by RNS | Jan 18, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Les Brown, British Escort Destroyers of the Second World War (Seaforth, 2022)
Destroyers were the workhorses of the Royal Navy throughout World War II. They performed numerous tasks as part of the battle fleets and on their own. In this Shipcraft series book, produced mainly for modellers, Les Brown surveys those destroyers tasked with escort duties and offers his views on the wide range of model kits on the market with examples from experts who have built them.
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Brown begins with an overview of RN escort destroyers that were designed to fill a gap between fleet destroyers and the slow corvettes, sloops, and corvettes that were deemed inadequate for serious escort work. The two main classes of escort destroyer Brown covers are the Town and Hunt class vessels, but there were quite a few more that also receive coverage. Brown details the armaments, propulsion systems, and other design features, and I found the compromises made between what was requested and what was practical particularly interesting.
As is customary with the Shipcraft series of books, the modelling section occupies the middle chapters. Brown surveys, with pros and cons, the available kits in many different scales, ranging from 1:1250 to Deans Marine’s 1:96 designed primarily for radio control modellers. He also reviews the accessories you can buy for these kits. The mouth-watering Modelmaker’s Showcase follows where top model-makers show off their skills, including a stunning scratch-built radio-controlled Hambledon in 1:72 scale. This chapter flows into a series of side-view images of individual destroyers, showing their camouflage patterns and the colours used. Brown discusses camouflage then details the modifications added to many of the destroyers along with some technical drawings. A useful selection of books and websites for further investigation concludes Brown’s book.
I haven’t yet read a Shipcraft book that I did not like, and Brown’s addition to the series is no exception to that trend. Brown clearly knows his stuff and how to write it down even for the less technically knowledgeable reader. The accompanying photographs, artwork, and models illuminate the text to produce a satisfying read as well as a very useful guide to modelling these hardy vessels.
by RNS | Jan 6, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Laurence Spring, Campaigns of the Eastern Association (Helion, 2022)
Oliver Cromwell is unquestionably one of the most famous names in English history. After all, he led the army that all but won the Civil War at Marston Moor in 1644 and dealt the coup de grâce to the Royalists the following year. Maybe. But Laurence Spring wants to put Cromwell back into the context of the Eastern Association from which he emerged, while emphasising the other deserving players in the drama. This book is the result.
Spring begins with Oliver Cromwell appointed to captain a troop of horse and join Essex’s army. Then we are off into the war, shadowing Cromwell within the broader context of operations in which he was involved. Cromwell, though a divisive character, was tasked with raising a regiment of horse to defend the counties of the Eastern Association in February 1643. Spring’s attention is with the army as it moves on to the siege of Reading and beyond. He then returns to Cromwell and brings his narrative up to speed with wider events. This also allows Spring to analyse Cromwell’s actions and his sometimes dubious self-promotion.
In July 1643, the Earl of Manchester took command of the Eastern Association. Spring discusses the internal problems of the army and narrates its operations through 1643. Army reorganisation continued in the winter, then it besieged Newark to open the 1644 campaign season. That resulted in a serious reverse, but undaunted, Manchester kept up the pressure through the capture of Lincoln. Spring follows Manchester to the siege of York, which in turn led to the momentous Battle of Marston Moor with Cromwell commanding the left wing of the Parliamentarian army. Spring analyses that battle, and Cromwell’s pivotal role, in considerable detail. Following Marston Moor and York’s fall, Spring traces the campaigns of Crawford and Manchester then the Newbury campaign, which did not go to plan and led to recriminations in the ‘Winter of Discontent’.
Newbury proved to be the last straw dividing Cromwell from Manchester, an argument that led to mutinies in much of the army and the formation of the New Model Army for the 1645 campaign season. That opened with Cromwell sent to the west to aid Waller then into Oxfordshire with his own command. Spring leaves him there to follow Crawford and other commanders as they merged into the new model army, thus creating a national army and ending the Eastern Association in all but name. Spring concludes with a brief account of Cromwell’s rise after the war and a survey of others connected to the Eastern Association. He adds some appendices on Eastern Association cornets, a commentary on the colour plates of flags included in the book, various administrative and organisational aspects of the Eastern Association army, the Journal of Colonel Montagu’s Regiment, and a list of captured Royalist colours. A lengthy and very useful bibliography occupies the last few pages.
There is no doubting Laurence Spring’s credentials as a military historian of the early modern period. He is also an engaging writer, one who is able to analyse effectively while maintaining his narrative. This is therefore a fascinating book but probably not for beginners in English Civil War studies; Spring can get into the weeds at times. He also leans into his primary sources a bit too easily where a historian’s oversight might be more useful. Nevertheless, Spring’s understanding of his subject and his ability to transmit that to a wider audience makes this a valuable and enjoyable book.
by RNS | Dec 30, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
John Moss, Celtic Places & Placenames (Pen & Sword, 2022)
In Celtic Places & Placenames, John Moss takes us on a journey through the British Isles to seek the origins of settlements and places of interest attributable to the Celtic era and sometimes beyond. In doing so, Moss finds echoes of a culture we often forget in the modern age.
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Moss initially wriggles around the concept of a unified Celt people, who maintained many cultural connections while being distinct tribes. He describes where the term comes from and gives a potted history of how the Romans cast Celtic tribes into the dark corners of the British Isles and a wee part of France. His book is split into twelve parts grouping together place names with identifiable terrain features or regions. Moss sets off into his theme with a list of common Celtic places, of which there are many.
The first geographic region we encounter is Cornwall and the southeast of England. Moss starts with a brief overview and follows with an alphabetised list of places and names – that is, after all, what we are here for. The full island of Ireland comes next, in the same format, then the Isle of Man. Scotland and the English border region take up nearly a quarter of Moss’s book as you might expect given the relative size of Scotland within Britain. Likewise, Wales takes up forty pages, reflecting the undisturbed nature of many parts of the principality. Having taken us on a geographical tour, Moss switches to features, beginning with Celtic river names then mountains. The names of Bronze and Iron Age hillforts are given their own chapter, probably because Moss notes there were over 4,000 of them, though curiously, he includes some in his list that do not have Celtic names – Moss relies on descriptive paragraphs for those places. He does that too for some of the prehistoric structures that make up his next chapter. Moss is on more certain ground for those places identified by Celtic crosses even if some are of early medieval origin. Moss concludes his survey across the channel in Brittany where Celtic tribesmen fled when Britain suffered under periodic invasions. A useful bibliography and list of websites concludes the book.
Celtic Places & Placenames is a book that might struggle for a classification. I can see historically minded tourists thumbing through this as they travel around Britain. Conversely, local historians will appreciate knowing some of these place names. Moss doesn’t help himself in this regard because he omits to argue why we need this knowledge, which relegates his survey to the trivial in some ways. Yet a place name is important because it provides a starting point, a grounding, for that place, or a description long lost in the mists of time. That makes you see a place differently, through the eyes of those who named that place. This, therefore, could be a useful book for researchers as well as the merely curious.
by RNS | Dec 28, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Zvonimir Grbasic, The Templars at War (Pen & Sword, 2022)
It’s difficult to imagine the Crusades without the Holy Orders, and in particular the Knights Templar. Their red cross on a white background on cloth over their armour may be the lasting image of Crusader armies. But who were they? What did they do and how did they do it? Zvonimir Grbasic answers those questions and more in this enlightening and beautifully illustrated coffee-table style book.
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Grbasic begins by bringing together the early military histories of Christianity and Islam as they wind their ways to the Holy Land before the Crusades. The first of those came in 1096, leading to the siege of Jerusalem three years later and the development of the Crusader states. From that emerged the Knights Templar, in 1119, a warrior group dedicated to protecting Christian pilgrims. In 1139, Pope Innocent III released the Order from all obligations except to him, making the Order autonomous. In 1147, they began wearing the familiar red cross that Muslim commanders would come to fear.
How the Order was organised follows Grbasic’s origin story, including the evolution of heraldry, ranks, arms, and armour. No survey of this force would be complete with a consideration of the Order’s horses. Grbasic highlights the excellence of the Templar’s breeding abilities that gave them the best mounts amongst contemporary European powers. With the best equipment and horses, the Templars could be an extraordinary shock weapon in battle, and that is where Grbasic takes us next as he follows the Templars on campaign and in combat. Not that there were many tactics involved for a force that employed the mounted charge as its primary device. Grbasic also surveys logistics, chain of command, and the general campaign life of an ordinary soldier. The austere discipline of the Templars is made very clear.
There were other Orders in the Holy Land, of course, and Grbasic detours to survey them before moving on to the enemies they all encountered, many of whom were also accomplished horsemen. What the Templars did comes next in a narrative section full of battles, including those against their nemesis, Saladin, and a curious account of the Templars fighting against the Mongols in eastern Europe in the 13th Century. But it is the Crusades that merit most of Grbasic’s attention, concluding with the fall of Acre in 1291. In his epilogue, Grbasic summarises the Templars and their contribution to medieval military history. But in their success lay the seeds of their demise: they grew too wealthy and fell afoul of France’s King Philip who owed them a fortune. He destroyed them in France with Papal collusion, though those in England and some other areas fared better amidst the fallout, but the Templar Order had been fatally undermined and all but disappears from military history.
Grbasic has produced an excellent survey of the Templar Order. I say ‘produced’ because not only has Grbasic written a clear and authoritative text that entertains as much as it informs, but he also supplied the outstanding artwork – paintings and drawings – that elevates this book well beyond the run-of-the-mill images you often find in books of this nature. I expect that anyone with a passing interest in medieval warfare and the Crusades will find this book a delight and want to dive into the period to find out more. I know I do.
by RNS | Dec 26, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Alexander Mikaberidze, Berezina 1812 (Osprey, 2022)
Even by 1812, the reasons why you do not invade Russia were well known, and it would take an ego the size of Napoleon’s to ignore them. But he did, resulting in a frustrating military campaign followed by a disastrous retreat as the Russian winter enveloped his army. That any of his army survived at all probably comes down to a heroic defence of the crossing of the Berezina river. In this addition to Osprey’s Campaign series, Alexander Mikaberidze takes us into the heart of the action.
Mikaberidze begins by surveying the diplomatic background to the war between France and Russia, which seemed mutually acceptable by 1812. But Mikaberidze notes that while Russian knew what was coming, they were hardly prepared with only 250,000 men spread around three armies. Their only option was to retreat in the face of the French juggernaut, though they too had mounting problems as they pushed into Russia’s vastness. Fighting followed, which turned the French army. Thus, Napoleon’s famous retreat began pursued by the Russians who now held almost all the cards.
We are introduced to the main commanders on both sides with potted biographies and portraits. Then Mikaberidze moves onto the armies, beginning with the French Grande Armee, nearly 600,000 strong when the campaign started. By the bloodbath at Borodino in September 1812, that was already down to 180,000 for various reasons. More fell there and on the subsequent retreat, and losses in officers impacted command and control. By the time he reached the Berezina in late November, Napoleon could call on about 35,000 effectives to protect the crossing. Most of the Russian army ambled along behind the French, so not all could fight at the Berezina. Mikaberidze provides Orders of Battle for those who did.
After a consideration of strategies on both sides, Mikaberidze comes to the campaign leading to the crossing of the Berezina. The latter involved the French attempting to build bridges while the army held off the Russians. In this, they were aided by Russian intelligence failures and mismanagement. Finally, the Russians got into the fight, but by then much of the French army was over the bridges. The combat with the French rearguard was as fierce as anything in the whole campaign. That included the loss of a French Division at Borisov, which should have united 75,000 Russian soldiers, but petty command squabbles prevented that. Meanwhile, Napoleon deployed his reduced force for action on the west bank where he held some tactical advantages, but even then, it took an incredible Swiss counterattack to stall the Russian advance. Mikaberidze adds here that it was mainly non-French Allied forces that did much of the fighting. On the East bank, the French fought with equal courage, holding the bridge open for stragglers, aided by the weather and incompetent Russian command. The French escaped across the river overnight, but Napoleon barely had an army to command on his return to France such were his losses.
Mikaberidze concludes with the battlefield today and the contending views on where various events happened and what it all meant. Having read the book, I’m still not sure how to describe this battle, though Mikaberidze’s subtitle is ‘Napoleon’s Hollow Victory’. What is clear is that Mikaberidze has written a lively and coherent account of a series of complex events that formed the crucial passage of Napoleon’s inglorious retreat from Russia. He is helped by Osprey’s usual skill in illustrating their Campaign series books with maps and artwork. Students of the Napoleonic Wars will enjoy Mikaberidze’s book on its own or as a steppingstone to further reading.
