Download or read book The Donkeys written by Alan Clark and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The landmark exposé of incompetent leadership on the Western Front - why the British troops were lions led by donkeys On 26 September 1915, twelve British battalions – a strength of almost 10,000 men – were ordered to attack German positions in France. In the three-and-a-half hours of the battle, they sustained 8,246 casualties. The Germans suffered no casualties at all. Why did the British Army fail so spectacularly? What can be said of the leadership of generals? And most importantly, could it have all been prevented? In The Donkeys, eminent military historian Alan Clark scrutinises the major battles of that fateful year and casts a steady and revealing light on those in High Command - French, Rawlinson, Watson and Haig among them - whose orders resulted in the virtual destruction of the old professional British Army. Clark paints a vivid and convincing picture of how brave soldiers, the lions, were essentially sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent officers – the donkeys. ‘An eloquent and painful book... Clark leaves the impression that vanity and stupidity were the main ingredients of the massacres of 1915. He writes searingly and unforgettably’ Evening Standard

Download or read book Battle Tactics of the Western Front written by Paddy Griffith and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II. Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "storm troop tactics" by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "Commando-style" trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.

Download or read book To Win a War written by John Terraine and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert narrative of 1918, when the breakthrough was finally made, and everything it took to achieve victory.

Download or read book With Our Backs to the Wall written by David Stevenson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With so much at stake and so much already lost, why did World War I end with a whimper-an arrangement between two weary opponents to suspend hostilities? After more than four years of desperate fighting, with victories sometimes measured in feet and inches, why did the Allies reject the option of advancing into Germany in 1918 and taking Berlin? Most histories of the Great War focus on the avoidability of its beginning. This book brings a laser-like focus to its ominous end-the Allies' incomplete victory, and the tragic ramifications for world peace just two decades later. In the most comprehensive account to date of the conflict's endgame, David Stevenson approaches the events of 1918 from a truly international perspective, examining the positions and perspectives of combatants on both sides, as well as the impact of the Russian Revolution. Stevenson pays close attention to America's effort in its first twentieth-century war, including its naval and military contribution, army recruitment, industrial mobilization, and home-front politics. Alongside military and political developments, he adds new information about the crucial role of economics and logistics. The Allies' eventual success, Stevenson shows, was due to new organizational methods of managing men and materiel and to increased combat effectiveness resulting partly from technological innovation. These factors, combined with Germany's disastrous military offensive in spring 1918, ensured an Allied victory-but not a conclusive German defeat.

Download or read book Winning and Losing on the Western Front written by Jonathan Boff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative study revealing how both sides adapted to the changing realities of the final months on the Western Front.

Download or read book The Chief written by Gary Sheffield and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Well written and persuasive …objective and well-rounded….this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography’ **** Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday ‘A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it … a balanced portrait’ Sunday Times ‘Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy’ Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never recovered. In this fascinating biography, Professor Gary Sheffield reassesses Haig’s reputation, assessing his critical role in preparing the army for war.

Download or read book From the Somme to Victory written by Peter Simkins and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Simkins has established a reputation over the last forty years as one of the most original and stimulating historians of the First World War. He has made a major contribution to the debate about the performance of the British Army on the Western Front. This collection of his most perceptive and challenging essays, which concentrates on British operations in France between 1916 and 1918, shows that this reputation is richly deserved. He focuses on key aspects of the army's performance in battle, from the first day of the Somme to the Hundred Days, and gives a fascinating insight into the developing theory and practice of the army as it struggled to find a way to break through the German line. His rigorous analysis undermines some of the common assumptions - and the myths - that still cling to the history of these British battles.

Download or read book British Generalship on the Western Front 1914 1918 written by Simon Robbins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-12-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how British Army learnt from the pyrrhic victories of 1915-17 and developed the new tactics, leadership and doctrine of combined arms to overcome the tactical stalemate hitherto bedevilling Allied offensives to defeat the

Download or read book Command on the Western Front written by Robin Prior and published by Leo Cooper Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a history of World War I, seen through the eyes of Sir Henry Rawlinson, a middle-ranking commander who frequently acted under General Haig. By examining Rawlinson's role in the War, the authors are able to follow the actual events of the battlefield and show how they related to the strategies of the High Command. Rawlinson kept a diary in which he recorded his views on tactics and the day-to-day events of the conflict. The authors use the content of the diary as the basis of detailed discussions on night attacks, poison gas, the introduction of the tank, hurricane bombardment and creeping barrages. Command on the Western Front is not a biography, nor is it psychohistory. Rather, it uses Rawlinson as a lens through which to study the tactics of the time - tactics that usually proved woefully inadequate in dealing with the defensive positions that characterized industrial warfare.

Download or read book 1918 written by Peter Hart and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2010-12-23 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the huge mobile battles of 1918, which finally ended the Great War. 1918 was the critical year of battle as the Great War reached its brutal climax. Warfare of an epic scale was fought on the Western Front, where ordinary British soldiers faced the final test of their training, tactics and determination. That they withstood the storm and began an astonishing counterattack, is proof that by 1918, the British army was the most effective fighting force in the world. But this ultimate victory came at devastating cost. Using a wealth of previously unpublished material, historian Peter Hart gives a vivid account of this last year of conflict - what it was like to fight on the frontline, through the words of the men who were there. In a chronicle of unparalleled scope and depth, he brings to life the suspense, turmoil and tragedy of 1918's vast offensives.

Download or read book Command and Morale written by Gary Sheffield and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gary Sheffield is one of the most versatile and stimulating of military historians at work today, and this selection of his outstanding essays on the First World War is essential reading for anyone who is keen to broaden their understanding of the subject. For three decades, in a series of perceptive books and articles, he has examined the nature of this war from many angles from the point of view of the politicians and the high command through to the junior officers and other ranks in the front line. Command and Morale presents in a single volume a range of his shorter work, and it shows his scholarship at its best.Among the topics he explores is the decision-making of the senior commanders, the demands of coalition warfare, the performance of Australian forces, the organization and the performance of the army in the field, the tactics involved, the exercise of command, the importance of morale, and the wider impact of the war on British society. Every topic is approached with the same academic rigour and attention to detail which are his hallmarks and which explain why his work has been so influential. The range of his writing, the insights he offers and the sometimes controversial conclusions he reaches mean this thought provoking book will be indispensable reading for all students of the First World War and of modern warfare in general.

Download or read book Architect of Victory written by Walter Reid and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2011-08-12 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Douglas Haig's popular image as an unimaginative butcher is unenviable and unmerited. In fact, he masterminded a British-led victory over a continental opponent on a scale that has never been matched before or since. Contrary to myth, Haig was not a cavalry-obsessed, blinkered conservative, as satirised in Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder Goes Forth. Fascinated by technology, he pressed for the use of tanks, enthusiastically embraced air power, and encouraged the use of new techniques involving artillery and machine-guns. Above all, he presided over a change in infantry tactics from almost total reliance on the rifle towards all-arms, multi-weapons techniques that formed the basis of British army tactics until the 1970s. Prior re-evaluations of Haig's achievements have largely been limited to monographs and specialist writings. Walter Reid has written the first biography of Haig that takes into account modern military scholarship, giving a more rounded picture of the private man than has previously been available. What emerges is a picture of a comprehensible human being, not necessarily particularly likeable, but honourably ambitious, able and intelligent, and the man more than any other responsible for delivering victory in 1918.

Download or read book The Killing Ground written by Tim Travers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This books explains why the British Army fought the way it did in the First World War. It integrates social and military history and the impact of ideas to tell the story of how the army, especially the senior officers, adapted to the new technological warfare and asks: Was the style of warfare on the Western Front inevitable?Using an extensive range of unpublished diaries, letters, memoirs and Cabinet and War Office files, Professor Travers explains how and why the ideas, tactics and strategies emerged. He emphasises the influence of pre-war social and military attitudes, and examines the early life and career of Sir Douglas Haig. The author's analysis of the preparations for the Battles of the Somme and Passchendaele provide new interpretations of the role of Haig and his GHQ, and he explains the reasons for the unexpected British withdrawal in March 1918. An appendix supplies short biographies of senior British officers. In general, historians of the First World War are in two hostile camps: those who see the futility of lions led by donkeys on the one hand and on the other the apologists for Haig and the conduct of the war. Professor Travers' immensely readable book provides a bridge between the two.

Download or read book British Butchers and Bunglers of World War One written by John Laffin and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a forceful and probing analysis of the British generals' leadership. For too long, John Laffin maintains, the generals' military reputation has not been examined critically enough, and he asks how those responsible for such catastrophic defeats were able to retain their commands. Haig, whose army suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, was still in command after five months more fighting and another 400,000 casualties. By the war's end the number of dead ran into millions; doggedly brave British Empire soldiers who, John Laffin believes, were killed, wounded or broken by commanders who were vain, egocentric or incompetent. But the generals, who blamed the dead and junior in rank, cannot be excused on the grounds that there was 'nothing else that they could do.' Even now, ninety years after the 'Great War for Civilization', this book raises uncomfortable questions. Dr Laffin draws on the memories and writings of those who took part and quotes other military historians to provide a lucid analysis of just what went wrong in the generals' leadership and how it resulted in such appalling losses, and concludes that they were not merely incompetent, but uncaring. Controversial, intelligent and uncompromising, this important book is an invaluable addition to the history of World War I and will be read by all interested in this period and its influence on succeeding campaigns.

Download or read book Forgotten Victory written by G. D. Sheffield and published by Headline Review. This book was released on 2002 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War is arguably the most misunderstood event in twentieth-century history. In a radical new interpretation, leading military historian Gary Sheffield argues that while the war was tragic, it was not futile; and, although condemned as 'lions led by donkeys', in reality the British citizen army became the most effective fighting force in the world, which in 1918 won the greatest series of battles in British history. A challenging and controversial book, FORGOTTEN VICTORY is based on twenty years of research and draws on the work of major scholars. Without underestimating the scale of the human tragedy or playing down the disasters, it explodes many myths about the First World War, placing it in its true historical context.

Download or read book The Imperial War Museum Book of 1918 written by Malcolm Brown and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 1999 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published on the eightieth anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, this book tells the story of a year during which the casualty lists on all sides were longer, the turns of fortune were most remarkable, and action was most intense.

Download or read book Hundred Days written by Nick Lloyd and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nick Lloyd's Hundred Days: The End of the Great War explores the brutal, heroic and extraordinary final days of the First World War. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent. The Armistice, which brought the Great War to an end, marked a seminal moment in modern European and World history. Yet the story of how the war ended remains little-known. In this compelling and ground-breaking new study, Nick Lloyd examines the last days of the war and asks the question: how did it end? Beginning at the heralded turning-point on the Marne in July 1918, Hundred Days traces the epic story of the next four months, which included some of the bloodiest battles of the war. Using unpublished archive material from five countries, this new account reveals how the Allies - British, French, American and Commonwealth - managed to beat the German Army, by now crippled by indiscipline and ravaged by influenza, and force her leaders to seek peace. 'This is a powerful and moving book by a rising military historian. Lloyd's depiction of the great battles of July-November provides compelling evidence of the scale of the Allies' victories and the bitter reality of German defeat' Gary Sheffield (Professor of War Studies) 'Lloyd enters the upper tier of Great War historians with this admirable account of the war's final campaign' Publishers Weekly Nick Lloyd is Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College London, based at the Joint Services Command & Staff College in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire. He specialises in British military and imperial history in the era of the Great War and is the author of two books, Loos 1915 (2006), and The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day (2011).