, 1918 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M Univ. Press, 1999)

 

 

                             THE GERMANS

E:

Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918 (Cambridge UP, 1998)

Holger H. Herwig, The First World War. Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918 (London: Arnold, 1997)

idem, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion: Toward a New Interpretation?’, JMilH 66:3 (July 2002), 681-693

idem, ‘The Dynamics of Necessity: German military policy during the First World War’ in Millett and Murray, Military Effectivess, vol. I, ch. 3, pp. 80-115

Lancelot L. Farrar, The Short-War Illusion: German Policy, Strategy and Domestic Affairs, August-December 1914 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1973)

Martin Samuels, ‘Directive Command and the German General Staff’, WH 2:1 (March 1995), 22-42

‘Moltke’ and ‘Ludendorff’ in Correlli Barnett, The Swordbearers. Supreme Command in the First World War (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1975), 3-98; 269-361

Matthew Hughes and Matthew Seligmann (eds.), Leadership in Conflict, 1914-1918 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2000), chs. 5 (‘Moltke’, by Annika Mombauer), 6 (‘Falkenhayn’, by Robert Foley), 14 (‘Kaiser Wilhelm II’, by Matthew Stibbe) 

John Hussey, ‘The Movement of German Divisions to the Western Front, 1917-1918’, WH 4:2 (April 1997), 213-220

Bruce I. Gudmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics. Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918 (New York: Praeger, 1989)

 

 

R:

Walter Bloem, The Advance from Mons (London: Peter Davies, 1930)

Ernst Junger, The Storm of Steel. From the Diary of a German Stormtroop Officer on the Western Front  (1st edn. 1929; reprinted: New York: Howard Fertig, 1975), esp. 205-313

Erwin Rommel, Infantry Attacks (first publ. 1937; English trans. 1956 and 1990 reprint)

Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1995)

Robert B. Asprey, The German High Command at War: Hindenburg, Ludendorff and the First World War (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993)

 

 

 

                             BLOODY VICTORY: THE 100 DAYS AND THE DEFEAT OF THE GERMAN ARMIES (AUG.-NOVEMBER 1918)

E:

Gary D. Sheffield, Forgotten Victory. The First World War, Myths and Realities (London: Headline, 2001)

‘Forum: 1918 – Britain’s Forgotten Victory’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 143:6 (Dec. 1998), 69-83

Peter Simkins, ‘Henry Rawlinson and his Allies, 1916 and 1918’, ch. 1 and William J. Philpott, ‘Marshal Ferdinand Foch and Allied Victory’, ch. 2 in M. Hughes & M. Seligmann (eds.), Leadership in Conflict 1914-18 (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 2000), 13-37 & 38-53

Christopher M. Hand, ‘John Terraine: A Study of a First World War Revisionist', Canadian Military History 6:2 (Autumn 1997), 54-61

Tim Travers, ‘The Evolution of British Strategy and Tactics on the Western Front in 1918: GHQ, Manpower and Technology’, JMilH 54:1 (Jan. 1990), 173-200

Jackson Hughes, ‘The Battle for the Hindenburg Line’, War & Society 17:2 (Oct. 1999)

Wilhelm Deist, ‘The Military Collapse of the German Empire: The Reality behind the Stab-in-the-Back Myth’, WH 3:2 (April 1996), 186-207

J. P. Harris with Niall Barr, Amiens to the Armistice. The BEF in the Hundred Days Offensive, 8 August-11 November 1918 (London: Brassey’s, 1998)

Ian M. Brown, ‘Not Glamorous, but Effective: The Canadian Corps and the Set-Piece Attack, 1917-18’, JMilH 58:2 (July 1994), 421-44

 

R:

John Terraine, To Win a War (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978)

J. P. Harris, Men, Ideas and Tanks. British military thought and armoured forces, 1903-1939 (Manchester UP, 1995)

Bill Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918 (Toronto: Toronto Univ. Press, 1992)

Shane B. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire: The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War (New York: Praeger, 1997)

Brig. C. N. Barclay, Armistice, 1918 (London: J.M. Dent, 1968)

 

 

 

              PERIPHERAL CAMPAIGNS’: GALLIPOLI (1915)

E:

David French, ‘The Origins of the Dardanelles Campaign Reconsidered’, History 68, no. 223 (June 1983), 210-24

Michael Hickey, ‘Gallipoli: A British Perspective’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 140:6 (Dec. 1995), 47-53

John Lee, ‘Sir Ian Hamilton and the Dardanelles, 1915’, Ch. 2 in Brian Bond (ed.), Fallen Stars. Eleven Studies of Twentieth Century Military Disasters (Oxford: Brassey’s, 1992), 32-51

Tim Travers, ‘Command and Leadership styles in the British Army: the 1915 Gallipoli model’, JCH 29 (1994), 403-42

idem, ‘When Technology and Tactics Fail: Gallipoli, 1915’, in Stephen Chiabotti (ed.), Tooling for War: Military Transformation in the Industrial Age (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1996), 97-122

idem, ‘ The Ottoman Crisis of May 1915 at Gallipoli’, WH 8:1 (January 2001), 72-86

idem, ‘Liman Von Sanders, the Capture of Lieutenant Palmer and Ottoman anticipation of the Allied Landings at Gallipoli, 25 April 1915’, JMilH 65:4 (Oct. 2001), 965-79

Gen. Liman von Sanders memoir of the Ottoman-German defence of the Dardanelles, Five Years in Turkey, excerpted in Jere Clemens King (ed.), The First World War (New York: Walker & Co., 1972), 94-120

Edward J. Erickson, ‘Strength against Weakness: Ottoman Military Effectiveness at Gallipoli, 1915’, JMilH 65:4 (Oct. 2001), 981-1011 (a very important new piece of scholarship)

Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes. The Anatomy of Failure in War (New York: Free Press, 1990), Ch. 6: ‘Failure to Adapt: The British at Gallipoli, August 1915’

Nigel Steel & Peter Hart, Defeat at Gallipoli (London: Macmillan, 1994)

 

 

R:

Michael Hickey, Gallipoli (London: John Murray, 1995)

Tim Travers, Gallipoli, 1915 (Stroud: Tempus Books, 2001)

Edward J. Erickson, Ordered to Die. A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War (London: Greenwood Press, 2001)

 

              And for two excellent first-hand accounts, one by a British Army Service Corps officer, the other by an Australian private, see:-

Major John Gillam, Gallipoli Diary (Stevenage: Strong Oak Press/Tom Donovan Publishing, 1989)

A. B. Facey, A Fortunate Life (Penguin of Australia, 1981), esp. pp. 240-80

 

 

 

              The 1914-18 War at Sea

E:

Paul G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: UCL Press/Taylor & Francis, 1995)

Ronald H. Spector, At War at Sea. Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century (New York: Viking, 2001)

V. E. Tarrant, Jutland: The German View (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1996)

John Terraine, The U-Boat Wars, 1916-1945 (New York: Putnam, 1989)

Geoffrey Bennett, Naval Battles of the First World War (London: Batsford, 1968; revd. edn. Pan Books, 1974)

 

 

R:

Eric Grove, Big Fleet Actions. Tsushima – Jutland – Philippine Sea (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1995), chs. 3,4 Ruddock F. McKay, Fisher of Kilverstone  (Oxford UP, 1973)

John Keegan, The Price of Admiralty. The Evolution of Naval Warfare (London: Century Hutchinson, 1988), ch. 2

Stephen Roskill, The Last Naval Hero: Admiral of the Fleet Sir David Beatty, An Intimate Biography (London: Collins: 1980)

A.     Temple Patterson, Jellicoe (London: Macmillan, 1969)

Andrew Gordon, Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1996)

Excerpt from Jellicoe’s memoir, The Grand Fleet, in Jere Clemens King, The First World War (New York: Walker & Co., 1972), ch. V, 154-82

 

ã Martin S. Alexander, 2003

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