by RNS | Aug 13, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
David Greentree, Crusader vs M13/40 (Osprey, 2024)
When you picture tank duels in the Western Desert during World War II, my bet is that you do not conjure up British Crusaders fighting Italian M13/40s. You may also believe the myth that the Italian tanks were weak and as likely to run as stand and fight. Some British tank commanders thought that too, but as David Greentree highlights in this new volume in Osprey’s Duel series, the truth was quite different.
Greentree notes that the M13/40 was more than capable of holding its own against the early model Crusader, which had an inferior engine, a defective water pump, a weak gun, and was prone to throwing a track. It would not be until the Grant and Sherman arrived before the Italian tank became overmatched. Greentree explains that the British were late to the show when it came to realising the potential of tanks, and they opted for many designs over a few good ones. From that emerged the Crusader as a cruiser tank, though one with numerous problems and difficult to operate. The Italians initially focused on tankettes over tanks. Their first medium tank was the M11/39 but was soon superseded by the M13/40 then the M14/41 and other models. Greentree then compares technical specifications: ammunition, armour (with the M13/40 sadly lacking in that department), mobility, vision, and communications (the latter reads like an afterthought on both tanks).
Moving on to doctrine, Greentree laments the British lack of a clear plan on how to use tanks. The concept of combined arms was a notion that escaped them in practice, and the old cavalry mentality hindered development – the Axis forces would teach them the hard way. By 1938, writes Greentree, the Italians had adopted a mobile warfare doctrine that fostered combined arms divisions incorporating M13/40 tanks. Greentree also compares training and organisation before describing the action in the desert. He begins that with the Italian army under pressure then destroyed in February 1941. In the German supported fightback, the M13/40s suffered from mechanical issues under desert conditions. Combat wore down the tanks mechanically, and they suffered under British counterattacks, including a substantial contingent of Crusader tanks. It should be noted here that Greentree discusses the overall tank forces rather than duels between Crusaders and M13/40s. However, he emphasises actions between those tanks in his accounts of Operation Crusader, the Battle of Gazala, and the Second Battle of El Alamein – his descriptions of close combat are particularly illuminating. In his final analysis, Greentree argues that the Italian medium tanks were a match for the high maintenance Crusaders, but as the tide turned in the desert, the Italians found themselves outgunned and susceptible to miscommunications with their German allies, resulting in almost inevitable defeat.
Crusader vs M13/40 is an interesting addition to Osprey’s Duel series. Greentree’s survey opens the vista of the desert war for those who are only familiar with the Afrika Korps and its headline grabbing heavy tanks. The fighting between these medium tanks was a much closer affair, though Greentree makes it clear that tanks alone were rarely successful on the desert battlefield. He also highlights how a tank was not a self-contained war machine but one that relied on a support network on and off the battlefield. Greentree’s well-written combat descriptions are neatly woven into the technical aspects of these medium tanks, and enthusiasts of tank warfare and the desert war will enjoy this book.
by RNS | Jul 29, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
David Allison, Fight Your Way Out (Pen & Sword, 2023)
Those familiar with the Burma theatre in World War II will undoubtedly be aware of the astonishing defence of Kohima, in spring 1944, where the Japanese invasion of northern India faltered and eventually broke. Less well known is the siege of Sangshak on the road to Kohima that saw a multinational force of British, Indian, and Gurkha troops fight an equally desperate battle against the Japanese but one that ended very differently. David Allison narrates that awful but inspiring story.
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Allison begins with the Japanese making themselves ready to cross the Chindwin river in a surprise offensive designed to knock the British out of India. He notes, however, that it was also a very finely balanced plan that relied on clockwork timing for success. While the Japanese crossed the river, a well trained but inexperienced brigade of Indian and Nepalese paratroopers and British troops under the command of Brigadier Hope-Thomson were practicing for war in the region of Sangshak. They hoped for some action but not the tsunami of Japanese infantry that smashed into them. The Brigade, minus one company that was almost annihilated, withdrew from beleaguered forward positions to concentrate on a hilltop at Sangshak village. The Japanese surrounded them, and an intense six-day siege ensued, with relentless frontal assaults supported by mortars and artillery wearing down the dogged defenders. Allison describes the terrible conditions on both sides, though his attention is mainly on the defenders. The Japanese finally grabbed a vital toehold, forcing Hope-Thomson, suffering from a nervous breakdown, relaying an order from Division for his men to break out and flee to Imphal. Allison makes it clear that this was the right decision. He describes the flight of several of the groups and the fate of those left behind – they were treated with an unexpected civility. The scandalous aspect of this engagement lay in the immediate aftermath, with accusations of cowardice levelled at the paratrooper brigade and Hope-Thomson unjustly demoted and returned to England. Allison sympathises with the Brigadier and clears up some of the other questions generated by the battle.
By rehabilitating the reputations of Hope-Thomson and the men who fought under him, Allison is pushing at something of an open door. The importance of Sangshak and the efforts of the defenders are well established, and the whiff of incompetence has been lifted from Hope-Thomson. Allison has, however, added an exclamation mark to the historical record while writing a gripping narrative of the siege; he assails the reader’s senses with the sights, sounds, and smells of a savage battle. Students of the Burma theatre will no doubt add Allison’s book to the growing bank of knowledge and understanding about this once forgotten campaign.
by RNS | Jul 13, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Tony Morgan, Margaret Clitherow an Elizabethan Saint (Pen & Sword, 2022)
It might seem a bit odd that a Sixteenth century butcher’s wife could become one of the forty Catholic martyrs of England and Wales. But Margaret Clitherow was no ordinary woman; she was a person of resolute faith in a time of religious paranoia and persecution, and she paid the ultimate price for her devotion. In this book, Tony Morgan takes you into Elizabethan England and inside the provincial city of York to tell Clitherow’s extraordinary tale.
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Morgan structures most of his book in three layers. The first is at the national level, beginning in Henry VIII’s reign and the cleaving of the English church from Roman Catholicism. The political turbulence that produced ran through the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I then into the long reign of Elizabeth I. Morgan narrows his focus to a Tudor history of York, where the religious turmoil at the national level rippled through local politics. The third level of the story is that of Margaret Clitherow and her family, which was intertwined with city politics – her stepfather at the time of her death was the Mayor. Morgan slices those corresponding stories chronologically with the theme of religious oppression and persecution binding them. He draws them together into a single narrative with the culminating story of Margaret’s arrest, trial, and dreadful execution – she was pressed to death, in March 1586, for refusing to enter a plea to the court.
Margaret Clitherow deserves to have her story told by someone as steeped in local knowledge as Tony Morgan. He is particularly good at explaining the machinations of York politics and the dynamics of religious practice in the city. No matter how the reader views fanaticism and martyrdom, no one deserves Clitherow’s fate, and Morgan brings out the all too human emotional struggle she must have endured. On the wider level, Morgan explores many of the political, economic, and social themes of the Elizabethan period that still resonate. This is a dry read, though, with Morgan offering some commentary but rarely wandering too far from his sources, leaving unanswered some of the big questions that Clitherow’s story elicits. The tiered structure doesn’t help in that regard, with the chapters becoming somewhat repetitive until Morgan unifies the narratives upon Clitherow’s arrest. Nevertheless, students of Elizabethan and religious history, in particular, will enjoy Morgan’s book.
by RNS | Jun 13, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Paul Coby, Forts and Roman Strategy (Pen & Sword, 2022)
Most readers with more than a passing acquaintance with the Roman conquest of Britain will know the general outline of that endeavour. The question remains, however, whether or not the various campaigns into what is now Wales and Scotland were part of a grand strategy? Paul Coby takes a swing at that conundrum using a set of analytical tools derived from his many years of experience in database analysis and visualisation and organisational theory and practice. Coby’s book is split into two parts: a set of case studies, and an overview of his methodology. Coby backs the strategic approach for the Roman conquest but allows for opportunistic predatory instincts to operate within that framework. He tests his thesis by analysing five campaigns: Scapula’s failed campaign in Wales, Gallus’ containment of Wales, Frontinus’s success in Wales, Agricola’s advance into Scotland, and the establishment of the Antonine Wall.
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For Wales, it took a Roman Army unsuited to fighting guerilla warfare three decades to overcome mountainous terrain and tribal resistance. In 47 CE, Roman governor Ostorius Scapula defeated an Iceni rebellion then ravaged the ‘Welsh’ Deceangli and Silures in turn. The Ordovices would prove a tougher nut to crack, despite an initial battlefield victory, before a resurgent Silures counterattacked. Scapula seems to have died from exhaustion brought on by the campaigns. Coby analyses the Roman marching camps, forts, and roads, along with Legionary ‘fronts’ to discern the Roman strategy and track their armies. He concludes that Scapula’s aggression resulted in ‘complete failure’ because he pursued conquest over consolidation.
The next Roman governor, Didius Gallus, opted for a policy of containment. Coby posits a line of forts between two legionary fortresses that projected power into tribal areas. Suetonius Paulinus then attempted to complete the conquest, but Boudica’s rebellion in the east aborted that plan. Matters elsewhere in the Empire superseded Britain’s importance, and Wales would wait over a decade to meet its conqueror, Julius Frontinus. Coby describes Frontinus’ campaign as a ‘masterclass’. This was conducted in progressive phases that Coby narrates with the aid of maps and his Data-Led Analytical Method (D-LAM) method. Frontinus did not finish the job, however; that was left for Julius Agricola who had little to do but did it well.
Agricola’s campaigns in Scotland were, Coby argues, an ‘ideal test case’ for his D-LAM method. He describes the historical context and physical environment for the campaigns then establishes the Flavian frontier along the Forth-Clyde isthmus from where Agricola headed north. Coby plots probable marching routes and discusses the archaeological evidence of forts and roads before and after the Battle of Mons Graupius. Coby is convinced that a Flavian frontier system existed, anchored by the legionary fortress at Inchtuthil, but he acknowledges that the forts as a system are open to interpretation.
After positing his interpretation of Agricola’s chronology, Coby gives a favourable assessment of the campaign leading to Mons Graupius, though the aftermath was a strategic failure. He then speculates on the potential grand conquest that would have followed if the Romans had not withdrawn. Coby draws the story of the conquests in Wales and Scotland together, highlighting six phases: reconnaissance, invasion, occupation, incorporation, revolt, and assimilation.
Staying in Scotland, Coby’s final case study is the building of the Antonine Wall and the full conquest of southern Scotland. He considers this as a military overstretch by the Romans that resulted in another withdrawal. Coby follows the twin advance by Lollius Urbicus to the Forth-Clyde isthmus and the subsequent occupation of the southern tribes. The Romans then built their wall along the isthmus, though Coby highlights that what the Romans may have intended was not what they built. He works his way through the troubled history of the wall as it faced local resistance with too few troops to defend it properly. Coby concludes that the Antonine occupation was almost ‘textbook’ and that we have to view the occupation as a whole, not just the wall. After considering the forces involved and the purpose of the wall, Coby speculates on the Roman withdrawal to the Hadrian’s Wall line and how that worked. He decides that the retreat was ultimately a sign of strategic failure, but the whole episode was still evidence of Roman strategic planning.
In Part 2, Coby explains his methodology. He notes that there has been little effort in modern maps to distinguish types of forts and their usage. Coby’s ‘cartographic manifesto’ fixes that. The regularity of Roman fort-building practice helps him, and that extends to the Roman Army too. Having gathered his data for all the forts, Coby describes his analytical method (D-LAM), which is a database with standardised entries we can use for comparing forts. Coby takes that a step further to create Strength Factors based on fort sizes and troop strengths. Every fort, therefore, is mapped as accurately as possible, revealing connections from which, in conjunction with a wide range of ‘context tools’, we can derive Roman strategies. Thus, in his conclusions, Coby agrees with Edward Luttwak’s grand strategy thesis for the Roman Empire, at least in Britain. From his test cases, however, Coby discerns a pattern of tactical victories and strategic defeats caused primarily by overstretched Roman resources. He closes with an interesting aside on where readers can visit some of the main sites mentioned in the text.
Paul Coby has written a thought-provoking book, which is well supported by copious diagrams, maps, and tables. His effort to codify the archaeology of the various campaigns and make that synchronise with the available history is notable, and it is a method worth applying to other parts of the Roman empire. Coby’s deployment analysis charts and typology diagrams invite interpretation and bolster his own. Coby also draws useful analyses from other empires and colonial campaigns, most notably Britain’s Victorian empire. What the reader will gain from this approach, however, might well depend on how much they favour Luttwak’s grand strategy thesis for Roman conquests, and some of Coby’s conclusions contain more than a hint of teleological reasoning. While he acknowledges the speculative nature of many of his arguments, Coby does not enter into discussions with alternative interpretations, and that is sometimes disappointing. A cynical or hostile reader will pick apart Coby’s uncertainties and will note his admission on one theory as a ‘hypothesis built on assumption and interpolation’. Nevertheless, Coby’s approach may be a valuable tool, and students of Roman Britain will gain much from adding it to their own research.
by RNS | Jun 4, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Cameron Colby, Jamestown (Osprey, 2024)
For some of the Indian tribes along the James River in what would become Virginia, the arrival of English ships in April 1607 meant little more than a new neighbour to accommodate and bargain with; for others, they were a threat to be destroyed. The first Englishmen came to exploit the land and local tribes then return to England wealthy men. That conflict of interest led to raids, skirmishes, open warfare, and two massacres along with other atrocities. Cameron Colby surveys those opening decades in Anglo-Indian affairs.
Colby begins with the English poking around in the New World in the late 16th Century before building Jamestown in 1607. Awaiting them was the Powhatan confederacy, a group of local woodland indigenous tribes, living in a very different political and cultural landscape than the English. Misunderstandings were almost inevitable. From its inception, the Jamestown settlement was rife with internal dissension and mutual distrust with the Indians. Under the leadership of John Smith, however, relations with the Indians improved for a while, but that broke down in 1609 prompting raids and counter-raids. This escalated into war after Smith returned to England. The Indians besieged Jamestown almost causing its abandonment, but instead, the English took the offensive.
The often fragmented nature of politics and war in the Chesapeake region is evident from Colby’s discussion of the leaders on both sides. Subordination was a flexible, sometimes nominal, concept among the Indian tribes, and perhaps surprisingly, at Jamestown too. The ebb and flow of conflict and peace was, therefore, driven by the character of the leaders on both sides. Colby next considers organisation and tactics. The Powhatan Confederacy lacked warriors, and their main mode of warfare was raiding, though some larger engagements took place. For defence, they built palisades around their towns. The bow-and-arrow was their primary weapon with clubs and rudimentary swords used in close-quarters. The English were often battle-hardened veterans of European wars and brought their tactics and weaponry with them. That meant muskets, pikes, and armour, and cannons to defend their fortified settlements. The opposing sides also had different strategic goals. Not all the Powhatan tribes sought the total destruction of the English, preferring to keep them penned into the Jamestown area. The English initially wanted conquest and booty before settling in to defend what they had before subsequent expansion.
Serious organised violence began in 1609. Colby narrates the First Anglo-Powhatan War, which began with a misunderstanding and an atrocity followed by the destruction of a native village and then a war in which English fort building failed, John Smith was wounded and evacuated, and his successor made a mess of things. The Indians besieged Jamestown for six months. Then, on the point of abandonment, a relief fleet arrived, and the tide of war turned in favour of the English, though not without setbacks. A new English commander, Thomas Dale, arrived in 1611 to press the advantages bestowed by armour and muskets. By 1612, the exhausted Powhatan curtailed their war effort and diplomacy ruled, ending with the marriage of Pocahantas to John Rolfe in 1614. By 1622, English settlement had expanded, but the colonists had grown complacent. On 22 March 1622, nine tribes of Indians struck across the colony and massacred everyone they could find. When the news hit England, reinforcements were sent, while the survivors in the colony counterattacked. Reorganised and regalvanised, the English turned the tide again until both sides were exhausted and a standoff ensued, though peace was not established fully until 1632. War erupted again in 1644, but by 1646, the English had finally pushed out the Indian tribes in the region. Colby concludes with a brief description of the area today with its ‘historic triangle’ of museums and sites.
Jamestown 1622 is one of the longer Osprey books you will read in the Campaign series format. Cameron Colby has a lot of ground to cover though for a complex series of engagements driven by misunderstandings between cultures that barely had anything in common – the longer than usual bibliography attests to that. Colby succeeds admirably for a survey such as this. Moreover, he balances the history by starting with the Powhatans in each section, steering away from the traditional Anglocentric narratives. He is ably supported by some excellent maps and artwork by Marco Capparoni. Students of Early Colonial America will undoubtedly enjoy this book, as will military history readers, wargamers, and anyone else in search of a fascinating story from the foundational period in Anglo-American history.
