The Making Of The British Army (82 page)

Books on the Peninsular War and Waterloo are legion. Professor Charles Esdaile’s
The Peninsular War
(2002) is particularly good on the overall picture. Michael Glover’s
The Peninsular War 1807–1814: A Concise Military History
, though first published in 1974, is still an excellent account. Christopher Hibbert’s
Corunna
(1961) has never been bettered in its picture of the fighting and its cool assessment of Sir John Moore’s generalship. Mark Urban’s
Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters
(2004) gives the true background to Bernard Cornwell’s legendary ‘Sharpe’ novels, and his
The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes
(2002) is an absorbing account of intelligence-gathering in the duke of Wellington’s campaigns.

Waterloo is a spring that can never be drunk dry. But there are four ‘essential’ books. Andrew Roberts’s brief
Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble
(2005) is a brilliant overview which can be comfortably read during the time it takes to get to Brussels by Eurostar. Alessandro Barbero’s
The Battle
(2006) is the book to walk the battlefield with, and David Howarth’s
A Near Run Thing
(1968) the one to retire with. And then a week or so later, having thought things over, and with many questions in one’s mind, David Chandler’s
Waterloo: The Hundred Days
(1980) is the one to go to for the answers.

I have not written about the War of 1812 (with the United States) – an unedifying and inglorious affair on both sides – and nor has anyone else much. The Americans’ attack on Fort York (Toronto), the retributive burning of the White House, the composition of the US national anthem in the wake of the siege of Washington Roads, and the attack on New Orleans make for ‘colour’, but it is the naval side of the war that is the most interesting in many ways: (President) Theodore Roosevelt wrote a bracing account of the war at sea, and Alfred Thayer Mahan developed his doctrine of sea power on an examination of the fighting – such as it was – on the Great Lakes and in the Atlantic. Jon Latimer’s recent
1812: War with America
(2007) is probably the best place to begin if one must.

Chapters 15–18: The Crimea to Khartoum

The Gatling gun was not a machine gun in the modern sense – it did not feed rounds into a single breech. Instead it had multiple breeches
connected to multiple rotating barrels, each of which fired a single shot as it reached a certain point in the cycle, ejecting the spent cartridge and loading a new round. The multi-barrel system was a far bulkier affair and less accurate than the later machine gun, but it allowed higher rates of fire without the problem of overheating with which single-barrel weapons had to contend. It was designed by the American Dr Richard J. Gatling in 1861 and saw much service in the American Civil War. The Maxim gun, invented in 1884, was the first true machine gun, with a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute (the Gatling’s was 200).

The Lee – Metford was the first .303-inch rifle, the calibre that was to see the army through the two world wars. A spring in the base of the magazine, which held ten rounds, forced up each round in turn to the level of the chamber, so that the firer merely had to operate the bolt to eject the spent round and feed another into the breech. In well-trained hands they were thus capable of extremely rapid and accurate fire, with a killing range of 2,000 yards.

The case of Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald – ‘Fighting Mac’ – needs a little further explaining, sad though the story is. When the allegations of homosexuality (and possibly paedophilia) were made, the governor-general in Ceylon instigated an inquiry which reported thus:

There is a fine statue of him in his home town of Dingwall.

The Crimean War has a most devoted following, with its own research society:
http://cwrs.russianwar.co.uk/
. Trevor Royle’s
The Great Crimean War
(2000) is excellent, as is W. Baring Pemberton’s
Battles of the Crimean War
(1968), if a little dated. There are many collected letters and diaries, including William Howard Russell’s despatches, and
A Bearskin’s Crimea
(2005) by Algernon Percy, both published by Pen and Sword Books (whose Crimea list is a particularly good one). On the charge of the Light Brigade, besides Cecil Woodham Smith’s
The Reason Why
(1953), the best account by far is
Hell Riders: The True Story of the Charge of the Light Brigade
(2004) by Terry Brighton. I am afraid that Mark Adkin’s
The Charge
(1996), while beautifully written, is preposterously off-mark in suggesting that Nolan deliberately led the Light Brigade on to the Russian guns to prove that it could be done. David Murphy’s
Ireland and the Crimean War
(2002) is quite superb, especially on the nursing work of the Sisters of Mercy and on the squabbling between the Jesuits and the secular clergy chaplains.

The Indian Mutiny is equally well served by chroniclers of both the military side and the civil. Michael Edwardes’
Red Year: The Indian Rebellion of 1857
(1973) is still a fine work some thirty-five years after publication; Julian Spilsbury’s
The Indian Mutiny
(2008) is more recent. The wars of the expanding empire are the subject of Saul David’s
Victoria’s Wars
(2007). Mike Snook’s
How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandhlwana Revealed
(2005) is a very measured account of the first disastrous encounter with the Zulus, as is his
Like Wolves on the Fold: The Defence of Rorke’s Drift
(2006). The National Army Museum’s
Book of the Zulu War
(2004) by Ian Robertson is comprehensive, and the late David Rattray’s
Guidebook to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields
(2003) an authoritative handbook by a man who lived and breathed the country for most of his life. Michael Barthorp’s
Afghan Wars and the North-West Frontier 1839–1947
(1982) is a good overview of the ‘Great Game’, and
The Savage Frontier: A History of the Anglo-Afghan Wars
(1990) by D. S. Richards gives a fine picture of the nature of the fighting. For a fictional account of the life of the soldier-spy on the frontier, John Masters’s
The Lotus and the Wind
(1953) is a gripping read. Michael Asher’s
Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial

Adventure
(2005) is superb. But above all, there is Kipling. No one seems to be able to get near him for capturing the essence of imperial soldiering; and of course he knows India. Consider the last two verses of ‘Arithmetic on the Frontier’ as a pointer to modern ideas of ‘civil reconstruction’:

Chapters 19–20: The Boer War and the Edwardian Reforms

Britain had approached the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic in 1875 to try to arrange a federation of the British and Boer territories (modelled on the federation of French and English provinces of Canada), but the Boers rejected the proposal, notwithstanding the economic benefits. Nor were the territorial disputes always fuelled by mineral wealth. Bechuanaland (modern Botswana, located north of the Orange River) was claimed by the Germans to the west and the Boers to the east. Although the area had almost no economic value, after the Germans annexed Damaraland and Namaqualand (modern Namibia) in 1884, the British annexed Bechuanaland in an intelligent and relatively bloodless operation.

The Boer War has long been a popular subject of both historical writing and also fiction. Stuart Cloete’s
Rags of Glory
(1963) is arguably the best novel of the war with a fine portrait of the British army’s dilemma in South Africa. For the history of the war, Thomas Pakenham’s
The Boer War
(1974) is magisterial. Baring Pemberton is every bit as good in
Battles of the Boer War
(1964) as he is on those of the Crimea. Two volumes of papers in the Army Records Society’s series by Professor André Wessels are rich in detail on the thinking behind the campaigns:

volumes XVII,
Lord Roberts and the War in South Africa, 1899–1902
, and XXV,
Lord Kitchener and the War in South Africa.
On army reform in the decade after the war, the
Oxford Illustrated History of the Army
is succinct, the chapter being written by Edward Spiers whose earlier
Haldane: An Army Reformer
(1980) remains the definitive work. On the Curragh ‘Mutiny’
The Army and the Curragh Incident, 1914
by Ian Beckett, volume II of the ARS’s series, is fascinating.

Chapters 21–3: The First World War and Beyond

Sooner or later any discussion of the First World War gets to the question of Haig’s generalship. Opinions among academics range from the ‘butcher of the Somme’ to the ‘only man for the job’. Interestingly, most soldiers steer clear of the argument. This may well be out of respect for the sheer magnitude of the problem that faced Haig when he took over the reins in November 1915, and because he was still in the saddle three years later when the allies finally prevailed – Haig having been, indeed, the orchestrator of a greater part of the final victory in the ‘Hundred Days’. And in fact if Haig were to be judged on his handling of that last campaign and also of First Ypres, his first offensive–defensive battle, he would be acclaimed as a great general. But there is of course the problem of the years in between. I myself believe it is not possible to come to any overall settled view of Haig: the pendulum must be allowed to swing. There was no one else who could have taken Haig’s place with any assuredly greater insight (including Smith-Dorrien). If there had been, Lloyd George would have replaced Haig. Three books are worthy of study for the spectrum of opinion. At the ‘anti-Haig’ end of the spectrum are Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior with
Command on the Western Front
(1991). At the ‘saintly’ end is John Terraine’s
Douglas Haig, the Educated Soldier
(1963); and closer to the middle, but nevertheless pro-Haig, is Gary Sheffield’s
Forgotten Victory
(2002).

For the fighting itself, there is no single better account of any battle than the superb
Ypres: Death of an Army
(1967) by Anthony Farrar-Hockley, with all the fine turn of phrase and military judgement of that outstanding soldier-author. L. A. Carlyon’s
Gallipoli
(2002) is first-rate. And for the war in the Middle East, about which I have otherwise written little, there is
The Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War
(2002) by Anthony Bruce.

Here it might be appropriate to address the business of the Guards. I wrote in Chapter 13 that they have never faltered. This is a remarkable
claim, but the evidence bears it out. I asked several Guards generals if the Guards had ever failed. Their response was ‘of course’ – for guardsmen are only human, and history is long. But then none of them could give an example except an occasional bad tactical judgement. In the Falklands, for example, the Welsh Guards (who were the last regiment to be formed, in 1915) were horribly bruised by the airstrike on the troop-carrier
Sir Galahad
, with thirty-two killed and many more wounded, but they recovered quickly and the battalion went on to win an MC and three MMs. There was one occasion in Italy, in May 1944 at Monte Grande north-west of Cassino, when the 3rd Grenadiers were thrown back from a strongly held German position, shelled heavily, and although the regimental history is a little coy, it does not seem to have been an unreasonable withdrawal. Something of the Guards’ ‘majesty’ in action is conveyed in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1919 poem about the attack of the 2nd Guards Brigade at Loos in September 1915, ‘The Guards Came Through’: