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BRITISH JOURNAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY ADVISORY BOARDS

The Editorial Team gratefully acknowledges the support of the British Journal for Military History’s Editorial Advisory Board the membership of which is as follows: Major-General Mungo Melvin (President, BCMH) Professor Bill Philpott (Secretary-General, BCMH & King’s College London) Dr Tim Gale (Treasurer, BCMH) Andy Grainger (Member BCMH) Dr Andy Simpson (Member BCMH) Professor Charles Esdaile (University of Liverpool) Professor Richard Grayson (Goldsmiths, University of London) Professor Beatrice Heuser (University of Reading) Professor Matthew Hughes (Brunel University) Professor Andrew Roberts (Cornell University) Professor Gary Sheffield (University of Wolverhampton) Professor Sir Hew Strachan (University of Oxford) Dr Huw Bennett (University of Aberystwyth) Dr Huw Davies (JSCSC; King’s College London) Dr Declan O’Reilly (University of East Anglia) Jonathan Ferguson (Royal Armouries) Seb Cox (Air Historical Branch) Bob Evans (Army Historical Branch) Stephen Prince (Naval Historical Branch)

COVER IMAGE: COVER IMAGE: Soldier of the Mounted Infantry on his horse 1899 © IWM (Q 72140)

THE BCMH LOGO: The BCMH logo is based on the combination of Mars & Clio, the Roman God of War and the Greek Muse of History, as a good summation of what we are about. It depicts Mars with his spear whilst Clio stands before him reading from a book – or perhaps this journal – the Secretary General of the BCMH having pointed out that since Mars cannot read someone will have to read it to him.

BRITISH JOURNAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY CONTACT US

Find us online at: www.bjmh.org.uk

Letters and communications to the Editors should be addressed: [email protected] Or Dr Matthew Ford Department of International Relations University of Sussex Brighton, BN1 9SJ

* Follow the British Commission for Military History and British Journal for Military History on: Facebook [www.facebook.com/bcmh] Twitter [@marsandclio] Online [www.bjmh.org.uk] British Journal for Military History – ISSN: 2057-0422

BRITISH JOURNAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY *

Volume 1, Issue 1 October 2014

Editor-in-Chief: Dr Matthew Ford

Editors: Dr Nick Terry Dr Catherine Baker

Associate Editors: Jennifer Daley Aimée Fox-Godden Dr Stuart Mitchell

Published by The British Commission for Military History

CONTENTS NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS EDITORIAL Articles A ONCE IN A CENTURY OPPORTUNITY? SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE CENTENARY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

by Gary Sheffield 1

THE ANNUAL CONFIDENTIAL REPORT AND PROMOTION IN THE LATE VICTORIAN ARMY

by Ian F. W. Beckett 12

‘SHOOTING POWER’: A STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BOER AND BRITISH RIFLE FIRE, 1899-1914

by Spencer Jones 29

IRELAND’S NEW MEMORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: FORGOTTEN ASPECTS OF THE BATTLE OF MESSINES, JUNE 1917 by Richard S. Grayson 48

THE LEGACY OF LIDDELL HART: THE CONTRASTING RESPONSES OF MICHAEL HOWARD AND ANDRÉ BEAUFRE

by Brian Holden Reid 66

DIVIDED LOYALTIES: THE EFFECT THE BOER WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH HAD ON HOW IRISH NATIONALISTS INTERPRETERED THE IRISH SOLDIER SERVING IN THE BRITISH ARMY

by Alan Drumm 81

Reviews MAX HASTINGS , CATASTROPHE: EUROPE GOES TO WAR 1914

Reviewed by Jonathan Boff 97

THOMAS SCOTLAND & STEVEN HEYS (EDS.) , WARS, PESTILENCE AND THE SURGEON’S BLADE: THE EVOLUTION OF BRITISH MILITARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Reviewed by Jane Bowden-Dan 98

JAMES HOLLAND (ED.) , AN ENGLISHMAN AT WAR. THE WARTIME DIARIES OF STANLEY CHRISTOPHERSON, DSO, MC, TD, 1939-1945

Reviewed by Robin Brodhurst 100

ALAN TRITTON , WHEN THE TIGER FOUGHT THE THISTLE. THE TRAGEDY OF COLONEL WILLIAM BAILLIE OF THE MADRAS ARMY

Reviewed by Bruce Collins 103

ANNE APPLEBAUM , IRON CURTAIN: THE CRUSHING OF EASTERN EUROPE

Reviewed by Timothy C. Dowling 104

TIMOTHY S. WOLTERS , INFORMATION AT SEA: SHIPBOARD COMMAND AND CONTROL IN THE U.S. NAVY FROM MOBILE BAY TO OKINAWA

Reviewed by Marcus Faulkner 106

THOMAS WALDMAN , WAR, CLAUSEWITZ AND THE TRINITY

Reviewed by Jan Willem Honig 107

PETER KENDALL , THE ROYAL ENGINEERS AT CHATHAM 1750-2012

TIMOTHY CRICK , RAMPARTS OF EMPIRE: THE FORTIFICATIONS OF SIR WILLIAM JERVOIS ROYAL ENGINEER, 1821-1897

Reviewed by Andrew Lambert 109

HALIK KOCHANSKI , THE EAGLE UNBOWED: POLAND AND POLES IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Reviewed by Simon Niziol 113

ANTHONY J. NOCELLA II , COLIN SALTER & JUDY K. C. BENTLEY (EDS.), ANIMALS AND WAR: CONFRONTING THE MILITARY-ANIMAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Reviewed by Kimberly Brice O’Donnell 115

JIM BEACH, HAIG’S INTELLIGENCE: GHQ AND THE GERMAN ARMY, 1916-1918

Reviewed by Jack Sheldon 117

JOHN GRODZINSKI, DEFENDER OF CANADA: SIR GEORGE PREVOST AND THE WAR OF 1812

Reviewed by Ian Stafford 118

Submission Guidelines ARTICLE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 121 STYLE GUIDE 122 BOOK REVIEW SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 123

Notes on contributors PROFESSOR GARY SHEFFIELD is Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He is President of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and a Vice President of the Western Front Association. He has published widely on the First World War and regularly broadcasts on television and radio as well as contributing to numerous journals, magazines and newspapers. Previous books include the acclaimed Forgotten Victory and The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Duke of Westminster's Medal. PROFESSOR IAN F. W. BECKETT is Professor of Military History at the University of Kent. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is also Chairman of the Council of the Army Records Society, and Secretary to the Buckinghamshire Military Museum Trust. Previously, he has held chairs in both the UK and the US. Currently, he is attached to BBC South for the AHRC- funded World War One at Home project and is coordinating Great War commemorative activities in Buckinghamshire. He is completing a book on the politics of command in the late Victorian army for the University of Oklahoma Press. DR SPENCER JONES is Senior Lecturer in Armed Forces and War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He currently serves at the Regimental Historian for the Royal Regiment of Artillery. His previous publications include From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army 1902-1914 and Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914. PROFESSOR RICHARD S. GRAYSON is Professor of Twentieth Century History at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in the First World War (2009), and edited At War with the 16th Irish Division: The Staniforth Letters, 1914-18 (2012). He has engaged widely with community groups on First World War remembrance especially the 6th Connaught Rangers Research Project. An associate member of the First World War Centenary Committee in Northern Ireland, he contributed to BBC NI’s Ireland’s Great War, co-edits www.irelandww1.org and chairs the Academic Advisory Group for the Digital Projects run by the Imperial War Museums. PROFESSOR BRIAN HOLDEN REID is Professor of American History and Military Institutions at King’s College London, and since 2010 an Academic Member of College Council. A former Head of the Department of War Studies (2001-7) in 2007 he was awarded the Fellowship of King’s College London (FKC), the highest honour the College can award its alumni and staff, and he is both. His books include J.F.C. Fuller: Military Thinker (1987, 1990), The Origins of the American Civil War (1996), Studies in British Military Thought (1998), Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation (2005, 2007) and America’s Civil War: The Operational Battlefield, 1861-1863 (2008).

British Journal for Military History, Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2014

ALAN DRUMM is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Mike Cosgrave at University College Cork. His thesis examines the relationship between Irish Nationalism and the British Army between 1880 and 1914 and the impact it had on recruiting. Alan is the author of Kerry and The Royal Munster Fusiliers and has spoken at a number of conferences including the British Commission for Military History’s New Research in Military History Conference 2013, Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for War Studies Seminar Series 2010-11 and the Irish History Students Association’s conference in both 2011 and 2012.

Editorial

“The birth of the British Journal for Military History will be as welcome as it is long overdue. The past few decades have seen the appearance of a new generation of military historians. Some have been serving or retired members of the Armed Forces; some academics or aspiring academics; and some - most welcome of all – amateurs who write for the sheer love of it. The continuing demand for their work is evidenced in every major bookshop, where ‘Military History’ shelves often take up as much space as does mere ‘History’. Even those whose primary interest is not military history as such now realise that a knowledge of the subject is necessary if they are to understand the past, to say nothing of the present. Military history is now too important to be left to the military historians. For the past few years military historians have been able to communicate with each another at the annual meetings of the British Commission for Military History and through its publication Mars and Clio. Now the BJMH will make their work available to a far wider readership and should attract an increasing number of contributors. It will be not only British, and not only military historians who will wish it well."

Professor Sir Michael Howard We are very pleased to offer you the inaugural issue of the British Journal for Military History. This journal represents a unique vehicle for distributing high-quality military history to an audience beyond academia. The BJMH is open-access, applies peer review policies to all the articles we receive and is published three times a year. Our first issue showcases some of the journal’s ambitions. Articles consider a number of topics, ranging from the use and abuse of military history, to military promotion, shooting power, memory and war, the evolution of strategy and changing identities. In this edition we not only offer a platform for well-established historians but also for those new and upcoming authors with whom we wish to develop strong ties over the long term. Future issues will focus on counterinsurgency, offer a discussion of women working in military history and have Professors Andrew Roberts and Charles Esdaile debate whether Napoleon was great.


The BJMH has emerged out of the British Commission for Military History. Consequently, it is only right that the first article in this edition is based on a lecture given by Professor Gary Sheffield in memory of Professor Richard Holmes, a former President of the Commission. The Commission itself has been a great source of support to this initiative and the Editors are very pleased to offer their thanks to our fellow members, the General Committee and especially Professor Bill Philpott and Major General Mungo Melvin. If the Commission has provided the support then it is the Editorial Advisory Board that has helped us to develop the sorts of aspirations that frame the journal’s philosophy. The Board includes some of Britain’s leading military historians, academics and scholars. These busy people have generously offered guidance and counsel as the Editors have sought to bring the new journal together from inception to delivery. Their help has been crucial and we are greatly appreciative of their backing. Developing a new journal of course depends on having a great team of editors who are willing to do the work necessary to ensure the smooth production of each edition. In this respect all the Editors ought to be thanked for their endeavours over the past 18 months. The Associate Editors in particular have taken on serious roles and demonstrated their ability to rise to the occasion. Jennifer Daley has been instrumental in getting books reviewed, identifying reviewers and ensuring we have enough material to publish. Aimée Fox-Godden has shaped the look and feel and the layout for the journal. Stuart Mitchell has worked extremely hard to check proofs, copy-edit and act as general fixer. I must also thank Nick Terry and Catherine Baker for stretching our networks and reach and providing an appropriate sounding board for ideas and strategy development. All of the Editors volunteer their time and I hope you will join me in offering our sincere thanks for all their efforts. Along the way a number of other people have helped in the evolution of this project. In particular I would like to thank Dr Philip W Blood, Dr Declan O’Reilly, Ross Mahoney and George Walkley for their early involvement in helping us think through the challenges associated with launching a new journal. Lastly, Dr Simon Coningham very kindly offered his time and the benefit of his experience of working in mainstream publishing. It is only a shame that he passed away earlier this year and was unable to see the final product.

The Editors would like to thank Professor Howard for his generous note of support. Not only do his words encapsulate the philosophy of the journal but we hope they will also inspire you to join us in broadening and shaping the future of our field of interest. Please enjoy this first issue of the BJMH. We welcome your comments and feedback.

DR MATTHEW FORD, EDITOR BJMH

ONCE IN A CENTURY OPPORTUNITY?

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A Once in a Century Opportunity? Some Personal Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War GARY SHEFFIELD University of Wolverhampton Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT In this article Gary Sheffield sets out his opinions on the current commemoration plans and media responses to the centenary of the First World War. He argues that the British government and media are letting slip a golden opportunity to challenge popular perceptions of the conflict. This piece builds upon the author’s speech delivered at the Richard Holmes Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the BCMH, King’s College London, and the National Army Museum, Chelsea. It was delivered at King’s College London on 13 March 2014.

This paper, and the lecture it is based on, is dedicated to the late Professor Richard Holmes. Richard was a very talented scholar who nonetheless wore his learning lightly. In print, in lectures and on battlefield tours, and on the television screen, time after time he proved himself to be an outstandingly good public historian. Richard’s death in 2011 deprived him of the opportunity to take a leading role in presenting the history of the First World War over the period of the Centenary to a mass audience. Before beginning my own reflections on the centenary, I would like to say something about Richard’s impact on my career. I arrived as a very junior lecturer at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1985, to find that the then Dr Richard Holmes was Deputy Head of the War Studies Department. He was kindness personified, taking me under his wing, giving me some very sound advice about the direction of my career, and helping me steer through the politics of the organisation. We stayed in touch after he left Sandhurst and in 1999 we linked up again professionally when I moved to the Joint Services Command and Staff College, and we both taught on the memorable Higher Command and Staff


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Course staff rides. I learned a very great deal from Richard, not least the importance of public history. I have been very lucky in the senior colleagues who have helped guide my career. Richard was one of the most important influences in my professional life, and I was deeply honoured to be asked to give a lecture in his memory. The subject of my lecture and this paper, my reflections on the centenary of the First World War, is doubly appropriate. First, because Richard Holmes was a masterly communicator of history to a lay audience; he believed academics should speak to ‘real people’ outside the academy. Second, although Richard wrote on a number of historical topics (his PhD was on the French army of the Second Empire, and he published on subjects as diverse as the English Civil War, the American War of Independence, and French counterinsurgency in the 1950s), he had a fascination for the First World War. He once admitted that he was 'haunted’ by the conflict.1 The stands on which Richard led during staff rides to the Somme and Verdun were – even by his very high standards – especially memorable. Although the two things are not the same, in 2014 media interest and, as far as I can judge, public interest in the First World War is at an all-time high. The centenary of the outbreak of the Great War does seem to have caught the public imagination. Undoubtedly, there is a once in a hundred years opportunity for education about 1914-18, and education is a primary objective of the government’s First World War commemoration programme. What follows are a few thoughts on the way we in the UK are commemorating the war, and the state of knowledge and understanding of the First World War outside the academy one hundred years on. My perspective is that of an academic historian of the First World War who has a vocation for public history, and who has, through public lectures and talks to various bodies, appearances on television and radio, the use of social media (primarily Twitter), and high-level engagement with the government, civil service and armed forces, been closely involved with the Centenary commemorations. For a historian of the First World War like myself, the sudden national fixation on 1914 had been both dazzling and frustrating. It is dazzling, because of the sudden huge interest in my subject, and the opportunities that have opened up, not least in heading the University of Wolverhampton's programme of commemoration. Frustrating, because the response of the government and the media to the Centenary leave much to be desired. I have the sense of a golden opportunity for education about what George F. Kennan called the 'seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century', and Britain's role in it, slipping away.

1 Richard Holmes, ‘Foreword’ to Gary Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities (London, Headline, 2001) p.ix


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The last few years has made clear that, despite the efforts of revisionist historians over the last three decades, the 'futility/"lions led by donkeys"' narrative of Britain’s involvement in the conflict is very much with us. The ideas that there were no great issues at stake during the First World War, that a million men died for nothing and, in an accompanying myth, the lives of soldiers were routinely thrown away by criminally incompetent generals has been rebutted over and over again, but display remarkable longevity. One of the earliest and most influential statements came in the writings of David Lloyd George, Britain's prime minister in the second half of the war. His war memoirs, published in the 1930s, are a clear example of the literature of disillusionment, and Lloyd George was assisted in their writing by a disenchanted war veteran turned trenchant critic of the generals, Basil Liddell Hart. However this was a minority view in the 1930s. It began to become the dominant narrative after 1945, when the First World War started to be viewed through the lens of the 'good war', the struggle against Hitler. In the 1950s and 1960s a series of popular books, by the likes of Leon Wolff (In Flanders Fields, 1959 and Alan Clark (The Donkeys, 1961), as well as Joan Littlewood's musical play Oh! What a Lovely War (first produced in 1963, and turned into a film by Richard Attenborough in 1969) firmly established the futility/donkeys narrative in the public mind. Although for the most part worthless as history, they were extremely influential. Until the late 1970s a rather lonely revisionist furrow was being ploughed by John Terraine and his friend and collaborator, Correlli Barnett, and one or two others. From that point onwards new generations of academic historians provided timely reinforcements. In the 1980 and 1990s an informal school of revisionist historians of the British army in the Great War developed, based around the Imperial War Museum, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the British Commission for Military History and a handful of university departments. The founding in 1980 of the Western Front Association, an organisation that brings together scholarly historians and interested lay-people, now with numerous branches and some 6,000 members, was also significant. The overall result has been a series of scholarly works which have moved on the debate significantly. (It is fair to say that some historians remain outside the broad consensus, and even within it there remains plenty of scope for disagreement and debate). However, the impact of such historical revisionism on the public and media has been limited. The 1989 television series Blackadder Goes Forth, a sort of Oh! What a Lovely War for the late twentieth century, was particularly influential in reinforcing stereotypes of stupid generals fighting a pointless war. It is significant that when in January 2014 the Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove intervened in the debate over the teaching of the First World War, he cited


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Blackadder.2 The futility/donkeys view underpinned the British government's approach to commemorating the war. The government's advisory panel was light on professional historians but room was found for Sebastian Faulks, author of Birdsong, and Pat Barker, writer of the Regeneration trilogy. Both of these novelists adhere closely to the traditional narrative. When in October 2012 the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced the programme of official commemorations it was noticeable that it concentrated on British defeats such Gallipoli and the First Day on the Somme but completely ignored the 'Hundred Days' campaign of 1918, when the forces of the British Empire, with their allies, won the greatest series of military victories in British history. The speech showed little knowledge or understanding of the Great War. For instance, Cameron stated that ‘200,000 were killed on one day of the Battle of the Somme’. Assuming he meant 1 July 1916, the true figure was actually nearly 20,000, which is of course shocking enough, but for the UK’s Prime Minister to have a made such a ludicrous mistake in the announcement of the government’s plans for the centenary did not promote confidence that they would be underpinned by a rigorous understanding of the history involved. Similarly Cameron's statement that ‘To us, today, it seems so inexplicable that countries which had many things binding them together could indulge in such a never-ending slaughter, but they did’ suggests that the Prime Minister and his speech writers had a deeply flawed understanding of the nature of the conflict.3 Cameron’s speech brought about a highly critical reaction from some historians, including me.4 Nonetheless, the government's programme proved too much for some, and initiated a renewed battle for the meaning of the First World War. In May 2013 a letter from a group of actors, musicians, poets and politicians was published in the Guardian, a liberal-left newspaper. It attacked the government's remembrance programme, declaring 'Far from being a "War to end all wars" or a "Victory for democracy" this was a military disaster and a human catastrophe'.5 This promptly became known in some circles as the "Luvvies' Letter".6 Historical research 2 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532923/Michael-Gove-blasts-Blackadder-myths-First-World-War-spread-television-sit-coms-left-wing-academics.html, 2 January 2014 (accessed 9 October 2014) 3 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans, 11 October 2012 (accessed 22 November 2013) 4 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10037507/Historians-complain-Governments-WW1-commemoration-focuses-on-British-defeats.html, 5 May 2013, (accessed 22 November 2013) 5 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/21/remembering-war-to-promote-peace, 21 May 2013 (accessed 22 November 2013) 6 For cultural figures pronouncing on the history of the Great War, see Gary Sheffield. ‘The Centenary of the First World War: An Unpopular View’, in The Historian No.122 (Summer 20114) pp. 24-25


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and analysis are highly specialised activities. More than most historical events, the First World War prompts people to go public with views based on emotion, limited knowledge and flawed understanding. In case anyone thinks that opposition to such views as those laid out in the Luvvies' Letter is the preserve of male, middle-aged professors of military history, let me quote at length from the opinion of Dr Jessica Meyer, who is none of these things:

My main reason for annoyance lies, I think, in two aspects of the letter. The first is the apparent belief that those engaged professionally with and in the arts (as the majority of the signatories are) have a particular authority to speak about the horror of war… I cannot help feeling that some, such as Michael Morpurgo, are using their status as creators of cultural expression which use the war as subject matter to give themselves authority to pronounce on the ‘truth’ about the war, drawing on the tradition of the First World War canon... The second infuriating aspect of the letter is the dichotomy it sets up between national commemoration and the promotion of international peace and understanding through a focus on its futility and devastation. Such attempts to impose a contemporary political narrative on the commemorations feels like a betrayal of the men who fought… There were certainly plenty of voices calling for international peace both at the start and in the wake of war. Equally there were many who saw the war as a fight for national survival against the threat of Prussian militarism. And there were many who, in fighting for King and Country, were simply fighting to preserve the sanctity of the small part of that nation that they called home. Far more men enlisted in the belief that they were defending democracy, however limited that democracy might seem from a 21st century perspective, than we tend to given them credit for. Many survived the war, just as many did not. Some were disillusioned by their experience; many incorporated it into their life stories and carried on, changed but not destroyed by war. To deny any this is to deny those who gave voice to these sentiments, as a huge number did, the validity of their beliefs and does their memory a huge disservice…7

The government is very aware of the criticisms of the anti-war lobby, and is rather scared of it. In an extreme form it reflects the futility/donkeys narrative dominant in

7 Jessica Meyer, ‘Possibly an angry post’ (blog, http://armsandthemedicalman.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/possibly-an-angry-post/ 22 May 2013, (accessed 22 November 2013). Dr Meyer is a cultural historian. I am grateful for her permission to reproduce part of her blog.


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British society, and politicians do not want to alienate voters. This helps to explain the choice of events that will receive full-scale formal commemoration, as announced by David Cameron in October 2012, discussed above. The historical illiteracy of omitting the Hundred Days is, as Professor Peter Simkins has trenchantly observed, akin to commemorating the Second World War by marking the Fall of Singapore but ignoring D-Day.8 To be fair, the government has changed its mind on this. Under pressure from various quarters, agreement has been reached in principle to commemorate the Battle of Amiens (8 August 1918), arguably the turning point on the Western Front. The government have also been wary about stating why the war was fought. The current debate over the origins of the war is a red herring. There has been widespread media approval of Christopher Clark's 'sleepwalkers' thesis, reinforced in some ways by Margaret MacMillan’s book, that the war was 'a tragedy, not a crime' and blame should not be allocated to individuals or states.9 However the mainstream historical position, based on 50 years of scholarship, is that on the contrary, Austria-Hungary and Germany bore the lion's share of the responsibility for the outbreak of war. Anyone solely reliant on the mass media for their information might not realise this. The third volume of John Röhl’s magisterial biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II, which does not hesitate to allocate blame to Germany, provides a powerful counter to the ‘sleepwalkers’ idea.10 The notion of Europe drifting into war fits the current European zeitgeist of failing to face up to uncomfortable truths about the recent past. Not surprisingly, Clark’s book has becomes a best-seller in Germany. However, in my view, the evidence demonstrates Austro-Hungarian and German culpability for the outbreak of the First World War.11 Of course, if no one was to blame for starting the war, the conflict can be seen as futile: except, no matter who was responsible, Germany took full advantage of the outbreak of hostilities. Berlin waged an aggressive war of conquest, carving out a huge empire, imposing brutal rule on occupied peoples and imperilling both the security of Britain and the Empire and the future of liberal democracy on continental Europe. For Britain the war was both a war of national survival and, in 1918, one of

8 www.westernfrontassociation.com/news/newsflash.html?start=65, 24 October 2013, (10 October 2014) 9 Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (London, Penguin, 2013 [2012]) p.561; Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace (London, Profile, 2012). For my detailed criticisms of this approach see Gary Sheffield, A Short History of the First World War (London, Oneworld, 2014), Chapter 1. 10 John Röhl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900-1941 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014) 11 For an excellent collection of documents in English translation, see Annika Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and Military Documents (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013)


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liberation. To take another example of an actor expressing a view on the meaning of the First World War, in 2013 Caroline Quentin spoke about the new production of Oh! What a Lovely War being ‘a heartbreaking piece about the futility of war’.12 One wonders what a war would need to be fought about to qualify as not being futile in Ms Quentin’s book. The Luvvies' Letter and the like flourish in an environment in which the UK government, the successor of the ones that took Britain into the war in August 1914 and led the country through four and a half years of total war, refuses clearly to state that in 1914-18 the vast majority of the British people supported the war, seeing it as a war of national survival. In a democracy, a total war cannot be waged without the consent of the people. Neither will the government broadcast the fact that the weight of historical evidence and opinion points to the British people of a century ago being right in their views. The government makes the argument that it is not its place to place interpretations on historical events. This might have some validity but for the fact that this government (like all others) is very keen to put forward historical interpretations when it suits them. The legacy of Margaret Thatcher, another highly controversial historical issue which resurfaced after her death in 2013, is a case in point. Even more pertinent is the way the fiftieth anniversaries of D-Day and VE Day, which fell in 1994 and 1995, were commemorated. The government of the day had no hesitation in placing a particular interpretation (from the British point of view, a very positive one) on those events. Some individuals, such as Andrew Murrison MP, deserve credit for making public statements supportive of the view that the war was a struggle for national survival. There is a consensus that the centenary years should be about commemoration, not triumphalism. The outbreak of the war in 1914 is absolutely nothing to celebrate. The centenary of 1918 is, however, a different matter. In January 2014 Helen Grant, the Tory minister with responsibility for commemorating the centenary, sent out mixed messages, stating 1918 ‘ was an absolutely vital victory’ but ‘we won’t be celebrating that fact’.13 The successes of the British armed forces and the British nation-in-arms should be celebrated, but not in a triumphalist fashion – I agree with Ms Grant on that much. ‘Celebration’ in the sense of public acknowledgment of a job well done, a great national achievement, would be wholly appropriate. The UK government thought it fitting to celebrate the victory of 1945. It is equally fitting to celebrate that of 1918. Overall, the government, by failing to provide clear and decisive leadership on this

12 Evening Standard, 22 October 2013; http://www.standard.co.uk/news/oh-what-a-lovely-voice-caroline-quentin-starts-training-for-musical-8896715.html, 22 October 2013 (accessed 14 October 2014) 13 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/458507/ww1-victory-should-not-be-celebrated-with-dancing-in-the-street-MP-Helen-Grant-says 7 February 2014 (accessed 9 October 2014)


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issue, is missing a unique opportunity educate the population that the war was fought over major issues, that it was not meaningless, and a million men did not die for nothing. This is nothing short of an abdication of responsibility. To adapt Jessica Meyer’s point, allowing the imposition by default of a contemporary political narrative on the commemorations feels like a betrayal of the men who fought, died, survived, and were victorious. Turning to the media; newspapers, the BBC, and to a lesser extent other broadcasters, have embraced the First World War with a vengeance. It has certainly given various military historians a public platform and what are in historiographical terms old ideas have suddenly become current. Niall Ferguson’s views: that he considers it a catastrophe that Britain did not stay out of the war, and the world would have been better off by a Europe conquered by a ‘benign’ German state, were first put forward in the mid-1990s, but they became front-page news in the Guardian in January 2014.14 Even more surprisingly, The Times gave me half a page to explain why I think his views are profoundly wrong. Views of various sorts have appeared across the press. The Guardian seems particularly keen on publishing pieces that depict the war as futile, although they published an article of mine that argued the opposite. As a life-long Guardian reader, it was an interesting experience being attacked in my daily newspaper of choice as a warmonger, and worse. The wider point is, however, that in spite of Michael Gove’s ill-informed attack in January on ‘left wing historians’ for belittling Britain’s war effort for the most part the centenary commemorations have not been a party political football. Andrew Murrison, a Conservative, and Dan Jarvis, his Labour Shadow, co-operate closely and have both been at pains to avoid politicising the centenary. Neither can historians be neatly divided up by political allegiance. Sir Richard Evans, a leftist who has emerged as a forthright spokesmen for the ‘futility’ view of the war, has found himself occupying common ground with Niall Ferguson and (posthumously) with Alan Clark, both very much of the right, while those who believe it was right for Britain to fight in the war include historians whose politics straddle the spectrum from left to right via apolitical. The response of the BBC to the centenary has been to go into overdrive, with 2,500 hours of programmes plus a major website. The comments that follow are quite critical, so let me preface them by saying that the BBC has produced a great deal of very good, high quality programming and internet material, and I have every reason to believe that there is a lot more to come. This in my view justifies paying the licence fee. But I have some major reservations. For a start, there is too much coverage of the First World War, and it started too early. There is a real possibility that people will simply become bored with the war by the end of 2014, let alone by

14 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/britain-first-world-war-biggest-error-niall-ferguson, 30 January 2014 (accessed 15 October 2014)


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2018. The flagship BBC TV series: ‘Britain’s Great War’, fronted by Jeremy Paxman, displayed a number of strengths, but also many weaknesses. Appearing at primetime on BBC1, the programme had enormous reach, and as one reviewer wrote that Paxman’s ‘inclusion as presenter says "serious" and it says "knowledgeable"’.15 This can be seen as the BBC marking a great national event and fulfilling its mandate to educate. An alternative view is that the series was rather lightweight. While it certainly did not pander to the ‘futility’ view, and broadly reflects current scholarship, some of the analysis in the programmes was superficial. Overall, 'Britain's Great War' was marred by some poor editorial decisions on inclusion or exclusion of material. The omission of the Battle of Jutland, and the concentration on the first day of the Battle of the Somme to the exclusion of the rest of this four month campaign were perhaps the most egregious examples. Moreover Paxman, who may be looked on as authoritative by a mass audience, is a journalist not a historian, and in a well-publicised comment at a literary festival revealed that his knowledge of Britain in the First World War has some surprising and rudimentary gaps.16 The series would have had more credibility with a reputable historian presenting the series – and how well Richard Holmes would have fulfilled that role – or failing that, an actor reading a script. Using Paxman as front man is a facet of the BBC’s obsession with celebrity, and this was compounded by the failure to feature a single scholarly historian on screen, although other people (such as another celebrity, the Downton Abbey scriptwriter Julian Fellowes) did appear. The rise of the 'drama-documentary' has been a feature of television over the last few years. This can take the form of dramatisation of events within the context of a conventional 'talking head and film clip' documentary, or a programme that consists solely of a dramatisation. Anyone who acted as a historical adviser to a conventional television documentary will know that the final script is the result of a series of compromises, and will have suffered the frustration of having their advice ignored because factual accuracy does not fit in with what the TV people want to do. Dr Adrian Gregory, of Pembroke College Oxford, has tweeted about his experience on Great Britain's Great War, and it is about par for the course.17 The trade-off between historical accuracy and the nature of television as a medium of entertainment is particularly acute in the case of 'pure' drama-docs. Bjorn Rose, an ex-Army officer now working as a history teacher, having brought a party of schoolboys to the set to act as extras, found himself very unexpectedly working as a

15 The Independent, 28 January 2014; http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/britains-great-war-bbc1-tv-review-memories-from-the-home-front-humanise-paxmans-war-story-9088991.html, 28 January 2014, (accessed 10 October 2014) 16 Daily Mail, 9 October 2013, p.17 17 See @AdrianGregory20’s Twitter timeline.


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historical adviser on the 'Mons' episode of Our World War This BBC series, broadcast in August 2014, sought to repeat the success of Our War, a 'fly-on-the-wall' series of documentaries on the British army in Afghanistan, in which Captain Rose's platoon had featured. He had some success in pointing out obvious errors - he persuaded the art department not to dress the set portraying Nimy bridge in 1914 with Brodie steel helmets, which were not introduced until a year later and only became general issue in 1916 - but otherwise was bemused by the lack of attention to historical detail and willingness to perpetuate blatant inaccuracies and anachronisms. In particular, Rose contested the statement at the end of the programme that the British army had been 'humiliated' at Mons. To put the best possible interpretation on this view, it is highly debatable. Some historians, myself included, would describe it as nonsense. Needless to say, Bjorn Rose lost the argument.18 That Professor David Reynolds' series The Long Shadow was screened is evidence that the BBC is prepared to take risks on giving a heavyweight historian a series which deals with a serious topic in a serious way, albeit on BBC2 rather than BBC1.The series looks at the legacy of the First World War across a range of issues, and is something of a model in conveying deep scholarship in an accessible fashion. It would have served the cause of education much better, and done something to repair the tattered reputation of the BBC as a broadcaster of serious documentaries on mainstream television, if The Long Shadow had been the flagship series for 2014 rather than Britain's Great War. Does any of it - the re-hashing of stale arguments by newspapers, dumbed-down and inaccurate television programmes, and the ambivalent and grudging response of the British government - really matter? I think it does. The Great War Centenary years offer a once-in-a-century opportunity for education, and to move serious debate beyond a narrow circle of historians. The interest and enthusiasm I have witnessed among local history groups, civic societies, in schools, colleges and universities, and the myriad of exhibitions and publications telling the story of the impact of the First World War on local communities has been truly inspiring.19 My hope is that at the end of the centenary period the people of Britain will have a more mature, reflective

18 Information given by Bjorn Rose, 6 October 2014. 19 At the risk of being invidious I have been particularly impressed by the First World War exhibition at the Manx Museum http://www.manxnationalheritage.im/news/new-exhibition-to-mark-100th-anniversary-of-the-first-world-war/ and the accompanying book: Matthew Richardson, This Terrible Ordeal: Manx Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War (Douglas, Manx National Heritage, 2013), and by Martin Hayes and Emma White (eds.), Great War Britain: West Sussex Remembering 1914-18 (Stroud, The History Press, 2014). I provided a foreword to the latter.


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and less strident view of the Great War; one less encumbered by myths, half-truths prejudice. We should not allow this opportunity to slip through our hands.


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The Annual Confidential Report and Promotion in the Late Victorian Army IAN F. W. BECKETT University of Kent Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT The annual confidential report offers insights into both the manner of promotion in the late Victorian Army and the personalities of some of its key figures. This article looks in depth at the form, function and usage of the Annual Confidential Report, arguing that it was a flawed system which hampered the ability of Lord Roberts and Viscount Wolseley to promote the best officers to high command.

In October 1902 General Sir Evelyn Wood appeared before the Elgin Commission examining the conduct of the South African War. Wood had been Adjutant General in the War Office from 1897 to 1901. Understandably, one of the principal avenues of enquiry was the quality of military leadership in South Africa. Asked about officer training, Wood placed blame on the annual confidential reports upon which the Selection Board relied for information when considering promotions to higher ranks: ‘The confidential reports up to recently have not been sufficiently drastic and straight; it is only in recent years that the man making the report has understood that his own character is also at stake for fairness and for telling the facts as they really are.’1 To Wood, promotion up to the rank of Major appeared automatic. Thereafter, it was a matter of seniority tempered by rejection only in the very worst cases despite the fact that selection of higher commands by merit alone had been supposedly in force since 1891. Wood suggested that there were three distinct categories of officers that could be identified from confidential reports. There were those whose fitness for advancement was undoubted, and those with such a bad record that their unfitness was readily apparent. The great majority, however, were ‘colourless men’, who had been promoted ‘simply because “there is nothing known against them”’.

1 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 1904 [Cd. 1790] Report of the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Minutes of Evidence, p. 176, c. 4166, Wood, 29 Oct. 1902.

THE ANNUAL CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

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The quotation was taken from Wood’s own memorandum on selection written in October 1900.2 The criticism of confidential reports was not new. In October 1888, Sir George Chesney, the Military Member of the Viceroy’s Council, had complained that there was a reluctance to report adversely on subordinates by those ‘who in their desire to make things pleasant, do not put before A.H.Q. & Govt. their real opinions about officers’. According to Chesney, district commanders in India would not commit to paper what they really thought of an individual so that ‘no one wd. infer from them, what has been notorious for years to everyone in the army, except apparently the General O.C. the district, that he is a thoroughly useless officer’. Referring to the case of Lieutenant Colonel Williams of the 16th Bombay Cavalry in March 1889, Chesney similarly claimed that inspecting officers ‘will not do their duty but are too anxious to make things pleasant all round’. The result was that the authorities were aware of an officer’s incompetence but ‘there are no public vouchers to that effect, and they cannot establish a case merely on private opinion but must have something official and definite to go on’.3 Equally, Lieutenant General Sir Donald Stewart, soon to become Commander-in-Chief in India, wrote in 1880,

The curse of our service is that people - I mean most people - won’t say what they think about an officer till it is too late. Then the authorities that ought to know all about the Army then round and say there is nothing on record against so & so as if that were a sufficient recommendation in his favour.

Subsequently, Stewart told his successor, General Sir Frederick Roberts, in May 1887 that he did not consider J. F. Cadogan of the 33rd Bengal Infantry capable of commanding a regiment ‘and yet I am not certain there is anything very strong on record against him’.4 Amid the recriminations following the disaster at Maiwand in Afghanistan in July 1880, the Commander-in-Chief at the War Office, George, Duke of Cambridge, criticised the Commander-in-Chief in Bombay, Lieutenant General Henry Warre, for his selection of Lieutenant General James Primrose for the command at Kandahar. Warre tried to deflect criticism by suggesting that he should not have been expected to report on someone of equal rank. Cambridge retorted that a candid view should have been given: ‘In high positions disagreeable things have

2 Ibid., p. 179, c. 4246; National Army Museum (hereafter NAM), Roberts Mss, 7101-23-207, Memorandum by Wood, 15 Oct. 1900; also in The National Archives (hereafter TNA), WO 32/8367. 3 NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-232-14, Chesney to Roberts, 1 Oct. 1888, and 12 Mar. 1889. 4 National Library of Wales, Hills-Johnes of Dolaucothi Mss, L13655, Stewart to Hills, 16 May 1880; NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-23-78, Stewart to Roberts, 5 May 1887.


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to be done at times for the good of the public service.’ Cambridge also suggested that he had advanced Primrose in rank previously in the belief that he was able, and could not have known otherwise unless properly informed through reports.5 Newly appointed Cambridge’s successor as Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley complained to Roberts, now also a field marshal and commanding in Ireland, in September 1895 that the Selection Board was necessarily guided by confidential reports but, in the case of officers of the Indian army, they were of little use: ‘All their geese are swans.’6 Wolseley was invariably prejudiced against the Indian army but there was generally perceived to be a problem. Indeed, when commanding in Ireland between 1890 and 1895, Wolseley had used the same phrase in noting of the confidential reports by his four district commanders,

[O]ne must take their opinion of officers in conjunction with what we think of those Generals & how we value or estimate the worth of their opinions. To some amiable men all geese are swans, & I must say this of all of them, that when they find fault & report that any officer is below par, he must be a real fool.7

Shortly before retiring, Wolseley agreed with Wood’s criticisms of reports, suggesting there was a system of ‘promotion by seniority in all ranks, tempered by a somewhat rarely exercised rejection for well recognised incompetency’. While Wolseley felt the Selection Board had been reasonably successful, not enough was known about Majors or seconds in command of battalions.8 Wolseley also once remarked of the Military Secretary, Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Whitmore, that ‘I never knew anyone more anxious to do right, but he thinks one man is much the same as the other & hates passing any man over because you have a better man available for the vacancy’. For all their differences on strategic and military matters, Roberts would have concurred heartily, having noted that ‘as rule, I have observed that whether men behave well or ill, they are spoken of in the same terms, and get the same reward’.9 Not surprisingly, Wolseley and Roberts had their own methods of determining military merit. As is well known, both operated their own ‘rings’ of selected officers.

5 NAM, Warre Mss, 8112-54-673, 705, 707, Warre to Whitmore, 5 Dec. 1880, and Cambridge to Warre, 11 Nov. and 31 Dec. 1880. 6 Ibid., Roberts Mss, 7101-23-89, Wolseley to Roberts, 4 Sept. 1895. 7 National Library of Ireland (hereafter NLI), Kilmainham 1313, Note by Wolseley, 30 Dec, 1893. 8 TNA, WO 32/8367, Wolseley to PUS, 15 Oct. 1900. 9 Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Alison Mss, Box 1, Wolseley to Alison, 22 Mar. 1885; NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-24-101, Roberts to Dillon, 4 Apl. 1880.


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For Wolseley the Asante campaign in 1873-74 had marked the real beginning of the Wolseley or ‘Ashanti’ ring. As Wolseley wrote in his autobiography, ‘he had long been in the habit of keeping a list of the best and ablest soldiers I knew, and was always on the look-out for those who could safely be entrusted with any special military piece of work’. There is evidence for this ‘list’. On his way out to the Gold Coast, Wolseley gave Captain George Furse ‘a paper bearing a long list of names, asking him at the same time to mark with a cross any name which he considered to be that of a good and efficient officer’. In December 1884 Wolseley told his wife, after an old associate, Sir William Butler, had proved troublesome, he would ‘drop him from my list’.10 Wolseley always claimed that he picked solely on merit and even his critics acknowledged that he had the knack of selecting able men. He had a penchant for courage but also for intellectual reputation, particularly favouring Staff College graduates. There were obvious disadvantages, Wolseley becoming increasingly a prisoner of his early successes, feeling it desirable to keep employing the same individuals lest his rejection of them might reflect on his earlier choice. He also assumed that selected individuals would always be willing to fill specific roles in his military corrective when they themselves were growing in stature and seniority.11 Another drawback, as suggested by Cambridge, was that ‘if the same officers are invariably employed, you have no area for selecting others, and give no others a chance of coming to the front’.12 Roberts was equally careful. One of Wolseley’s protégés, Lieutenant General Henry Brackenbury, was appointed Military Member of the Viceroy’s Council in 1891, throwing him into close proximity to Roberts, who was Commander-in-Chief in India from 1885 to 1893. In May 1894 Brackenbury specifically compared Roberts’s methods to those of Wolseley, suggesting that any officer ‘placed in a great position of authority and responsibility will select as his tools for the work in hand the men whom he has tried, and found never to fail him, and will prefer them to those who he has not tried, or to those who he has tried and not found perfect’. Brackenbury had asked Roberts about the Wolseley ring, to which Roberts had replied that Wolseley was perfectly right: ‘No officer who has the responsibility laid upon him of carrying

10 Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier’s Life 2 vols. (London: Archibald Constable & Co, 1903), II, p. 201; Sir George Douglas, The Life of Major General Wauchope (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1905), pp. 63-64, 74; Hove Reference Library, Wolseley Mss, W/P 10/38, Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 23-29 Dec. 1884. 11 Adrian Preston (ed.), Sir Garnet Wolseley’s South African Diaries (Natal), 1875 (Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1971), pp. 88-89; Ian F. W. Beckett (ed.), Wolseley and Ashanti: The Asante War Journal and Correspondence of Major General Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1873-74 (Stroud: History Press for Army Records Society, 2009), pp. 39-45; idem, ‘Command in the Late Victorian Army’, in Gary Sheffield (ed.), Leadership and Command: The Anglo-American Military Experience since 1861 (London: Brasseys, 1997), pp. 37-56. 12 A. R. Godwin-Austen, The Staff and the Staff College (London: Constable, 1927), p. 207.


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out a big job would ever be such a fool as to entrust the details of it to men he did not know he could rely on.’ 13 Roberts himself told Brigadier General Henry Wilkinson in February 1887 that he was guided in his choices by his own knowledge of officers, advice from the HQ staff and higher commanders, the opinion of the army generally, and confidential reports. Even this was not a foolproof method so far as confidential reports were concerned. Thus, in September 1887, having been informed by the Military Secretary that Major Howard Brunker of the Cameronians ‘had been found wanting when in the presence of the enemy in South Africa’, Roberts complained that he could hardly have known this. Brunker had been favourably reported on for the past two years in India, and any previous confidential reports had not been forwarded from the War Office.14 The officer corps of the British and Indian armies was relatively small, but this did not mean that everyone was well known to everyone else, as frequent comments in private correspondence make only too clear. Thus, the confidential report remained significant. General Sir William Lockhart, for example, noted in July 1898 that he considered Lieutenant General George Sanford the best candidate for the Bombay command. It was suggested that Sanford was ‘eccentric’. Lockhart commented, ‘but then I have not seen his confidential report’.15 Clearly, the issue of the annual confidential report is one worth considering in connection with promotion. One of the difficulties in assessing the impact and accuracy of reports is the lack of surviving papers relating to the work of the Military Secretary, responsible to the Commander-in-Chief for personnel issues. Just two general letter books have survived, covering the period from 1871 to 1893, and what is characterised as the Commander-in-Chief’s Selection Book, covering the period from 1882 onwards.16 The latter summarises the information utilised for promotions from Colonel to Major General, briefly indicating the general gist of confidential reports only to 1887, at which point the column for ‘Confidential Reports on Colonel’ is used only to record whether a promotion is by selection or seniority. Personnel records as such have not survived with the exception of those of a small selection of leading soldiers, or whose careers were presumably thought of interest. For the Victorian period, there are relatively few but they do include those for Sir Redvers Buller; the Duke of Cambridge; Charles Gordon; Herbert Kitchener; Hector Macdonald; Lord Roberts; the Hon. Reginald Talbot, who commanded the Heavy

13 Royal Artillery Museum, Brackenbury Mss, MD 1085/3, Brackenbury to Buller, 9 May 1894. 14 NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-23-199-4, Roberts to Wilkinson, 22 Feb. 1887; ibid, 7010-12-100-1, Roberts to Harman, 9 Sept., 1887. 15 British Library (hereafter BL), Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (hereafter APAC), L/MIL/7/15520, Lockhart to Newmarch, 15 Jul. 1898. 16 NAM, 1998-06-194 and 195, Military Secretary’s Private Letter Books; 1998-06-197, Commander-in-Chief’s Selection Book.


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Camel Regiment on the Gordon Relief Expedition; and James Henry Reynolds, who won the VC at Rorke’s Drift.17 A few additional confidential reports have also been preserved for similarly distinguished soldiers including the Duke of Connaught; Lord Methuen; W. H. Mackinnon, who commanded the City Imperial Volunteers in the South African War; and Evelyn Wood.18 Few mention confidential reports in memoirs, the notable exception being Richard Meinertzhagen, who included extracts from his confidential reports from 1900 to 1924. Meinertzhagen suggested that, despite their invariably flattering nature, he had ‘a wonderful aptitude for hiding my faults, and not allowing my little weaknesses to see daylight’.19 Officers were reported on in a number of ways that added to their overall record. There are surviving reports on Indian army officers who attended the Staff College from 1882 onwards.20 Similarly, there are reports on engineering subalterns leaving the School of Military Engineering at Chatham between 1889 and 1892.21 Fortunately, too, all summaries of confidential reports (and a few full reports), primarily for infantry and cavalry officers, have survived for the Irish Command between 1871 and 1894.22 Summary confidential reports have also survived for officers at command and staff levels in the Indian army and the British army in India from 1888 onwards.23 Most leading figures such as Wolseley and Roberts expressed themselves freely on the quality or otherwise of fellow officers in their private correspondence but Roberts also kept copies of some confidential reports made on senior officers on the conclusion of his campaigns in the Afghanistan in 1879, and in South Africa in 1900.24 Consequently, there is sufficient material to make an informed assessment of confidential reports. The form of the annual report changed over time. In 1874 the first page of the report for infantry and cavalry officers required an assessment of the state of an officer’s health; whether fit for service, and with good eyesight; and whether a good horseman. The commanding officer was required to indicate his reasons for 17 TNA, WO 138. 18 Ibid., WO 27/489. 19 Richard Meinertzhagen, Army Diary, 1899-1926 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1960), pp. 290-96. 20 BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/3424-27. 21 TNA, WO 25/3950. 22 NLI, Kilmainham 1307-1313. 23 BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/17038-50. 24 NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-23-148, Reports for 1879, reproduced in part in Brian Robson (ed.), Roberts in India: The Military Papers of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, 1876-93 (Stroud: Alan Sutton for Army Records Society, 1993), pp. 68-69; ibid., 7101-23-188, Reports for 1900, reproduced in full in André Wessels (ed.), Lord Roberts and the War in South Africa, 1899-1902 (Stroud: Sutton Publishing for Army Records Society, 2000), pp.126-30. Additional Confidential Reports by Roberts are in TNA, WO 105/25 and 27].


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considering an officer fit for his current position and for advancement, or reasons for dissatisfaction. The back of the form carried details of date of birth; whether an officer had been a cadet at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst or had attended the Staff College; whether he had attended schools of instruction; whether he had passed for promotion; whether he had command of any languages; and whether he was married or single. The form also required details of whether an officer had been distinguished in the field, such as receiving a mention in despatches or orders and decorations; as well as full details of military service and appointments. The inspecting officer - usually the district commander - would then comment upon the report.25 By 1885, the first page of the report also required details of an officer’s general ability; general professional requirements; capacity for command; self-reliance; readiness and resource; judgement and tact; temper; his practical proficiency in application of drill, reconnaissance, outpost and patrol duties, and horsemanship. The back of the form had not essentially changed although it now also required whether an officer was qualified in signalling, and the name and address of next of kin.26 By 1891, it had changed again. The first page now sought detail on general ability; general professional acquirements; practical proficiency in drill and field movement; professional zeal; smartness in performance of duties; level of horsemanship; and an officer’s capacity for command in terms of judgement, tact, temper, self-reliance, and power of commanding respect. There also had to be an assessment as to whether an officer was equal to, or above, or below the average in his unit; and whether he could exercise proper influence for his rank over officers, NCOs and men. The back of the form now had additional separate sections for what level of promotion an officer had passed; whether he had attended schools of instruction for musketry, military engineering, signalling, cavalry, pioneers, mounted infantry, veterinary work, supply, transport, riding, and gymnastics; and whether he had acted as an adjutant.27 New guidance issued in 1893 required to know additionally where an officer had attended a school of instruction; whether he had been adjutant of a militia or volunteer battalion; and the level at which Persian or Hindustani had been passed.28 The surviving Irish Command report summaries have few for engineer or artillery officers. The front of the form was common to those of infantry and cavalry officers but the back required information on particular professional attainments. The artillery form in 1887 wanted information on an officer’s knowledge of the instructions laid down in the field artillery manual; and his power of applying the

25 NLI, Kilmainham 1307, Form for Captain William Abberley, 2/8th Foot, 2 Jul. 1874. 26 Ibid., Kilmainham 1310, Blank Form, 7 May 1885. 27 NLI, Kilmainham 1312, Report on Major Somerset Kevil-Davies, 2nd Gordon Highlanders, 29 Jul. 1891. 28 Ibid., Kilmainham 1313, Note by Childers, 20 May 1893.


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same in the field, by battery and in brigade, and in relation to other arms. For garrison artillery officers there had to be an assessment of an officer’s general knowledge of the instructions laid down in manuals for garrison and siege artillery; his degree of practical knowledge of the work of heavy garrison ordnance; his knowledge of hydraulics applied to artillery service; and his knowledge of steam and machinery, of electricity, and of drawing. In the case of engineering officers, the 1893 form required information on professional qualifications listed as attendance at the Staff College; and knowledge of field engineering, permanent fortification, construction and estimating, field telegraphy and signalling, electricity, submarine mining, surveying, railways, and ballooning. It also required the knowledge possessed of foreign languages, and of musketry. A solitary report form on a medical officer, also from 1893, was again common to that of others so far as the first page was concerned. On the back, it required to know whether an officer has passed in military law; if he had done so at a training school, in the medical staff corps, or at Aldershot; if he had passed a riding class; and whether he possessed other special acquirements and qualifications as a medical officer.29 In theory at least, the amount of detail required was considerable. Additional reports might be required, especially if an officer appealed against the judgements passed on him. Moreover, the more senior the officer, the more comments were applied up the chain of command. In those reports forwarded to the India Office for onward transmission to the War Office, for example, comments on senior officers in the Bombay and Madras presidencies were made by the governors of those presidencies as well as by the Commander-in-Chief in India. When Lieutenant Colonel the Hon. Paul Methuen was about to be appointed Assistant Adjutant General to the Irish Command in 1877, his predecessor, Charles Wynne-Finch, told him that dealing with the confidential reports for seven cavalry regiments, 21 infantry battalions and three companies of engineers, as well as for all the staff, was ‘the “devil”’ in terms of work. The process began each August and continued until the following March.30 Perusal of the Irish reports suggests that Wood was essentially correct: those detailed comments recorded in summary returns tend to relate routinely to the commanding officer and second in command of units but, otherwise, only to those with obvious failings. In both October 1873 and October 1874, for example, all 31 captains and lieutenants of the 6th Dragoons were simply reported as satisfactory.31 To some extent, it depended upon the GOC. Upon assuming the Irish Command in October 1880, General Sir Thomas Steele directed that only unfavourable reports should be recorded. By contrast, when in Ireland, Wolseley insisted that the first

29 Ibid., Kilmainham 1310, Report on Lieutenant Colonel Edward Elliott, A Brigade, RHA, 2 Aug. 1887; ibid., 1313, Blank Engineer and Medical Forms, 1893.] 30 Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Methuen Mss, 1742/6335, Letters on Appointment to Dublin, Wynne-Finch to Methuen, 19 Mar. 1877. 31 NLI, Kilmainham 1307, Reports of 13 Oct. 1873, and 1 Oct. 1874.


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four officers in a unit should be reported on as to their fitness for promotion if it was a two-battalion regiment, or the first six officers in the case of a three-battalion regiment. Forms had to be filled in correctly and fully; periods of half pay should not be counted as employment; the place of birth must be accurately given; there must be a complete address for next of kin; and only the commanding officer and the inspecting officer were permitted to complete the boxes for additional comments.32 Yet, even in Wolseley’s time, every subordinate officer in a regiment could be returned simply as satisfactory, as in the case of all 26 captains and lieutenants in the 1st King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) in October 1891, and all 24 captains and lieutenants in the 1st Royal Sussex Regiment in July 1893.33 There is also evidence of the reluctance to be specific in comments. In August 1884, Major General Lord Clarina, commanding the Dublin District, indicated that Lieutenant Colonel John Blaksley of the 1st Buffs (East Kent Regiment) was not a success ‘although I am not prepared to give any specific reasons for expressing this opinion, but he is certainly not popular with his officers & is disliked socially according to common report’. The Military Secretary responded by demanding a full report: ‘It is necessary that reasons should be fully given for forming an adverse opinion regarding any officer, but Lord Clarina, although he has formed an unfavourable opinion of Lt. Col. Blaksley, states that he is not prepared to give any reasons for having formed it.’ Clarina replied with details of Blaksley’s want of tact and judgement, defending his own original intention as being a desire

to avoid troubling the authorities with unnecessary correspondence, & in the exercise of his important command he has never shrunk from taking on himself as much responsibility as possible, therefore he (Lord C.) some months since settled a misunderstanding which had arisen between Lt. Col. Blaksley & his officers, with regard to a question relating to the Officers Mess; on which occasion he (Lord C.) could not fail to perceive that “he” certainly did not command their esteem, & that “he” had displayed great want of judgement.

Cambridge concluded from the evidence Clarina now presented that

unless this officer can so far alter his mode of carrying on his duties as to conduce to a more cordial feeling towards him on the part of his subordinates it will become a matter for consideration whether in the interests of the Service and the well being of the Battn. Lt. Col. Blaksley

32 Ibid., Kilmainham 1309, Note by Boyle, 2 Oct. 1880; ibid., 1313, Note by Childers, 20 May 1893. 33 Ibid., Kilmainham 1312, Report, 22 Oct. 1891; 1313, Report, 20-21 Jul. 1893.


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should not be called upon to retire from a position which he does not appear to be sufficiently qualified to fill in a very essential point.

Blaksley denied being on poor terms with his officers, and entered a heartfelt plea to be allowed to continue in the army, at which point Clarina indicated that he wished to say no more to damage Blaksley’s prospects. He trusted that the episode would have taught Blaksley the need for requisite tact.34 In the following year, Clarina was again compelled to elucidate further his remarks on Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Oldfield, and Majors John Harkness and John Vincent of the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers. Not having previously seen Oldfield, Clarina had relied on the report of the battalion’s former commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Macdonald, that Oldfield had ‘completely lost his head on parade’. Similarly, he had relied on Macdonald’s view that Vincent lacked tact and judgement. Clarina excused this on the grounds that, with between 500 and 600 officers in Dublin District, he ‘need scarcely observe that it is manifestly impossible for him to become personally acquainted with the qualifications of every individual officer, therefore he is obliged in a great measure, to rely on the information he obtains from Comg. Offs’. In the case of Vincent, it transpired that Macdonald, in turn, had based his own view on what he had been told of Vincent’s performance as adjutant of the 3rd Northumberland Fusiliers. Meanwhile, Harkness had been promoted to command the 2nd Battalion on the basis of Clarina’s satisfactory reports for 1883 and 1884 yet he now claimed Harkness had little ability. The Duke of Cambridge required to know how these reports could be reconciled, noting that he,

is obliged to rely on the reports received from Genl. Officers to assist him in deciding as to the fitness of an officer for promotion, and specially in the selection of a Lieut. Colonel for the responsible position of the command of a Battalion, and H.R.H. is placed in a very difficult position, when, after acting on such a report and appointing an officer to a command, he receives an unfavourable report from the same General Officer.

Clarina replied that he felt ‘no difficulty in reconciling the apparent anomaly of his having in three separate reports rendered in three different years expressed opinions regarding an officer at variance with one another’. He had seen Harkness only in the capacity of an acting magistrate in 1883 and 1884, and was not aware of his more general failings until the battalion was concentrated in Dublin in 1885. Rather giving the game away in precisely the way that general criticisms of the annual confidential reports have already been implied, however, Clarina also wrote, 34 Ibid., Kilmainham 1309, Steele to Whitmore, 27 Aug. 1884; Boyle to Clarina, 16 Sept, 1884; Clarina to Boyle, 23 Sept, 1884; Whitmore to Clarina, 26 Sept. 1884; Steele to Whitmore, 9 Oct. 1884; ibid., 1310, Note by Clarina, 28 Oct. 1884.


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No man can possibly more dislike having to make a disparaging remark as to the capacity of an officer than he (Lord C.) does, and he trusts H.R.H. will credit him with the desire to faithfully discharge the somewhat invidious duties which an Inspg. Gen. Officer is required to perform & that his explanation may be considered sufficient.35

Even Wolseley, who was usually more than willing to express his dissatisfaction with officers, could pull his punches on occasion. Thus, in October 1891, Wolseley described Colonel Montgomery Williams, commanding the Regimental District at Birr, as ‘absolutely useless in any Military position’ and ‘absolutely unqualified’ for further promotion. Yet, Wolseley indicated that he would find it difficult to put his exact reasons for these judgements into an official document. Since Williams was due to retire anyway, it would be better merely to say that, in line with previous reports, he had been found wanting in the district’s essential recruiting work through lack of energy and want of ‘go’. Similarly, in August 1892 Wolseley chose not to disclose in full to the officer in question, Lieutenant Colonel William Roberts of the 2nd Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, adverse reports upon him. Wolseley commented that ‘I don’t think one can expect to obtain usefully guiding information from those in command relating to the men under their orders, if their reports are to be shown to those concerned.’ He went on,

In these days of selection, it is very easy to tell a Lieut. Colonel that he has not been selected for promotion, because there were others whom it was considered in the interests of the Army & of the State were more fitted for higher positions. One can do this without hurting an officer’s feelings, for you don’t tell him he is useless, but that there are others better than he.36

In much the same way, while suggesting that adverse remarks should normally be communicated to officers, Roberts as Commander-in-Chief in Madras had declined to pass on his full report to Brigadier General George de Berry in January 1883. The latter would not be re-employed and was due to be retired in a matter of months: the full extent of the criticism would only pain an old soldier.37 De Berry, who had first seen action in the Sikh Wars but none since the Mutiny, was duly retired as a Major General in June 1883.

35 Ibid., Kilmainham 1310, Note by Clarina, 14 Oct. 1885; Macdonald to Turner, 13 Oct. 1885; Turner to Clarina, 5 Dec, 1885; Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar to Harman, 12 Dec, 1885. 36 Ibid., Kilmainham 1312, Wolseley to Harman, 4 Oct. and 17 Oct. 1891; ibid, Wolseley to Harman, 27 Aug. 1892. 37 NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-23-97, Roberts to Dillon, 31 Jan. 1883.


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On occasions, too, there was a desire to given an officer the benefit of the doubt. In January 1875, Cambridge proposed to remove Colonel Joyce from the 68th Sub District at Galway as a result of the report by General Lord Sandhurst. Sandhurst, however, indicated that ‘it did not occur to me to suggest this officer’s removal. Although I may believe him to be unsuitable for an independent Command’. Joyce’s correspondence had suggested to Sandhurst that he was of ‘flighty intelligence’ and ‘impudent in speech’. Sandhurst recommended proceeding cautiously as he had not disclosed his views to Joyce but the latter had already been called upon to resign and was now demanding to know the cause. Lieutenant General Sir Edward Holdich, commanding the Dublin District, upheld Sandhurst’s view and Joyce was told bluntly he could sell his commission, go on half pay, or retire on full pay as he was over 60.38 In May 1885 there were adverse reports on Captain Charles Mayne of No. 1 Battery, 1st Brigade (Western Division) Royal Artillery at Carlisle Fort, Cork. Mayne had appeared to be drunk on a number of occasions, once while at the theatre in Cork, but was otherwise considered a good officer. Mayne was refused the interview he sought with the Duke of Cambridge and passed over for promotion. But, since the Duke wished to give Mayne the chance to redeem himself, he was given a year’s probation during which he would be reported on monthly.39 In August 1887 General H.S.H. Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar acknowledged that Colonel John Kinchant of the 11th Hussars was wanting in tact, as suggested by Major General the Hon. Charles Thesiger, who commanded the Cavalry Brigade at the Curragh, as well as acting as Inspector General of Cavalry in Ireland. Prince Edward felt Thesiger over ready to take offence. In the event, Kinchant retired in November 1887, being granted the honorary rank of Major General.40 Kinchant’s case raises the issue of where there was disagreement on the quality of an officer and adverse comment, of course, could have its roots in personalities. In terms of the former, for example, there was disagreement over a number of years of the merits of Colonel Thomas Crawley, a British officer serving as Assistant Adjutant General first at Lahore and then Allahabad. In 1891 Major General Sir Hugh Gough, an Indian army officer commanding at Lahore, considered Crawley thoroughly conversant with his duties but the Adjutant General in Bengal, Major General William Galbraith, a British officer, considered Crawley had a ‘buoyant temperament and average ability’. In 1892 the Commander-in-Chief, Roberts, concluded that Crawley was a ‘satisfactory officer without any special qualifications’. By 1893 Major General

38 NLI, Kilmainham 1307, Sandhurst to Horsford, 9 Jan. and 29 Jan. 1875; Fendall to Joyce, 6 Feb. 1875. 39 Ibid., Kilmainham 1310, Steele to Whitmore, 2 and 7 May 1885; Boyle to Young, 12 May 1885; Young to Boyle, 14 May 1885; Boyle to Young, 19 May 1885; Boyle to Young, 27 Jul. 1885. 40 Ibid., Thesiger to Beckett, 29 Aug. 1887; Beckett to Dormer, 18 Oct. 1887; Dormer to Beckett, 19 Oct. 1887; Prince Edward to Harman, 20 Oct. 1887.


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Viscount Frankfort de Montmorency, who had followed Gough in command at Lahore, reported that Crawley was on sick leave and that he would find it difficult to suggest any post or command for which Crawley was fitted. Brigadier General Gerald de Courcy Morton, who was acting Adjutant General in Galbraith’s absence, concurred, describing Crawley as ‘feeble’ although conceding this might be due to ill health. Roberts indicated, ‘I do not think this officer is fitted for further employment on the Staff’. Yet Crawley survived and, transferred to Allahabad, albeit a lesser post, was found excellent in all respects by Brigadier General Horace Evans of the Bengal Staff Corps, commanding there, after two months’ acquaintance in 1894. Back in post as Adjutant General, Galbraith still felt Crawley below average and that, inexperienced as he was in dealing with British officers, Evans was ‘naturally impressed by Colonel Crawley’s knowledge of them, but I cannot concur in his extremely higher estimate’. The Commander-in-Chief in India, now General Sir George White, also felt Crawley had ‘zeal and considerable experience’, but not ‘the gifts that go to make a high commander’. Evans duly reported favourably on Crawley again in 1895 to the evident continuing surprise of Galbraith and White.41 Similarly, there was a clash in 1889 between Major General Henry Davies, commanding the Cork District, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas St Clair of the 2nd Princess Charlotte of Wales’s (Royal Berkshire Regiment). St Clair had reported adversely on Major Justinian Ponsonby, after which Davies had suggested St Clair lacked tact and had a temper. St Clair claimed that Davies’s hostility towards him originated from the time they had served together in Southern District previously, and that any reported discontent within the regiment was due to his arrival from the 1st Battalion with the intention to introduce reforms. A minor disagreement had led Ponsonby to complain directly to Davies but, as Ponsonby had apologised, St Clair had not entered an adverse report on him as when ‘promotion by selection is so much the rule he feels the seriousness of an unfavourable report’. Davies, in turn, took strong exception to any idea that he had been influenced by unsubstantiated reports from within the battalion. The Duke of Cambridge upheld Davies’s report, St Clair having been reported upon for his temper as far back as 1878.42 Two years later, in July 1891, St Clair suggested that Ponsonby had many good qualities and, on the face of it, was qualified for promotion. Yet, at the same time, St Clair was

41 BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/17038, Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1891; ibid., Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1892; ibid., Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1893; L/MIL/7/17039, Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1894; ibid., Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1895. 42 NLI, Kilmainham 1311, Davies Report, 6 Aug. 1889; Note by Davies, 29 Sept. 1889; Prince Edward of Saxe Weimer to Whitmore, 4 Oct. 1889; Beckett to Davies, 19 Oct. 1889.


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compelled to say that he [Ponsonby] is of a hasty disposition, inclined to magnify personal matters and to be contentious. He is exceedingly selfish and vain, and sometimes narrow minded. He has little perseverance at work which entails discomfort and is too fond of leave and of society. He is not good at either drill or field work.

Ponsonby’s eyesight was also poor, and St Clair felt that he should not succeed to command of the battalion. Davies did not agree, arguing that he had always found Ponsonby smart and efficient, and had no hesitation in recommending him for the command. For good measure, Ponsonby sent in a medical board report indicating his eyesight was good. Cambridge again found no reason to question Davies’s assessment in the light of St Clair’s own record, concluding that Ponsonby was fitted for promotion.43 As it happened, Davies himself had been admonished by Cambridge in January 1890 for two seemingly contrary reports on the Assistant Adjutant General at Cork, Colonel W. Lewis Ogilvy. The last confidential report in June 1889 had been entirely satisfactory yet Ogilvy was now reported as unfitted for his duties. Cambridge directed Ogilvy either to take more interest in his duties so as to avoid any further condemnation by Davies, or resign.44 A similar personality clash occurred in December 1891 when Lieutenant Colonel James Stewart Mackenzie of the 9th Lancers reported unfavourably on Major Bloomfield Gough following their disagreement over the treatment of a military prisoner in the regiment. Both had distinguished themselves in the Second Afghan War but it was known that they were not friends. Lieutenant General James Keith Fraser, the Inspector General of Cavalry, was unable to offer any view based on personal observation. He was inclined to believe Gough’s side of the story on the basis of Gough’s known gallantry. By contrast, Major General Somerset Wiseman Clarke, commanding the Belfast District, was more ready to back Mackenzie. Given that Fraser was non committal and Wiseman Clarke’s view unfavourable, Gough was warned that he should have chosen his reported words to Mackenzie more carefully, and he must be made aware that further advancement depended on future satisfactory reports.45 One lasting dispute that was played out in the confidential reports was between Roberts and Hugh Gough’s brother, Sir Charles Gough. In December 1879 when the

43 Ibid., Kilmainham 1312, St Clair report, 24 Jul. 1891 with comments by Davis; Harman to Childers, 20 Nov. 1891; Childers to Davis, 23 Jan. 1892. 44 NAM, 1998-06-195, Harman to Davies, 3 Jan. 1890, and Harman to Ogilvy, 3 Jan. 1890. 45 NLI, Kilmainham 1312, Report by Mackenzie, 18 Dec. 1891, with comments but Fraser and Wiseman Clarke; Gough to Childers, 19 Dec. 1891; Mackenzie to Childers, 21 Dec. 1891; Wolseley to Harman, 31 Dec. 1891; Childers to Wiseman Clarke, 1 Feb. 1892.


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then Major General (local Lieutenant General) Sir Frederick Roberts had forced his way into Kabul following the murder of the British envoy there, his force was besieged in the Sherpur cantonment. Commanding a brigade on the lines of communication, the then Brigadier General Charles Gough was ordered to advance from Jagdalak to reinforce Roberts at Sherpur, some 70 miles away and with snow thick on the ground, although the peremptory orders from Roberts actually contradicted those Gough received from his immediate superior, Major General Robert Bright. Roberts believed that Gough had been unnecessarily slow in taking 12 days to get through to him. In fact, there were fierce attacks on those detachments Gough had left to defend Jagdalak and other posts.46 Thereafter Roberts seemingly went out of his way to damage Gough’s reputation despite the latter being praised by the then Commander-in-Chief, Sir Frederick Haines, and awarded the KCB. There were derogatory reflections in Roberts’s correspondence, with Roberts doing his best to ensure Gough would not get the Madras command in 1890, as well as what Gough took to be a damning slight in Roberts’s autobiography, Forty One Years in India, published in 1896. But confidential reports also served Roberts’s purpose. Thus, in 1888, when commanding the Oudh Division, Gough was characterised by Roberts as able and energetic but, ‘Of his power to act with decision when a crisis arrives I have some doubt.’ The 1890 report was the same.47 Whatever the drawbacks in the reporting system, it is clear that those officers who were unsatisfactory were noted. Reports could often be frank, or at least extended only the faintest qualified praise. An example of the former is the October 1880 report on Lieutenant Louis Carden of the Royal Artillery, namely that, ‘This officer appears to have little professional zeal. I have not formed a very high opinion of his capacity as an officer, if he has any he succeeds in disguising it.’ An example of the second is Wolseley’s comment on Lieutenant Colonel Robert Oxley of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders in November 1893:

More full of zeal than brains: he seldom leaves the Barracks except on duty & works unremittingly for his men. If attention to business & unnecessary care for his Battn. & for its good name & credit could of themselves make a good C.O., then he ought to be about the best in the Army. But his Battn. is not well taught in the art of fighting. Col Oxley is an old fashioned officer

46 Brian Robson, The Road to Kabul: The Second Afghan War, 1878-81 (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1986), pp. 161-65, 178. 47 NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-23-100-3, Roberts to Stewart, 5 Apl, 30 Aug. and 29 Oct. 1890, and Roberts to Newmarch, 9 Nov. 1892; ibid., 7101-23-105, Roberts to Gough, 13 Feb. 1897; ibid., Gough Mss, 8304-32, Gough to Roberts, 5 Feb. 1897; Morton to Gough, 16 Mar. 1897; Gough to Harriette Gough, 12 and 28 Dec. 1879; BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/17038, Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1888 and 15 Mar. 1890.


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who seems to think drill the end and instead of being merely a means to an end.48

Ultimately, of course, what mattered most, as Wolseley and Roberts invariably stressed, was how an individual performed on the battlefield. Some who had been praised routinely in successive reports fell short of expectations. Sir John McQueen had received glowing reports previously but, having failed to conduct the Black Mountain expedition of 1888 to Roberts’s satisfaction, was now ‘quite the most unsatisfactory commander I have had to deal with and I would never trust him with the conduct of another expedition.’49 Similarly, in 1894, Sir George White found Brigadier General Alex Kinloch at Peshawar ‘altogether a man of considerable mark, which he would probably make greater on service’. A year later, following Kinloch’s indifferent performance on the Chitral Relief Expedition, he had greatly disappointed White and ‘shown none of the dash or enterprise I expected of him’. Redvers Buller suggested privately to White that Kinloch’s chance had come too late after prolonged Indian service and exposure to the sun. He should no longer be considered for the Burma command for ‘it would never do to have a man who proved himself of no use in war, and yet was a great martinet, and very exigent of his Troops, in peace time’.50 In the same way, the formerly favourable opinions of Brigadier General Francis Kempster ended with his perceived failings during the Tirah campaign of 1897 although, perversely, his immediate superior gave him a very favourable report in 1899 on the grounds of the ‘practical knowledge of his profession gained on active service’.51 Others who routinely received favourable and even admiring reports also failed the ultimate test including Major General Sir William Gatacre, defeated at Stormberg in South Africa in December 1899; and Lieutenant General (later Field Marshal) Lord Methuen, defeated at Magersfontein in the same ‘Black Week’ in South Africa.52 On the other hand, some men were to fully justify the glowing reports they received, such as the future General Sir Archibald Alison, who was head of the War Office Intelligence Department from 1878 to 1882 and commanded at Aldershot from 1883

48 NLI, Kilmainham 1308, Report on Carden, 9 Oct. 1880; ibid, 1313, Report on Oxley, 11 Nov. 1893. 49 NAM, Roberts Mss, 7101-23-148; ibid., 7101-23-98, Roberts to Dufferin, 4 Nov. 1888. See also ibid., Roberts to Dufferin, 16 Nov. 1888; ibid., 7101-23-100-2, Roberts to Napier, 3 Nov.1 888; ibid., 7101-23-100-3, Roberts to McQueen, 25 Jul. 1891, and Roberts to Stewart, 18 Aug. 1891. 50 BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/17039, Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1895, and Covering Note on Kinloch, 4 Sep. 1895; ibid, White Mss, F108/36, Buller to White, 30 May 1895. 51 Ibid., L/MIL/7/17040, Madras Report, 1 Jan. 1898; ibid., L/MIL/7/17041, Madras Reports, 1 Jan 1899. 52 On Gatacre, for example, see BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/17038, Bengal reports, 15 Mar. 1888; ibid., L/MIL/7/17039, Bombay reports, 11 May 1896; for Methuen, TNA, WO 27/489.


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to 1888; and General Sir William Lockhart, who died in office as Commander-in-Chief in India in 1900.53 The annual confidential report, therefore, was one of the tools necessarily utilised to assess officers’ suitability for promotion. They were most certainly noted in the discussions of the progression of Colonels to the rank of Major General between 1882 and 1887, although this did not always make a great deal of difference. In 1885 Colonel Lord John Taylour was set aside from further promotion, Major General William Cameron having reported that Taylour had no capacity for command and ‘I have seldom if ever seen an officer who appears to know less of his work.’ Yet, the Hon. Savage Mostyn duly got his promotion to Major General despite Cameron’s equally damning report that he was ‘a good natured nonentity - to whom it would be dangerous to trust a responsible command’.54 However, there were many other factors involved in promotion and appointments.55 Evelyn Wood’s criticism of annual confidential reports was largely justified in that inspecting officers did tend to identify only the strongest and the weakest officers. As an officer advanced to command and staff level, his abilities were the more likely to come under scrutiny by his superiors. Even then, however, the unwillingness of some senior officers to make proper use of the annual confidential reports, and of others to draw the right conclusions from them, hampered the efforts of men like Wolseley and Roberts to advance the very best to high command. That was the nature of the problem of promotion in the late Victorian army.

53 NLI, Kilmainham 1307, Report on Alison, 16 Aug. 1876; ibid, 1308, Report on Alison, 21 Aug. 1877; BL, APAC, L/MIL/7/17039, Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1893; ibid., Bengal Reports, 15 Mar. 1895; ibid., L/MIL/7/17040, Bengal Reports, 1 Jan 1898. 54 NAM, 1998-06-197. 55 Ian F. W. Beckett, ‘Kitchener and the Politics of Command’ in Edward Spiers (ed.), Sudan: The Reconquest Reappraised (London: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 35-53’ idem, ‘Buller and the Politics of Command’, in John Gooch (ed.), The Boer War: Direction, Experience and Image (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 41-55; idem, ‘Women and Patronage in the Late Victorian Army’, History 85 (2000), pp. 463-80; idem, ‘Soldiers, the Frontier and the Politics of Command in British India’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 16 (2005), pp. 280-92.

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‘Shooting Power’: A Study of the Effectiveness of Boer and British Rifle Fire, 1899–1914 SPENCER JONES University of Wolverhampton Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of Boer rifle fire had a significant legacy on the development of British musketry standards. This would prompt improvements in training which would allow the infantry of the BEF to cause disproportionate casualties to their German adversaries in 1914. This paper charts the success of the Boer methods and explains how the British adapted to the increase in infantry rifle fire.

I The growing effectiveness of infantry small arms from the mid-19th century onwards was a recognised influence upon military tactics.1 Although the technical limitations of early generation rifles reduced their overall effect, by the latter part of the century the greatly increased lethality of modern weaponry was becoming apparent.2 In large European armies reliant upon a conscript system that limited the available time for training and largely precluded the creation of marksmen, sheer weight of fire was more important than accuracy. For example, Prussian victory over Austria in 1866 had, in part, been influenced by the tactical advantages conferred by the rapid fire of the Dreyse Needle Gun.3 However, the unique colonial duties of the British Army meant that this emphasis on rapidity was less appropriate. Warfare fought in the proximity of undeveloped imperial frontiers made the movement of supplies a herculean challenge. The army could not afford to be wasteful with its ammunition. In these conditions, rapid

1 For example, see Perry D. Jamieson, Crossing the Deadly Ground: United States Army Tactics, 1865-1899 (Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 1994). 2 For criticism of the technical capabilities of rifles, see Earl Hess, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Lawrence, University of Kansas Press, 2008). For recognition of the lethality of modern firepower, see Ian Hamilton, The Fighting of the Future (London, K.Paul Trench & Co., 1885), p. 14. 3 For example, see Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), p.25, footnote 65.


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shooting was discouraged and iron fire discipline was enforced. This approach served the British Army well in a variety of colonial conflicts and, despite a handful of officers who questioned its validity against a similarly armed opponent, close control remained the linchpin of British fire tactics for much of the 19th century.4 The limitations of this tactic would be ruthlessly exposed by the unusual conditions of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899 – 1902). The Boers possessed a unique military culture that had no parallels with any of Britain’s other colonial foes. In Colonel Charles Callwell’s famous treatise on colonial warfare, Small Wars, it was noted that, as a military force, the Boers defied easy classification.5 The Boers lacked a formally constituted army and instead relied upon a voluntary militia system, with volunteers being formed into units known as commandos.6 Boer citizens responding to the rallying call were expected to bring their own firearm and horse, thus ensuring that the force was both well-armed and highly mobile.7 This combination of firepower and mobility was the defining feature of the Boer military system. The effectiveness of the Boers in combat had been demonstrated in regular conflicts with local Africans, where small numbers of burghers had often been able to triumph over far larger opposition forces.8

Boer firepower would prove to be an important battlefield factor, and the magnitude of the Second Anglo-Boer War ensured the experience left a deep and lasting impression upon the British Army. This article will study British impressions of Boer marksmanship during this major conflict. Although the popular press were quick to attribute success to natural Boer skills, thoughtful military commentators identified a variety of factors that contributed to the effectiveness of Boer rifle fire. This study will examine three key elements that contributed to Boer marksmanship, namely terrain, culture, and equipment, demonstrating how they combined to produce unusually effective rifle fire. The chapter will also consider the British impression of Boer musketry in the aftermath of the war, showing how overall opinion was one of considerable admiration. This admiration would play an important role in the British Army’s musketry reforms in the years 1902–1914, which, in turn, contributed to the 4 Concerns were raised following the poor performance of British soldiers in the First Boer War 1880-1881 but this had little influence on the army as a whole. 5 Charles Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London, H.M.S.O, 1906), p.31. Callwell felt that the Boers had more in common with a European guerrilla movement than a typical colonial foe. F.H.E. Cunliffe, The History of the Boer War (London, Methuen & Co.1901), Vol.1, pp.4-5 argued that the Boer fighting style was adopted from the autochthonous ‘Hottentots’, albeit with the benefit of modern weapons. 6 For a thorough study of the Boer commando system, see Fransjohan Pretorius, Life on Commando during the Anglo-Boer War 1899 – 1902 (Cape Town, Human and Rosseau, 1999). 7 Ibid., pp. 80-83. The Afrikaner governments provided rifles to those who did not possess their own. 8 Frederick Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899 – 1902 (London, Hurst and Blackett Ltd., 1906), Vol.1, pp.68 – 71; Bill Nasson, The South African War (London, Hodder Arnold, 1999), p.64.

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famous rifle skills of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the opening battles of the First World War. The article will close with a discussion of British rifle fire in the opening of this great conflict, demonstrating certain parallels between the experience of the South African War and the war in Europe.

II An immediate problem faced by British troops in the Second Anglo-Boer War was the nature of the terrain and climate. The sheer scale of the geography could be intimidating to inexperienced troops. Sweeping grass veldt in the east and scrub desert in the west stretched for miles, occasionally being broken by huge kopjes and wide rivers. Yet, despite the vastness of the country, effective cover on the veldt was spartan. Boulders, scrub vegetation and anthills offered some concealment for troops, but in many battles the attackers were forced to advance over disturbingly open terrain.9 The incredibly clear atmosphere of the country exacerbated the difficulties posed by the terrain. Troops who were unaccustomed to the conditions faced particular difficulty in estimating ranges correctly, but even veteran troops were known to make serious errors when judging distances.10 This had dangerous implications when advancing to the attack, as it was easy to misinterpret the range to the enemy position. For example, confusion over the exact range to the Boer lines played a role in the destruction of Colonel Long’s battery at the Battle of Colenso on 15 December 1899. On the other hand, the clear atmosphere could offer a great advantage for the defenders, especially if they occupied a kopje, as they could observe advancing foes at remarkable distances. Howard Hillegas, an American journalist attached to the Boer forces, expressed his amazement at the distance at which advancing British forces could be seen, noting that at long range they resembled ‘huge ants more than human beings.’11

Afrikaner riflemen took full advantage of these conditions. Well adapted to the clear atmosphere, the quality of Boer eyesight was a source of much admiration amongst British troops. One officer commented that the average Boer had ‘magnifying eyes’, while General Sir Redvers Buller was said to have stated that ‘if a European and Boer were walking towards each other in an open country, the Boer would see the other

9 For an evocative discussion of the terrain in South Africa, see Count Adalbert Sternberg, My Experiences of the Boer War (London, Longmans, 1901), pp.204-206. 10 “Jack the Sniper” [Charles James O’Mahony] A Peep Over the Barleycorn: In the Firing Line with the P.W.O. 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment, Through the Relief of Ladysmith (Dublin, John Drought, 1911), pp.135 – 136; G. Forbes, ‘Experiences in South Africa with a New Range Finder’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 46/2, (1902), p.1389. 11 Howard Hillegas, The Boers in War (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1900), p.146


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two miles in advance.’12 Making use of this natural advantage, the Boers often opened fire at ranges of well over a mile.13 This long range rifle fire came as an unpleasant surprise to British troops, who were not trained to fire at ranges above 800 yards.14 Furthermore, pre-war British tactics had assumed that it would be possible for infantry to advance to within approximately half a mile of the enemy’s position before it became necessary to shake out into extended order, and did not anticipate receiving anything but desultory enemy fire beyond 1,500 yards range.15 This was not the case in South Africa, where British formations were often engaged at ranges of 2,000 yards or more.16 Officers recorded their alarm at this tactical development, with one noting:

War is not what it was when armies manoeuvred in sight of each other, and when 600 yards was the limit of artillery fire ... That was old-time fighting, and some sport about it too. Now Bill is killed at 2,400 yards, and Bill’s pal hasn’t an idea where the shot was fired. That is modern warfare.17

Such long range fire could be especially problematic for cavalry, who were initially armed with carbines that had a maximum range of 1,200 yards. Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Warren complained that the ‘Boers had only to keep at 2,000 yards from our cavalry in the hills and could shoot them down with impunity’.18 However, even in the clear atmosphere of South Africa, it took an exceptional marksman to hit the target reliably at long range. Observers noted that Boer long-distance fire tended to be erratic unless the range to the target had been established in some fashion. This could take the form of crack shots firing ranging shots and communicating the distance to their comrades. Artillery was also used to establish the range, and so were nearby geographical features.19 Once the range had been established, the fire was considerably more effective. For example, at the Battle of Willow Grange on 22 November 1899, the West Yorkshire Regiment reported:

12 Quoted in Jack, Peep over the Barleycorn, p. 192. 13 The Boers were also capable of holding their fire until close range. See Pretorius, Life on Commando, pp. 139-140. 14 H.R. Mead, ‘Notes on Musketry Training of Troops’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 43/1 (1899), pp. 250-251. 15 War Office, Infantry Drill Book 1896 (London, H.M.S.O., 1896), p.131. 16 The Official Records of the Guards’ Brigade in South Africa (London, J.J. Keliher, 1904), p.18; William Balck, ‘Lessons of the Boer War and Battle Workings of the Three Arms’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 48/2, (1904), pp.1273-1274. 17 ‘Not by a Staff Officer’, ‘Some Remarks on Recent Changes’, United Service Magazine, October 1904, p.47. 18 Report of His Majesty’s Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Military Preparations and Other Matters Connected with the War in South Africa (London, H.M.S.O., 1903), Cmd No.1789 – 1792, Vol.2, Q15850, p.233 (Hereafter referred to as the Elgin Commission). 19 Elgin Commission, vol.1, Q 6860, p. 294.

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for about one and a-half hours the Boers kept up an ineffective fire on our position, only one man being hit. The Boers then brought up a Vickers-Maxim at about 1,800 yards range, and very quickly found our range, and after that their musketry became very effective ... The position under this fire quickly became untenable.20

Long range Boer shooting was particularly dangerous to dense formations. When Lord Roberts took command of British forces in South Africa, his tactical ‘Notes for Guidance’ urged infantry to adopt extended formations between 1,500 and 1,800 yards from Boer positions, effectively doubling the distance set down in the pre-war regulations.21 In practice a number of units chose to abandon close order at even greater distances. For example, Major-General Henry Colvile, commanding Guards’ Brigade, favoured shaking into extended order at 2,500 yards.22

However, despite its capacity to cause losses at huge ranges, Boer long range fire was rarely decisive on its own. Casualties at such range were often more a matter of luck than judgement. For example, Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Hunter commented that he believed the effectiveness of long range fire was ‘mythical’ and related that he had regularly patrolled the Ladysmith perimeter in full general’s uniform, secure in the knowledge that none of the besieging Boers would be capable of hitting him!23

The main battlefield function of Boer long range fire was to slow down the pace of the British advance by forcing them to adopt extended formations at great distances from the Boer position. 24 Once under fire, battlefield manoeuvre became considerably more difficult and any element of surprise was lost. A journalist attached to Lord Methuen’s force described this kind of action, writing that the series of attacks during the attempt to relieve Kimberly in November 1899 consisted of ‘no beastly strategy, or tactics, or outlandish tricks of any sort; nothing but an honest, straightforward British march up to a row of waiting rifles.’25 This could be a trying experience for British troops, and it was worsened by the fact that the source of the fire was usually invisible. Part of the reason for this was the use of smokeless

20 Extract from the Digest of Service of the 2nd Battalion The Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regt.) in South Africa (York, Yorkshire Herald Newspaper, 1903), p. 4. The Vickers-Maxim was an autocannon that fired small explosive shells. It was commonly referred to as a ‘pom pom gun’ due to its distinctive sound when firing. 21 National Archives of the UK (NAUK), Kew, London, WO 105/40, Lord Roberts Papers, ‘Notes for Guidance in South African Warfare’, 26 January 1900. 22 Records of Guards’ Brigade, p. 19. 23 Elgin Commission, vol. 2, Q 14587, Q 14588, p. 138. 24 Ibid., vol. 2, Q 19200, p. 397. 25 L.M. Phillips, With Rimington, (London, E. Arnold, 1902), p. 10.


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powder, which will be discussed in detail below, but it was also due in large part to the military culture of the Boers.

The commandos were essentially a force of individual riflemen, many of whom wielded their own personal weapons. Although officers were a key part of the commando, there was no drill or training to inculcate obedience to orders or the use of particular formations.26 The Boers had neither the discipline nor the inclination to adopt formal European formations for either attack or defence. Instead, commandos tended to fight as a loose group of skirmishers, with individual burghers choosing their own cover and frequently picking their own targets.27 The lack of formal organization in the Boer fighting line allowed it to take advantage of available cover and thus blend into the countryside with remarkable skill. Ruminating on his combat experiences, Major-General Geoffrey Barton commented that the Boers were ‘extraordinarily well trained by nature and habit to lie still.’28

The individualistic military culture of the Boers stood in stark contrast to the traditional British approach. Although attitudes differed from unit to unit, much of the British Army favoured close control, volley fire and strict discipline.29 Although these ideas had proved useful in previous colonial wars, they required adaptation to make them effective in South Africa. Henry Colvile commented on his wartime experiences of conservative attitudes in Guards’ Brigade:

At first officers and men were very stupid about taking cover. I have seen men halted on a rise in full view of the enemy when a few paces forward or backward would have placed them in shelter, the reason being that to have taken this step would have broken the dressing of the line.30

A combination of British inexperience in taking cover and the relative invisibility of Boer positions magnified the effectiveness of Boer fire. The Boers were able to observe and engage the British forces without revealing themselves; for the British coming under fire from an unknown source was a disturbing experience and often necessitated a delay in the attack until its location could be pinpointed. 31 Furthermore, the British were troubled by the inability to gauge the effect of their

26 Maurice, History of the War, vol.1, p. 86. 27 Balck, ‘Lessons of the War’, pp. 1272 – 1273. 28 Elgin Commission, vol.2, Q 16215, p. 256. 29 For a discussion of this issue, see Edward Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902 (Manchester, University of Manchester Press 1992), pp. 313-315. Reactionary pre-war attitudes were mercilessly lampooned in ‘George D’Ordel’ [Mark Sykes & Edmund Sandars] Tactics and Military Training (London, Bickers and Son, 1904). 30 Elgin Commission, vol. 2, Q 16974, p. 286. 31 Jay Stone and Erwin Schmidl, The Boer War and Military Reforms (Lanham, University Press of America, 1988), p. 80.

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own fire against relatively invisible opposition, especially as the evidence of the Boer’s shooting was plain to see. Major-General Neville Lyttleton contrasted previous colonial experience with the new conditions, writing of the Battle of Colenso:

Few people have seen two battles in succession in such startling contrast as Omdurman and Colenso. In the first 50,000 fanatics streamed across the open regardless of cover to a certain death, while at Colenso I never saw a Boer all day till the battle was over, and it was our men who were the victims.32

Colonel E.E. Carr echoed similar sentiments, noting that during most fire fights his troops were forced to shoot purely at geographic features to try and suppress enemy fire, whereas the Boer usually had a clear target:

They do not fire unless they are pretty certain you are there; I do not say they always see you; although the difficulty is that we cannot see them and they can see us, they can see us for miles; but we seldom see them.33

A private soldier, Charles James O’Mahony, expressed his frustrations with such fighting after the defeat at the Battle of Willow Grange, writing:

We were much handicapped for the Boers take cover in a manner never to be equalled ... we sprayed every nook, crevice, donga, spruit etc. on and surrounding the Boer position with lead as if from a watering can, rocks being splintered two miles in the kopjes rear.34

In stark contrast, Izak Meyer, a Boer veteran, described his experience of combat at the Battle of Modder River 28 November 1899 in the following terms:

Now I am deadly calm, and with deadly calm I pick my man, pick them one by one. I pick him, my Mauser drops, my left eye closes, I get him in my sights and my Mauser cracks. The Englishman totters, drops his rifle, grabs his chest ... I shoot them down, one after another, one after another.35

32 Neville Lyttleton, Eighty Years: Soldiering, Politics, Games (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1927), p. 212. 33 Elgin Commission, vol.2, Q 19200, p. 397. 34 Jack, Peep over the Barleycorn, pp. 74-75. 35 Quoted in Pretorius, Life on Commando, p. 141.


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The ability of the Boers to fight from behind cover was especially useful during extended fire fights at close range.36 In the early stages of the war, some British units attempted to use volleys during fire fights, but it was soon found that the slow, static nature of volley firing proved ineffective against dispersed and concealed enemies.37 By contrast the Boers proved especially adept at ‘snap shooting’, leaning out from behind cover only long enough to acquire a target and fire, and then ducking out of sight once more. J.B. Atkins, a British journalist, witnessed snap shooting at the Battle of Hart’s Hill, 23 February 1900, writing: ‘Boer heads and elbows shot up and down; the defenders were aiming, firing, ducking’.38 Faced with these conditions, the British were forced to adopt a far greater degree of independent firing themselves.39 Unfortunately, pre-war training had done little to prepare the average soldier for this type of action, and, combined with the difficulties of atmosphere and the relative invisibility of many of the Boer positions, this made fire fights a difficult proposition. Major-General Sir William Gatacre noted the difference in fighting style:

[The average British soldier] was rather slow in getting his aim, and he found he was unaccustomed to use his rifle without exposing himself, which at once brought a Mauser bullet in his direction ... The Boer, on the contrary, was particularly good at getting his bead on to the enemy’s hat or mess tin quickly, and in getting covered again before men could aim and fire.40

It was within fire fight range that the majority of British officers felt the Boers had truly demonstrated their marksmanship skills. Major-General J.P. Brabazon argued ‘where they beat us so completely was that when we got onto kopjes at close quarters, say, a few hundred yards, a man could not put a finger up over a rock or ridge without being shot.’ 41 Major-General A.H. Paget related his front line experience at the Battle of Modder River, noting that ‘[i]n these early fights [the Boers’] shooting was very accurate; every bullet had some mark, and there was no wild shooting at all, and when we got to the closer ranges, in places which were fire swept, everybody was hit.’42 E.E. Carr recalled the difficulty of assaulting Boers in strong defensive positions, stating ‘I have seen men rolled over like rabbits and

36 Opinions differed as to what exactly constituted ‘close range’ in the Anglo-Boer War. In the aftermath of the war, British regulations codified a range 600 yards or less as ‘decisive’ range for fire fights. See War Office, Combined Training 1905 (London, H.M.S.O. 1905), p. 100. 37 For a graphic description of the difficulties of engaging concealed Boers with volleys, see Jack, Peep over the Barelycorn, pp. 71-72. 38 J.B. Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith (London, Methuen, 1900), p. 295. 39 Jack, Peep over the Barleycorn, p. 73. 40 Elgin Commission, vol. 2, Q 16772, p. 272. 41 Ibid., vol.1, Q 6859, p. 294. 42 Ibid., vol. 2, Q 16441, p. 259.

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slaughtered, as the Inniskillings Fusiliers were at Pieter’s Hill on the first attempt just before the relief of Ladysmith’.43

In intense fire fights, the skill of individual Boer marksmen could be striking. Colonel Forbes MacBean noted the presence of ‘a certain percentage of men who are uncommonly good shots’ in the average Boer firing line.44 These elite marksmen were capable of causing disproportionate casualties. Henry Colvile noted ‘the Boers had a certain number of picked shots who did great damage’, while A.H. Paget echoed the view, commenting that ‘some of the shooting of the Boers was extraordinary.’45 Even Archibald Hunter acknowledged the presence of crack shots amongst Boer forces, relating that ‘[t]here are certain shots who have earned their living as professional hunters, and from 200 yards to 300 yards [range] they are undoubtedly marvellous shots.’46 The skills of these marksmen were often attributed to frontier life and the popularity of game hunting.47 However, game had been in decline throughout the 1880s and 1890s.48 Furthermore, the growth of urban centres in the Transvaal and Orange Free State during the 1880s and 1890s meant that Boer forces contained a proportion of city-based volunteers who were unlikely to be natural riflemen.49 Nevertheless, rifle culture remained a source of fascination in the Boer republics in the years prior to the war.50 Howard Hillegas felt that rifle shooting was the ‘chief amusement’ in the Transvaal in the 1890s, writing that the ‘demand for rifle ammunition was constant, and firing at marks may almost be said to have taken the place occupied by billiards in Europe.’ 51 Furthermore, beginning in the early 1890s and intensifying in the aftermath of the botched Jameson Raid of 1895, the governments of the Boer republics put renewed emphasis on promoting rifle culture. Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice noted of this policy that ‘[e]very effort, in short, was made to preserve the old skill and interest in rifle-shooting, which it was feared would vanish with the vanishing elands and gemsbok. If the skill had diminished, the interest had not.’52 43 Ibid.,, vol. 2, Q 19198, p. 397. Colonel Carr appears to have confused the attacks at Hart’s Hill (23 February 1900) and Pieter’s Hill (27 February 1900). The Inniskillings Fusiliers suffered severe casualties at Hart’s Hill but were not involved at Pieter’s Hill. I am grateful to Ken Gillings for supplying this information. 44 Elgin Commission, vol. 2, Q 19593, p. 415. 45 Ibid., vol. 2, Q 16440, p. 259; Q 16989, p. 292. 46 Ibid., vol. 2, Q 14585, p. 138. 47 Ibid., vol. 2, Q 21950, p. 564. 48 NAUK, WO 33/154, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p. 49. 49 Hillegas, Boers in War, pp. 19-20. 50 Maurice, History of the War, vol. 1, p. 80. 51 Hillegas, Boers in War, pp. 19-20. 52 Maurice, History of the War, p. 80.


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Nevertheless, not all Boers were gifted marksmen and their shooting could sometimes be wild. However, the fact that the majority of burghers were equipped with modern magazine loading Mauser rifles helped to offset any disadvantages due to lack of individual accuracy. Less talented riflemen could make up for this deficiency through sheer volume of fire. As J.P. Brabazon noted, ‘[i]f you pump lead in a certain direction at a proper distance you must hit somebody.’53 Charles Callwell saw the magazine rifle as the key element of Boer War tactics, noting that, due to its rate of fire,

a mere handful of men, lying down under shelter, can bring such a hail of bullets to bear upon ground extending for a considerable distance to their front that hostile troops attempting to cross this will suffer appalling losses in doing so, even if they succeed in the venture.54

Facing such rapid fire could be a harrowing experience for soldiers in the front line. An officer of the 60th Rifles recorded his experience at the Battle of Talana Hill:

I don’t suppose I am ever likely to go through a more awful fire than broke out from the Boer line as we dashed forward. The ground in front of me was literally rising in dust from the bullets, and the din echoing between the hill and the wood below and among the rocks from the incessant fire of the Mausers seemed to blend with every other sound into a long drawn-out hideous roar ... the whole ground we had already covered was strewn with bodies.55

The modern rifles of the Boers offered additional advantages beyond rate of fire. The flat trajectory of the weapons made them more accurate and allowed the Boers to create deadly fire swept zones at battles such as Modder River and Magersfontein.56 Indeed, at Magersfontein, the Boers had sited their main position at the base of a kopje, partially as means of taking advantage of the sweeping effect of flat trajectory fire.57 In addition, the Mauser rifle benefited from the use of smokeless powder, meaning that there was no tell-tale puff of smoke to reveal a firer’s location. This was a critical advantage and greatly enhanced the ability of the Boers to fight from behind cover. Charles Callwell considered it the decisive element of Boer marksmanship, arguing:

53 Elgin Commission, vol.1, Q 6860, p. 294. 54 Charles Callwell, The Tactics of Today (Edinburgh, William Blackwood 1903), pp. 31-32. 55 Quoted in Leo Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa (London, Sampson, Lowe Marston & Company, 1902), vol. 2, p. 164. 56 The Battle of Magersfontein was fought on 11 December 1899. 57 G.R. Duxbury, The Battle of Magersfontein 11th December 1899 (Johannesburg, S.A. National Museum of Military History 1995), p. 2.

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The disappearance of black powder has exerted a far more potent influence in moulding tactics into a new shape than the increased power and accuracy or the rapid fire of the modern rifle and gun. Concealment has been so greatly facilitated by this that it has gained a new and commanding importance. It was a standing grievance in South Africa that the Boers could only be heard and not seen.58

There had been some consideration of the effects of modern rifles within the British Army prior to the outbreak of the war, but such discussions had produced few tactical changes.59 Interestingly, Sir John Ardagh, Director of Military Intelligence, argued prior to the conflict that the fact that the British were armed with smokeless, flat trajectory rifles would help to offset the dangers posed by natural Boer marksmanship, stating that modern weapons had ‘much diminished the advantage offered by accuracy in judging distances.’60 In fact, the advantages of modern rifles had the effect of greatly magnifying Boer strengths. Long range, flat trajectory rifles allowed the Boers to engage at great distances; the use of smokeless powder vastly enhanced the Boer’s capacity for fighting from behind cover and improved individual accuracy; and the use of magazine loading allowed a far greater rate of fire to be maintained. Expert marksmen could benefit from the range and accuracy of their rifles, while less talented Boers could make up for lack of individual skill with sheer weight of fire. Despite wielding a weapon of similar quality, the British Army enjoyed few advantages by comparison. Lord Methuen offered a bleak assessment of the issue:

The shooting of the Regular troops was conducted under exceptional difficulties on account of the clearness of the atmosphere and because the enemy offered no good target, but my opinion gained during my experience of the Tirah and the South African campaigns is that the shooting of our infantry is not worthy of the accuracy and the long range powers possessed by the present rifle.61

The combination of Boer rifle culture and modern magazine rifles lay at the core of many British tactical problems in the Second Anglo-Boer War. Frontal attacks against Boer positions frequently suffered heavy losses, and it took a considerable degree of in-theatre learning before the British Army was able to gain the upper hand on the

58 Callwell, Tactics of Today, p. 7. 59 Spiers, Late Victorian Army, p. 315. 60 NAUK, WO 33/154, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p. 50. 61 Elgin Commission, Q 14188, p. 121.


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battlefield. 62 The effectiveness of Boer firepower necessitated a profound reconsideration of assault tactics, with a fresh emphasis on dispersed attack formations, prolonged artillery support and flanking movements. III In the aftermath of the conflict, the topic of Boer shooting was much discussed at the Royal Commission on the South African War. Twenty-one witnesses were questioned directly about Boer marksmanship and others spoke on the topic in general terms. Interestingly, several officers cast aspersions on the quality of Boer marksmanship. Colonel A.W. Thorneycroft and Major-General Sir H.M.L. Rundle both considered that Boer shooting had much declined from the First Anglo-Boer War, although both acknowledged that it still remained superior to that of their own soldiers.63 Redvers Buller actually considered that British shooting was superior to that of the Boers.64 Major-General Sir H.J.T. Hildyard thought that the marksmanship of his troops was comparable to that of the Boers, a view echoed by Forbes MacBean and Henry Colvile.65 However, all but one critical witness qualified their statements on the topic.66 For example, Buller only considered British shooting to be superior if the British knew the range to the enemy position, a comparatively rare experience for much of the war.67 Hildyard acknowledged his view was only an impression and ‘was a very difficult thing to prove’.68 MacBean admitted that he considered Boer fire to be of ‘a fairly high average’ and recognised the presence of dangerous sharpshooters amongst the commandos.69 Colvile attempted to argue that the British shooting was as good as the Boers, but that the hitting was worse, due to the Boers’ ubiquitous use of cover!70 However, the majority of witnesses praised Boer marksmanship, albeit sometimes grudgingly. Major-General Sir Bruce Hamilton directly refuted Henry Colvile’s evidence, arguing that Boer shooting was considerably superior.71 When questioned by the commissioners as to the reason for the divergent views on the quality of Boer shooting, Hamilton responded perceptively: ‘I think British officers are very anxious 62 For discussion of this aspect of the campaign, see Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (London, Wedenfeld and Nicolson, 1979) and Stephen M. Miller, Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption in South Africa (London, Frank Cass, 1999). 63 Elgin Commission, vol. 2, Q 12440, p. 19; Q 17879, p. 331. 64 Ibid., Q 14383, p. 212. 65 Ibid., Q 15982, p. 241; Q 16988, p. 292; Q 19593, p .415. 66 The only witness who was unequivocal in his criticism of Boer marksmanship was Colonel Alexander Thorneycroft. 67 Ibid., Q 15483, p. 212. 68 Ibid., Q 15982, p. 241. 69 Ibid., Q 19593, p. 415. 70 Ibid., Q 16988, p. 202. 71 Ibid., Q 17482, p. 314.

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to stick up for the shooting of their men.’72 A.H. Paget had much praise for Boer shooting, noting ‘I am going more not by what I saw when I had a higher command, but what I saw when I was in the fighting line myself ... I was in the fighting line and saw everything that was going on, and certainly the Boer shooting was very good indeed.’73 However, senior officers often had praise for Boer marksmanship; Charles Warren and William Gatacre both considered it to have been superior to that of the British.74 Lord Kitchener saw Boer rifle culture as the key element in Boer success:

Our men were not as quick and accurate as their opponents in shooting rapidly, but they had not been trained for this during peace time, and could not, therefore be expected to excel in what the Boers had learned to practice from childhood.75

Lord Roberts was highly critical of British musketry in comparison to that of the Boers, arguing that the average British soldier:

was the exact opposite of the Boer, especially in his want of knowledge of the ground and how to utilise it, and in his defective powers of observation. His shooting cannot be described as good ... there was no real marksmanship ... The shooting at short ranges ... was ineffective, and at long ranges the distance was seldom accurately estimated.76

The final report of the Royal Commission concluded that Boer marksmanship had been superior to that of the British, identifying the capacity of the Boers to fight from behind cover, their superior skill in judging distances and ability to hit fleeting targets as critical factors.77 The value of skilful marksmen wielding modern weaponry was clear to many veterans of the conflict. Alexander Thorneycroft considered it an ‘essential point’ from the war, arguing that ‘[w]hen you get to a decisive range, say 300 yards, if your men are first-class shots with good fire sights on their rifles for close shooting, you are at an enormous advantage.’78 Ian Hamilton went even further, arguing that Britain should take inspiration from the Boer military system and adapt it to her own needs:

72 Ibid., Q 17479, p. 314. 73 Ibid., Q 16445, 16446, p. 259. 74 Ibid., Q 15660, p. 224; Q 16772, p. 272. 75 Ibid., vol. 1, Q 173, p. 7. 76 Ibid., vol. 2, Q 10442, p. 440. 77 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 48. 78 Ibid, vol. 2, Q 12435, p. 19.


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I believe that an army composed of individuals each so highly trained as to be able to take full advantage of the terrain, and of his wonderful modern weapon, and each animated with a morale and trained to an efficiency which will make him capable of acting in battle on his own initiative, will break through, scatter, and demolish less efficient opposing forces, even if greatly superior in numbers.79

The British Army underwent considerable tactical reform in the aftermath of the conflict, with a particular focus on improving marksmanship.80 In 1902, Lord Roberts stated that the first object in the training of a soldier was ‘to make him a good shot.’81 To this end, the old system of volley firing was abandoned and was replaced with training that aimed to make each soldier an effective individual rifleman. Between 1902 and 1906 each man was assigned 300 rounds per annum for training. Although this figure fell to 250 rounds per year from 1906 onwards, it was still well in advance of continental armies.82 For example, a German infantryman was assigned between 60 and 100 rounds in their first year and 42 rounds in their second year.83 British musketry training was heavily based on the experience of the Second Anglo-Boer War. There was a concerted effort to mimic the skills of the Boers, with an emphasis on ‘snap shooting’, firing from behind cover and engaging fleeting targets at unknown distances.84 The culmination of British marksmanship training was the ‘Mad Minute’, in which a soldier was required to fire fifteen aimed rounds at a target at least three hundred yards distant within sixty seconds. This famous exercise was directly inspired by the effectiveness of sudden, intense bursts of fire in South Africa.85 Admiration of the rifle culture of the Boers prompted some authors to urge that attempts be made to inculcate a similar attitude towards guns within the British Empire.86 Although this was impractical for the bulk of British civilian society, there was a marked change towards rifle training within the British Army. Writing in 1904, an anonymous officer noted with satisfaction: ‘[g]reater interest is now shown by

79 Ibid., Q 13941, p. 107. 80 For a fuller discussion of the reforms of this period, see Spencer Jones, From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform in the British Army 1902–1914 (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2012). 81 Quoted in ‘K.’, ‘Suggestions for the Improvement of the Annual Course of Musketry’, United Service Magazine, June 1904, p. 300. 82 Jones, Boer War to World War, pp.92-93. 83 Frank Bucholz, Joe Robinson & Janet Robinson, The Great War Dawning: Germany and its Army at the Start of World War I (Vienna, Verlag Militaria, 2013), p.204. 84 War Office, Musketry Regulations Part 1, 1909 (London, H.M.S.O. 1909), pp. 258 – 261. 85 Joint Services Command and Staff College Library, Report on a Conference of General Staff Officers at the Staff College, 2-11 January 1906, p. 118. 86 J. Peters, ‘Teach the Boys to Shoot’, United Service Magazine, March 1904, pp. 598 – 601.

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everybody, especially by the private soldier, and the keenness displayed by all ranks is as great as could be desired.’87 Particular pride was attached to the completion of the ‘Mad Minute’ exercise, which was generally considered to be the true test of a marksman.88 The award of coveted marksmanship badges and extra pay for soldiers who had reached the required standard further encouraged training and development. Individual training was supplemented by a wide variety of rifle competitions, many of which attracted considerable participation.89 Indeed, by 1913, some of the competitions were attracting so many entrants that they were in danger of becoming unmanageable.90 On the eve of war in 1914 the British Army had established a well-deserved reputation for the quality of its marksmanship. On hearing news of the outbreak of the conflict, Captain Richard Meinertzhagen noted in his diary: ‘Our Expeditionary Force is terribly small, but a mighty weapon, for every soldier can shoot and every man is determined to fight. The Germans will soon find that out. We are not the solders of the South African War.’91 This bullish assessment would be put to the test during the battles that marked the opening of the First World War. IV The conditions of warfare in Europe in 1914 were markedly different from those that the British had faced in South Africa. The most obvious difference was the terrain. Whereas the open country and clear atmosphere of southern Africa had been ideal for long range sniping, the fighting in Europe took place amongst towns, villages, farms and woodland that drastically reduced visible range. The initial British battle of the campaign, Mons (23 August), marked the first time that the army had fought a major engagement in an industrial urban environment.92 Similarly, the intense combat at the Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November) took place amidst dense terrain characterised by thick woodland dotted with villages and farmsteads. Even during battles where the terrain was comparatively open, such as Le Cateau (26 August), the rolling fields created dead ground that reduced the ability of the British to engage at long range.

87 ‘K.’, ‘Annual Course of Musketry’, p. 300. 88 Richard Van Emden (ed.), Tickled to Death to Go: Memories of a Cavalryman in the First World War (Staplehurt, Spellmount, 1996), p. 24. 89 The Smith-Dorrien Cup and the Evelyn Wood Cup were two particularly popular events. 90 NAUK, WO 279/32, Aldershot Command Papers, Comments on the Training Season 1913, p.11. 91 Richard Meinertzhagen, Army Diary 1899 - 1926 (Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1960) p.80. 92 James Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium 1914, vol.1, (London, Macmillan & Co., 1933) p.72. (Hereafter Official History).


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British pre-war regulations considered rifle fire to be ‘decisive’ within 600 yards, and ‘effective’ between 600 and 1400 yards. 93 At the opening of the war, infantry frequently opened fire at this latter range when the opportunity presented itself. Some officers recorded their disappointment at the lack of casualties this long range shooting caused, but others perceived that, as in the Boer War, its principal value was to delay and disrupt the advance of the enemy rather than kill or wound individuals. For example, Malcolm Hay of the Gordon Highlanders recorded that his company opened fire at a German column at 1200 yards at the Battle of Mons:

It was impossible to resist the temptation to open fire with the hope of breaking up the column formation and thus delaying the reinforcement operations….All our shots seemed to have gone too high and none found a billet, but the enemy made no further attempt to leave the wood in close formation.94

Hay also recorded his men engaging Germans at a range of 900 yards at the Battle of Le Cateau, noting ‘the shooting of the battalion was good enough to delay the enemy’s advance’.95

Whilst the openness of the terrain in South Africa had assisted the Boers, in France and Flanders the British took advantage of the opportunities for concealment provided by the plentiful cover. A sergeant of the Lincolnshires recalled his men occupying swiftly constructed slit trenches at Mons, nothing that these were ‘a trick we learned from the Boers, I believe’, adding:

We lay in our trenches with not a sound or sign to tell them [the Germans] what was before them. They crept nearer and nearer, and then our officers gave the word. Under the storm of bullets they seemed to stagger like drunken men.96

A German jaeger officer recalled of the British at Le Cateau: ‘They were wily soldiers, tough and tenacious fellows, with iron nerves, even when wounded. They shot well and understood how to use terrain with such skill that it was difficult even for jaeger to detect them.’97 British ability to remain concealed meant that it was possible to hold fire until German troops had reached close range before surprising them with a

93 War Office, Combined Training 1905 (London, H.M.S.O. 1905), p. 100. 94 ‘An Exchanged Officer’, [Malcom Hay] Wounded and a Prisoner of War, (London, Blackwood & Sons, 1916), p.37. 95 Ibid, p.63. 96 Arthur St. John Adcock, In The Firing Line (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1914), p.24. 97 Quoted in Zuber, The Mons Myth: A Reassessment of the Battle (Stroud, History Press, 2010), p.229.

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fusillade. Indeed, it was sudden bursts of fire within 600 yards - the ‘decisive’ range – that would prove most effective in 1914. This was especially apparent during the ferocious fighting at the Battle of Ypres, when inexperienced German infantry was exposed to harrowing musketry from concealed British veterans. John Lucy of the Royal Irish Rifles wrote a graphic account:

Their [The Germans’] whole attack was aslant…badly directed, and their men not yet extended in lines. What tactics! We let them have it. We blasted and blew them to death. They fell in scores, in hundreds, the marching column wilting away under our rapid fire… Crowds of Germans at close range were plugged easily and rapidly by every one of us. The riflemen shouted as they fired ‘Come on boys. Let ‘em have it,’ and the attack spluttered out, leaving lines and circles of corpses and wounded…98

One German survivor complained: ‘Unthinking, section after section ran into the well-directed fire of experienced troops. Every effort had been put into our training, but it was completely inadequate preparation for such a serious assault on battle-hardened, long service colonial soldiers.’99 A German semi-official account of the battle published in 1917 attributed British success to large numbers of machine guns, giving evidence to the famous claim in the Official History that the Germans mistook British rapid rifle fire for that of machine guns.100

As in South Africa, the effectiveness of British rifle fire owed as much to weight and rapidity as it did to individual accuracy. However, the BEF did possess its share of expert shots who, much like the Boer marksmen of the earlier war, could have a disproportionate effect. At the Battle of Mons, the Lincolnshire sergeant recalled that: ‘a few of the crack shots were told off to indulge in independent firing for the benefit of the Germans. That is another trick taught us by Brother Boer, and our Germans did not like it at all.’ The Official History recorded that a single subaltern of the Royal Scots claimed to have ‘hit thirty to forty’ Germans at the Battle of Le Cateau.101 At the same engagement an officer of the Hampshire Regiment related ‘The best marksmen of D Company were able to pick off some of the machine gun crews and occasional officers who marked themselves out by carrying drawn swords.’102 During an attack in early November during the Battle of Ypres, an officer of the German 136th Infantry Regiment recalled:

98 John Lucy, There’s a Devil in the Drum (London, Faber & Faber, 1938), pp.224-225. 99 Jack Sheldon, The Germany Army at Ypres 1914 (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2010) p.105. 100 G.C.W. [translator] Ypres 1914: An Official Account Published by Order of the German General Staff (London, Constable & Company Ltd, 1919) p.11; Edmonds, Official History 1914, pp.462-463. 101 Edmonds, Official History 1914, vol.1, p.184. 102 Nigel Cave & Jack Sheldon, Le Cateau: 26 August 1914 (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2008), p.151.


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Schweinberg, joining in, was just about to fire when, a British soldier swung round in a standing position suddenly and shot at him. He immediately felt a burning sensation in his head, but luckily the bullet had only creased him. This accuracy shown by the long service British soldiers with colonial experience who were deployed opposite the company, verged on the miraculous.103

Overall, the British benefited from a similar combination of factors to those which had influenced the Boer marksmen of the earlier war. The British took advantage of the terrain of Europe, which allowed them to remain concealed and achieve surprise when they opened fire; they possessed a culture of marksmanship that emphasised both accuracy and rapidity which had been codified by thorough pre-war training; and they were equipped with reliable weapons, namely the efficient Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle, which allowed British fire tactics to be implemented. Taken as a whole, these factors contributed to highly effective British rifle fire throughout the battles of 1914. The importance of this battlefield asset should not be underestimated. The BEF was a small, relatively fragile instrument, with comparatively light artillery support and a distinct absence of mortars, grenades and other weapons suitable for positional warfare.104 Lacking these assets, the British Army placed much reliance upon the tactical effectiveness of its infantry fire. The confidence was not misplaced and the impressive battlefield performance of the BEF in 1914 owes a great deal to, in the words of General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, ‘the shooting power of our infantry’.105 The origins of this ‘shooting power’ lay in the Boer War. The experience of facing Boer firepower left a deep and lasting impression on the British Army. The grudging respect that had developed during the war evolved into admiration in the aftermath of the conflict. As has been demonstrated, the British came to recognise that a variety of factors were responsible for the skills of the average Boer marksman, some of which, such as the clear atmosphere, were unique to the theatre of war. Nevertheless, the value of modern magazine rifles in the hands of skilled marksmen was a lesson that was taken to heart. Universal skills, such as firing from behind cover, snap shooting and rapid target acquisition went on to become the cornerstones of British musketry training in the aftermath of the conflict. Inspired by these changes, the British Army developed its own unique rifle culture during the pre-First World War period, with marksmen being recognised and rewarded for their skills. The effectiveness of BEF rifle fire in 1914 is well attested and played a crucial and arguably decisive role in battlefield victory.

103 Sheldon, German Army at Ypres, p.262. 104 Edmonds, Official History 1914, Vol.1, pp.10-11. 105 Quoted in Ian F.W. Beckett, The Judgement of History: Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, Lord French and 1914 (London, Tom Donovan, 1993), p.34.

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In 1902 a British officer had judged Boer marksmanship as ‘extraordinary’ and the army as a whole had sought to imitate it. An impression of the success of this process is gained by the fact that a German veteran of 1914 dubbed British shooting as ‘miraculous’. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the British Army paid a handsome compliment to the marksmanship of Boers.


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Ireland’s New Memory of the First World War: Forgotten Aspects of the Battle of Messines, June 1917 RICHARD S. GRAYSON Goldsmiths, University of London Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT The narrative of the 16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) divisions fighting side-by-side at Messines in June 1917 plays a major and valuable role in cross-community reconciliation on the island of Ireland. However, there is no sustained historical analysis of precisely who (in terms of geographic origin) was serving in the two divisions by June 1917. This article does that, concluding that around one-third of the men in each division had no Irish connection. This opens up the prospect of nuancing the Messines narrative so that it might play a part in British-Irish reconciliation.

Introduction: Messines and memory of the First World War Prior to the opening of the Island of Ireland Peace Tower at Messines in 1998, there had been no all-Ireland First World War memorial which was felt to be owned by all on the island. There is a notionally all-Ireland memorial at Islandbridge in Dublin, but it has not been a major site of focus for Northern Irish, especially unionist, commemoration. Meanwhile, the Cenotaph in London could be claimed as ‘all-Ireland’, commemorating as it does all the dead of the British military in the First World War (and, as they took place, later wars). Yet while many unionists in Northern Ireland might look to the Cenotaph as a focus of their national remembrance, for nationalists, its place in London is problematic. Consequently, there has been an emphasis on two separate memorials on the Somme each specifically focused on soldiers from one community: the Protestant/unionist 36th (Ulster) Division at Thiepval and the Catholic/nationalist 16th (Irish) Division at Guillemont. Both commemorate overtly divisions which were overtly political and draw on symbolism which struggles to be inclusive. With the opening of the Island of Ireland Peace Tower (a round tower, which is a cultural icon recognised and accepted both north and south of the border), a new

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phase of memory was initiated. The significance of Messines was that it was notionally the location of an operation on 7 June 1917 which included, among other divisions, the 16th and 36th Divisions. The location is only ‘notionally’ correct because the memorial is actually about three miles away from where the 16th and 36th divisions saw action. They actually fought in front of the village of Wytschaete, with New Zealanders at Messines itself.1 However, since the operation was officially the ‘Battle of Messines’ it would be hard to quarrel with the Messines site as a memorial to action in the battle, unless official publicity adopted an ‘on this spot, the 16th and 36th…’ approach (which it does not). When the battle took place, it was, at that point, one of the most effective allied attacks of the war, but the Tower is not solely focused on that operation. The memorial also commemorates the 10th (Irish) Division, a non-political formation which was more denominationally mixed than the 16th and 36th as they were first established, and which fought its war in the Gallipoli, Salonika and Palestine campaigns. The Tower can be (and is) held up as a symbol of a shared Irish story across religious and political divides, and it is symbolically Irish in several ways. In the first place, the ‘Round Tower’ design dates back to Ireland as far as the 8th Century. Meanwhile, some of the symbolism is very much all-Ireland, with its height of 32 metres representing the 32 Irish counties, and its four plots of yew trees matching the four provinces. A stone at the memorial site lists all the counties ‘in continuous lettering symbolising that the counties are linked, connected and interdependent'.2 It might be thought that such an all-Ireland tone might be problematic for unionists/loyalists, and issues around that will be discussed later. However, in general it has not been greeted with hostility by unionists/loyalists, and it was a genuinely cross-community creation. As a result, Messines, after the Somme (though, it should be stressed, very far after), is probably the most prominent battle in the popular story of the war across Ireland. The extent to which the origins of the Peace Tower were partly found in changes in historiography, and in a new mood created by the paramilitary ceasefires in Northern Ireland, has been discussed elsewhere. 3 Ultimately, the Tower was initiated by individuals following a visit to Western Front sites in 1996. One was Glen Barr, a leading figure in the Ulster Workers’ Council strike which brought down the Sunningdale power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland in 1974, who later moved

1 Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 139-140. 2 http://www.schoolforpeace.com/content/tower-and-park/43 [accessed 26 August 2014]. 3 Richard Doherty, ‘Some thoughts on the Island of Ireland Peace Park’, in Alan Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix (eds), Conflicts in the North of Ireland, 1900-2000 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp. 56-69; Richard S. Grayson, Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in the First World War (London: Continuum, 2009), pp. 177-8.


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from politics to community work. The other leading figure was Paddy Harte, a former Fine Gael government minister in the Republic of Ireland. In a piece on the website of the International School for Peace Studies, Barr reflects on the site of the project:4

Messines was selected because it was at the battle of Messines on 7th June 1917 that the Nationalist 16th Irish Div. and the Unionist 36th Ulster Div. fought and died together for the first time and where the young John Meeke of the 36th Div. risked his life to retrieve the badly wounded Major Willie Redmond of the 16th Div. from the battlefield. Two men from different traditions, both there for different political reasons, sworn enemies in Ireland, brothers in arms on a foreign battlefield fighting a common enemy.

Barr’s comments point to the centrality of the 16th and 36th divisions in the story of Messines which led to the Peace Tower’s inauguration. It also points to ideas of reconciliation, in terms of men sharing a common goal in 1917. Meanwhile, there is a sense of anger over this story having been lost (perhaps even consciously hidden), when Barr asks later, ‘Why was I not taught this in my history class at school? Why was it kept from me?’ Finally, there is a sense that in remembering this lost history, the shared story of 1917 can bring about a shared future, in Barr’s reflection that,

Tens of thousands of young Unionists and Nationalists lie side by side in cold foreign graves cut down by German bullets which did not discriminate between Protestants or Roman Catholics, but I am convinced, that they can now Rest In Peace in the knowledge that through their joint sacrifice thousands of people from throughout the Island of Ireland who have made the pilgrimage to where they lie have found peace within and between themselves.5

Such views, in particular the idea of using history to build peace, were given state sanction when the Peace Tower was opened in 1998, jointly by the British, Irish and Belgian heads of state. At that opening, the Irish President, Mary McAleese, said:

The men of the 36th Ulster Division and the 16th Irish Division died here. They came from every corner of Ireland. Among them were Protestants, Catholics, Unionists and Nationalists, their differences transcended by a common commitment not to flag but to freedom.

4 http://www.schoolforpeace.com/content/glen-barrs-story/63 [accessed 26 August 2014]. 5 Cited in, Richard S. Grayson, ‘The Place of the First World War in Contemporary Irish Republicanism in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies, 25, 3 (2010), 325-345 (342].


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Today we seek to put their memory at the service of another common cause …

Meanwhile, the Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, described it as ‘a symbolic moment of reconciliation’, while the BBC coverage set out what would become a familiar narrative:

In the battle for the Messines Ridge, Irish Catholics and Protestants from all over Ireland fought side by side against the common German enemy. The clash, in June 1917, was the only time during the war when largely Protestant soldiers from the [3]6th [sic] Ulster Division fought alongside Catholics from the 16th Irish Division, which was drawn from the south.6

The BBC was incorrect to state that Messines was the ‘only time’ the two divisions fought side-by-side during the war. As Keith Jeffery points out, they would do so again at Langemarck;7 a failed operation. However, the BBC’s error points to an idea that was already entering public consciousness and after the Tower’s opening would continue to do so. Following its opening, the Tower has been seen both as a symbol of changes which have already taken place, while also being a site which can be used as part of processes of future reconciliation. There have been two particular ways in which that has happened. In the first place is the International School for Peace Studies on the edge of Messines village which ‘uses the events of The Great War … to engage participants in learning about their shared history, cultural heritage, peace and reconciliation, and the futility of war’.8 Some of its work is focused on groups of young people through its Schools Links Project9 and it also hosts a wide range of community groups. Second, is the Fellowship of Messines Association which aims to reconcile former paramilitaries from republican and loyalist traditions. Formed in 2002, the Association works on an ongoing basis, principally through discussion events. Its work has not been entirely without some loyalist hostility to the all-Ireland nature of some commemoration of Messines as a quotation from a community organiser in a 2007 report suggests:

6 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/212208.stm [accessed 26 August 2014]. 7 Jeffery, p. 139. 8 http://www.schoolforpeace.com/content/project-summary/33 [accessed 26 August 2014]. 9 http://www.schoolforpeace.com/content/schools-links/56 [accessed 26 August 2014].


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I have been going back and forward to Messines some six or seven years now. I was one of the original guinea pigs among the ex-combatants, those who would have faced each other in the conflict here in Northern Ireland… I had assumed that the ‘cross-community’ message was now well and truly accepted. And then just last week I got a shock. I was organising a group of Loyalists to go to Messines, and some of them said, ‘We’ll not be going, because we hear there’s Republicans going too And I said, ‘Why not?’ ‘We’re not walking on that sacred ground with Republicans, not a chance'. ‘But people from both communities, and both parts of Ireland died there; Irish Nationalists from the Irish Volunteers joined the British Army and died over there’. ‘We don’t care, we’re not walking on sacred ground with them’.10

However, such a view appears to be a minority one and both the Fellowship of Messines Association and the International Peace School perform incredibly valuable work. There has been a tendency across the island of Ireland for history to be part of an ‘us versus them’ narrative, where stories of past heroism are used to preserve existing divides. Messines, in contrast, is an example of history being used to reconcile in a way that the vast majority of people would welcome. It rests on one basic historical truth: that on 7 June 1917, two divisions which had been raised for very different purposes on different sides of the Home Rule debate, fought alongside each other. It also draws on the fact that there was contact between the two divisions, most notably in the case of the death of Major William ‘Willie’ Redmond, as discussed below. Nothing that follows here is a challenge to any of this reconciliation work which is, after all, based on historical facts. However, two questions are asked. The first is to what extent those who fought at Messines in the 16th and 36th had an Irish connection? There is no doubt that the 16th and 36th divisions, as the two volunteer divisions raised in Ireland which fought on the Western Front, represented Ireland more than any other division there. However, there is a question as to who was actually serving in the divisions by that stage of the war. Second, does the popular narrative of the two divisions at Messines, focused as it is on their side-by-side service, tell us all that can be told of the symbolism of that battle? In other words, is there a still forgotten dimension to a story which is widely believed now to be well-remembered? It is remarkable that Ireland’s story of Messines has not been subjected to much forensic analysis, despite its importance to Ireland’s new memory of the war.

10 Cited in, Michael Hall, A Shared Sacrifice for Peace (Belfast: Island Publications, 2007), p. 26.


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Historians tend to be critical when it comes to contemporary uses of history, yet there has only been one serious attempt to interrogate the new story of Messines.11 In that, Richard Doherty asked, ‘Did the men of the two Irish divisions fight “shoulder to shoulder” in common cause voluntarily? Or is this a case of the organizers [of the Peace Tower] trying to make past events fit a template that suits their modern, laudable, purpose?’12 In answer to his questions, Doherty points out that the men from the 16th and 36th did not share trenches as they were fighting in separate (though adjoining) parts of the front. He also shows that there were Protestants serving in the 16th. Of course, some of those could have been nationalists, but Doherty offers evidence to suggest that some were probably (though not certainly) signatories of the Ulster Covenant against Home Rule in 1912.13 Meanwhile, Doherty rightly argues that there is little evidence of men in either division being aware of which units they were fighting alongside. Despite these problems, Doherty concludes that ‘while the organizers may have tried to make the events of the First World War fit a modern-day template, they have done so with admirable rationale and their efforts deserve to meet with success’.14 Few will depart from that view, but there is more that can be said about who fought at Messines and the significance of that. The structure of the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines The popular image of the 16th and 36th divisions is closely tied to paramilitary antecedents. The 16th is seen as having contained large numbers former members of the Irish National Volunteers, who had joined at the behest of John Redmond, the leader of Irish nationalism, believing that fighting for the British in their time of need would advance the cause of Home Rule. The 36th Division is even more closely associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force, since UVF members enlisted en masse and its battalions were based on the UVF’s geographic formations. However, the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines were not the same divisions which had left Ireland. Far from all their members could even remotely be viewed in any political context for two reasons. First, the divisions’ losses at the Somme meant that they were supplemented by fresh recruits. In many cases these were from Ireland, and included men who had enlisted in 1914-15 but been placed in reserve battalions. However, as we shall see later, many were transferred from non-Irish units and would not have joined those units on the basis of the political convictions attributed to members of the 16th and 36th. Second, the original structure of the 16th Division was transformed

11 Richard Doherty, ‘Some Thoughts on the Island of Ireland Peace Park’ in Alan F. Parkinson and Eamon Phoenix eds., Conflicts in the North of Ireland: 1900-2000 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp. 56-69. 12 Ibid., p. 57. 13 Ibid., pp. 59-62 14 Ibid., pp. 66-69.


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through reorganisations. By June 1917, two of its battalions had been disbanded, with a further two merged, and three regular battalions of Irish regiments joining in their place.15 This change in the structure of the 16th Division meant that although the two divisions lined up alongside each other at Messines in June 1917, former members of the UVF and INV were not necessarily close together (see Figure 1). As the battalions took their positions close to the village of Wytschaete, the 36th Division was to the right of the 16th. On the 36th’s left flank (adjoining the 16th) were the battalions of the 109th Brigade. These were three battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers16 plus the 14th Royal Irish Rifles.17 Most Belfast volunteers were in the 107th Brigade, to the right of the 36th Division and not adjoining the 16th Division. Instead, 107th brigade adjoined the 25th Division, which consisted largely of battalions associated with the north of England. Figure 1: the battle order of the 16th and 36th Divisions at Messines, 7th June 191718

Who Died? As regards the 16th Division, their brigade which adjoined the Ulster Division was the 47th. This brigade was probably the most overtly political as it had been almost

15 The 8th and 9th Royal Munster Fusiliers were disbanded, with the 7th and 8th Royal Irish Fusiliers merged as the 7/8th battalion. In their place came the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment. These changes began even before the Somme, with the 1st Munsters joining and the 9th Munsters being disbanded in May 1916. 16 The 9th, 10th and 11th originally recruited from the Ulster Volunteer Force in counties Tyrone, Londonderry, Donegal and Fermanagh. 17 Formed from the Young Citizens’ Volunteers, with a large Belfast contingent. 18 The National Archives: WO 158/416, 16th Division, Narrative of Operations from 3.10am 7 June to 4pm 9 June 1917; WO 95/2491, Narrative of Part Taken by 36th (Ulster) Division in the Operations against the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge 7 June 1917.

36TH (ULSTER) DIVISION 109th Brigade 107th Brigade

11th Inniskillings 14th RIRifles 9th RIRifles 8th RIRifles

108th Brigade 11th RIRifles 12th RI Rifles

109th Brigade 107th Brigade

10th Inniskillings 9th Inniskillings 15th RIRifles 10th RIRifles

108th Brigade (in reserve) 9th RIrishFus & 13th RIRifles

16TH (IRISH) DIVISION 49th Brigade 47th Brigade

7th Inniskillings 7/8th RIrishFus 7th Leinsters 6th RIRegt

2nd RIRegt 1st Munsters 8th Inniskillings 6th Connaughts

48th Brigade (in reserve) 8th Dublins 9th Dublins

2nd Dublins 7th RIRifles

Also in reserve: 33rd Infantry Brigade, 11th (Northern) Division

19TH

(WES

TER

N) D

IVIS

ION

25TH

DIV

ISIO

N


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completely cleared early in the war to allow for an influx of Redmondite volunteers.19 It included Belfast nationalists in the 6th 'Connaught Rangers and 7th Leinsters, plus other nationalists in the 6th Royal Irish Regiment, alongside the regular battalion, the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers. In the initial attack, the soldiers from the two divisions who were closest to each other were the 6th Royal Irish Regiment on the far right on the 16th Division’s front, and the 11th Inniskillings on the far left of the 36th Division’s. Later in the battle, as mopping–up took place, other units of the two divisions were alongside each other (though note that alongside means adjoining not inter-mingled). However, just as the 107th Brigade was alongside English units, so too was the 16th Division’s 49th Brigade next to the 19th (Western) Division, consisting mainly of units from the west country and west midlands, but also some Welsh and north of England battalions. in the first wave, in the most bitter fighting, more battalions of each division would have had no contact with the other division than battalions which did have contact. Only three of the eight 16th Division battalions in action at Messines were directly alongside the Ulster Division at the outset, while the reverse applied to three of the Ulster Division’s ten battalions. For the vast majority, their main contact would either have been within their own division, or with English/Welsh battalions. Who fought in the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines? Having set out the general nature of the battalions, it is necessary to look at their composition in more detail. In the one previous attempt to do this, Doherty focused on religious denomination and has looked in some detail at the 7th and 8th battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers,20 using information from Soldiers Died in the Great War (SDGW).21 Certainly the question of denomination is an interesting one, but it is not the only way of telling how far the battalions in the two divisions at Messines represented the popular notion of their composition. It is also possible to consider geographic origin, and to place that in the context of changes since the divisions first went to the front. Meanwhile, the 7th and 8th Inniskillings were only two of the twelve infantry battalions in the 16th, and of course can shed no light on the composition of the 36th. This author has developed a ‘military history from the street’ approach for examining, as far as is possible, all those from a particular area who served.22 Since that focuses on geographic areas rather than on specific army units it is not quite applicable here. 19 Terence Denman, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers: The 16th (Irish) Divisio (Dublin: Irish Academy Press, 1992), p. 50. 20 Doherty, pp. 61-2. 21 Soldiers Died in the Great War (London: HMSO, 1920), now available on CD-Rom published by the Naval and Military Press. 22 For a full explanation of the methodology see Richard S. Grayson, ‘Military history from the street: new methods for researching First World War service in the British military’, War in History, forthcoming, November 2014.


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However, some of the sources, methods and principles can be applied to a study of the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines. The fundamental basis of ‘military history from the street’ is that for a soldier to be ‘from’ an area there should be some evidence of an address for the soldier themselves. In the absence of that, next of kin information can be used. The problem with adopting such an approach for a study of a unit is that while contemporary addresses are generally found in the WO 363/364 service/pensions23 records, little more than one-third of the two collections (about 36 percent) survived the bombing of the Arnside Street repository in 1940. The chances of finding a record for a dead soldier are further reduced because such soldiers’ files are only found in the WO 363 service records, and only around one-quarter of those survived.24 Consequently, we will never have a complete picture of those who served in the First World War. Furthermore, even those records which survived are not searchable by battalion, and not very reliably even by regiment.25 In the absence of nominal rolls for each battalion26 it is not practical to find all those who served in a specific division at a specific time without a manual search of around 2 million records. Historians do not have decades of research time to put in to the production of one article. However, we do have a clear idea of who died in the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines and the dead can be used as sample.27 They are found initially from two sources: SDGW and the online database of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). 28 These can be searched by both date and battalion. Commissioned officers were not included in the sample used here partly because in Officers Died in the Great War a battalion is not usually included, but most importantly because officers would commonly not be from a local recruiting area even on the initial formation of a battalion. So, in assessing whether or not a unit was locally

23 Held by the National Archives where they are free to use, but also online as part of a subscription with www.ancestry.co.uk. 24 Grayson, ‘Military history from the street’. 25 In the online transcriptions, regiments are often mis-spelled or completely mistranscribed (for example, ‘Leicester’ for ‘Leinster’. Moreover, there is commonly only one regiment shown in the transcription, even if the soldier served in more than one. Usually, this will be the final regiment served in, but sometimes it will simply be the one which is easiest to read. 26 Only one Irish battalion has a surviving nominal roll: the 14th Royal Irish Rifles, and that does not contain dates of service so it is not possible to be clear who on the roll served at Messines. 27 It should be noted that information (especially in SDGW) is usually more specific for members of infantry battalions than for other units such as the Royal Field Artillery and Army Service Corps. Casualties in such units were likely to be low, especially in a successful operation such as Messines. It was possible to locate some Royal Engineers and members of the Royal Field Artillery, none who served in the 16th or 36th divisions’ ASC units (or smaller formations such as the Army Veterinary Corps) were located as killed at Messines. It is possible that there were none. 28 http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx [accessed 1 September 2014].


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linked, the geographic origins presence of commissioned officers is less relevant than that of other ranks. Therefore, searches were made for other ranks killed in the two divisions on 7 June 1917 and those who died in the week after that (up to and including 14 June, covering the formal dates of the battle). By examining the SDGW and CWGC records, and supplementing the information in them with material from service records29 and medal index cards,30 we can obtain a picture of the origins of those who were killed at Messines, if not others who served. That leads to data being found on 386 individuals from the two divisions who were killed or died of wounds between 7 and 14 June 1917, although 314 of these were on 7 June as the two divisions advanced. Of these, there is some kind of geographic information on all but one soldier. Table 1 below sets out information on place of birth. The most striking point is the proximity of figures for both divisions of Irish and English born recruits. In both cases, around 60 percent of those who died were Irish-born, while around 30 percent were born in England. If we look in further detail at the Ulster Division, of the 130 born in Ireland, 116 (89 percent of the Irish-born and 54 percent of the division) were born in Ulster, with the remaining fourteen spread through the three other Irish provinces though most (nine) born in Leinster. This suggests that by the time of Messines, little more than half of the Ulster Division’s dead came from its recruiting area, while less then two-thirds of the Irish Division originated from its all-Ireland area. It is worth noting that the fifteen from the 36th Division for whom there is no information on place of birth is much higher than the four from the 16th Division. If these were all born in Ireland than it would mean that the Irish-born figure for the 36th is as high as 68 percent. However, this seems unlikely. There is information on place of enlistment for fourteen of the men which places thirteen in England and only one in Ireland (Dublin). Place of residence was found for three, all in England, and the next of kin of a further six were also all in England. Exploring the place of birth of the 16th Division’s Irish-born men reveals less of a focus on one province than for the 36th, which is what one would expect since the Division recruited from nationalists across Ireland. The figures are: Leinster 37, Ulster 31, Munster 23 and Connaught 9 (the percentage being the same in each case as there are a total of 100).

29 WO 363 and 364 at the National Archives and on www.ancesttry.co.uk. 30 WO 372 at the National Archives and on www.ancesttry.co.uk.


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Table 1: Country of Birth, 16th & 36th divisions other ranks fatalities 7-14 June 1917 Ireland England Scotland Wales Other No info 16th Division (Total: 172)

100 (58%) 57 (33%)

5 (3%)

1 (<1%)

5* (3%)

4 (2%)

36th Division (Total: 214)

130 (61%)

55 (26%)

10 (5%)

2 (1%)

2** (1%)

15 (7%)

Source: SDGW, WO 363, CWGC. * 1 Australia, 3 Channel Islands, 1 Malta ** USA However, place of birth is problematic due to migration. We might, for example, find that those born in Scotland were actually living in some part of Ireland by the time they enlisted due to long-established and often temporary migration between the two countries. The same might apply to the English-born. Meanwhile, the Irish-born might have left Ireland. So examining place of enlistment and residence information is also necessary. Table 2: Country of Enlistment, 16th & 36th divisions other ranks fatalities 7-14 June 1917 Ireland England Scotland Wales Other No info 16th Division (Total: 172)

89 (52%)

64 (37%)

12 (7%)

3 (2%)

3* (2%)

1 (<1%)


134 (63%)

66 (31%)

11 (5%)

2 (1%)

-- 1 (<1%)

Source: SDGW, WO 363, CWGC. * Channel Islands As Table 2 shows, the proportion of men who enlisted in Ireland is lower in the 16th Division than Irish-born, which, on the assumption that that division was predominantly Catholic, could simply reflect greater levels of migration. Differences between country of birth and enlistment are smaller in the 36th Division, though also with lower numbers enlisting in Ireland than being born there. To demonstrate this point, examining only those where the country of both birth and of enlistment are known, seventeen of the 100 Irish-born in the 16th enlisted outside Ireland (ten in England, six in Scotland and one in Wales). In contrast, only seven (5 percent) of 134 Irish-born in the 36th enlisted elsewhere (all in Scotland). We can also assess how far country of birth/enlistment might relate to country of residence. Information on this in SDGW is far less complete than for birth/enlistment. However, next of kin information can be found in CWGC data and occasionally in the medal index, while addresses for soldiers and/or relatives are in the service records. Table 3 combines soldiers’ addresses and (where there is no address for the soldier) next of kin addresses. As its shows, for the 16th Division, there is no


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information on place for residence for 16 percent of those who died, while for the 36th Division there is no information on one-quarter. Table 3: Country of Residence, 16th & 36th divisions other ranks fatalities 7-14 June 1917 Ireland England Scotland Wales Other No info 16th Division (Total: 172)

81* (47%)

51** (30%)

10*** (6%)

1**** (<1%)

2***** (1%)

27 (16%)


100# (47%)

49## (23%)

8### (4%)

2#### (1%)

1##### (<1%)

54 (25%)

Source: SDGW, WO 363, WO 372, CWGC. * 52 soldiers, 29 next of kin ** 36 soldiers, 15 next of kin. *** 4 soldiers, 6 next of kin. **** 1 next of kin ***** 2 soldiers, Channel Islands

# 36 soldiers, 64 next of kin ## 20 soldiers, 29 next of kin ### 4 soldiers, 4 next of kin

#### 2 next of kin ##### Next of kin in Uruguay The most striking figure in Table 3 is that for both the 16th and 36th divisions, 47 percent of the dead either had an Irish place of residence or their next of kin did. However, compared to the other tables, there is also much higher proportion of men for whom no residence could be identified, particularly for the 36th Division. For around half of these 54 in the 36th, the residence probably was in Ireland because in almost all cases both the place of birth and place of enlistment was Irish (27 were both born and enlisted in Ireland, with only one born there enlisted in Scotland). However, the existence of a large gap in the residence information does make it difficult to compare country of residence to other figures. Yet if we exclude those with no information, and do the same for the other two sets of data, we find, as Table 4 shows, that there is a broadly similar set of results for the two largest figures in the three data sets: percentage in Ireland and percentage in England, which are highlighted in bold in the table.


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Table 4: Country of Residence, Enlistment and Residence, 16th & 36th divisions other ranks fatalities 7-14 June 1917, excluding soldiers where there is no information

Birth: Ireland

Birth: England

Birth: Scotland

Birth: Wales

Birth: Other

Enlistment: Ireland

Enlistment: England

Enlistment: Scotland

Enlistment: W

ales

Enlistment: O

ther

Residence: Ireland

Residence: England

Residence: Scotland

Residence: W

ales

Residence: O

ther

16th no. 100 57 5 1 5 89 64 12 3 3* 81 51 10 1 2

16th % 60 34 3 <1 3 52 37 7 2 2 55 35 7 <

1 1

36th no. 130 55 10 2 2 134 66 11 2 -- 100 49 8 2 1

36th % 65 28 5 1 1 63 31 5 1 -- 63 31 4 1 <

1

Source: SDGW, WO 363, WO 372, CWGC. N for known country of birth = 168 for 16th and 199 for 36th; for known country of enlistment is 171 for 16th and 213 for 36th; for known country of residence is 145 for 16th and 160 for 36th. For the 16th division, the percentage with an Irish connection in the categories is between 52 percent and 60 percent, with 34 to 37 percent for England. For the 36th Division, figures for Ireland are 63 to 65 percent and 28 to 31 percent for England. This suggests that over one-third of those in the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines were not from Ireland. However, the above data is sporadic in that often, fewer than three categories are filled for each individual, and in any case some information (that on residence and/or place of enlistment) might be only temporary. Therefore, we can also look at how many men had any kind of Irish connection, by examining how many met at least one of the criteria: birth, residence or place of enlistment. This helps to allow for temporary residence and migration, and can also go some way to reflecting the porous boundaries of Irish identities which is addressed below. Table 5 does this for 385 of the 386 soldiers analysed. The one excluded is a member of the 36th Division for whom there was no geographic data of any kind. Table 5: Born, enlisted or residing in Ireland, 16th & 36th divisions other ranks fatalities 7-14 June 1917

No. % 16th Division 108 63 36th Division 142 67

Source: SDGW, WO 363, WO 372, CWGC.


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In Table 5, there is a slightly higher number of those with an Irish connection than any of the single data categories, but only marginally so. However, the key pattern which emerges is that using all the data which can reasonably be used, around one-third of the men killed at Messines in the 16th and 36th divisions had no demonstrable Irish connection, and instead had a connection to England, Scotland or Wales. One issue which arises from this is whether the two divisions had always been like that, or whether there had been a change since their formation. The best way of assessing this is to examine the deaths in the first major engagement for each division. In both cases, this was on the Somme, though at different times (1 to 2 July 1916 for the 36th and 3 to 9 September 1916 for the 16th). With the vastly higher number of deaths in both divisions, a full study of other ranks using all sources used for Messines would require an entirely separate project. However, one source, SDGW, can easily be used as an illustration of the minimum numbers of those with any kind of Irish connection. Table 6: Born, enlisted or residing in Ireland, 16th & 36th divisions other ranks fatalities in the Battle of the Somme

No. % 16th Division* 734 77 36th Division** 1664 94

Source: SDGW. Note: % is of all fatalities, not only those for whom there is some geographic data.

* 3-9 September 1916 ** 1-2 July 1916 As Table 5 shows, simply taking data from this source shows a higher proportion of those with an Irish connection than the data for Messines does. It must be emphasised that the 77 percent and 94 percent figures are minimum percentages partly because they are of all those identified in SDGW, not merely those for whom data is included. Consequently, once gaps in data were filled from other sources, the percentage with any Irish connection could only rise. Thus we can with reasonable certainty say that between the Somme and Messines, the Irish composition of both divisions fell. In the 16th, it fell from at least 77 percent to 63 percent, while in the 36th it fell even more markedly from 94 percent to 67 percent. These division-wide figure masks some striking difference between battalions. For example, the 6th Royal Irish Regiment appears to have been only 67 percent ‘Irish’ even on the Somme, with a sizeable proportion of its dead coming from the Channel Islands. These latter men had been in the battalion since the early days of the division.31 The same can be said for the 7th Royal Irish Rifles. Meanwhile, the overall figure of 94 percent ‘Irish’ for the Ulster Division on the Somme, masks the facts that the average is greatly affected by 31 Denman, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers, p. 53.


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one battalion, the 11th Inniskillings, which contained a large number of men from the north-east of England. Its ‘Irish’ figure on the Somme is only 67 percent, compared to seven battalions which had a figure of 100 percent, three with 96 to 98 percent and one on 90 percent. One caveat must be added to those division-wide figures, relating to the point made earlier about which brigades/battalions were actually alongside each other at Messines. In terms of brigades, 47th Brigade (the one nearest the 36th Division at the frontline) had a much higher ‘Irish’ figure (78 percent) than the 16th Division as a whole, which is perhaps surprising given all the Channel Islands men in one of its battalions. In one battalion, the 6th Connaught Rangers, all the men killed at Messines had an Irish connection, although this was only seven in number so might be affected by the usual risk of a small sample. However, the battalion closest to the Ulster Division in the initial attack, the 6th Royal Irish Regiment, had a lower figure, at 73 percent. As regards the Ulster Division, its brigade closest to the Irish Division, 109th Brigade, was broadly in line at 64 percent with the division figure of 66 percent. However, its battalion closest to the Irish Division in the first attacks appears to have been only 51 percent ‘Irish’ (eleven of twenty). So, while the 16th Division was almost as ‘Irish’ as it had ever been at Messines, the Ulster Division had been transformed after the Somme. That was, of course, affected by the much higher level of fatalities on the Somme for the Ulster Division, which lost over twice as many men, meaning that it took larger numbers of fresh drafts from than the 16th. Yet, even for those with ‘Irish’ connections, we should not assume that such men were necessarily part of the original 16th and 36th divisions. Clearly that is the case for battalions which were transferred in from elsewhere, but it was also true for some other men. Using the medal index and service records it is possible to establish the service history or at least the first date on which some men went on overseas service. Such data is apparent for the 49 in the 16th Division. If we exclude fifteen men of the battalions which were not originally part of the division 2nd Royal Irish Regiment, 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers and 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers), we are left with information on the date (and generally the place) of first service of 34 men. Of these, five first served in the Balkans between July and November 1915, which suggests that they probably were transferred to the 16th from the 10th (Irish) Division, and certainly were not part of the original 16th. Of those who first served in France, fourteen arrived in December 1915 on dates when the 16th Division was in the process of arriving. However, almost as many, a further twelve, arrived well before the 16th Division, suggesting earlier service in another unit. One had certainly served with the 6th Bedfordshire Regiment earlier in the war. Another, Daniel Smith, a Belfast man of the 7th Royal Irish Rifles, has a service number (15/11861) and an embarkation date of


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4 October 1915 which suggests he might even have first served in the 36th Division with the 15th Royal Irish Rifles. Three more men had found their way into the 16th Division after service in reserve or other units outside it. Overall, of the 34 men with an Irish connection in the 16th for whom there is first overseas service data, and who had not come in from battalions transferred into the division, more than half (twenty) do not appear to have been members of the original 16th division. For the 36th Division, such data exists for 68 men with an Irish connection, of whom 58 (85 percent) have dates of first service of 4 and 5 October 1915 which suggest arriving in France with the original division. Of the other ten, six arrived in late 1915 and there is no evidence of other service. Three had served in France prior to October 1915 and one had served in the Balkans, James Bonner, a Templemore man serving in the 11th Inniskillings, and a probable transferee from the 10th Division. Though less stark than the data for the 16th Division, that for the 36th Division does point to some nuances in the nature of those with an Irish connection killed at Messines in the two divisions. Especially for the 16th, we should be wary of assuming that those in the divisions at June 1917 had left Ireland with the political zeal attributed to the 16th and 36th. Some had played no part in that. One further characteristic of those in the two divisions merits some attention: the nature of those who had no Irish connection. Of 64 in the 16th Division, over half (34) had some wartime service with a previous regiment. Of the other thirty, we might wonder whether they were volunteers or conscripts. The data suggests the former since it is present for eighteen of the thirty, all of whom entered service before conscription came into force in Britain. In the 36th Division, of 72 with no Irish connection, 67 had previous wartime service, and one of the other five had joined after conscription had been introduced. Where had these men come from? In the 16th Division, no more than three men shared previous service in the same regiment. In contrast, in the 36th there were larger cohorts of men from the same regiments: seventeen were transferred from the London Regiment, followed by seven from each of the Norfolk Regiment and the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and six from the Buffs (East Kent). Not only were these men transferred from English battalions in clusters, they also joined new regiments in clusters: all the Buffs joined the 14th Royal Irish Rifles (as did a smaller group from the Bedfordshires), while all but one of the Norfolks went to the 9th Royal Irish Rifles. Groups of men from the London Regiment went to a number of battalions, but especially the 9th and 12th Royal Irish Rifles. It is harder to tell if the same pattern can be seen in the 16th Division because numbers of English-enlisted transferred in from other battalions were smaller (just 20) and no more than two came from any single regiment. However, both men who joined from the Bedfordshires went to the 7th Leinsters, and both who joined from the Leicestershires went to the 7th Inniskillings.


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They might represent larger groups of transferees who were not killed. To add to this mixing should be added the point that several English regiments (Bedfordshire, Buffs, London, Middlesex, Norfolk, Rifle Brigade, Royal Sussex and Suffolk) sent men to both the 16th and 36th divisions. Conclusions What then, do these figures mean for the story of Messines? In the first place, we must recognise that they can do nothing to illuminate what was in the minds of the men who fought in the 16th and 36th divisions at Messines. As Richard Doherty has shown, evidence is scant, and among the ordinary soldiers, any thoughts of there being anything symbolic about the two divisions being alongside each other are hard to find. However, we do know that some were quick to comment on the significance in the context of the death of Major William Redmond. Serving with the 6th Royal Irish Regiment, this nationalist Member of Parliament for East Clare was found wounded by a member of the 11th Inniskilling Fusiliers, Private John Meeke, from Ballymoney in County Antrim. Meeke was wounded trying to save Redmond, who was eventually collected by stretcher-bearers from the Ulster Division. He died at one of their field ambulance stations. It was on officer of the 108th Field Ambulance who wrote to Redmond’s brother, John, the nationalist leader, ‘The 16th and 36th Divisions had a glorious victory today and they advanced side by side.’ When he was buried at Locre on 8 June, the honour guard was provided by a battalion from each division: the 10th Inniskillings and the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment, accompanied by officers from both divisions.32 It is hard to doubt that these men were affected by what they saw, and perhaps some remained affected for years after. However, while the Redmond case may well have a valuable and legitimate part to play today in cross-community understanding, it is only part of the story of Messines, and the figures discussed here suggest that the story should be more nuanced. In the first place, the figures raise issues for historians of the British army in its broadest sense about what constitutes a ‘local’ identity, and whether there is any formula we might apply to that. Second, as regards Messines and the 16th/36th divisions two more specifically, the story should be nuanced to reflect their likely lack of battlefield contact. Third, it needs to take account of the diversity of the 16th and 36th divisions, not only Irishmen who had enlisted in the 10th (Irish) Division at the start of the war but in particular the large numbers of Englishmen in their ranks. Perhaps some of these ‘Englishmen’ felt some kind of connection with Ireland. Irish identities are notoriously porous and persistent in the sense that those without any

32 Terence Denman, A Lonely Grave: The Life and Death of William Redmond (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995), pp. 120-1.


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personal geographic connection to Ireland can identify with the island or parts of it. That is perhaps most markedly seen in the expression of an Irish-American identity by those whose families have been in the United States of America for generations.33 Consequently, we need to be wary of suggesting that those who were killed at Messines in June 1917 could only have felt some kind of connection to any part of Ireland if they can be shown to have a personal geographic link. In communities in Glasgow, Liverpool, the north-east of England and elsewhere, there would have been many without a demonstrable Irish link in terms of place of birth, enlistment, residence (their own or next of kin) who nevertheless were part of an Irish diaspora. However, the service in the 16th and 36th divisions of so many whose only identifiable geographic connection is with some place other than Ireland does suggest that there is a story to tell beyond simply using Messines as part of a narrative which stresses commonality among Irish soldiers. John Morrissey has addressed the complexities of Irish military identities with regard to the Connaught Rangers.34 These experiences become even more nuanced when one recognises the extent of service alongside soldiers from Great Britain. The story of Messines has successfully been used for reconciliation in Ireland, especially among former paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. It might perhaps in future reflect an element of shared experience between Irish and British soldiers. Any loyalist or unionist who might find the all-Ireland nature of the Messines narrative to be uncomfortable, could find some solace in that.

33 See, for example, Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair, The Wearing of the Green: A History of St Patrick’s Day (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002), pp. 210-222. 34 John Morrissey, ‘A lost heritage: the Connaught Rangers and multivocal Irishness, in: Mark McCarthy, ed., Ireland’s Heritage: Critical Perspectives on Memory and Identity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 71–87.


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The Legacy of Liddell Hart: The Contrasting Responses of Michael Howard and André Beaufre BRIAN HOLDEN REID King’s College London Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT This article establishes how the careers and strategic ideas of Sir Michael Howard and General André Beaufre have been influenced by their friendship with one of Britain’s most significant intellectuals of the twentieth century, Sir Basil Liddell Hart. The article traces the relationships between Howard, Beaufre and Hart while outlining the evolution of the ‘indirect approach’ in the nuclear age. It was through the work of these two friends of Liddell Hart who evolved and developed his ideas for a new age and a new strategic-political context.

The subject of this essay is the strategic legacy of Sir Basil Liddell Hart, one of the preeminent military thinkers of the twentieth century, as interpreted by two of his closest friends, Sir Michael Howard and General André Beaufre.1 Such a theme demonstrates how these ideas evolved and changed in the hands of others. This approach has the added advantage of relating Howard’s work to the time that it was written and in relation to others, and moreover, shift the focus on Liddell Hart away from the interwar years and into the nuclear age. The essay’s concerns are not with the technicalities of nuclear strategy but only with the fundamental concepts on which it rests. In addition, a study of these matters can only benefit from an Anglo-French thrust. Liddell Hart was born in France and it is desirable to broaden the context of the customary Anglo-American discussion of these issues. American strategic thinkers will be considered briefly towards the end, but more space will be devoted to Beaufre who went to great lengths to develop the strategic potential of

1 This was the subject of my 2012 Annual Liddell Hart Lecture delivered on 27th November 2012 in honour of Sir Michael Howard’s 90th Birthday at King’s College London. The lecture as delivered was published by the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives as a pamphlet, Michael Howard and Evolving Ideas About Strategy (2013). What follows is a revised version, and I am grateful to the Trustees of the LHCMA for permission to quote from copyright material.

THE LEGACY OF LIDDELL HART

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Liddell Hart’s favourite notion of an indirect approach to strategy. Today’s burgeoning Anglo-French defence relationship might give this effort further interest. The essay comprises four themes: Liddell Hart’s legacy will be summarised. Howard and Beaufre’s treatment of it will then be assessed, before proceeding to discuss how each refined, altered and adapted these ideas – or rejected them – rather than accept them as Liddell Hart preferred as the unvarnished ‘truth’. Finally, I shall conclude with a few observations on the degree to which Bernard Brodie and Henry Kissinger – both friends of Howard – could be regarded as disciples of Liddell Hart. To begin with Liddell Hart. During the 1960s Liddell Hart’s reputation reached extraordinary heights. When he visited Israel in 1960 his trip stimulated more public interest than that of any other foreign visitor except Marilyn Monroe. The publication in 1967 of the Fourth Edition of Strategy: The Indirect Approach was treated as a major intellectual event in the armed forces of the West and beyond. He was indisputably the world’s most distinguished and celebrated military thinker. In an earlier edition Liddell Hart expressed his faith that the indirect approach expressed ‘a law of life in all spheres: a truth of philosophy’.2 It provided a vehicle for the expression of Liddell Hart’s Edwardian rationalism that exalted not just reason, but truth, order, progress, judicious compromise and careful understanding – all those things that contributed to ‘civilized values’. He abhorred expediency, extremes of any kind, fanaticism and all forms of emotionalism and confrontation. These last were wont to push an opponent into a corner, making agreement well nigh impossible and thus a fight to the finish inevitable. Close scrutiny of the conceptual base of the indirect approach has revealed vagueness and elasticity: it can stretch one way or the other depending on where one wants to pull it. Three points can be advanced by way of elucidation. First, it is a concept rooted in history. Liddell Hart did not claim novelty for his strategic theorem; ‘it rather’, he explains, ‘seeks to crystallise strategic thought more clearly and re-define it afresh in the light of new and enlarged experience and knowledge of psychology’. Secondly, its deductions were based on ‘the near ruinous lesson of 1914-18’; further extrapolations rested on the experience of 1939-45 which Liddell Hart regarded as no less disastrous.3 It was thirdly, a strategy of limited aim, that is a waiting game, one that seeks ‘a change in the balance of force, a change often sought and achieved by draining the enemy’s force, weakening him by pricks instead of risking blows’. It attempted to reduce resistance by exploiting movement and surprise. It is this last element – the operational method – that combines audacity

2 Fourth Edition (London: Cassell, 1967), p. 18, ‘Preface to the Revised Edition of 1954’. All quotations are from the fourth edition. 3 In 1944-45, he proclaimed, ‘the pursuit of triumph was foredoomed to turn into tragedy, and futility’ (Ibid., p. 15).


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and mobility, dazzling manoeuvres, with thrusts into the enemy’s rear echelons that Liddell Hart’s name is normally associated; but it should be stressed that the strategic source from which this fast-flowing stream emanates is water of a much more sluggish gait. The post-war world would require the prime understanding that war is not all rush. The exercise of the indirect approach in the nuclear age would still require distraction, deception and, above all, the need to out-think the enemy, but it also required some balancing qualities as well. The advent of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons rendered prudence a high virtue. These weapons, Liddell Hart affirmed, rendered any idea of ‘victory’ or ‘total war’ absurd. The nuclear age gave a new impetus to the cautious ripples of the indirect approach – and its undertow, Liddell Hart’s profound belief that the perfection of strategy should be sought in the elimination of fighting. The basis of strategy, he stressed, was a duality: ‘Like a coin it has two faces. Hence the need for a well calculated compromise as a means to reconciliation’.4 It is timely to delineate the seven key themes of the indirect approach. They are all expressions of a characteristic Liddell Hart paradox: ‘In strategy, the longest way round is often the shortest way there’.5

• The dislocation of the enemy’s psychological and physical balance should be the ‘vital prelude’ to his overthrow; not his utter destruction.

• Second, always negotiate an end to unprofitable wars. The method should remain the same as he advocated in the 1930s: ‘a shrewd calculation of the military economic factor’ based on hard-headed business-like methods. The danger of nuclear war gave these an added urgency.

• Third, the methods of the indirect approach were ‘better suited to the psychology of a democracy’. Strategists should be ‘attuned...to the popular ear’. Democracies, he warned, were less tolerant of the prodigious cost of modern war.

• Fourth, military power rests on economic endurance; a decision should be gained by ‘sapping the opponent’s strength and will’. He placed great weight therefore on the significance of blockades. The latter represent an effective indirect approach ‘which incurred no risk except in its slowness of effect’.

• Fifth, and implicit in the foregoing, his concept rested on an assumption that war was an activity between states. Its fundamental object, Liddell Hart held, ensured the maintenance of state policy ‘in face of the determination of the

4 B. H. Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare (London: Faber and Faber, 1932), pp. 93, 94, 97, 99, 100, 106; for developments and recapitulations of this theme, see Liddell Hart, Strategy, pp. 334, 343, 359. 5 Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 25.


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opposing state to pursue its contrary policy’. He adds, ‘For a state to gain its object in war it has to change this adverse will into compliance with its own policy’.

• Sixth, he urged the adoption of what he called in the 1930s, ‘Rational pacifism’. This standpoint was expressed in a maxim of his own devising, that his post-war disciples took to heart, ‘if you wish for peace, understand war’. But Liddell Hart remained adamantly opposed to unwise one-sided disarmament, as it would render the disarmer ‘impotent either to check war or to control its cause’.

• Seventh, and finally, Liddell Hart’s study of history revealed that victory often emerged as the result of self-defeating action by the enemy. In 1945 ‘Germany went far to defeat herself’. But he feared that the exhaustion of 1945 would ‘incubate the germs of another war’: the spectre of the World War III that preoccupied a generation.6

Liddell Hart thus arrived at a cogent short definition of strategy: ‘the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy’.7 Liddell Hart added a codicil to this strategic last will and testament. It would figure prominently in the work of his disciples and is given pride of place in Liddell Hart’s book, Deterrent or Defence (1960). The possession of a nuclear deterrent does not do away with an overall defence policy designed to resist a diverse range of threats. The deterrent effect of nuclear weapons was ‘fading’ except when applied to their own kind, for ‘other forms of aggression may proceed’, he writes, ‘with impunity if they are limited in aim and action’. The West might find itself helpless to resist a quick and bloodless fait accompli. Liddell Hart’s book was publically endorsed by John F. Kennedy in the Presidential Election of 1960 as validating his criticisms of the Eisenhower Administration’s defence policy which, he claimed, relied too heavily on the nuclear deterrent to the detriment of conventional, land forces. But the book is a collection of previously published articles, and Michael Howard got into hot water with Liddell Hart when he reviewed it critically, pointing out the inadequacies of this kind of publication.8 In short, nuclear deterrence could provoke guerrilla war. Large powers could exploit the nuclear stalemate ‘under camouflage’ and sponsor such conflicts. They could only be combated by the pursuit of ‘a counter strategy of a more subtle and far-seeing

6 Key themes: Ibid., 1) pp. 115, 164, 219, 228; 2) pp. 104, 132; 3)pp. 150, 160, 163; 4) pp. 198, 203, blockade, 204, 218, 283, 357; 5)p. 227; 6)pp. 228, 229-30; 7) pp. 329, 362-63; also see Liddell Hart, British Way in Warfare, p. 8. 7 Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 335. 8 B. H. Liddell Hart, Deterrent or Defence (London Stevens, 1960), p. x; Michael Howard, review in Survival, 2 (September-October 1960), p. 214.


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kind’. Here was another problem, the poor quality of Western leadership in the Cold War – a widely felt, though greatly exaggerated view that Kennedy exploited in his presidential campaign. In essence, Saki Dockrill has shown that the Kennedy Administration did not greatly increase the number of American land forces deployed by its predecessor. Liddell Hart interpreted this controversy in his own way, and sang the praises of ‘prophets’, that by implication included himself, a class of leaders, ‘philosophical strategists’ who gained acceptance by the packaging of their ideas ‘as the revival in modern terms of a time-honoured principle or practice that had been forgotten’. This role appeared to elevate the importance of the historian in strategic formulation, or at least history, but also revealed a hostage to fortune, the self-serving abuse or even manipulation of the historical record.9 Michael Howard played an important role in exposing some of Liddell Hart’s abuses of history but also in carrying forward some of the elements of the indirect approach in the nuclear age. Howard offers a memorable description of this stratagem in his own memoirs, which is far from dismissive, as resembling the work of the nineteenth century Swiss theorist, Baron Jomini. Fundamentally, Liddell Hart, like Jomini had only one idea and spent his entire life repeating, reformulating and inflating it.10 One other aspect of the reception of Liddell Hart’s legacy should also be spelled out, which the late American historian, Jay Luvaas, another of his disciples, impressed on me two decades ago. Liddell Hart tended to assume, Luvaas claimed, that if one admired a particular aspect of his work, that one accepted ‘the entire package’.11 Unravelling this package represented a major challenge for Liddell Hart’s disciples for he regarded the route by which he arrived at his conclusions and their universal applicability as evidence of fundamental ‘truth’. He did not recognise that ideas must be modified over time, as changing historical circumstances modify their bearing and significance and their proportions and dimensions vary. Howard’s life had been shaped by his experience of the Second World War as Liddell Hart’s had been by the First. He was born on 29 November 1922, educated at Wellington and Christ Church Oxford. Sir Keith Feiling and A.J.P. Taylor were among his tutors and Hugh Trevor-Roper, another Christ Church man, would also be a major influence on his career. After decorated wartime service in the Coldstream Guards and on the strength of his regiment’s history (much of it written in the Library of the Reform Club) in 1947 he gained appointment as assistant lecturer in history at King’s College London, promoted in 1950 to lecturer in history

9 Saki Dockrill, Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy, 1953-1961 (Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 1996), p. 278; Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 19. 10 Michael Howard, Captain Professor: The Memoirs of Sir Michael Howard (London: Continuum, 2006), p. 154. 11 Conversation during the Second International Conference on Strategy, US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, February 1990.


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(later war studies). His friendship with Liddell Hart dates from 1954 and resulted from a wholly unexpected approach by the great man which so many, including Bernard Brodie, received via letter, though the pretext in this case was ‘the depth and thought and understanding’ that Howard had exhibited in a review of a book in military history.12 The personal reasons that brought Howard into the world of contemporary defence and security problems are perhaps the subject for another place and occasion. He was by no means the first historian to be attracted by the momentous issues and problems of his own time. My late colleague, Professor Saki Dockrill, was increasingly attracted to them in the last phase of her, alas, too short career. In the previous generation to Howard’s, Sir Herbert Butterfield, E. H. Carr and A.J.P. Taylor had all written about contemporary matters and all three were more controversial figures. Of course, Liddell Hart himself offered Howard an example of the indefatigably industrious public intellectual who combined the study of history with analysis of contemporary problems; he also offered examples of tendencies to avoid, notably arrogance and dogmatism and naked self-promotion verging on vainglory. Howard was a ‘stalwart liberal’, to use the historian Ian Roy’s description, in a conservative college though he worked effectively with conservative institutions not least the armed forces. He made an important contribution to the centre-left tradition in British strategic thought which has proved so influential, and includes figures like Spenser Wilkinson, Liddell Hart, John Strachey, and P.M.S. (later Lord) Blackett. He also fell into the subject almost accidentally. When attending a meeting of the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House, he was assigned by Alistair Buchan to a Study Group on ‘Disengagement in Europe’ and as a young university lecturer was appointed rapporteur. Buchan, too, would become a powerful influence on his career and interest in contemporary defence problems and strategy. Howard wrote up their findings as his first book, Disengagement in Europe (1958), published by Penguin, then expanding its list with a series of concise, lucid, and penetrating surveys of post-war problems written by young dons who had been officers in 1939-45 (Gordon Connell-Smith’s Pattern of the Post-War World [1957] was advertised on its back cover). Disengagement was a favoured device in the mid-1950s designed to reduce the tensions of the Cold War by which Germany would be demilitarised in return for Soviet withdrawal in Eastern Europe. Howard’s strategic approach rested on an understanding that the central problem facing the twentieth century would continue to be the increasing spirals of destructive power inherent in modern war, taken to an apocalyptic and ruinous

12 On the background and formative influences, see Brian Holden Reid, ‘Michael Howard and the Evolution of Modern War Studies’, The Journal of Military History, 73 No. 3 (July 2009), pp. 869-904.


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plenitude by nuclear weapons. He also grasped the complexity of these issues not easily solved by (to some) self-evident and simple solutions. Howard’s intellectual outlook was decisively shaped by the passage of the Cold War and he would later place efforts to resist Soviet power on a par with the struggles of previous generations of statesmen to resist French and German power. So he had no illusions about the nature of the adversary. In Disengagement in Europe, a book provided with a concise historical context, he stressed the need for ‘firm, flexible, and patient attitudes, for any solution to the strategic impasse in Europe should not be adopted if it damaged “deterrence”’ – then still placed in quotation marks – ‘to discourage the Russian leaders from taking unwise risks’. In short new measures should not be adopted if they exacerbated ‘fears and create new tensions’ however laudable they may appear. Such efforts should be relinquished ‘in the general interests of the peaceful survival of mankind’. In his conclusion, Howard made three points that he would develop over the next half century: ‘The less secure the Russian leaders feel’, he wrote, ‘the less likely they are to make concessions: we are not the only people who like to negotiate from strength’. Secondly, increased tension between the armed blocs was not just a European problem, for it developed out of broader conflicts of ideology and ‘the nature of the armaments themselves’ and these ‘can be allayed by general measures of disarmament mutual inspection and control’. There would be changes of emphasis here, but his central point was that tension was not caused solely by the weapons deployed, that ‘armed races’ in themselves do not cause tension, they are symptoms of it. This led to his final, third point. Peace did not consist of an absence of international difficulties but a tolerance of them; it was necessary ‘to rely on time and good will to soften their sharp edges if not to solve them’. In other words, the settlement of Europe would neither be a magical nor ‘an isolated act’.13 In developing his ideas Howard never consciously viewed himself as a ‘strategist’ as some of his pupils do. But strategy was vital in bridging his historical works with contemporary analysis, what he calls the ‘strategic approach’ which developed into a new academic discipline, strategic studies, and drew on international relations inspired by the work of scholars like Hedley Bull (with whom his own personal relations would become tense) and Martin Wight (whose erudition awed Howard). Conversely, this heuristic tool kit shaped by strategy, linked past, present and future in one body of knowledge – war studies. Howard’s approach had been consistently historical in its exegesis. He with others, such as the lapsed historian, Sir Laurence Martin, as well as Alistair Buchan and Philip Windsor, pioneered the academic study of strategy. Academic writers in the US, especially Brodie and Henry Kissinger, would acquire immense influence, indeed, Kissinger served as Secretary of State in the

13 Michael Howard, Disengagement in Europe (London: Penguin, 1958), pp. 24-25, 86, 90-91, 92.


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Nixon and Ford Administrations, 1973-77. Howard was content with the Kantian formulation that politicians and civil servants even if they were left to run the country should at least ‘listen to what academics had to say’. His role was much more modest than Kissinger’s, as intellectual inspiration to Denis Healey while Secretary of State for Defence, 1964-70, but he was listened to.14 His important role in establishing the Institute (later International Institute) for Strategic Studies (ISS) to create ‘a milieu’ for informed discussion is in some respects more enduring in taking forward, as we shall see, the evolution of strategic ideas. From the 1950s onwards the study of strategy could never be regarded as a military monopoly.15 It almost goes without saying that Howard’s study of strategy - like Liddell Hart’s - was rooted in his understanding of the past. He had consistently argued that those who wrote about nuclear strategy and studied history ‘talked more sense’ than those who had not.16 He also remained loyal to Liddell Hart’s definition of strategy, which he described in his important study, ‘The Classical Strategists’, originally published as part of Problems of Modern Strategy (ISS, Adelphi Paper No. 54, 1969) ‘as good as any, and better than most’. Howard considered strategy a ’dialectic of two opposing wills’. Strategy must be related to the fundamental correlation of power. States should ‘organize the relevant elements of the external world to satisfy their needs’. They were required to coerce their enemy and must be able ‘to use violence for the protection, enforcement or extension of authority’. His liberal realism is best summed up in the remark that ‘states are cold monsters who mate for convenience and self-protection, not love’. Howard was far more pragmatic than Liddell Hart. He underlined that the vital strategic element in the study of international relations - which had frequently been ignored before the nuclear age - was both descriptive and prescriptive; Liddell Hart tended to conflate the two elements. The ‘descriptive function’, Howard wrote, sought to analyse ‘the extent to which the political units have the capacity to use or to threaten the use of armed force to impose their will on other units;’ the prescriptive analytical function recommended policies that ‘operate in an international system which is subject to such conditions and restraints’. There is evidence here, too, of an attempt to draw up a historically inspired conceptual framework for the study of strategy. It has shifted its focus many miles away from Liddell Hart’s incorrigibly operational focus.17

14 See Howard, Captain Professor, p.161. 15 Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives (LHCMA), Liddell Hart Papers 1/384, Michael Howard to Liddell Hart, 16 October 1958. All subsequent references are to this source in the LHCMA, King’s College London. I am grateful to the Trustees for permission to quote from copyright material. 16 Letter to the author, 3 July 2008. 17 Michael Howard, Studies in War and Peace (London: Temple Smith, 1970), pp. 154, 209, 235; idem, The Causes of Wars (London: Temple Smith, 1983), pp. 36, 61; Liberation or Catastrophe? Reflections on the History of the Twentieth Century (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 129.


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It is notable too that Howard attempted to reduce the issues of war and peace to their indisputable, fundamental elements rather than issue a list of maxims. He offered instead an attempt to improve understanding by clarifying the social context in which strategy operated; hence Howard’s work paralleled that of Bernard Brodie. Unlike Brodie he did not produce a dedicated volume on the subject. In the Trevor-Roper tradition he wrote a series of concise, scintillating and beautifully written studies that eventually appeared in volumes of collected essays. These had an impact disproportionate to their length in a field cluttered by clichés, dreary jargon and latterly, of course, the dreaded, impenetrable ‘management speak’. In ‘The Classical Strategists’, Howard defined this school as those who acknowledge the existence of force in international relations, and believe ‘that it can and must be intelligently controlled, but that it cannot be totally eliminated’. Although he may be acknowledging also his own creed here,18 Howard appeared to conclude that the day of the classical school had past. He argued that strategy in all its forms ‘must take as its starting point an understanding of the political – including the social and economic – context out of which these conflicts arise or were likely to arise. Inevitably the interaction works both ways’. Strategic advocacy without this understanding cannot and should not dictate the statesman’s course. Howard pointed to the importance of political scientists at one end of the spectrum ‘and of physical scientists, systems analysts and mathematical economists at the other’; he thus called into question classical strategy ‘as a self-sufficient study’, as the maintenance of a stable, nuclear strategy increasingly drew on national resources across the board. A work such as Morton H. Halperin’s Contemporary Military Strategy (1968) envisaged war in almost exclusively nuclear terms, and is very typical of thinking of the time in its utter rejection of traditional modes of thought; in this approach, he was hardly wrong, and Howard was influenced by the seemingly compelling logic that the ways of the future had no apparent connection with the past. A hint of the influence of nuclear strategy on Howard’s thinking can be detected in one of his most significant edited works, the festschrift he organised for Liddell Hart’s 70th birthday, The Theory and Practice of War (1965), which brought the thinking of his acolytes together in one place. Howard’s essay on ‘Jomini and the Classical Tradition in Military Thought’ was gently critical of the key assumptions of the classical school, especially lists of the principles of war. These seemed in the nuclear age to have as much life and presence as the proverbial dodo; an appropriate if unoriginal simile. as the dodo was flightless, and all strategists were agreed that the weapons that really counted would be airborne.19

18 As pointed out by Lawrence Freedman, ‘Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power’, in L. Freedman, P. Hayes and R. O’Neill, eds.,War, Strategy and International Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 279. 19 Michael Howard, ‘Jomini and the Classical Tradition in Military Thought’, in idem (ed.), The Theory and Practice of War: Essays Presented to Captain B.H. Liddell Hart (London: Cassell, 1965), p. 13; idem,


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The most important point of departure from Liddell Hart’s teaching would undoubtedly be Howard’s restoration of respectability to the strategy of attrition long described by Liddell Hart as valueless if not self-destructive. A consistent theme of his historical works is that no amount of operational brilliance could overturn the resources of a superior coalition, especially if its members mobilized their resources with determination and vigour. Much of Howard’s historical work in the 1970s was directed towards a thorough demolition of some of Liddell Hart’s prized shibboleths, not least, the idea he advanced in the early 1930s of a ‘British Way in Warfare’, an amphibious strategy designed to seize overseas possessions in order to trade in negotiations for a compromise peace. Howard was critical both of Liddell Hart’s historical method and the utility of such a strategy and made the case for the Continental Commitment that Liddell Hart abhorred. But more importantly, the political and social context of the strategic scene, as Howard understood it, was changing, too. So by the late 1970s such insights informed his writings on contemporary strategy. These form part of the prelude to another important revival in classical thinking. Whereas in 1969 Howard suggested that strategic manoeuvres were often in essence political manoeuvres, in two significant articles written after the end of the Vietnam War, ‘The Relevance of Traditional Strategy’ and ‘The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy’, both originally published in Foreign Affairs, Howard demonstrated over the next decade and more that the social and political context of strategy had changed. It gave renewed importance to the military dimension, to armed forces, that is, an area of activity still designated as ‘conventional’ strategy. The first argued that conventional forces might be employed ‘so as to minimise the possibility of the adversary using his forces at all, and to maximize the credibility of the nuclear threat of their own government’. That is, they could shore up deterrence by rendering nuclear war unnecessary but make the threat of the use of these weapons more convincing. The second essay affirms that ‘forgotten dimensions’ - logistics and resources – forces lurking far from the battlefield – could negate operational skill; another significant departure, even within the classical framework, from Liddell Hart’s teaching.20 Did this approach commit the West to an inevitable nuclear slogging match with the Soviet Union? In answering this question Howard expanded on two themes: responsibility and reassurance. Responsibility must be demonstrated in maintaining the existing, stable alliance structure and thus balance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact which permitted deterrence to continue. Reassurance required compromise, caution and mutual tolerance to keep the international temperature

Studies in War and Peace, p. 183; Morton H. Halperin, Contemporary Military Strategy (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), pp. 41-42, notes his scepticism over quantitative techniques as a driver of policy. 20 Both reprinted in Causes of Wars, see pp. 98-99, 103-5 especially.


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cool and not alarm western electorates unnecessarily or fan incipient anti-American feeling. Here are archetypal Liddell Hart themes, even expressed later as ‘lessons’.21 The other important development of the indirect approach took place in the country of Liddell Hart’s birth, France, by General André Beaufre (1902-75). Beaufre was educated at St Cyr, commissioned into the infantry and first met Liddell Hart in the spring of 1935. He joined Free France in 1942, and served as Deputy Chief of Staff Land Forces Western Europe, in Indo-China (where he helped extract Liddell Hart’s son, Adrian, from his ‘engagement’ with the Foreign Legion), in Algeria, Suez, Germany and Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) as Deputy Chief of Staff Logistics. He retired in 1961 after a stint on the NATO Standing Committee in Washington DC.22 Beaufre was a brilliant intellect, a man of demanding standards and sharp tongue who was something of ‘a lone wolf among military men’. He agreed with Liddell Hart’s views on the need to find ‘intellectuellement sur ‘l’ordre d’urgence’; as Howard appealed to Liddell Hart’s frustrated academic side, Beaufre appealed to the military dimension of that complex character. Beaufre also had the self-confidence and high military rank not only to disagree with Liddell Hart but to not always follow the ‘authorised version’ of his past as the prophet of blitzkrieg. For instance, he did not hesitate to mention the defensive arguments Liddell Hart had made in 1939, rather than the later stress placed in the 1950s and 1960s on armoured mobility, an audacity of a different kind which on occasion took the master’s breath away.23 Nonetheless this remained a relationship of real warmth. Much merriment was caused in the Liddell Hart household when the latter introduced Beaufre to some friends and colleagues, who on hearing Beaufre’s excellent English, ‘were under the impression that you were my son – and remarked how well you spoke French, evidently comparing your fluency in the language with my stumbling efforts’. As Beaufre was only seven years younger than Liddell Hart this is more a tribute to his charm, eternal youthfulness and bilingual capacity than to any imagined family likeness. But he did regard Liddell Hart as ‘mon parrain’ - like a godparent - his godfather in military studies. Beaufre also shared some qualities with Howard, not least his authority, elegance of style and concision. Liddell Hart singled out for praise his lucidity, a quality which he praised in Howard’s work, too. Howard and Beaufre

21 Michael Howard, ‘The Lessons of the Cold War’, Survival, 36 (1994-95), pp. 161-66. 22 B. H. Liddell Hart, Memoirs, (London: Cassell, 1965), I, p. 273; André Beaufre, ‘Liddell Hart and the French Army, 1919-1939’, in Howard (ed.), Theory and Practice of War, p. 140; Liddell Hart to Beaufre, 20 December 1951; also see Beaufre’s c.v. 1/49/11/66 23 The Times, 14 February 1973 obituary, copy in 1/49; Beaufre to Liddell Hart, 18 January 1951 1/40/83; see Liddell Hart’s comment to Beaufre (29 June 1959) on the lack in NATO of ‘very flexible minds and exceptionally strong characters’ to engage in complex strategies. Liddell Hart to Desmond Flower, 18 September; Liddell Hart to Beaufre, 6 November 1967 1/49/83/208/212 Are these from the Liddell Hart papers?


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collaborated on the festschrift and also discussed Liddell Hart’s Memoirs together on the BBC in November 1965.24 Beaufre had begun work on An Introduction to Strategy, in which he developed the theory of an ‘indirect strategy’, while he was still serving. Although Beaufre wrote many books, it is his development of the indirect approach in this work that shall be the focus of attention here. ‘I know that you will not agree completely’, he admitted to Liddell Hart, ‘but truth comes out of divergent views’. The development of Beaufre’s ideas had been greatly aided by two important lectures he delivered in London. The first was to the Military Commentator’s Circle on 15 June 1959 before a distinguished audience, ‘Military Factors in the Defence of Europe’. He stressed the psychological factor in the ‘state of flux’ and ‘rapid change’ and ‘the absolute break with past experience’ that characterised the nuclear stalemate. Psychological bluff was ‘woven into a subtle web of deterrents to impress the enemy and reassure our allies’. Underneath the over-arching nuclear deterrent, lurked what Beaufre called ‘the critical point... a manoeuvre of indirect strategy that employed insidious means to attain limited goals’. This indirect strategy exploited deterrence while the ‘political atmosphere is favourable’. He called for a new, subtle strategy of ‘calculated ambiguities’ – almost the perfect term to describe the indirect approach.25 The second lecture Beaufre delivered at the ISS on 26 November 1964 in a bid to ‘launch’ the publication of the English translation to be published early the following year. He advocated strategy as a ‘method of thought’ to discover the means most suitable to attain the political aim of the conflict. The aim – the ‘key’ (a favourite Liddell Hart metaphor) – of strategy should be ‘[f]reedom of action’. He agreed with Howard that disarmament presented dangers, not least ‘the danger of conventional wars’; the ‘golden rule’ appeared to be ‘that in our world peace is imposed by a danger’. In this dangerous world, indirect means might flourish.26 The final version revealed a gifted theoretician. Beaufre described it himself as ‘ce petit livre une surface plus grand’.27 The French title of the book caused some discussion because it gave the impression of being a primer when it was nothing of the sort; but Beaufre insisted on its retention. The English version was translated by Major General R.H. Barry, a grandson of the architect, Sir Charles Barry, previously chief of staff and director of plans to the Executive Director (CD) of the Special 24 Beaufre to Liddell Hart, 8 December 1963, 4 November 1965; Liddell Hart to Beaufre, 20 July 1964, 8 November 1965 1/49/128/177/178/220. 25 Beaufre to Liddell Hart, 16 October 1959; copy of the lecture, ‘Military Factors in the Defence of Europe’ 1/49/80/87, pp. 1-2. The audience included among many others, Rt. Hon. George Brown MP, R.T. Paget QC, MP, Rt. Hon. John Strachey MP and young Major A.H. Farrar-Hockley, a future NATO CinC. 26 ‘Contemporary Strategy’, ISS Lecture, 26 November 1964, copy in 1/49/168. 27 Beaufre to Liddell Hart, n.d. [? December 1962], 18 January 1963 1/49/112/115.


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Operations Executive (SOE), whose subsequent career in NATO had shadowed Beaufre’s.28 In seeking a workable philosophy, Beaufre rejected history as a prime explanatory tool, though he included a host of historical references in the text; instead he tried to expose and explain the basic ideas underlying strategy, what he termed its ‘algebra’. He rejected Liddell Hart’s definition as too concerned with military operations. He preferred to define strategy as ‘the art of applying force so that it makes the most effective contribution towards the ends set by political activity’. Here Beaufre indicated agreement with and attempted to develop the post-war consensus (which would be periodically challenged) that strategy was above all an art. Liddell Hart, 40 years before and responding to a quite different set of intellectual currents, had viewed it as the product of scientific thinking. In Beaufre’s opinion the main priority of strategy should be the creation and exploitation of circumstances ‘resulting in sufficient moral disintegration of the enemy’ who will eventually accept the conditions ‘it is desired to impose upon him’. He seemed dismissive of academic efforts as ‘[m]ountains of paper’ but he considered that his own equally elaborate analysis would provide the ‘essential ingredients of the overall strategy’. Beaufre’s is indeed a military intellectual’s book and includes principles, patterns and rules of strategy, though the whole is very stimulating and drawn up in accordance with the classical tradition. Yet he made a great point – unlike Liddell Hart – of avoiding the compulsion to justify any of the courses suggested therein. Beaufre did make the case for his governing theorem, which he labelled ‘total strategy’, as this would embrace all the factors involved in a ‘clash of wills’. He found room for manoeuvre in the Cold War restricted because of the dangers of escalation. Hence the importance he attached to the psychological weapon. In developing his ideas he at long last abandoned use of the word ‘approach’ and referred categorically to ‘indirect strategy’. This he considered to be a ‘must’ for the weaker side. Beaufre held that the indirect strategy combining ideas, moral pressure and the ‘geographical area where it is designed to obtain certain results’, could produce ‘a prolonged conflict so designed and organized that it becomes more and more burdensome to the enemy’. His experience in Indo-China and Algeria had a massive bearing on the way he envisaged the strategy developing. It was vital, he believed, that the West snatched back the initiative, as he warned that ‘it is an exception for the defence to be successful;’ Beaufre thus envisaged indirect strategy as an element of total strategy, not a cure-all, a strategy in a minor key.29

28 See M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France Second Edition (London: HMSO, 1968), pp. 18-19; on Barry’s linguistic skill, see idem, ‘Barry, Richard Hugh (1908-99)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 60 volumes (Oxford University Press, 2004), IV, p. 149. 29 André Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy (London: Faber and Faber, 1965), pp. 12, 13. 14, 22, 57, 99, 110-16, 127, all references are to this edition.


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The very clarity of Beaufre’s exposition ensured that areas of agreement were clearly sign-posted. Liddell Hart objected to the use of the term total strategy because he claimed it would be confused with ‘total war’. Beaufre would not be swayed, he disliked the term grand strategy, which Liddell Hart suggested as a substitute, and national strategy ‘du americains’ even more. Michael Howard hailed the book’s publication in France (along with Raymond Aron’s Le Grand Debat) as ‘an event of major importance in the history of strategic thought’. Yet he also thought the book occasionally too masterly. Beaufre stretched the definition of strategy almost to breaking point. He forced international relations to conform to strategy, Howard argued, and in dismissing the accidental or contingent he tended to fashion the West’s political leaders in an image demanded by the strategist. This did not happen often, as Howard wittily remarked of de Gaulle, ‘even when that political master is a General’. Developing this theme in ‘The Classical Strategists’, Howard pointed out that what Beaufre had really done was to draw up a theory of international relations as much as of strategy. But his theory neglected numerous political and social factors, for the world was not as polarised as he had claimed, and the sway of communist dictatorships was less unchallenged than he assumed. ‘Strategy’, Howard concluded, ‘must certainly be shaped by the needs of policy; but policy cannot be made to fit quite so easily into the Procrustean concepts of the professional strategist’.30 By comparison with either Howard or Beaufre, neither Bernard Brodie nor Henry Kissinger fit within the Liddell Hart tradition. This is perhaps not surprising as after 1945, Liddell Hart, Howard and Beaufre contributed to an essentially European counterpoint to American strategic ideas. Yet Liddell Hart had many American admirers. Brodie proudly announced that he had been ‘a follower of yours’ since 1952 after the detonation of a thermonuclear weapon. They agreed on specific points: on the need to limit war but avoid major one-sided disarmament, and on the challenges presented by any effort to develop ‘appropriate’ skills among Western leaders; Brodie even took Liddell Hart’s side in his disputes with John Terraine over the conduct of the First World War. He admitted that he had been ‘outraged’ by Terraine’s arguments that reduced the overall British casualties at the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) in 1917. But Brodie was too independent-minded to accept Liddell Hart’s suggested modifications to his theory of deterrence, especially its historic roots; Brodie was nobody’s acolyte. Such reflections seem even more pertinent to Kissinger. He was sincere in his expressions of admiration for Liddell Hart’s work. The invitation to contribute to Liddell Hart’s festschrift brought ‘me so much pleasure’, he later told its honorand. But again, it is their dedication to the limitation of war which brought them together, though they differed in substantial

30 Liddell Hart to Beaufre, 15 April; Beaufre to Liddell Hart, 22 April 1964 1/49/139/141; Howard review, Survival, 6 No. 3 (May-June 1964), pp. 146-47; Studies in War and Peace, p. 182.


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detail as to how this might be achieved; Kissinger specifically warned of the dangers of ‘panaceas’ in his contribution to The Theory and Practice of War.31 So where do we leave Liddell Hart’s canon? The writer Vita Sackville-West once observed that ‘the fun of the historian consists partly in destroying his own theories once he has built them up’.32 Certainly, Liddell Hart’s carefully constructed image of himself has been dismantled by historians, though it has not yet been replaced with a coherent, alternative view. It is perhaps no coincidence that the most devastating assaults on Liddell Hart’s reputation have come from the United States, notably in John J. Mearsheimer’s Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988).33 The ‘weight’ of Mearsheimer’s history is directed towards the years before 1945 and he makes too much of Liddell Hart’s manipulation of his friends. Howard and Beaufre both owed Liddell Hart a deep debt of gratitude, but this did not prevent them from developing his ideas afresh, discarding them or constructively revising them when required. They of course brought their own preoccupations and the benefit of their diverse experiences to bear on his strategic framework. They found most utility in his ideas concerning strategy and policy. Those that follow their path, especially military men, may find Liddell Hart’s operational and tactical ideas equally stimulating. What later commentators should not do is accept uncritically Liddell Hart’s own linkage of the various aspects of his work. If Michael Howard is right in thinking that Liddell Hart transformed the nature of military thought, then he and General Beaufre have played a most important part in carrying that transformation forward.

31 Brodie to Liddell Hart, 26 April 1957, 3 February, 2 March 1960 1/109/2/13/15; Kissinger, ‘American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy’, in Theory and Practice of War, p. 291. 32 V. Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc (London: Folio Society edition, 1995 [1936]), p. 54. 33 John J. Mearsheimer, Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (London: Brassey’s, 1988).

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BCMH New Researchers in Military History article Divided Loyalties: The Effect the Boer War and its Aftermath had on how Irish Nationalists interpreted the Irish Soldier Serving in the British Army ALAN DRUMM University College Cork Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT The Boer War proved to be hugely important in the evolution of Irish Nationalism. The conflict would bring about the reunion of constitutional Nationalists under John Redmond and grant advanced Nationalists the opportunity to express their militant politics. This paper will detail how both groups responded to the war in South Africa by examining their interpretations of British military recruiting in Ireland and that of the Irish soldier. The article will conclude by finding that the British military largely viewed Irish Nationalism negatively as a result.

The outbreak of the Boer War on 11 October 1899 provided the perfect opportunity for Irish Nationalists to unite behind a single issue for the first time since the fall of Charles Stewart Parnell. The South African conflict created the environment in which the Irish Parliamentary Party would reunite. Furthermore the opening phase of the war facilitated co-operation between the moderate Parliamentary Party and the Irish Transvaal Committee, dominated by more extreme or advanced Nationalists, based on their united opposition to both the conflict and enlistment. It is little wonder then that R.F. Foster argued that the Boer War was ‘as nearly as crucial an event for Irish Nationalism as the death of Parnell.’1 Nevertheless as the conflict progressed, divisions between the Transvaal Committee, whose leaders included Maud Gonne, Arthur Griffith and James Connolly, and

1 R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (London: Penguin Books, 1988), p.448.


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constitutional Nationalists led by Parliamentarians such as John Redmond and John Dillon would come to the fore. Using their partisan publications, the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Irish Transvaal Committee, in the Freemans Journal and The United Irishman respectively, employed divergent strategies in dealing with recruitment. Both newspapers were guilty of over emphasising the success of their respective counter recruitment campaigns, which as Keith Jeffery noted ‘only had a slight impact, if any at all, on recruitment’.2 However it is not the success or failure of the Nationalist campaigns that is the focus of this article, it is how the competing interpretations of the Irish soldier held by constitutional and advanced Nationalists led to division between them and the longer term effect this had upon Irish Nationalism. Even before the conflict erupted it was becoming clear that Nationalists of all shades were going to oppose the Boer War. Terence Denman wrote, ‘weeks before the Boer War had broken out, and the question of seducing 'stalwart peasant lads to “take the shilling” was becoming one of acute political concern in Ireland.’3 As rumours of the brewing conflict circulated in the press throughout the months preceding the Boer War, Nationalists emphasised their support for the President Kruger and the Boers. On 16 January 1898 the Chairman of the Arcklow Town Commissioners proclaimed, ‘The only feeling which Irishmen could have for England in her hour of trial, which now seemed at hand, was one of joy and jubilation that retribution should come to her for all the wrongs she had inflicted upon Ireland.’4 Later the chairman called for cheers in honour of President Kruger and remarked ‘that any elements which were working for the disintegration of the British Empire should be welcomed by Irish nationalists at the present time.’5 In June Maud Gonne told a meeting in Dublin that,

Today the cup of England’s iniquity was full to overflowing and today the world knew England as she had not been understood a hundred years ago, for she stood today, in truth, without a friend in the world. The hour of justice would yet come to England, as it had to every other country that was a country of tyranny and oppression… It had well been said that England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. Let them keep that for England’s difficulty might be close at hand.

2 Keith Jeffery, An Irish Empire?: Aspects of Ireland and The British Empire (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1996), p.97. 3 Terence Denman, “The Red Livery of Shame: The Campaign Against Army Recruitment in Ireland, 1899-1914,” Irish Historical Studies, xxix, no. 114 (1994), p.208. 4 The Freemans Journal, 16 January 1898. 5 Ibid.

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Gonne continued, ’in this year of ’98 no Irishman would join the English Army or navy.’ Gonne also believed Irishmen enlisted because ‘the English, in fact, did all they could to precipitate a condition of starvation in order to encourage the recruitment of Irishmen as British soldiers.’6 The Parliamentarians also weighed in behind the pre-war anti-recruiting campaign. The Irish Party MP, Frank Hugh O’Donnell, wrote in the The United Irishman, ‘It was not the example of Parnell or even of O’Connell which filled and still fills whole brigades of the English Army with mercenaries from Ireland.’7 Peter Karsten found ‘the Irish regiments embarking for service during the Boer War were hooted down the Dublin quays by Redmondite critics of the war because they were loyal to their oath.’8 On 2 October Nationalists then held their first meeting to condemn British actions in South Africa. The platform was dominated by members of the newly formed Irish Transvaal committee, an organisation led by advanced Nationalists, but members of the Irish Party were also present. John O’Leary, an ex-Fenian, was first to speak and was met with massive roars of approval. However the biggest cheer was held for the unfurling of the Boer flag by another ex-Fenian P.J. O’Brien. Maud Gonne then took the opportunity to announce,

It was a terrible sorrow and humiliation to know that there were regiments of Irish name who had gone out to fight against the Boers; but it was hoped that those soldiers that those soldiers when they saw the green flag of Ireland waving side by side with the banner of the Transvaal would, even at the eleventh hour remember that they were Irishmen, and cast off the hideous English uniform.’9 She then informed the audience ‘one thing [we] could clearly put a stop to… [is] recruiting in Ireland… England should be prevented from filling up the breaches made in the ranks by Boer bullets, and Irishmen should not be available to replace troops sent to South Africa. In order to prevent recruiting in Ireland, they must take united action – they must call on all Nationalist papers to do everything in their power against it… The recruiting sergeants throughout Ireland must be watched, and if necessary, followed, into the places where most of their work was done – into the public houses.10

6 Ibid. 7 The United Irishman, 16 September 1899. 8 Peter Karsten, ’Irish Soldiers in the British Army, 1792-1922: suborned or subordinated,’ Journal of Social History, XVII (1983-84), p.47. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid.


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While the counter recruiting campaign seemed to be bringing together the forces of constitutional and advanced nationalism, there were already differences emerging between the competing ideologies. At the same meeting John Redmond objected to the conflict on the basis that it was imperialistic. He told those present, ‘it would be a disgrace if Ireland did not clearly show her sympathies with the Transvaal now, when a most unjust attack is being made upon its freedom.’11 Although T.D. O’Sullivan, told the same gathering, ‘That this meeting condemns all enlistment of Irishmen in the English Army.’ He did go on to say that he ‘could not blame some of the poor fellows who had taken the shilling and put on the red coat’ but ‘In a crisis of this kind, in his opinion, the man that did so acted the part of enemy to his country.’12 Despite the disparity the Royal Irish Constabulary reported that ‘the disloyal sentiment, which leads to expressions of good will to the Boers, is decidedly wide-spread, and is encouraged and intensified by British reverses.’ Though they also noted ‘It is, however, only a sentiment as yet.’13 Maud Gonne took advantage of the existing sentiment by establishing, Inghinidhe na hÉireann, or Daughters of Ireland. They distributed anti-recruitment leaflets and spoke about the evils of Irish girls consorting with British soldiers. Controversially Gonne had some of her supporters follow soldiers distributing leaflets as they went, which often led to fracas.14 In her autobiography Gonne claimed, outlandishly, that the campaign of Inghinidhe na hÉireann ‘almost stopped enlistment for the British Army in Dublin and considerably reduced it throughout the country.’15 The Irish Transvaal Committee also adopted some of the strategies employed by the Parliamentarians, such as pointing out the fortunes of old soldiers who did not qualify for a pension. Gonne wrote, ‘Old, broken down, and hopeless, they cower around the fires or wander aimlessly and drearily round the dismal courtyards of the workhouses – those Irishmen who forgot Ireland and wore the English red.’16 Although advanced Nationalists were profiting from the conflict, constitutional Nationalists became caught between representing the rights of Irish soldiers while opposing recruitment. After the news broke of how the Dublin Fusiliers were decimated at the battle of Glencoe, Michael Flavin told Parliament ‘Their mothers and sisters to-day in Ireland are weeping for their lost relatives who have won a glorious victory for you, but many of these mothers and sisters may have to be

11 The Freemans Journal 2 October 1899. 12 Freemans Journal, 22 September 1899. 13 The National Archives, Kew, London [TNA], CO 904/69/705, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, January 1900. 14 Maud Gonne MacBride, A servant of the Queen (Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 1994), p.267. 15 Ibid., p.268. 16 The United Irishman, 14 October 1899.

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supported in the Irish workhouses.’17 Such statements served to distance themselves from the Transvaal Committee. Michael Davitt, whose background lay in advanced Nationalism, went a step further and resigned from parliament on 25 October 1899 with the intention of touring the Transvaal in support of the Boers. The emerging disunity between Parliamentarians and advanced Nationalists led to the authorities to believe that ‘one decisive British victory would go far to put an end to the present feeling; and it would certainly encourage many Nationalists, who now hesitate to speak out, to express their real sentiments as to the Boers.’18 However British victories were not forthcoming, serving to intensify Irish opposition to recruitment. During November members of the Transvaal Committee visited Cork. In a symbolic gesture, the horses pulling the carriage carrying Maud Gonne and Arthur Griffith were detached and the carriage dragged to the Victoria Hotel in the city where the Mayor once more highlighted the differing approaches taken by competing ideologies. Although the moderate Mayor, Eugene Crean, declared ‘it was a matter of regret that so many Irishmen were in the British Army… God keep our people from the British Army; God save them from ever joining its ranks.’ He also let it be known that ‘with those men it was either starvation at home or the red coat.’19 In contrast J.C. Flynn asked why ‘Irishmen had to bear the burdens and do the bloody work of England in the Transvaal.’20 On 17 December 1899 the Transvaal Committee organised a major protest at Beresford Place in Dublin to coincide with the visit of Joseph Chamberlain. Despite the authorities banning the demonstration, advanced Nationalists went ahead with it. This resulted in clashes between Nationalists and the police throughout the city as the authorities attempted to arrest its organisers, Maud Gonne, James Connolly, George A. Lyons, E.W. Stewart and Arthur Griffith. Although three members of the Irish Party were to join with the above in Beresford Place, they choose not to. Instead Michael Davitt, Patrick O’Brien and William Redmond met with the leaders of the Beresford Place demonstration at the headquarters of the Transvaal Committee, where a meeting was chaired by John O’Leary.21 While the incident once more demonstrates the overlapping nature of the counter recruiting campaign, it also highlights the subtle differences between the two Nationalists groups, as the Parliamentarians chose not to attend the illegal meeting but a following one in the offices of the Transvaal Committee.

17 HC Deb 25 October 1899 vol 77 cc696. 18 TNA, CO 904/69/706, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, January 1900. 19 The Freemans Journal, 14 November 1899. 20 Ibid. 21 The Freeman’s Journal, 18 December 1899.


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Whereas advanced Nationalists choose to confront the authorities, moderates began to highlight the losses suffered by the Irish Regiments during the early stages of the war to make life increasingly difficult for recruiters. The Freeman’s Journal noted ‘the English regiments have lost 2,420, the Irish 1,680 and the Scottish 1,300. As there are nearly twenty five English battalions, only five Irish and nine Scottish, the apportionment of the work of the campaign can hardly be regarded as judicial. On the Irish proportion the English losses should now be over eight thousand, and the Scottish nearly four.’22 John Redmond complained in Parliament that ‘there were 120 Irishmen killed or wounded to 56 Englishmen.’23 Although Redmond was attempting to impede recruitment by highlighting Irish casualties, he was also representing Irish soldiers, who were after all constituents. Redmond explained why he did so stating that,

There is scarcely a family in Ireland, from the poor people who live in Dublin slums, to the highest in the land that is not represented in one shape or other at the front. This is more the case with regard to Ireland than it is here, because in proportion to the population a larger number of our people take to soldiering for the mere love of the calling than with you… I as an Irishman cannot help feeling a thrill of pride at the record and heroism of the Irish lads from Mayo and Roscommon.24

William Redmond, who was more radical than his brother, held similar a view. He told Parliament that,

It is perfectly true that there are Irishmen in South Africa fighting as gallantly as Irishmen always have done in every part of the world. These men we consider are in the wrong… We believe that these men, under better circumstances, would never lend their sanction to this war; but being engaged in it we hold that their gallantry and bravery ought not to be made a matter of taunt to us, because we are as proud of it as any other people.25

Swift MacNeill asked Parliament why were the Inniskilling Fusiliers ‘who were placed by Sir Redvers Buller in the forefront [of battle], but [were] never mentioned in the dispatches’ and ‘why Irish officers were being passed over’ for promotion.26 Jasper

22 The Freemans Journal, 30 December 1899. 23 HC Deb 07 February 1900 vol 78 cc834. 24 HC Deb 07 February 1900 vol 78 cc833. 25 HC Deb 19 February 1900 vol 79 cc406. 26 HC Deb 28 May 1900 vol 83 cc1562-1568.

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Tully also campaigned for the rights of returning soldiers. After mocking the Army’s performance in South Africa, Tully declared that,

…in Ireland the privates who fought in the Crimea were mostly to be found in the workhouses. The Irishmen who have gone out to this war will be treated when they come back just in the same way as the soldiers who went out and fought for you against Russia during the Crimean War.27

While it may have been possible at the beginning of the war for moderate and advanced Nationalists to stand on the same platform, the Parliamentary Party’s policy of opposing the war and recruitment but at the same time praising and representing the rights of Irish soldiers prevented this. Although this was to succeed in the short term, in the long term they gave advanced Nationalists a platform from which they could promote their ideology, which had up to this point been smothered by the Parliamentarians. The Transvaal Committee began to take full advantage of this opportunity by continuing to take a more forthright stance. In The United Irishman they wrote,

No feeling of sorrow fills us for the men with Irish names who have met the death they deserved at the hands of the Boers. Let England mourn them if she will. They died for her – these Irish Hessians… A hair of the head of one Dutchman, standing out for freedom in South Africa today, is more precious to us than all the lives of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.28

Maud Gonne went further. In Cork she claimed that Irish losses were proportionately higher because ‘England was carrying out her policy of exterminating the Irish people.’29 The combined Nationalist campaigns were producing results. The RIC found that

the most serious result of their activity has perhaps been the interference with recruiting and Militia volunteering which has been persistently attempted by private persuasion and open distribution of leaflets of more or less seditious character… vast numbers of these objectionable publications have been circulated.30

27 HC Deb 19 February 1900 vol 79 cc436. 28 The United Irishman, 28 October 1899. 29 The United Irishman, 18 November 1899. 30 TNA, CO 904/70/7, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, February 1900.


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In spite of the genuine sympathies felt toward the Boers the Police also believed that ‘in many places, the pro Boer feeling is observed to be on the decline, as the more sensible Nationalists recognise the consequences to themselves of a British defeat; and in addition, they sympathise with the Irish soldiers who have fought so gallantly at the front.’31 It was the officer’s second point which advanced Nationalist found difficult to hurdle. Although the public supported the drive against recruitment, they would not vilify the Irish soldier, who was recognised for his bravery as much as being identified as a victim of economic circumstance. This was to become clear during the South Mayo by-election in March 1900. The Irish Transvaal Committee put forward Major John MacBride to contest the election and had every reason to be confident. MacBride, a native of county Mayo, was the commander the Irish Transvaal Brigade fighting alongside the Boers. The seat had been vacated by Davitt who gave it up in protest over the war, although Davitt did not approve of MacBride’s nomination because he was not selected at a convention.32 Ironically though MacBride did not even know of his nomination and did not wish to be elected as he ‘did not believe that Ireland’s freedom could be gained through the good graces of the English Parliament and people.’33 Nevertheless the Transvaal Committee confidently began to step up their attacks on Redmond and the Parliamentarians. In late January The United Irishman commented, ‘The men who sit in the British Parliament and pose as the leaders of the Irish people are looking on silently at the sacrifice of the helpless ones of the English Moloch.’34 Using The United Irishman they further berated the Parliamentary Party, asking, ‘Will you not even visit your own constituents? The Dublin Militia are only two hour’s rail from you. The Wexfords are at Aldershot. The South Cork at Dover - just on the way to Paris you know.’35 The response of the Parliamentary Party was not at all coordinated. They were caught by surprise by news of MacBride’s nomination and their candidate John O’Donnell was as William O’Brien put it ‘a stripling barely out of his teens.’36 Worse was to come for O’Brien and the Parliamentary Party when it was revealed that O’Donnell had once tried to join the Royal Irish Constabulary. Then O’Donnell attempted to step down but O’Brien encouraged him to ‘fight MacBride.’ 37 An interesting subplot to the by election was the fact that neither candidate actually took

31 TNA, CO 904/69/706, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, January 1900. 32 Anthony J Jordan, Boer War To The Easter Rising: The Writings of John MacBride (Westport: Westport Books, 2006), p.68. 33 Ibid, p.69. 34 The United Irishman, 20 January 1900. 35 The United Irishman, 17 February 1900. 36 McCracken, Forgotten Protest, p.60. 37 The United Irishman, 10 March 1900.

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part in the campaign. MacBride was in South Africa and O’Donnell was in prison on a coercion charge. As the candidate’s personalities were removed the contest was a party one and a test of how strong support for the Transvaal Committee actually was. On 28 February 1900 the results were announced and despite the campaigning of veteran Fenians, John O’Leary and John Daly, MacBride finished nearly two thousand votes behind O’Donnell, 2,401 to 427. 38 The United Irishman claimed ‘misrepresentation succeeds.’ and they may have had a point. 39 Although O’Donnell’s victory seems like a landslide the turnout was little over 25 percent.40 As the ideological struggle between Nationalists continued, an unlikely opportunity for unity arose when Queen Victoria began to take an interest in the Irish regiments. On 20 February 1900 Victoria held an interview with Bugler Dunn. This was followed by a telegram from the Queen to General Buller expressing her concern in relation to the losses suffered by the Irish regiments.41 On 8 March 1900 it was then announced that Queen Victoria would visit Ireland at the beginning of April. This news was followed by an order issued by the Queen, allowing Irish regiments to wear a sprig of shamrock on their headdress on St. Patrick’s Day. Whether these moves were sincere or a cynical move designed to garner more recruits has been much debated.42 Either way it prompted a more extreme response from John Dillon. Addressing a crowd in Thule’s on St. Patrick’s Day, Dillon stated,

We are invited to be grateful because the Monarch of another race has sought to dip that emblem of our people in the blood that has been shed at the Tugela, and at other battle fields in South Africa, and to dye the green shamrock red in the rivers of Irish Blood which have been shed… We are asked to wear the shamrock to glorify the slaughter of Irish soldiers in an unjust war, in which they were put at the forefront of battle.43

The shamrock concession was quickly followed by Queen sanctioning a regiment of Irish Guards. A move which the military believed ‘can hardly fail to have a beneficial

38 The United Irishman, 3 March 1900. 39 The United Irishman, 3 March 1900. 40 McCracken, Forgotten Protest, p.60. 41 The Freemans Journal, 1 March 1900. 42 See, Donal P McCracken, Forgotten Protest: Ireland and The Boer War (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2003), pp. 66-71, James H Murphy, Abject Loyalty: Nationalism and Monarchy During the Reign of Queen Victoria (Washington DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 2001), pp. 275-289, Keith Jeffery, An Irish Empire?: Aspects of Ireland and The British Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 96-97, Keith Jeffry, ‘The Irish Soldier in the Boer War’ in John Gooch (Ed,) The Boer War: Direction Experience and Image (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 148-151, Maud Gonne MacBride, A servant of the Queen (Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 1994), pp. 266-278, 43 The Freemans Journal, 19 March 1900.


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effect upon recruiting in Ireland.’44 Dillon was equally as sceptical of this move, declaring at the same meeting,

[the Queen] thinks that by coming to Ireland she will raise a regiment of Irish Guards and get fine tall Tipperary men to fight the battles of her Empire at a shilling a day in South Africa... they want the Irish to fight their battles, but they did not think of that when they allowed the homesteads and fields of Ireland to be stripped of their population.45

Typically Maud Gonne went further, writing, ‘Taking the Shamrock in her withered hand, she dares ask Ireland for soldiers – for soldiers to protect the exterminators of their race!’46 Both sets of Nationalists were attempting to identify the Queen’s intervention with the recruiting campaign within a more extreme context. However, any chance of Nationalists coming together to oppose the Royal visit were quickly dashed when John Redmond told Parliament that the Irish people ‘will treat with respect the visit which the venerable sovereign proposes to make’ he added, ‘no attempt will be made to give that visit a party significance.’47 Although Redmond’s sentiment may have been felt in London, in Dublin the Irish Transvaal Committee threatened Redmond to ‘come to Dublin and repeat in public the statement you made tonight in the name of the Irish people.’48 While Nationalists continued to turn on each other, Queen Victoria’s visit passed off successfully. Mary Kenny wrote that ‘the plain people of Ireland turned out in their hundreds of thousands to give Queen Victoria the warmest welcome she had ever had in Ireland.’49 The authorities did not have to wait long to feel the effects of the Queen’s visit. In its aftermath the RIC reported that ‘pro Boer sentiment received a severe blow from the loyal enthusiasm evoked by the Queen’s visit.’50 It was not just the Royal visit that was turning the tide on Nationalists. A series of British victories in South Africa also was said to have ‘dejected and disheartened’ many Nationalists.51 Sentiment in Kildare was said to have undergone a ‘complete change in local feeling about the war and which is probably due to the fact that many local men are serving

44 Army and Militia. Annual Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting for the year 1900, p.8, 1901 [Cd. 519]. 45 Ibid. 46 The United Irishman, 7 Apri1900. 47 HC Deb 08 March 1900 vol 80 cc402. 48 The Freemans Journal, 10 March 1900. 49 Mary Kenny, Crown and Shamrock: Love and Hate between Ireland and the British Monarchy (Dublin, New Island, 2009), p.63. 50 TNA, CO 904/70/271, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, April 1900. 51 Ibid., CO 904/70/414, April 1900.

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in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.’52 However the campaign against recruiting was to get a shot in the arm later that week when the first of Michael Davitt’s reports from South Africa were published in the Nationalist press. Although Davitt’s articles can only be described as propaganda, they added to the admiration of the Boers in Ireland. Davitt interviewed many of the key generals and ordinary Boer soldiers and described in detail how they won great victories over the British forces. Michael Davitt also portrayed the Irish fighting with the Boers in an honourable light. Davitt noted that the Irish Transvaal Brigades; ‘did not fight for pay, had not yet surrendered and they did not attack civilians or wounded British soldiers.’53 Conversely Redmond continued to highlight the bravery of Irish soldiers and admitted ‘feeling pride at the record and heroism of Irish lads.’54 It is little surprise then that the authorities believed that ‘there does not exist at present any one leading Irish Nationalist who has the general confidence of the Irish people.’55 The view taken by moderate Nationalists was a pragmatic one. As many of the Irish Party’s supporters were in some way connected with the Army, the Parliamentarians did not criticise it in the same manner as advanced Nationalists, but they did continue to campaign against recruiting. Although Michael Davitt was a member of the Irish Party at the beginning of the war, he returned to his Fenian roots as it progressed. He was critical of the stance taken by many Parliamentarians claiming ‘enlisting in the British Army is a burning disgrace to Ireland’ adding, ‘Some Nationalists have praised these Irish soldiers under Roberts for bravery. Where has the bravery been exhibited? They may have fought better than the English Tommies [but] they could easily do that.’ Davitt also lamented the fact that ‘there are more Catholics from Cork, Tipperary, and Limerick in the British Army today than there are men from the whole of Protestant Ireland.’56 However the result of the general election of 1900 endorsed the stance of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Irish Party dominated the polls winning seventy seven seats. A further five Independent Nationalists who were estranged from the party were also elected. Undaunted the Transvaal Committee continued their campaign. In February 1900 Henry McAteer, secretary of the Transvaal Committee, conducted a ‘extended tour through the southern counties with the expressed object of stopping recruiting and

52 TNA, CO 904/600, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, June 1900. 53 The Freemans Journal, 6 July 1900. 54 HC Deb 07 February 1900 vol 78 cc833. 55 TNA, CO 904/70/546, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, June 1900. 56 The Freemans Journal, 4 September 1900.


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Militia volunteering.’ 57 In Cork he distributed ‘leaflets denouncing the war and warning members of the militia not to be entrapped into Foreign Service.’ He also gave his card to a few young men and urged them to join the Boer ranks.58 However, before moving onto Waterford, McAteer ‘drank freely and went so far as to tell a Staff Sergeant all about his mission.’ As a result the RIC surmised ‘no one appears to have paid any attention to him.’59 In Clare recruiting was said to be ‘about normal and recruits are generally much better than average.’60 Indeed the RIC reported that although many people in Ennis ‘were very jubilant in the hope that England would be brought down,’ they also observed that many were ‘beginning to see that the British cannot be beaten.’61 The Police also remarked on the fact that as many people had relatives in the Army ‘it militated considerably against the pro Boer feeling.’62 A similar attitude was found in Cork. After McAteer was caught distributing anti-enlistment leaflets it was noted that ‘public expressions of pro Boer feeling have disappeared for some time past, but all the same there can be little doubt that the great proportion of the people wish the Boers success. Their sympathy, however, is a passing sentiment.’63 In March, after the Duke of Connaught visited the city, the authorities were so encouraged by the decline of pro Boer sentiment that they wrote ‘the cognomen of Rebel Cork no longer applies to the city.’64 After another member of the Transvaal committee was found handing out leaflets in Naas, depot of the Dublin Fusiliers, the Police found ‘the general feeling amongst the people in the county is not now so pro-Boer as it was a few months ago, probably because the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, which have suffered so severely in the war and have so often distinguished themselves, are largely connected in the county.’65 Even in Limerick, where anti-military sentiment was felt more than elsewhere, the RIC noted ‘the collapse of the Boer War had a very desirable effect on the disaffected, who were hoping for a British disaster, had such taken place I am pretty sure Limerick city and county would have [seen] trouble.’66 Indeed the men of the Limerick County Militia were given a hugely popular send off on 11 May 1900.67

57 TNA, CO 904/70/546, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, February 1900. 58 Ibid., CO 904/70/31, February 1900. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., CO 904/70/153, March 1900. 61 Ibid., CO 904/70/24, February 1900. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid., CO 904/70/30, February1900. 64 Ibid., CO 904/70/140, March 1900. 65 Ibid., CO 904/70/57, February1900. 66 Ibid., CO 904/70/71, February1900. 67 The Freemans Journal, 12 May1900.

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The string of British victories won throughout 1900 also took much of the momentum out of the Nationalist campaigns. Pretoria had fallen on 3 May, on 12 May Kroonstad was occupied, on 31 May Roberts captured Johannesburg and on 21 July Komatipoort fell cutting the Boers off, which forced President Kruger to seek asylum in Portuguese East Africa. However, as the war entered its final stage, the tactics employed by the British in South Africa somewhat rejuvenated the anti-recruiting campaign. As the Boers turned to guerrilla tactics, the British reacted by implementing a scorched earth policy and opening concentration camps. By December reports of British atrocities were becoming more numerous. At the national convention in December John Dillon claimed,

the war has entered a new stage and the farms are burned, women and children turned adrift on the veldt without clothing and without food, and famine as an auxiliary applied to the women and children to compel their mankind to yield… Wherever your troops move not only are houses burned down or blown up with dynamite, but defenceless women and children are ejected, robbed of all food and cover, and all this without any just cause existing for such proceedings.68

During January 1901 Dillon then stated that the Queen ‘came to this country to glorify the acts of the unhappy Irish soldiers who were fighting upon the wrong side…We condemn and hate this war as the most unjust and cruel that has ever been waged upon a Christian people.’69 However as a British victory was now almost certain the RIC in Longford concluded that ‘pro Boer sentiment amongst the artisan and peasant class does not appear as strong as it was’70 The half-hearted opposition of Nationalists toward returning Irish soldiers seemed to encapsulate the findings of the RIC. While the Dublin Yeomanry were met by citizens mocking them with white flags upon their return, there was little else.71 In July 1900 the North Cork Militia returned to Cork where they were presented medals by the Duke of Connaught. Despite the storm stirred up by the deployment of the North Corks in South Africa the ceremony passed off without controversy.72 Indeed, after men of the Royal Artillery were involved in a drunken brawl with locals in Kilkenny the Police chief in the town claimed that recruiting had been ‘unusually brisk’ throughout December.73 In February

68 The Freemans Journal, 12 December 1900. 69 The Freemans Journal, 11 Janaury 1901. 70 TNA, CO 904/72/475, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, March 1901. 71 The Freemans Journal, 11 June 1901. 72 TNA, CO 904/73/158, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, July 1901. 73 TNA, CO 904/74/210, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, December 1901.


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1902, Chamberlain recorded, ‘recruiting has been fairly active during the month particularly in the counties Waterford, Kilkenny and Clare; no doubt the continuance of the war affects it considerably.’74 There was to be one last sting in the tail when Boer forces ambushed and captured Lord Methuen and over half of his column at the Battle of Tweebosch on 7 March 1902. In Ireland news of the Boer victory was celebrated and in some places where ‘bands turned out and paraded the streets after the disaster to the British Forces.’ Although only ‘corner boys and low rowdies’ were observed to have taken part in the celebrations. Chamberlain worried that ‘the recent disaster to Lord Methuen’s force may have the effect of stirring up Pro-Boer feeling, which has been somewhat on the wane for some months past.’75 However it was to be the last major action of the conflict as the Boers formally surrendered on 31 May 1902. The Boer War had offered advanced and Parliamentary Nationalists the opportunity to unite behind a common cause for the first time since the fall of Parnell. Although both sides opposed the war and recruitment, it was the position of the Irish soldier within the Nationalist narrative that was disputed. While the army as an institution may have been marginalised, the Irish soldier was not; in fact he was respected for his accomplishments. Whereas advanced Nationalists refused to acknowledge this, constitutional Nationalists believed it was possible for a man to wear the British uniform and not deny his own nationality. William Redmond alluded to this telling Parliament,

Who are these Irish soldiers who comprise the Connaught Rangers, the Dublin Fusiliers, and the rest of the Irish regiments? They come mostly from the South of Ireland; they are Catholics by religion, and in politics they are Nationalists and Home Rulers like we are. I have myself heard these gallant and brave men cheering at Irish meetings and demonstrations, and cheering Members sitting upon these benches in the towns which they have visited. You must not imagine because these men have entered your Army that they are not in sympathy with us, because they are, and we have the sympathy also of the classes in Ireland who supply these men.76

74 TNA, CO 904/74, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, February 1902. 75 TNA, CO 904/74/644, ’Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports’, March 1902. 76 HC Deb 19 February 1900 vol 79 cc406.

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Although the debate surrounding the recognition of Irish soldiers seemed minor within the wider Nationalist context, it contributed to Nationalists being unable to unite as they had under the leadership of Parnell. Therefore, once the Boer War came to a close, John Redmond had no influence over advanced Nationalists who were allowed to forge their own future. In turn many prominent members of the Irish Transvaal Committee, such as James Connolly and Arthur Griffith, would go on to become leading republican figures. However the effect of this would only be felt in the long term. In the short term, opposition to military recruitment became a theme within Nationalist politics. It would become one of the many battle grounds over which advanced and constitutional Nationalists would compete. The patterns set by the competing ideologies during the Boer conflict would continue until the outbreak of the First World War. In fact, in 1907, the Irish Parliamentary Party decided that their ‘influence should and must be used against enlistment.’77 They had also decided to ‘inculcate an attitude of aloofness from the Army because it was the Army which held Ireland by force. Enlistment had been discouraged, on the principle that from a military point of view Ireland was regarded as a conquered country.’78 As a result the British Military never truly trusted Irish Nationalists. During 1905 General Lord Grenfell told the Committee of Imperial Defence,

on the surface Ireland appears to be contented, but there is still strong racial antagonism in the country to the British connection, a feeling that might, under certain conditions, prove a source of weakness to the British Empire.’ Adding that the ‘germ of insurrection has never fully been eradicated in Ireland.79

General Lyttelton contended that it would not matter whether an invading force was French or German as ‘the Irish would be just as likely to join one as the other.’80 In May 1912 Lyttelton wrote,

the political situation in Ireland might be such that it would be most undesirable to completely denude many parts of the country of all troops even for a few days, for a raiding force successful in landing at that critical period the temper of the civil population in any part of Ireland might be such that an extremely dangerous situation might arise… political possibilities in Ireland are of such character

77 Stephen, Gwynn, John Redmond’s Last Years (New York: Longman’s Green and Co., 1919), p.141. 78 Ibid., pp.140-141. 79 TNA, CAB 38/10/74, ‘The Defence of Ireland‘. 80 Ibid.


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that I consider it would be unwise to count on the Constabulary being available for defence purposes against invasion.81

The Boer War proved to be a catalyst in the evolution of Irish Nationalism. It gave advanced Nationalists a platform from which to express their views, which had hitherto been concealed by the largely moderate Parliamentary Party. Extremists would use it to create Sinn Féin in 1905 and press the anti-recruiting campaign. During 1905 Special Branch found that many of the anti-recruiting leaflets that were being distributed had been printed during the Boer War when Maud Gonne and the Transvaal Committee had 40,000 posters printed.82 Although the authorities in 1912 believed that Sinn Féin, the I.R.B. and other extremists had ‘very little effect;’83 with the Great War only two years away, it is the continuation of the counter recruiting campaign and not its influence that is important. Indeed Sinn Féin’s opposition to recruiting assisted them defeat the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1918 general election.

81 TNA, WO 32/71/10, ‘EMPLOYMENT OF MILITARY FORCES: Mobilization and Demobilization (Code 53(E)): Mobilisation of Territorial Force: Allotment of territorials to local force in Ireland to release regular troops‘, 3 May 1912. 82 TNA, CO 904/11/84, ‘Précis of information and reports relating to the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) District‘, June 1905. 83 TNA, CO 904/89/206, ‘Inspector General's and County Inspectors' monthly confidential reports‘, February 1913.

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Reviews Max Hastings. Catastrophe: Europe goes to War 1914. London: William Collins, 2013. Notes. Bibliography. Index. 628pp. ISBN 978-0007519743 (Hardback). Price £13.25. In December 1914, Charles à Court Repington wrote in The Times:

‘It transcends all limits of thought, imagination and reason. We little creeping creatures cannot see more than a fraction of it. Even if we climb painfully to the top of the highest ladder of thought we are still pigmies, and the war still towers high above us. We see the raging torrents at our feet, but the high summits are veiled in impenetrable mist…. We look, gasp, wonder and are dumb. We do not know. Nobody knows. This war, for once, is bigger than anybody. No one dominates it. No one even understands it. Nobody can’.

He was describing the Great War, but these words apply equally well to the military historical phenomenon that is Sir Max Hastings. He is an unstoppable force of nature, beyond ‘all limits of thought, imagination and reason.’ Reviewing one of his books for this journal is akin to criticising a tsunami: quite beyond the point. Having laid bare the mysteries of the Second World War, most recently with titles such as Nemesis, Armageddon and All Hell Let Loose, Hastings has now turned his fertile pen to the First. Catastrophe tells the story of the coming of the Great War and of the campaigns which filled the last five months of 1914. It is a dramatic story, and Hastings tells it clearly enough. Members of the British Commission for Military History will, I suspect, learn little new from this book, but frankly it is not aimed at us. This is a work of popular history which seeks – and has received ample – validation primarily in the bestseller lists. This book reminds me forcibly of the movie The Longest Day. It tells a dramatic but well-known story. It has a huge cast of characters and picks out telling and eye-catching vignettes. I enjoyed, for instance, his lively description of the fall of Liège (pp. 160-5). It also recycles more than a few clichés and, in such a long production, cannot avoid the odd longueur. Inevitably, there are occasional inaccuracies. Although Hastings sought advice from academic historians who are well up to speed with the very latest research, their counsel does not always appear to be reflected in the finished product.


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Hastings acknowledges the impact the Guns of August had on him over 50 years ago, and it does not seem fanciful to suppose that he hoped to write an updated and expanded version of Barbara Tuchman’s work. Where she stopped on the Marne, Hastings carries the story through to Christmas 1914. He incorporates much more material on events in Serbia and Russia than she did. Commendable as this is in historical terms, although overall the narrative is competently told, Hastings does not quite match Tuchman for brio. Hasting’s passion in places sucks the reader in, for example when he argues that the war was Germany’s fault. Sometimes, though, like a sultan in his seraglio, he occasionally appears to have spread his attentions somewhat thin. Nonetheless, he seems to have managed to persuade much of his established fan base, until now content with their 1939-45 addiction, to taste something new with the First World War. Whether Catastrophe will prove the gateway drug which leads them back to their book-dealers for more refined product, remains to be seen. If it does, Hastings will have done us all a very great favour. I, for one, went out and bought a second copy of Catastrophe for a friend, who I believe enjoyed it.

DR JONATHAN BOFF

University of Birmingham Thomas Scotland and Steven Heys. Wars, Pestilence and the Surgeon’s Blade: The Evolution of British Military Medicine and Surgery During the Nineteenth Century. Solihull, England: Helion & Company, 2013. Index. Maps. Figures. Tables. Appendices. Endnotes. Cloth. xx + 407pp. ISBN 978-1909384095 (Hardback). Price £34.95. Wars, Pestilence and the Surgeon’s Blade charts the evolution of the British Army Medical Services from the Peninsular War to the beginning of the Great War. It is a timely companion to the highly recommended book War Surgery 1914-18 (Solihull, England: Helion & Company, 2012) co-edited by Scotland and Heys, after many visits to the Great War battlefields of France and Flanders. That was their first joint publication on British military history. This is their second. At the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, our wish to connect with the depressing horrors of that conflict is evidenced by public interest in current TV dramas such as BBC1’s The Crimson Field. Set in a tented, British Army base hospital

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near the sea in northern France, the drama shows how doctors and nurses in the First World War shaped the way that war injuries are treated today. In The Crimson Field one surgeon-captain is a dedicated Scotsman with a passion for medicine. He uses, apparently, the novel Thomas Splint, to keep the fractured ends of a femur (thigh bone) together. He documents his interesting cases, and attempts to publish his article on femoral trauma in the Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons. This echoes the way the real life Peninsular War surgeon, Irishman John Hennen worked to have his insightful descriptions published (p. 96). Both authors trained in surgery at Aberdeen to become specialist Consultant Surgeons. Wars, Pestilence and the Surgeon’s Blade is their fascinating account of British Army medical and surgical practice during the 19th century from the perspectives of the individual surgeons and physicians administering it. The authors have researched meticulously – and well referenced in endnotes - surgeons’ journals, and original medical publications, such as Principles of Military Surgery (London: John Wilson, 1829) by Hennen as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals. But Scotland and Heys rate as most significant the contribution of Sir James McGrigor. McGrigor, another Aberdeen scholar, dubbed The Father of British Military Medicine, was appointed Director General of Army Medical Services in 1815, at the age of 44, less than a week before the Battle of Waterloo! He was a consummate administrator, and statistician. The book’s backbone is a consideration of three major conflicts: The Peninsular War (1808-1814) plus the Battle of Waterloo (Sunday, 18 June 1815) the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars which presented a formidable medical task; the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The authors also review minor, often colonial, wars fought by the British Empire during the intervening years. Three major foreign wars, to which Britain sent observers, are also considered: The American Civil War (1861-1865), the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). In the chaos of wars throughout the 19th century disease caused more deaths in the British Army than enemy action. McGrigor’s measures to improve the health of Wellington’s forces were forgotten by the time of the Crimean War. Urgent investigation by the 1857 Sanitary Commission improved hospital hygiene at Scutari, and for later. The establishment of the Army Medical College in 1860 made British military medicine and surgery scientific. But a vaccine against typhoid fever – available by the time of the Boer War – was not used then with disastrous results. The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) incorporated in 1898 encouraged men to be inoculated at the start of the Great War in 1914.


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This comprehensive work may be compared with David McLean’s Surgeons of the Fleet: The Royal Navy and its Medics from Trafalgar to Jutland (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010) tracing the development of Naval medicine over a similar period. However, Wars, Pestilence and the Surgeon’s Blade is the more rigorous study of war surgery. For example, the authors’ analysis of the development of military anaesthesia in the 19th century (Chapter 9) is detailed and intriguing. In his Foreword, Colonel (Rtd.) Michael Stewart RAMC suggests that Wars, Pestilence and the Surgeon’s Blade is required reading for every member of the Army Medical Services (xiv-xv). I too enjoyed the engaging style; learnt much, and recommend this important book to the general reader interested in British military history.

JANE BOWDEN-DAN

James Holland (ed.), An Englishman at War. The Wartime Diaries of Stanley Christopherson, DSO, MC, TD. 1939-1945. London: Bantam Press, 2014. 551 pp. ISBN 978-0593068373 (Hardback). Price £25.00. I cannot remember when I have so enjoyed reading a diary, possibly Chips Channon, or maybe Harold Nicholson, and certainly not a military one, not even Alan Brook’s. Here is the wartime story of a young officer who starts the war in the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry as part of 1st Cavalry Division, on horseback, loses his horse to mechanisation, but starts as a gunner in the siege of Tobruk, and eventually commands a sabre squadron at Alamein and through to Tunis. In Normandy he takes command after two commanding officers are killed, and remains in command through to VE Day. Stanley Christopherson was educated at Winchester, which provides one of the leitmotifs that run through the book. He is forever meeting Old Wykehamists! One particular member of the BCMH will not be surprised to hear that my grandfather was his housemaster at Winchester. From there he went to South Africa, where the family had business interests and then returned to London as a stockbroker, joining the Inns of Court Yeomanry in 1936. He thus started the war as a Lance Corporal, being swiftly commissioned into the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, who must be one of the most written about regiments in the war. Aside from these diaries there is Hermione Ranfurly’s To War With Whitaker (1994), Miles Hildyard’s It’s Bliss Here and Stuart Hills’ By Tank To Normandy, (2002). There is also Keith Douglas’ From Alamein

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to Zem Zem, published posthumously in 1946. So we already know quite a lot about the regiment. What the diaries describe is how a collection of amateur weekend soldiers became professional soldiers. There weren’t just professional, but were very good professionals. It has always been recognised that the German Army was very good tactically; but here is a ringing endorsement of the British Army’s search for tactical success. In North Africa the regiment took their time to adapt to their new role as a tank regiment, after spending a long time as coastal gunners at Tobruk. They were in danger of being split up and used as reinforcements and it is entirely due to their commanding officer, Flash Kellett, that they survived as a regiment, being finally mechanised in the spring of 1942, taking part at Alamein and then at Zem Zem and Medinine, before the final battles in Tunis at Enfidaville. During this period they were often learning their trade, usually the hard way. Christopherson commanded a squadron of Crusader tanks throughout this period and learned how to cooperate with infantry, particularly the New Zealanders, and artillery. There was still an innocence about the war, fought in the desert, with few civilians and an easy to identify enemy. All of that changed with the move of the Sherwood Rangers back to England in December 1943. They remained part of 8th Armoured Brigade, an independent brigade. As such they worked very closely with their infantry regiment, 12th KRRC, and their gunner regiment, the Essex Yeomanry. They supported every Infantry Division in 2nd Army, and became experts in helping the infantry forward. Indeed such was their expertise that reading the diaries is rather like listening to the debates of the 1970s about the structure of Armoured Division and Brigades all over again. Whenever infantry divisions attacked they needed armoured support and usually it seems it was 8th Armoured Brigade who was chosen. This was as opposed to the Armoured Divisions, such as Guards Armoured or 7th Armoured, who were used for the offensive operations such as Epson or Goodwood. Throughout the Normandy campaign Christopherson was remarkably well informed as to what was going on, commenting on, for example on 7th Armoured’s difficulties at Villers Bocage. He took over command on 15th June after the death of two other COs. In his first operation as CO, Operation Epsom, SRY knocked out 13 enemy tanks, nearly as many as 7th Armoured Division had lost at Villers Bocage, but this success is rarely commented on, compared to the mythologised episode of Wittmann’s attack at Villers Bocage. The key effect of Epsom, brought out by Christopherson, was that there was now little likelihood of a future significant German counter offensive as their armour had been seriously written down. However, the cost to the British was appalling. In an armoured regiment there were about 700 men, with about 220 in the sabre squadrons in 50 tanks. Within 6 weeks of landing on D Day, the SRY had lost 80% of their tank commanders. While they could collect new tanks from the repair and


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resupply depots, new trained commanders were a different matter. In the August fighting the SRY suffered further casualties but inflicted heavy losses on the Germans, including 3 Panthers, 1 Tiger and a JagdTiger, a massive beast of 72 tons, but their casualties meant that since D Day they had now suffered 100% of their tank commanders. Overall, this is amongst the best accounts of the Normandy campaign from the tactical level. 8th Armoured Brigade was now part of XXX Corps and in the rapid advance from Normandy to Belgium had to alter their tactics. This time tanks led, with both 12th KRRC and the Essex Yeomanry gunners divided between the 3 armoured regiments, so forming 3 regimental groups and the Brigade acting for much of the time as flank guard for Guards Armoured. Again, the much vaunted German Kampfgruppe is often mentioned. However, here is the British Army doing exactly the same, and very successfully, but it is rarely commented upon. During Operation Market Garden Christopherson and SRY supporting the US 82nd Airborne Division and were the first British troops to enter German territory. They also supported 43rd Division, whose commander, Thomas, Christopherson usually referred to as “Von Thoma”, and then 52nd Division in the clearing of the ground west of the Rhine. This was nasty, cold and muddy fighting and the drain on manpower was significant. Typically Christopherson makes no mention of being awarded the American Silver Star for his performance in cooperating with the American Army throughout November. During the crossing of the Rhine 8th Armoured Brigade as usual were used to break through the German defences, but then Guards Armoured Division had the more appealing, and easy, job of swanning through and exploiting their success. They had become victims of their own success. They advanced as far as Bremerhaven before the Germans surrendered. The overriding impression throughout this account of the NW Europe campaign is of the growing professionalism of the SRY (and by implication, the whole of the British Army). But the cost was high. Christopherson spends much time accounting for the tank commanders, and squadron officers who are lost, so that by the end of the war “the only shoulders he has to cry on are the doctor’s and the padre’s” both of whom were clearly outstanding men, Hylda Young and Leslie Skinner. The SRY gained more battle honours between 1939 and 1945 (30) than any other single unit in the British Army; 16 of them were under Christopherson. They supported every British infantry division in NW Europe as well as 3 US divisions, and were the “fire brigade” always asked for and usually sent. This is a wonderful volume, and will, I suspect, become a standard text for those studying the NW Europe campaign.

ROBIN BRODHURST

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Alan Tritton. When the Tiger Fought the Thistle. The Tragedy of Colonel William Baillie of the Madras Army. London: the Radcliffe Press, 2013. Appendices. Index. xx + 314 pp. ISBN 978-1780764375 (Hardback). Price £25.00. Colonel William Baillie made a brief, dramatic appearance in the annals of British India’s history. His brigade marched to rendezvous with the commander-in-chief of the Madras army as Sir Hector Munro prepared to resist Haidar Ali of Mysore’s advance in September 1780. Baillie’s force could not break through the Mysorean lines. Munro, instead of hastening to join Baillie, sent a detachment of 1000 troops under Colonel Fletcher to strengthen Baillie near Pollilur. There Baillie was crushed on 10 September. Of his 86 officers, 36 (including Fletcher) were killed or died of wounds and 34 were wounded. Eventually, Munro bestirred himself and marched to within four miles of the battle when Baillie had to yield to overwhelming odds. Munro’s conduct and competence were excoriated in one of the more florid passages of John Fortescue’s mammoth history of the British army. Alan Tritton, who has done distinguished work over a long period on the preservation of British memorials in India, reviews Baillie’s career in the broad context of the British penetration of eighteenth-century Madras. Reader of military history will inevitably focus on the battle of Pollilur. Tritton effectively recounts Baillie’s wide-ranging operational movements in the ten months up to the battle, describes the battle itself, and reviews, with extensive quotations, contemporary accounts of the battle (pp. 218-70). This useful work stresses that Fletcher, an ambitious and self-confident officer, probably persuaded Munro to limit the reinforcements sent to Bailie so that he might enhance his own role and glory in what promised, in his eyes, to be a dazzling victory against a numerically superior enemy. This is a plausible assessment of the dynamics of command, though it is not intended to exonerate Munro from failing to concentrate at a decisive point. Baillie’s role in one of the largest British defeats in India was compounded by his treatment as a prisoner of war. The British captives suffered grievously from privations, indignities and humiliations. Denied medical attention, Baillie died in prison at Seringapatam in November 1782. Tritton, unfortunately, does not discuss the ways in which Baillie’s fate was subsequently described or how it shaped late eighteenth-century and Victorian views of Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. The bulk of Tritton’s book interweaves an account of Baillie’s life with a general history of British expansionism in Madras. For long stretches, the general history takes over. Tritton’s writing is clear, lively, and engaging; the author seems to have


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enjoyed exploring the thorny interactions between frequently rapacious and corrupt East India Company officials and local rulers. But military operations and organization, apart from Pollilur, receive limited attention. Much of the material would interest general readers seeking an introduction to British official activities in Madras from the 1740s to the 1780s. The original element is based on Baillie family papers. Unfortunately, however, the book has no footnotes, so that the precise location of the extensive quotations from these letters, and from published contemporary works, is elusive. Baillie did not write prolifically; his first letter to his mother came when his father died, after he had been in India for twelve years. Nor did he provide any insight into India or its people. The new material is mostly about his career concerns and the distant running of the family’s lands, which he inherited on his father’s death in 1771. Baillie’s own letters illustrate a familiar tension. The expatriate reluctantly stayed abroad – he never returned to Britain after arriving in India in 1760 – in order to gain financial security before the expected return home. Yet he created a parallel life, which included children by an Indian companion, unknown to his family in Scotland. One daughter survived, was sent in 1775 to England, never saw her father again, and yet returned to India, where she died in 1824, married to a British surgeon. Indeed one sub-theme is the emergence of a family diaspora, with other family members following Baillie to India.

PROFESSOR BRUCE COLLINS

Sheffield Hallam University Anne Applebaum. Iron Curtain. The Crushing of Eastern Europe. London: Penguin, 2012. Maps, illustrations, table of contents, footnotes, bibliography, appendices; xxxix, 498 pp. ISBN 978-0713998689. Price £8.99. Anne Applebaum’s Iron Curtain looks like a big book, in the style of her deservedly acclaimed 2004 offering, Gulag. Thick and imposing, its jacket is covered in lavish praise from noted authors, and the facts that it has been chosen sixteen times as a “book of the year” and was “the top non-fiction pick of 2012”. As a work of history though, Iron Curtain simply does not measure up to Gulag, to the dust-cover hyperbole, or even to what it claims to be. First, it is not, as the subtitle posits, about “the crushing of eastern Europe”. Though Applebaum is at pains to define eastern Europe, she focuses on what she calls “Central Europe”: Poland, Hungary, and East Germany (xxxv). How Czechoslovakia

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did not qualify is anyone’s guess. Second, while Applebaum claims to have chosen those three states because they were so different, the book demonstrates how their experiences under Soviet domination were so similar. There’s little analysis of how the different backgrounds or situations factored in—which they did. Further, Applebaum is not much interested in the political process most people would associate with “crushing eastern Europe”; as she notes, this story has already been well told, in English and in other languages (xxxvii). Her project is rather an investigation of “totalitarianism” as it was lived in these three states. Those stories have been told as well, separately, and often better than they are here. In the end, despite Applebaum’s own archival research and that of her associates in Hungary and Germany, there isn’t a great deal new in factual or interpretive terms—as a twenty-one-page “select bibliography” and the footnotes attest. Still, Iron Curtain is a book worth reading, particularly for those new to the subject. Applebaum writes well, and she has an eye for a good and telling anecdote. She has conducted numerous interviews that add to the historical record, and scholars will be grateful for the broadening of the Hungarian side especially. Rather than following a chronological narrative, Applebaum breaks the book into themes (e.g., socialist realism, ethnic cleansing, youth) that introduce concepts without being weighed down by turgid scholarly caveats. This allows her to cover a much broader scope in her investigation of “daily life” than the average historical monograph, although one or two of the topics (e.g. radio) seem light and rather questionable as analytical categories. Analysis is not what Applebaum is after, however; it is the experience of what Sheila Fitzpatrick has termed “everyday Stalinism” that she seeks, and here Applebaum succeeds in spades; it’s thick description. Every chapter is replete with examples of how the Soviets (and base collaborators) systematically eliminated independent thought and action wherever they could. Every page shows how the Polish and Hungarian people—and to a lesser degree, the East Germans—struggled against the evils of Soviet-style totalitarianism. It is a compelling, if somewhat depressing story, told in a clear and comprehensible fashion. There are times—very few—where Applebaum over-simplifies or over-states her case, but it is hard to argue the realities. The majority of people in eastern—not just central –Europe were crushed by the Soviet system; they were faced with dilemmas of cooperation or flight; they were coerced, beaten, jailed, and tortured; they were the subjects of a totalitarian experiment. Even if it’s not new, it’s a story worth reading and worth remembering, and Iron Curtain makes it more accessible.

TIMOTHY C. DOWLING

Virginia Military Institute


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Timothy S. Wolters. Information at Sea: Shipboard Command and Control in the U.S. Navy, From Mobile Bay to Okinawa. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. Notes. Index. 317pp. ISBN 978-1421410265 (Hardback). Price £35.00. The warship constitutes the fundamental building block of naval power and in the machine age it represented the technologically most complex creation the nation-state could muster. Naval warfare might be technology-intensive, but men operate ships and equipment and the quality of training and ability to successfully interact with the machines under their charge are defining features of successful navies. The ability of a warship to fulfil its role is very much dependent on having good situational awareness and the capacity to communicate and coordinate with other units. The improvements in speed, endurance and firepower at the beginning of the twentieth century increased the complexity of naval engagements and the individual command of warships. Despite considerable literature on naval technology, the way warships operated and fought over time remains understudied. Timothy Wolters examines the issue using the United States Navy (USN) between 1864 and 1945 as a case study and charting out the long-term evolution of what would become the Combat Information Center (CIC), ‘an integrated human-machine system’ (p. 5), or ‘brain’ of a warship during the Second World War. While the conflict did see considerable innovation, the foundation of much of this was laid decades earlier. Wolters’s work fits into a wider trend over the past decade to understand the dynamics and determinants of innovation, but, rather than focusing on a weapon system, his focus is on a process. Command and Control is often discussed in theoretical or general terms, but this is a study about the practicalities, devices and understanding of command at the platform level and what implications this in turn had on naval operations. The book is organised into five large, yet not overwhelming chapters, which follow a chronological path covering individual developments as well as broader themes like bureaucratic structures or civil-military interaction. The first two deal with communications, before and after the invention of radio - a crucial development - while chapter three deals with the complexity of fleet operations this brought about during the Great War. Chapter four deals with the emergence of the three-dimensional naval battle as air and subsurface threats needed addressing. While improved communications enabled better coordination, they also represented a vulnerability and potential for compromise. Thus the resultant problem of communications security became an issue and is a feature of the analysis. The role of

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key individuals in the process receives the necessary attention. Radio direction-finding, active and passive underwater detection systems and the development of radar all provided new sensory inputs for ships’ crews to deal with and raised the question of how these different pictures might be superimposed. In chapter five the transition to war and the integration of various systems into what became the CIC is outlined. What Wolters shows is that rather than a linear development it was the product of different experiences, which shaped the form and functioning of the CIC. Early British wartime experience, the anti-submarine War in the Atlantic and the anti-air and surface actions in the Pacific posed different questions and influenced the final outcome. Better information gathering and processing created more effective naval units and harnessed firepower more efficiently. The only slight weakness of the book’s structure is a somewhat too concise conclusion that might have said more on the evolution of naval command and the implications technology had (and has) on it. Both author and publisher have made this an appealing book. Illustrations of key personalities and equipment not only bring the subject to life, but are all the more helpful in understanding the core issues. The inclusion of generous notes and an essay on sources further expanding on methodologies – amounting to nearly a third of the volume – completes the analysis and allows readers to probe the subject further in a organised manner. This book is a must for any serious student of naval operations, platform design and in particular of the USN. Despite its specialised subject matter it will be valuable to military historians in general, especially those looking at the development and problems associated with command in the twentieth century. This is not only a study in the transformation of naval power or innovation in a military context, but it is also about the rise of machines in assisting human decision-making more generally. Men remained at the heart of the warship’s functioning, but were increasingly dependent on machines to understand the environment in which they were operating and react appropriately.

DR MARCUS FAULKNER King’s College London

Thomas Waldman. War, Clausewitz and the Trinity. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Index. x + 203 pp. ISBN 978-1409451396. Price £55.00. For an idea which appears only once, fleetingly, on one page in a book that stretches to over a thousand in the standard modern German edition, Clausewitz’s trinity has generated an unusual amount of attention. Martin van Creveld devoted a whole book


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to the claim that the trinity underscored the irrelevance of Clausewitz’s ‘On War’ to modern warfare. Now Thomas Waldman has written a book to support the counterclaim that the trinity remains ‘the central theoretical device for understanding war’. Waldman usefully focuses on what he calls the primary level of the trinity: war conceived as the interplay of reason (read by him as politics), chance and passion. What many, including Van Creveld, tout as the trinity — the people, military and government — he correctly sees as an ‘illustrative device’ which is of secondary order importance and which should anyway not be too closely associated with the modern state. As others (including myself) have argued this secondary trinity could easily be applied to any form of political organisation. Waldman’s approach also leads him to a more sophisticated understanding of the common notion that ‘war is a continuation of policy by other means’. He approvingly quotes Antulio Echevarria, who (again correctly in my view) wrote that ‘policy is shaped by the processes and conditions within which it is developed, in a word by politics’ (p. 96). By putting the trinity at the heart of Clausewitz’s theory of war, Waldman reads the whole of ‘On War’ (which as said never mentions the trinity again) through the lens of this conceptualisation of war, connecting idea after idea, quote after quote, with each of the three elements that make up this entity. That is a useful and at times illuminating exercise, illustrating the breadth of Clausewitz’s thinking and his concern with the contextual factors shaping war. In so doing, Waldman joins the ranks of those who seek to complete Clausewitz’s unfinished work by stretching the lineaments sketched out in the final paragraphs of the only finished first chapter, to encapsulate firmly the whole of ‘On War’. This is an undertaking fraught with more hazard than the book under review suggests. Take the word trinity. Clausewitz was never one to choose his terms lightly. The word should immediately give away that, as in Catholicism, the concept represents a fundamental credo. In case a reader overlooks that, the adjoining adjective ‘wunderlich’ underlines that Clausewitz’s trinity also struggles with, and goes beyond, reason. He clearly believed that his trinity was a strange, wondrous object of astonishment. This was not so much because the elements comprising it were strange bedfellows. The surprise was that he had had to develop the concept at all. Reason was the solid foundation of his theory, but the rigours of reason had led him to develop doubts about the applicability of his theory to reality, and especially the claim theory gave rise to that all war must involve a mutual process of forceful disarmament. The trinity, as Azar Gat argued persuasively more than twenty years ago, was his late leap of faith towards a new and radical philosophical method to reconcile the two. The author’s astonishment at his own conundrum should warn the reader that tracing the lineaments of his new theory would not be straightforward.

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Absent in Waldman’s book is a discussion of the tensions in Clausewitz’s thought and his ability to express surprise, honest frustration and defiant dogmatism at his recalcitrant object of study. Indeed, the reasons why Clausewitz saw fit to develop the trinity so sudden and late in life are not explained. This may be partly due to Waldman’s reliance on the Howard and Paret translation of Clausewitz, rather than on the German text. The original language conveys with far greater immediacy the philosophically rigorous yet emotionally laden and doubt-ridden quality of the argument. Waldman, like Howard and Paret, views Clausewitz as an organic thinker who refined his theory as he grew older. For Waldman everything can be reconciled in the trinity. The result is an exposition that is perhaps too indeterminate. ‘None’ of the trinity’s three tendencies, he writes, ‘represent forces which necessarily cause escalation — they are a priori ambiguous in this respect. They all can lead to extremes, but equally they may exert countervailing and limiting forces.’ (p. 163) Such a reading may please those who prefer very broad and malleable theory, including many military historians. Others may think that Waldman’s approach overly contextualises war and makes ‘the thing in itself’ disappear from view. Given Clausewitz’s passionate attachment to analysing war itself through the deployment of very specific and high-handed theory and method, a disregard of these matters makes the book’s interpretation suited to our times, but likely quite distant from the ‘real’ Clausewitz it purports to unveil.

DR JAN WILLEM HONIG King’s College London

Peter Kendall. The Royal Engineers at Chatham 1750-2012. English Heritage 2013 ISBN 978-1-84802-098-6. (Hardcover). Price £50.00. Timothy Crick. Ramparts of Empire: The Fortifications of Sir William Jervois Royal Engineer, 1821-1897. Exeter: The Exeter Press, University of Exeter, 2012 ISBN 978-1905816040. (Hardcover). Price £60.00. These two titles provide an excellent opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the British Army and sea power. The first examines the long relationship between the Royal Engineers and Chatham, the second the career of an outstanding Engineer who spent his life securing the key positions of a maritime empire against sea based threats.


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When the Royal Navy began using Chatham on the River Medway as an anchorage and refitting station in the 1550s it required fixed defences. At the same time Chatham occupied a commanding position alongside the main road from Dover to London, and controlled the last bridge over the Medway. The defences failed in 1667, for although Upnor Castle held out, saving the dockyard, the Dutch were only driven off after humiliating the Stuart kingdom by towing away the fleet flagship. Additional forts were built to secure the upper reaches of Medway, and Sheerness Point. In 1708 plans were drawn up to fortify the dockyard, but nothing was done. Finally in 1744 defensive earthworks were built, the ‘Chatham Lines’. At this time Engineers were employed by the Board of Ordnance, and linked to the Artillery, but the Corps only achieved military rank in 1757, becoming Royal in 1787. It consisted entirely of officers until that year, when artificers were added, renamed Royal Sappers and Miners in 1813 to reflect their skills. In 1857 the other ranks finally became Royal Engineers. These skilled men received higher rates of pay than other troops. The wartime built lines were earthworks with some brick supports, backed by barracks. During the 1779-82 invasion scare some 10,000 troops were stationed to defend Chatham, and counter-attack an invading army advancing on London. Royal Marine barracks and dockyard extensions reflected the critical role of the dockyard in the naval defence of empire, but plans to build major defences at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth in the 1780s were properly voted down by the House of Commons, which preferred spending money on the fleet. The period between 1803 and 1809 also witnessed considerable spending on enhanced dockyard defences, but this fell away rapidly. The improved defences secured the dockyard, and the major gunpowder magazines at Upnor. In 1812 Chatham was chosen as the site for the Engineer’s Training School, for both officers and men, directed by the dynamic Colonel Charles Pasley. Pasley remained in command until 1841, writing the text-books of the programme and developing new techniques. Pasley’s school transformed an inefficient under-strength Corps into a powerful, professional body with outstanding technical skills, designing new dockyard structures, forts and pontoon bridges, working closely with Civil Engineers on railways, docks and cable telegraphs, while occupying an ever larger role in the Army. With his colleagues John Fox Burgoyne and John Jones Pasley transformed the Corps, educating officers, pushing the role of the Engineers in strategic thought, defence policy and Imperial administration. For most of the nineteenth century the top men from the Woolwich Academy chose the Engineers over the Artillery. Pasley also pioneered underwater demolition, famously blowing up the wreck of HMS Royal George between 1839 and 1843 to clear the anchorage at Spithead. One feature of Pasley’s training programme was using the Chatham Lines to practice siege techniques, with locally based Infantry and Royal Marine units also involved in

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large exercises. It was entirely appropriate the Royal Engineers learnt their siege craft attacking a naval base. The primary offensive role of the British Army in a major war in the nineteenth century would be to capture and destroy hostile naval bases. The Crimean War would be dominated by the twelve month siege of Sevastopol, but few remember that after the city fell the Engineers spent months blowing up the Russian naval base and dockyard complex, a task they carried out with the same thoroughness they had applied to the Napoleonic docks at Flushing in 1809. In the 1860s the Engineers played major role in the design and construction of a major dockyard extension to build and service ironclad steamships. The site is now entirely covered by modern housing. At the same time both land and river defences were upgraded, including submarine mines, which became a Royal Engineer mission. By now the Royal Engineers, less than 1000 officers and men in 1815 were over 4,000 strong, and rising fast as the expansion of empire called for the application of their unique skills in every corner of the globe. The Chatham School also trained surveyors for the Ordnance Survey, military photographers and balloon pioneers. When the dockyard defences were pushed out, to counter the increased range and precision of rifled artillery, the cost of defence began to outstrip the value it could provide. In 1889 live fire siege training moved away, as urban encroachment left no space for more powerful artillery. By 1914 the Royal Engineers had reached a total of 25,000 of all ranks, increasing to 230,000 by 1918 – placing a heavy demand on the training facilities. Later developments included early anti-aircraft batteries, air raid shelters and the re-sue of the old lines as tank defences in 1940. They have become a public park. Post-1945 contraction of the Defence estate saw the infantry and marines move out, then the Nore Command was abolished in 1961, and in 1984 the Dockyard closed. The Royal School of Military Engineering is now the only remnant of what was once a massive defence presence in the town. There were 9,700 Royal Engineers at the time the book was written. Sir William Jervois, pronounced Jer-vus, provides a different perspective on the Royal Engineers. A brilliant student he became a favourite of Charles Pasley, and then John Burgoyne. His first project, the defence of Alderney, occupied the middle years of the 1850s and segued neatly into the Secretaryship of the Defence Committee in 1855 and then the same role on the 1859 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, which took the basic concept of Alderney, using forts to defend a vital naval facility onto the mainland. Placing the interests of the Corps above the country John Burgoyne advised fortifying every fishing port on the south coast against invasion! Jervois proved more astute, his Secretarial input helped secure an Engineer solution, which he proceeded to plan, designing much of the impressive defensive systems built around Portsmouth, Plymouth and Milford Haven. Jervois’ ability to tailor his designs to each location, and his attention to detail produced a series of


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works that were held in the highest regard. These works made it impossible for a small raiding force to threaten the dockyards, enhancing Britain’s deterrent capability. Even the restricted programme of works needed to defend the naval bases ran to over £12 million, a colossal sum when a first class battleship only cost £400,000. They seemed even less attractive by the time they were completed, the French Navy having collapsed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War. After setting up the programme Jervois set off on a strategic reconnaissance of the United States and Canada in 1863, just in case war broke out. In 1869 he drew up war plans, which involved seizing naval bases and imposing a blockade. Unimpressed by American coast defences, and their massive smooth bore cast iron artillery, Jervois discovered that the naval base at Bermuda would be the first target of any American attack. This information generated the massive forts that still dominate the islands. His inspection was part of an imperial tour in which he reported on vital coaling stations and communications hubs including Aden, Perim, Mumbai, the Hughli River, Rangoon (Yangon), before a career combining Imperial Government in Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand with defence advice. Crick argues that he missed out on the top post of Inspector General of Fortification because of close personal and political connections between liberal statesman Hugh Childers and the rather less distinguished General Sir Andrew Clarke. Returning home in the late 1880s Jervois argued that the nation’s coastal defences should be manned by the Navy, in line with practice in the rest of Europe. His Army colleagues disagreed, choosing to ignore French and German practice. In 1894 Jervois became Colonel Commandant of the Engineers, but died in 1897 after a carriage accident. Although he never conducted a siege, defended a position, or served under fire, and his forts were similarly unengaged, not a single one ever had to fire a shot in anger, Jervois made an immense contribution to British security between 1852 and the end of the century. Although Colonel George Sydenham Clarke RE criticised Jervois’ work in the 1890s, his comments were typically caustic, exaggerated and obtuse. Far from being ‘Palmerston’s Follys’, Crick contends the forts were outstanding examples of contemporary fortification engineering, widely praised by leading European experts, including the Belgian Henri Brialmont and the Russian hero of Sevastopol Franz Todleben. They were far stronger than the American and French forts torn to pieces by rifled artillery in the Civil and Franco-Prussian conflicts. He judges they would have met the test of war, but they worked even better as part of a system that deterred great power conflict. Both books are occasionally at sea on naval issues and consistently overrate the possibility of a French invasion. In addition Crick’s discussion of the Crimean War, the Baltic campaign of 1854, and the role of Sir John Burgoyne, who insisted on a

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regular siege of Sevastopol when the plan had been for a high tempo raid, and definitely not a siege, requires significant revision. That said these are major contributions to the history of the Royal Engineers and the defence systems they created. Jervois consistently stressed to consider each coastal fortress and system as a potential combination of both land and sea based systems, but never became Inspector General of Fortifications, where he would have had the opportunity to address the wider strategic pattern. In this area George Sydenham Clarke’s blue-water views were unusual, and resulted in his becoming the first secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Both men understood that the Royal Engineers’ mission was to protect the naval bases from which Britain exercised sea power, and destroy those of hostile powers. Based on extensive archival research, field work and in Crick’s case a professional expertise in mechanical engineering these books stress the synergy between sea power and land defences, rather the old approach of treating land and sea in isolation. Both are exceptionally well illustrated, reproducing numerous plans, diagrams and images, dominated by forts and other buildings, many from national collections. The books will be essential reading for students of the Victorian Army and the Victorian fortress.

PROFESSOR ANDREW LAMBERT King’s College London

Halik Kochanski. The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Penguin, 2013. 734 pp. ISBN 976-1-846-14358-8 (Hardback). Price £19.87. Halik Kochanski’s The Eagle Unbowed is a work of panoramic scope. The author, a British military historian of Polish origin, states her aim is to ‘present the most complete picture of the Poles and Poland in the Second World War to date’. She therefore goes beyond military history to tell the story of the horrors of Nazi and Soviet occupation, including the Holocaust, and the complicated relationship between Poland and its allies. In introductory chapters she describes the rebirth of the Polish state after 1918, its internal problems with ethnic minorities and its delicate relationship with its neighbours, Germany and the Soviet Union. In response to German resurgence under Hitler, Poland discussed the possibility of preventative action, but participated in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Faced with Nazi demands from late 1938, Poland found itself in total isolation until it received the British guarantee


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in April 1939. Unbeknown to the Poles, this guarantee included no real commitment to the defence of Poland in the event of Nazi aggression. Kochanski offers an excellent account of the September 1939 campaign, when the Poles fought credibly against a technologically superior opponent. Although Britain and France declared war in defence of Poland, they provided no real assistance. While the Poles were battling Nazi forces in the West, Stalin’s Red Army invaded from the East. Within five weeks, Poland was defeated and divided between the two. Several chapters recount the horrors of life in the Nazi and Soviet occupation zones, including the Holocaust. Poles suffered the full bestiality of Nazi occupation, while those Poles in the Soviet-occupied zone were arrested and deported in huge numbers. By the end of the war Poland had lost nearly one-fifth of its population. Kochanski offers a fair assessment of Polish attitudes to the Holocaust, with no attempt to hide the extent of Polish anti-Semitism or cases where Poles betrayed Jews to the Nazis or even assisted in the murders. She also outlines the practical difficulties involved in protecting Jews and notes that many thousands were helped despite the risks – death was the automatic punishment for Poles even suspected of helping Jews. Kochanski’s handling of the diplomacy of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London is excellent. Poland’s importance to the Western Allies was considerable until Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. As the Soviets came to play a major role in defeating the Nazis, Allied support for Polish interests waned accordingly. Poland’s liberation by the Red Army brought the imposition of a Soviet-dominated regime that lasted until 1989. While 1945 brought peace and a sense of victory elsewhere, Poland became, as Kochanski notes, the ‘only allied country to be abandoned behind the Iron Curtain’. Kochanski’s background in military history is evident in her excellent chapters on the performance of Polish military units fighting alongside the Western Allies and the Soviets. Polish units in the West fought with distinction in many theatres, notably the Battle of Britain and the campaigns in Italy and Normandy. She also notes the huge significance of the Polish breakthrough in decrypting German Enigma codes, something she describes as Poland’s ‘greatest contribution’ to the Allied victory. Her account of the Polish forces fighting alongside the Red Army fills an important gap in English-language scholarship. The tragic Warsaw Uprising, when the underground Home Army attempted to liberate the capital before the arrival of Soviet forces, is also handled deftly. Appendix 1, containing an order of battle of all Polish units during World War II, will be of considerable interest to military historians.

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The Eagle Unbowed uses an impressive range of primary and secondary sources in English, but relatively few sources in Polish. One surprising absence is the lack of sources in German and Russian. The Eagle Unbowed contains little that has not been said before, but its breadth is impressive. In places it sacrifices depth to achieve this breadth, but Kochanski has written a very comprehensive work that certainly succeeds in its aim. It fills a gap in the English-language literature and it likely to remain the standard introduction for English-speaking readers for a long time to come.

SIMON NIZIOL

Anthony J. Nocella II, Colin Salter, and Judy K.C. Bentley (eds.), Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. 182 pp. ISBN 978-0739186510 (Hardcover). Price £48. Nearly forty years after the publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, this polemic study aims to integrate the fields of critical animal studies and peace studies in an effort to bring to light the impact of war on nonhuman animals. As made clear in the introduction by Colin Salter, Animals and War explores ‘the exploitation of nonhuman animals as tools of war for human ends, on human terms and at the whim of anthropocentric, speciesist and human chauvinist notions’ (p. 1). Although war is broadly defined by the authors to include the struggle between humans and animals, the book primarily focuses on the ways in which animals have been used in armed conflicts and military-related research, particularly during the twentieth and twenty first centuries. In the first chapter, John Sorenson examines the ways in which animals have been utilised as vehicles of war. Humans have employed elephants, camels, horses and other species to transport soldiers and materiel during armed conflicts for centuries. More broadly, however, the employment of animals has enabled armies to wage war. Speciesism and dominionism on the part of humans, Sorenson convincingly argues, has led to the perception of animals as ‘mere things to be used’ (p. 19). Justin R. Goodman, Shalin G. Gala and Ian E. Smith then focus on the continued use of animals in the training of medical personnel within the United States military. The authors present a reasoned argument as to why the United States military should


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replace such training programmes with more suitable methods already adopted by other nations. The third piece, by Ana Paulina Morrón, traces the history of animals as instruments of war in human conflicts from prehistory to the present day. Whilst the bulk of this chapter employs a narrative approach, its conclusion is reminiscent of Sorenson’s study and reflects the book’s overall activist purpose: ‘In the context of war…nonhuman animals have historically been viewed and treated as nothing more than living, breathing instruments…with or against the nonhuman animal’s will’ (p. 70). Julie Andrzejewski next considers the ‘invisibilization and oppression of animals’ in war (p. 73). Andrzejewski rightly points out that the impact of war on animals is seldom mentioned in the media and often accepted by humans as ‘collateral damage’ (p. 73). Whilst this chapter brings to light significant ethical issues concerning animals, the author acknowledges that a substantial part of the study relies on the ‘use of our imaginations to consider the consequences of such weapons and policies on animals where specific evidence is either missing altogether or sketchy’ (p. 74). Laden with emotionally charged rhetoric, this chapter concludes with an appeal to end ‘the continued assault of human domination’ and calls for an ‘immediate and concerted activist focus to defund militaries’ (p. 99). In the fifth chapter, Rajmohan Ramanathapillai traces the tumultuous relationship between humans and animals. Ramanathapillai identifies five key stages within the human-nonhuman animal relationship, beginning with the belief among ancient civilisations that animals possessed supernatural powers and were to be revered as preeminent beings and eventually reaching the fifth stage, during which animals and ecosystems are adversely affected through guerrilla operations. In doing so, Ramanathapillai makes a compelling argument that animals have been ‘devalued from sacred status to exploited lives’ (p. 101). Finally, Bill Hamilton and Elliot M. Katz consider the current and potential uses of animals by the world’s militaries, with particular emphasis on the United States. The United States military has recently introduced new projects involving animals, including the use of cyborg insects for reconnaissance operations and the employment of dolphins to locate naval mines and attack enemy divers. The authors contend that recent military and scientific research suggest that humans may further genetically alter or otherwise ‘repurpose animals’ for use in war, leading to a ‘military weaponization of animals’ (pp. 125-126). Animals in War concludes with an imploration to ‘end wars among people, violence toward the Earth and nonhuman animals’ (pp. 143-144). Whilst this study serves its

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activist purpose, readers in search of a more balanced historical account of the use of animals in war may also feel a need to look elsewhere.

KIMBERLY BRICE O’DONNELL King’s College London

Jim Beach. Haig's Intelligence: GHQ and the German Army 1916-1918. Cambridge University Press 2013. xv + 369 pp. 20 figures, 21 tables. ISBN 978-1-107-03961-2 (Hardback). Price £65.00. Just occasionally a book appears which explores a genuinely new topic in great detail and adds substantially to our knowledge. Haig's Intelligence is one such. The fruit of meticulous research and presented in clear, elegant, language it is a worthy and much needed addition to the historiography of the First World War. In a series of firm, penetrating, chapters in Part 1, Jim Beach guides the reader through the complexities of Organisation, Leadership, Personnel, Frontline, Espionage, Photography, Signals and Analysis and then moves on in Part 2 to a series of fascinating case studies: Somme, Arras, Third Ypres, Cambrai, German Offensives and the Hundred Days. Part 1 could potentially have been a dry, though thoroughly informative read, but clever and apposite use of pithy quotation brings it to life. We read of one conference, 'dominated by a windy, flatulent monologue from Charteris' then, after Cambrai, 'The wolves got their teeth into Charteris, who, being plump and short of breath, fell an easy victim'. In between these events, however, we are left in no doubt about the increasing professionalisation of intelligence in the BEF, nor of the immense difficulties those responsible for it faced. So often the intelligence staff, under extreme pressure, found itself trying to make bricks without straw and to provide cast iron predictive clarity when the raw intelligence yielded nothing more than a hazy overview. Nevertheless, Beach is surely correct when he concludes that, '… intelligence had by 1918 come of age as a distinct military support function within the British army. Later generations would refine it, but its foundations were laid on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918'. The constant problems with which the intelligence branch grappled, the fact that it was dealing with an inexact science, means that its practitioners attracted much subsequent criticism from men equipped with 20:20 hindsight. It is always easier to explain why something has happened than to predict what is going to occur and, ultimately, Charteris paid the price. Beach is particularly good on the manoeuvring which led ultimately to his sacking at the end of 1917 and although he makes a strong


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case that his alleged deficiencies were overstated, nevertheless one theme which runs through the entire book is that, even if Haig's heads of intelligence were not simply feeding him from first to last what he wanted to hear, there was certainly a tendency to put the best gloss on the situation - to the point on occasion of wishful thinking - and, over time, this can only have diluted the quality of analysis and advice which Haig was receiving. One example will serve to illustrate this point. At the end of June 1916 the German lines opposite the British on the Somme were subjected to repeated releases of cylinder gas and, in a GHQ Summary of Information published the following month, it was estimated that five percent of the troops manning the first position were gassed. In truth, Infantry Regiment 180 at Ovillers, for example, suffered 'a few' fatal gas casualties and Reserve Infantry Regiment 99, defending Thiepval, only one. This brief illustration brings into focus one way in which this excellent book could have been made even better. Its time frame means that for all but the months of July and August 1916, the battles which form the case studies were directed on the German side by Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht, the files of which - huge quantities of them - are available for study in Munich and, in addition, large amounts of relevant information is archived in the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart and the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv in Freiburg im Breisgau, which holds a priceless cache of documents concerning the German manpower crisis. As a result, it would be entirely feasible to test many of the intelligence assessments made against the actual facts. This would be a thoroughly worthwhile and interesting follow up to this outstanding piece of research and writing which I recommend unreservedly.

DR JACK SHELDON John Grodzinski. Defender of Canada: Sir George Prevost and the War of 1812, Norman OK, University of Oklahoma Press, Appendices, Notes. 375pp. ISBN 978-0806143873 (Hardback). Price £21.39. The bi-centennial of the hitherto forgotten war of 1812, between the United Kingdom and the United States, has encouraged the publishing of several works on that war. Many of these works have tended to concentrate on either the pelagic naval history, or the specific land battles on the Canadian frontier. Grodzinski’s work tackles an aspect of the war that has been less developed in those other works. He analyses the role of the Governor-General of Canada and Commander in Chief of the British forces, British North America. In doing so he deals with the struggle for the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain in some detail, considering both the military

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and the naval aspects. Such details are set as the background to his study of Prevost. His thesis seems to be to rehabilitate (he says “reassess” (p.8)) the reputation of Sir George Prevost. He repudiates the attacks on Prevost’s leadership that were made contemporaneously or immediately after the events. Because of the evidential citations the work avoids being hagiographical; though it has to be observed that in developing his reassessment he argues that every decision taken by Prevost was correct in the light of all the evidence he can present. His notes and bibliography show that a wide range of sources has been consulted. His military explanations indicate precision, though as a minor criticism his description of the constitutional position of the Privy Council is not quite accurate. The absence of almost any reference in the book to Brock should also be taken into account. The book begins with a survey of Prevost’s earlier commands, including Nova Scotia and Martinique. It begins the study of Prevost in the 1812 war with the state of affairs in 1812 he found taken as a given. Grodzinzki attributes Prevost’s reticence early in the war to London prohibiting him from ‘striking offensively’ “except it be for the purpose of preventing or rebelling Hostilities” (p55). Describing Prevost as ‘no stranger to naval affairs’ (p. 62) Grodzinski describes Prevost’s work in preparing the Provincial Marine. Indeed a feature of the book is that it gives the role of the Provincial Marine its proper place in the war. While the book considers Prevost’s role in all the inland operations, from the thrust into Michigan and the defence of Upper and Lower Canada to the naval position on the Great Lakes and the Royal Navy’s entry into inland waters, the important chapters in respect to Prevost’s reputation are those relating to the Plattsburg campaign, Yeo’s attack on him and the prospective court martial. As a result, the most detailed study of the military and naval operations are those of the Plattsburg campaign. This was crucial to Prevost’s reputation. Grodzinski analyses in some detail the conflict between Yeo, who commanded the naval forces on the Lakes, and Prevost. Yeo thought the battle on Lake Champlain was lost by Prevost’s lack of action. Grodzinzki justifies Prevost’s withdrawal of forces back to Canada citing the fate of General Burgoyne who did not retreat from Lake Champlain. Prevost had his troop numbers limited by the requirements of other theatres, but he could be congratulated on his planning. Grodzinski also argues that Prevost’s failure to press home the attack on Lake Champlain ought to be compared with other losses and stalemates in other fronts of the land war. Yeo alleged that Prevost, ignored the limited capabilities of the lake flagship, failed to start the land advance when it had been planed (thus allowing the Americans to attack the navy) and did not press home the attack on Plattsburg thereby losing the chance of attacking the Americans’ lake vessels. These accusations were to haunt Prevost to a death that occurred ahead of the court martial, before which he was to appear, could


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be convened. Grodzinski assesses that it was the Royal Navy which damaged Prevost’s reputation; a reputation which, he argues, subsequent writers have accepted too readily. As the only recent study of Prevost’s role as commander in chief the work adds to the understanding of the command responsibilities of the British North America Act command and gives another basis for considering the role of Prevost.

IAN STAFFORD

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