Author: Timothy Bowman
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 9780199542789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Questions the general assumption that the British army which set sail for France in August 1914 was the best prepared force ever despatched from the British isles. Reveals instead that the army was by no means as well prepared for European continental warfare as many have presumed.
Author: Timothy Bowman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191741401
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
The period 1902-1914 was one of great change for the British army. As a result of a series of investigations and government-led reorganisation, the army embarked on a series of reforms to improve its recruitment, standards of professionalism, training and preparation for war.
Author: John Fabb
Publisher: B.T. Batsford
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Author: Ian Beckett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107005779
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 485
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Book Description
A comprehensive new history of the shaping and performance of the British army during the First World War.
Author: Andrew George Duncan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Simon Batten
Publisher: Wolverhampton Military Studies
ISBN: 9781911512851
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Examines the exercises and manoeuvres conducted by the British Army in the years leading up to the First World War.
Author: Byron Farwell
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393304442
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
This is an upstairs-downstairs view of the Victorian-Edwardian army, one of the world's most peculiar fighting forces. The battles it fought are household words, but the idiosyncracies and eccentricities of its soldiers and the often appalling conditions under which they lived have gone largely unrecorded. Byron Farwell explores here the lives of officers and men, their foibles, gallantry, and diversions, their discipline and their rewards.
Author: Ian F. W. Beckett
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806162023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
“You offer yourself to be slain,” General Sir John Hackett once observed, remarking on the military profession. “This is the essence of being a soldier.” For this reason as much as any other, the British army has invariably been seen as standing apart from other professions—and sometimes from society as a whole. A British Profession of Arms effectively counters this view. In this definitive study of the late Victorian army, distinguished scholar Ian F. W. Beckett finds that the British soldier, like any other professional, was motivated by considerations of material reward and career advancement. Within the context of debates about both the evolution of Victorian professions and the nature of military professionalism, Beckett considers the late Victorian officer corps as a case study for weighing distinctions between the British soldier and his civilian counterparts. Beckett examines the role of personality, politics, and patronage in the selection and promotion of officers. He looks, too, at the internal and external influences that extended from the press and public opinion to the rivalry of the so-called rings of adherents of major figures such as Garnet Wolseley and Frederick Roberts. In particular, he considers these processes at play in high command in the Second Afghan War (1878–81), the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), and the South African War (1899–1902). Based on more than thirty years of research into surviving official, semiofficial, and private correspondence, Beckett’s work offers an intimate and occasionally amusing picture of what might affect an officer’s career: wealth, wives, and family status; promotion boards and strategic preferences; performance in the field and diplomatic outcomes. It is a remarkable depiction of the British profession of arms, unparalleled in breadth, depth, and detail.
Author: Tim Travers
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473819431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
This books explains why the British Army fought the way it did in the First World War. It integrates social and military history and the impact of ideas to tell the story of how the army, especially the senior officers, adapted to the new technological warfare and asks: Was the style of warfare on the Western Front inevitable?Using an extensive range of unpublished diaries, letters, memoirs and Cabinet and War Office files, Professor Travers explains how and why the ideas, tactics and strategies emerged. He emphasises the influence of pre-war social and military attitudes, and examines the early life and career of Sir Douglas Haig. The author's analysis of the preparations for the Battles of the Somme and Passchendaele provide new interpretations of the role of Haig and his GHQ, and he explains the reasons for the unexpected British withdrawal in March 1918. An appendix supplies short biographies of senior British officers. In general, historians of the First World War are in two hostile camps: those who see the futility of lions led by donkeys on the one hand and on the other the apologists for Haig and the conduct of the war. Professor Travers' immensely readable book provides a bridge between the two.
Author: Harold E. Raugh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351147587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1025
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Book Description
This collection of essays examines the evolution of the British Army during the century-long Pax Britannica, from the time Wellington considered its soldiers 'the scum of the earth' to the height of the imperial epoch, when they were highly-respected 'soldiers of the Queen'. The British Army during this period was a microcosm and reflection of the larger British society. As a result, this study of the British Army focuses on its character and composition, its officers and men, efforts to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and its role and performance on active service while an instrument of British Government policy.
