British Generalship During The Great War

Author : Robin Neillands
Publisher : Constable
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great War Generals on the Western Front 1914-18 written by Robin Neillands and published by Constable. This book was released on 1999 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Great War histories tell the reader what happened on the Western front but few spell out why. In this book, the author looks at the battles through the eyes of the generals who were charged with winning them and examines the accusations that have surrounded them for over 70 years. The tragedy of the death toll on the Western Front gives weight to the argument against them, but what were the near unsurmountable problems that stood between the generals and final victory? How much of what the general public believes about the First World War is really true? This book aims to illuminate the bitter controversy.

Author : Simon Robbins
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317171969
Total Pages : 461 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book British Generalship during the Great War written by Simon Robbins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the career of one relatively unknown First World War general, Lord Horne, this book adds to the growing literature that challenges long-held assumptions that the First World War was a senseless bloodbath conducted by unimaginative and incompetent generals. Instead it demonstrates that men like Horne developed new tactics and techniques to deal with the novel problems of trench warfare and in so doing seeks to re-establish the image of the British generals and explain the reasons for the failures of 1915-16 and the successes of 1917-18 and how this remarkable change in performance was achieved by a much maligned group of senior officers. Horne's important career and remarkable character sheds light not only on the major battles in which he was involved; the progress of the war; his relationships with his staff and other senior officers; the novel problems of trench warfare; the assimilation of new weapons, tactics and training methods; and the difficulties posed by the German defences, but also on the attitudes and professionalism of a senior British commander serving on the Western Front. Horne's career thus provides a vehicle for studying the performance of the British Army in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. It also gives an important insight into the attitudes, ethos and professionalism of the officer corps which led that army to victory on the Western Front, exposing not only its flaws but also its many strengths. This study consequently provides a judgment not only on Horne as a personality, innovator and general of great importance but also on his contemporaries who served with the British Armies in South Africa and France during an era which saw a revolution in military affairs giving birth to a Modern Style of Warfare which still prevails to this day.

Author : SIMON. ROBBINS
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781138253377
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book BRITISH GENERALSHIP DURING THE GREAT WAR. written by SIMON. ROBBINS and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Timothy Bowman
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780719062858
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Irish Regiments in the Great War written by Timothy Bowman and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British army was almost unique among the European armies of the Great War in that it did not suffer from a serious breakdown of discipline or collapse of morale. It did, however, inevitably suffer from disciplinary problems. While attention has hitherto focused on the 312 notorious "shot at dawn" cases, many thousands of British soldiers were tried by court martial during the Great War. This book will be essential reading for military and Irish historians and their students, and will interest any general reader concerned with how units maintain discipline and morale under the most trying conditions.

Author : Alan Clark
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1448104025
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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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

Author : Raymond Callahan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Churchill & His Generals written by Raymond Callahan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the eve of World War II, the British army was more an international police force than a combat ready fighting force. This book examines its transformation in a look at Great Britain's top commanders in the field.

Author : Simon Robbins
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415350069
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book British Generalship on the Western Front 1914-18 written by Simon Robbins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the British Army's response on the Western Front to a period of seminal change in warfare. In particular it examines the impact of the pre-war emphasis on worldwide garrison, occupation and policing duties for the Empire's defence of the mindset of the Army's leadership and its lack of preparation for a continental war involving a massive, unplanned increase in men and material. The reasons for the poor performance in the early years of the war, notably professionalism within the British Army, including poor staff work, 'trade unionism', careerism within the high command, and the tendency of an overconfident hierarchy to ignore the need for reform to tackle the tactical stalemate prior to 1916, are analysed. The high command rapidly learnt from the defeats of 1915-16 and performed much better in 1916-18, an especially formative period resulting in the promotion of a younger, more professional leadership and the development of the first truly modern system of tactics which has dominated wars ever since. During 1917-18 the Army's commanders and staff evolved and improved these new methods; developing a doctrine of combined arms to overcome the tactical stalemate bedevilling Allied offensives.

Author : Ian Beckett
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316824543
Total Pages : 485 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The British Army and the First World War written by Ian Beckett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a major new history of the British army during the Great War written by three leading military historians. Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman and Mark Connelly survey operations on the Western Front and throughout the rest of the world as well as the army's social history, pre-war and wartime planning and strategy, the maintenance of discipline and morale and the lasting legacy of the First World War on the army's development. They assess the strengths and weaknesses of the army between 1914 and 1918, engaging with key debates around the adequacy of British generalship and whether or not there was a significant 'learning curve' in terms of the development of operational art during the course of the war. Their findings show how, despite limitations of initiative and innovation amongst the high command, the British army did succeed in developing the effective combined arms warfare necessary for victory in 1918.

Author : Ian Castle
Publisher : Frontline Books
ISBN 13 : 1399093932
Total Pages : 468 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Zeppelin Inferno written by Ian Castle and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of 1916, as the world entered the second full year of global conflict, the cities, towns and villages of Britain continued to lay vulnerable to aerial bombardment. Throughout that period German Zeppelin airships and seaplanes had come and gone at will, their most testing opposition provided by the British weather as the country’s embryonic defences struggled to come to terms with this first ever assault from the air. Britain’s civilians were now standing on the frontline — the Home Front — like the soldiers who had marched off to war. But early in 1916 responsibility for Britain’s aerial defence passed from the Admiralty to the War Office and, as German air attacks intensified, new ideas and plans made dramatic improvements to Britain’s aerial defence capability. While this new system could give early warning of approaching raiders, there was a lack of effective weaponry with which to engage them when they arrived. Behind the scenes, however, three individuals, each working independently, were striving for a solution. The results of their work were spectacular; it lifted the mood of the nation and dramatically changed the way this campaign was fought over Britain. The German air campaign against Britain in the First World War was the first sustained strategic aerial bombing campaign in history. Despite this, it has become forgotten against the enormity of the Blitz of the Second World War, although for those caught up in the tragedy of these raids, the impact was every bit as devastating. In Zeppelin Inferno Ian Castle tells the full story of the 1916 raids in unprecedented detail in what is the second book in a trilogy that will reveal the complete story of Britain’s ‘Forgotten Blitz’.

Author : Frank Davies
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1473812518
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bloody Red Tabs written by Frank Davies and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before that ghastly and quite unnecessary slogging match in the mud which we now call the First World War had dragged to its blood-soaked conclusion the belief that most of the senior officers had spent their time in comfort and safety in chateaux far behind the lines with no idea of the conditions in which the men they commanded were fighting was firmly embedded in the public mind. As the years pass by that belief has, if anything, become more deeply held, gaining strength from plays like Oh! What a Lovely War, itself based on Alan Clark's book The Donkeys.It is the purpose of this book to show not only how the myth was born and grew but how totally at odds it is with the facts. Biographies of over 200 officers who held the rank of Brigadier-General or above who were killed or wounded during the war show how closely involved the men at the top were with the men at the front. Ironically, as the authors point out, this was more than just a waste of blood, for these were the very men whose experience was vital to the successful prosecution of the war. Had they actually stayed in their chateaux, as Lloyd George alleged, they might have done much more to hasten the end of the conflict.This is not only an invaluable work of reference but a tribute to those gallant senior officers who have been so unfairly traduced by many who should have known better.As featured in Essence Magazine.