by RNS | Jul 31, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Simon Webb, The Origins of Wizards, Witches and Fairies (Pen & Sword, 2022)
Despite living in a sophisticated, scientific world, or perhaps because of it, we are still enchanted by stories of wizards, witches, and fairies. They are deeply embedded in our culture, in movies, books, art, and some aspects of our everyday lives. But have you ever wondered where these stories come from? If so, Simon Webb has some answers in his latest book.
BUY NOW
Webb notes that the fantasy world from which wizards, witches, and fairies emerge are recognisable but with imagined elements. That is because most of them are ingrained in folk memories and folk tales, many of which we can trace into prehistoric art and oral stories passed down through the generations. Webb argues that much of this goes back to the Yamnaya people’s expansion through Europe about 3000 BCE. In that era, religion and magic were fused into the natural world that included our ancestors. There we find shaman, the first wizards, and the horned gods pursuing souls in the ‘wild hunt’. Fairies date back to the Yamnaya too, though they were not the gossamer-winged, slightly mischievous wee people we all love but, argues Webb, nasty, stunted humans with a penchant for thievery and destruction, ‘a deadly menace’. The advent of organised religion, particularly Christianity, divided the world into good and evil, which traces a direct path to the infamous 17th Century witch trials and ritual sacrifice, the last of which, Webb recounts, took place in 1945 England with the strange death of Charles Walton. Nevertheless, the modern world, beginning with the Victorians, has popularised these fantasy people, and we continue to do so today in stories such Harry Potter and The Game of Thrones. Webb concludes with an alternative annual construction based on magic and pagan festivals.
The Origins of Wizards, Witches and Fairies is an entertaining and informative read aimed squarely at a public, non-academic readership. That helps the flow but is frustratingly free of footnoted references for those that might want to dig further. Webb also writes in a chatty style, but his habit of asking rhetorical questions in his text could be an annoying distraction to some readers. Those quibbles aside, most readers curious about the foundations of the fantasy world will enjoy Webb’s book.
by RNS | Jul 29, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Stephen M. Carter, Science of Arms Vol.1. Preparation for War and the Infantry (Helion 2023)
The late 17th Century hardly springs to mind when discussing pivotal eras in military history, but Stephen Carter asks you to look again. He argues that in this period, the art of war became the science of war, and the foundations were laid for much of what followed in the next two centuries.
This book is the first part of a new Helion series, The Art of War in the Century of the Soldier 1672 – 1699, and it focuses on three aspects of military preparation: policy, modelling the army, and preparing the infantry. It reads like a manual for war addressed to the reader. You must fight a ‘just’ war, admonishes Carter, and decide what kind of war you want to fight: offensive, defensive, or civil. Consider using allies, and when you win, consider the terms for peace. How big your army will be, and who will command and control it, are necessary preparations for war. Then you need to furnish your army with weapons, body armour, uniforms, banners and drums, transport and the other accoutrements of waging war. See that your generals and officers are up to the task. Knowing how much your army will cost to equip and maintain is essential along with the formations you will deploy on the march and in battle, including your baggage.
Having set up the framework, Carter delves deeper into the infantry. That begins with command and control for the whole infantry and individual companies. Carter works through the soldiers you need to recruit and their roles. Then he moves into training the army in its formations, but also the skills needed by each soldier whether they are pikemen or musketeers or other specialised troops. The processes involved were often complicated, but Carter walks us through them in straightforward steps. He also outlines company and battalion exercises, and marching by divisions, all of that before arriving at the battlefield and what must be done there to attack and defend in formations. In short, Carter covers everything you need to know to achieve victory.
A book on preparing for war sounds about as dry and dusty as anything military history has to offer, but Carter’s innovative approach makes it anything but. His method is to directly address the reader as if they should have a vested interest in getting all this down. Thus, we’re not just reading about soldiers; we’re reading about your soldiers. Carter handles this very well, and he breaks everything down into bite-size chunks, introducing new aspects in a timely fashion. Helion has performed admirably too in illustrating Carter’s text with contemporary artwork, much of it drawn from manuals. Indeed, you could buy the book for the artwork and be quite content in your purchase. All in all, this book is a must for military history students of the period, but anyone with a vague interest will enjoy reading Carter’s offering and look forward to more volumes in the series.
by RNS | Jul 24, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Nigel West, H*tler’s Trojan Horse (Frontline, 2022)
Intelligence and counter-intelligence have been part of almost all wars. They are necessary components in uncovering enemy intentions while preventing them from uncovering yours. In World War II, the Abwehr was one of two German intelligence organisations, but their story has never been fully told. Nigel West’s H*tler’s Trojan Horse attempts to fill that gap.
BUY NOW
After a lengthy list of dramatis personae, which foreshadows some of the often bewildering detail to follow, West delves into the cut and thrust of the counter-intelligence battle that raged behind the scenes across Europe and North Africa. It is apparent that the Abwehr gave as good as they got at least until 1943. They were particularly good at infiltrating resistance networks in occupied Europe. However, West notes that as the tides of war began to flow in favour of the Allies, the Abwehr increasingly found itself on the back foot, a situation accelerated by a stream of defectors. West also describes the roles of the Abwehr and British intelligence in the attempted assassination of H*tler in July 1944, and he ponders the Klatt mystery on the Eastern Front, where we still do not know fully the extent of Soviet disinformation deployed against the Abwehr. With the Allies rampaging across Europe after D-Day, the Abwehr planned on ‘stay behind’ groups to cause havoc in the Allied rear, but the Abwehr was too compromised by Allied intelligence, and the effort came to almost nothing. In the end, West writes, the Abwehr simply evaporated in the dying days of the Reich.
If you judge a book on information and content, then H*tler’s Trojan Horse passes with flying colours. West takes a deep dive into the intelligence war and teases out some fascinating details, particularly on the July Putsch. However, the book is too ‘packed’; the writing suffers from too many interruptions to make room for source material, some of it very lengthy, that could have been incorporated into the flow of the narrative, and extraneous details riddle the text, gumming up the works. One effect of that is the reader loses the hierarchy of importance because everything seems equally important. Nevertheless, for students of the intelligence war, they are likely to enjoy substance over style and should enjoy this.
by RNS | Jul 18, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Robert Lyman, The Reconquest of Burma 1944-45 (Osprey, 2023)
Until 1944, the war in Burma had not gone well for the Allies attempting to fend off the Japanese invasion and protect India. The Allies finally held their ground then turned the tide in a relentless attack that drove the Japanese back to Rangoon and beyond. In this book in Osprey’s Campaign series, Robert Lyman narrates that story.
Lyman begins with the origins of the campaign 1944, which lay in the opportunity created by the Japanese failure to seize India. The British had struggled until then to reconquer Burma for logistical and strategic reasons, but victories at Imphal and Kohima opened the door. Despite misgivings from his command, Lieutenant-General Bill Slim was determined to push the retreating Japanese to their destruction. Slim’s perseverance is at the heart of Lyman’s story.
As in all Osprey’s Campaign series, consideration of the opposing commanders, forces, including orders of battle, and battle plans precedes the action. That began with Operation Capital, Slim’s initial assault across the Chindwin river. This was carried out in the face of severe opposition by the Japanese and the unforgiving Burmese environment. Then Slim crossed the Irrawaddy in a bold manoeuvre to drive the Japanese back again. Air power and transport proved decisive in allowing this to happen. Nevertheless, the fighting around Meiktila proved particularly intense, but the Commonwealth forces prevailed, unlocking the Japanese hold over the Irrawaddy. Mandalay fell soon afterwards. Meanwhile, Commonwealth forces gained ground in the coastal region of Arakan, resisting fierce but wasteful Japanese counter-attacks at every advance. Then began the race for Rangoon, which had to be completed before the May monsoon arrived and was conducted mainly by Indian army divisions. Lyman takes time out of his narrative here to praise the irregular Burmese forces and the SOE for their roles in the advance. Rangoon fell under the pressure of Slim’s advance and an amphibious operation, Dracula, just as the first storms hit. A Japanese attempt to break out over the Sittang river met with a hail of destruction. Over 180,000 Japanese troops died in the campaign to Slim’s 14,000 – Lyman has little sympathy. A quick guide to visiting the battlefields today follows. That sounds just about as difficult as the campaign itself, though without the worry over Japanese bullets and shells.
Lyman has written an enjoyable introductory narrative of a startlingly successful Allied campaign. It was also a complicated affair, and Lyman does well to single out Slim’s singular leadership in addition to the role that Commonwealth and local forces played in his victory. Lyman’s text is ably supported by Osprey’s usual high quality colour plates, and the selection of photographs was also well chosen. As a military history student or wargamer, you can enjoy this book as a survey, or use it as preparation for Lyman’s more detailed book on Burma, A War of Empires (Osprey, 2021).
by RNS | Jul 13, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Jeremy Black, The Geographies of War (Pen & Sword, 2022)
‘War occurs as a spatial process’, argues Jeremy Black, despite modern efforts to make it seem otherwise. Geography and military history are intertwined, and in this illuminating analysis of warfare at all levels and in many different environments, Black sets out to demonstrate how that linkage works and why it is so important.
The Geographies of War breaks down into two broad sections, conceptual and practical, and within those he divides geography into physical and human aspects. He begins at ground level, discussing tactics, then scales up into operations and strategy; a mountain under tactical consideration becomes a range of mountains for operations; weather becomes climate. Black notes that operations and strategy overlap and introduces wider concepts; for example, force-space ratios. Broadening his horizons one step further, Black considers geopolitics, including not just physical geography but cultural issues such as religion and the east-west divide. Changes in technology have affected how geography is used in war, including aspects beyond weaponry such as trains and printing. The latter leads into how commanders use geography in what Black terms the ‘militarisation of information’, particularly the need for accurate mapping and its attendant problems, which constitutes the last conceptual chapter before Black’s historical case studies.
The underlying theme of the second half of The Geographies of War is how geographical considerations ebb and flow with the expansion of war. Black begins in North America with the American Revolution and Civil War with an emphasis on mapmaking that threads its way through modern warfare. Black views the imperial era as the ‘the determination of imperialism to control geography’, though he fits that to all military empires from Rome to China to Britain. The First World War, Black argues, forged an unprecedented role for geography at all levels as warfare expanded, new technologies were introduced, and war became global. He notes in particular the introduction of aircraft. The Second World War continued the trend with mechanised warfare fought across much of the world on land, sea, and air with the attendant difficulties in managing resources and accurate mapping. The Cold War was ‘understood and presented in geopolitical terms’ and physical technology such as nuclear weapons and satellites appeared to abrogate geography. But this was not the case, argues Black; strategic elements of containment and influence, nuclear bases, controlling insurgencies etc., emphasized the importance of human geography. Finally, Black speculates on the direction of future wars with a warning regarding the folly of assuming geography is less important than in previous eras.
The Geographies of War is a thought-provoking reminder of the complexities involved in understanding military history. Black backs his marriage of geography and history with numerous examples drawn from across the globe, though maybe with too much western emphasis. Moreover, his range of topics and themes are comprehensive – anyone following the current war in Ukraine will recognize many of Black’s arguments. Some might find Black’s academic language challenging in parts, but that should not be a deterrent to reading a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening book.
