by RNS | Nov 2, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Brian Lane Herder, Manila Bay 1898 (Osprey, 2025)
Most students of US history know the importance of the Spanish-American War, particularly with regard to the nascent American imperialism of the late 19th Century. The shattering of the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in May 1898 played a significant role in fostering US control over the Pacific. In this book in Osprey’s Campaign series, Brian Lane Herder examines the actions that led to the fall of Manila and its place in the broader flow of events.
Herder places the battles at Manila Bay in their strategic context, setting them against the declining Spanish empire and a rising United States, which was stretching its wings across the seas after consolidating its internal land ‘frontiers’. In the Pacific Ocean, the US dominated Hawaii with a view to annexation. Then came the Filipino Revolution of 1896 and, in 1898, the Cuban Crisis and the ‘Maine Incident’, prompting a US ultimatum for the Spanish to evacuate the island. That led directly to war in April 1898.
Of the commanders at Manila Bay, Herder finds that the Spanish were ‘gloomy, fatalistic’ generals under threat of execution if they did not defend at all costs. For the Americans, Commodore George Dewey stands out as the leading commander. For the Filipinos, Herder highlights Generalissimo Emilio Aguialdo y Famy and General Mariano Noriel as inspirational revolutionary leaders. Herder considers the forces involved in the fighting, including the Spanish defences at Manila Bay, which looked better on paper than in practice. Herder also covers the main naval squadrons and the army, commanded by an obsolete officer class. The US navy was greatly underestimated although it had reinvented itself in the late 19th Century to become a modern, powerful fleet. The US army had also expanded and modernised by 1898. The Filipino insurgency also fielded an ‘effective and disciplined’ but logistically limited army. Herder argues that the Spanish knew they would lose the war, but that they must do so with honour. Defending the Philippines, however, offered their best chance of success. The Americans adopted a strategic approach, part of which was to attack the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. The Filipinos wanted revolution, and supporting the US was their best shot at that, although they operated in an atmosphere of mutual distrust.
Moving on to the campaign, Herder describes the extensive US preparations for war and their resolve to attack the Spanish in the Philippines. The US fleet in the region, under Dewey, inspected an empty Subic Bay, which meant the Spanish were in Manila Bay. The firing began with the shore batteries, but the US fleet ploughed on. They found the Spanish fleet off the Cavite Peninsula and opened fire. Herder narrates the action in what was a decidedly one-sided affair. With the Spanish fleet defeated, the Americans blockaded Manila. European ships soon arrived to observe, including the belligerent Germans who seemed to side with the Spanish for reasons still unknown. On land, the insurgents placed Manila under siege. Other insurgent operations led to the declaration of independence on 12 June. It took a while to organise the US land force for a Philippines expedition, and they didn’t sail until June, though they seized Guam along the way. Meanwhile, a powerful Spanish fleet that had sailed for the Philippines had to return to Spain to prevent a feared US naval assault. Back in Manila, the US expeditionary force had arrived. After a precarious start, the Americans built their strength to the point where the Spanish agreed to surrender the city but only after a fake battle to save their honour, which turned into the real thing. Spanish surrender was inevitable, however, and came on 13 August. The Filipinos were all but shut out of the city, but they would go on later to fight the Americans in a bloody war that lasted until 1901. The Philippines would not gain independence until 1946.
The Spanish-American War still causes controversy amongst historians, and Herder does well to include those issues within a tightly written narrative of events. Clearly, there is much more to all this, particularly on the political side, but Herder does enough to set the action at Manila Bay into its strategic context. This brief survey, therefore, scratches an itch while leaving the door open to further reading for those so inclined. As is customary, Osprey’s production values shine through with some excellent illustrations and graphics and a useful collection of photographs, especially of the various ships involved. Manila Bay 1898 is an interesting and entertaining read for anyone interested in US military and imperial history.
by RNS | Oct 24, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
James Titterton, Bouvines 1214 (Osprey, 2025)
You might think that the purpose of a military campaign is to bring the enemy to battle and defeat him. That was not the case in 13th Century Europe: campaigns were designed to coerce the enemy preferably without risking everything on a single engagement. But sometimes battles happen as when French king Philippe II Augustus turned to fight a coalition army at Bouvines, reshaping the destiny of three European dynasties and that of Europe. Medieval historian James Titterton is our guide to that battle in the latest volume of Osprey’s Campaign series.
Titterton first considers the commanders for the 1214 campaign. England’s King John was a capable military commander but politically inept. His ally, Otto IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, was a ruler in political decline and beset by dynastic conflict at home. They led a coalition of European nobles with axes to grind. Their opponent was Philippe II Augustus, the ‘ascendant power in Europe’, a severe and pious man who was also a ‘bold and dynamic’ general, according to Titterton. He was assisted by ‘Brother’ Guérin, bishop-elect of Senlis and an excellent general. Titterton raises the thorny problem of contemporary neutral sources before delving into the plans for each side. The coalition, he notes, was ambitious, with two armies operating in different theatres: King John marching north from La Rochelle, and Otto moving in from the north with no obvious military objective other than to harass Philippe. The French opted for a Fabian approach, avoiding an engagement until the barking Otto caught the truck.
European feudal armies were much the same, argues Titterton, differing mostly in organisation and finance. He then surveys the main components of medieval armies: the knights, mounted serjeants, and foot soldiers, of whom we know next to nothing other than they took the brunt of the vicious fighting that was the hallmark of medieval battles. Despite the general paucity of sources, Titterton notes that the campaign and Battle of Bouvines are well represented, including an accurate order of battle for both sides. The author follows those armies on campaign. John’s campaign in the south followed the typical pattern of raids and sieges, while the northern campaign proved less complex, with both sides making a beeline to Bouvines, where they would meet on 27 July 2014.
Although we do not have a complete picture of the battle, Titterton cobbles together a breathtaking narrative of the Coalition catching the French rearguard on the march, Philippe offering his crown to his nobles as a loyalty test, the French turning to fight, the slowly developing deployment, attacks and counter-attacks, the chaos of battle as ‘a spectacle of violence’, Philippe’s moment of peril, Otto’s flight from the field, and the collapse of the Coalition army. Titterton argues that the Battle of Bouvines decided the fate of three dynasties: Angevin, Capetian, and Welf. Otto all but lost his empire and returned to his estates a humiliated man. The triumphant Philippe turned south to take on King John. The latter, abandoned by his continental barons, had to negotiate a truce, after which he returned to England. The defeat of his coalition led to the signing of the Magna Carta. Philippe became the premier ruler of Europe, and his monarchy shaped the future of France for centuries.
Bouvines 1214 is a tidy introduction to a campaign and battle that is not as well known or understood as it should be. Titterton deftly handles the often difficult task of narrating a medieval battle, and his contextual material covers all the relevant factors. He also supplies a very useful list of books for further reading, reinforcing the idea of this book acting as a gateway into the period, as so many of the Osprey Campaign series books do. I was not convinced by Titterton’s argument on the decisive nature of this battle, but he certainly makes the case for Bouvines as a major catalyst for the fundamental changes that subsequently happened in Europe. Nevertheless, readers with even a passing interest in medieval military history and European history in general will appreciate and enjoy Titterton’s book.
by RNS | Oct 18, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Lawrence Paterson, Kriegsmarine North Sea Command 1939-42 (Osprey, 2025)
Readers of World War II will be well aware of the Battle of the Atlantic, with its U-boats and pocket battleships waging war against the Allies on the high seas. But Lawrence Paterson, in Kriegsmarine North Sea Command 1939-42, surveys the naval war off the European and British coastlines. Here the ships may have been smaller but the combat no less intense.
Paterson begins with the fleet’s purpose, which was primarily to protect its North Sea coastline and trade routes while carrying the war to enemy coasts. The North Sea also provided the jumping-off point for offensive operations in the Atlantic. All of that was set against Britain’s threat to blockade Germany. The Germans would do this, argues Paterson, through a form of nautical guerilla warfare, including attacks on shipping off the British coast and laying minefields. Paterson next surveys the classes of ships the Germans used to pursue their objectives: light cruisers, destroyers, torpedo boats and schnellboote, fleet escort ships, and minesweepers. He also covers the main weapons, such as torpedoes and mines, and here he includes cooperation with the Luftwaffe, though later we find out how ineffective that was.
With the ships and weapons all accounted for, Paterson considers the command organisation and sub-commands of this diverse fleet before taking a deeper dive into the complex roles of intelligence and logistics. Paterson closes with a narrative section on the fleet in combat, beginning in 1939 with destroyer led minelaying operations off the British coast sometimes leading to combat with Royal Navy forces. The action continued into 1940, with more minelaying and a disastrous friendly-fire incident leading to a drop in morale amongst the destroyer crews. That year also saw the invasion of Norway, involving much of the North Sea fleet, though they could do little to prevent the evacuation of Dunkirk in May. Here, Paterson brings the S-boats to the fore, highlighting their hit-and-run attacks on Allied shipping. The following two years saw a greater RAF presence, though mining and attacks continued, the tide was turning against the Germans. Paterson concludes that what had started out as a promising campaign ran into the same problems that doomed the Third Reich military campaigns elsewhere: the fleet was understrength, there was no clear strategy, and inter-service rivalry blighted operations.
I must confess, I did not have high hopes for this book about what felt like a secondary front in the naval war, but I was pleasantly surprised. Paterson’s narrative of the small-scale actions is well written and brings out the often knife-edge nature of this form of combat. His analysis also provides useful insight into how a promising early war situation for the Germans steadily turned into morale sapping defeat. As usual with Osprey, the author is well supported by high quality graphic illustrations, maps, and photographs of the various ships. This is a book full of incident, and naval warfare readers should enjoy it.
by RNS | Oct 10, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Philip Jowett, Central European Wars 1918-21 (Osprey, 2025)
When peace came in November 1918, the war to end all wars had finally ended. At least that is how the story goes for most of us. But the war that destroyed the Austro-Hungarian empire unleashed a tsunami of revolutions and conflicts across eastern Europe and the Balkans. In this volume of Osprey’s Men-at-Arms series, Philip Jowett surveys the men who fought those wars, what they wore and how they were armed, while providing a flavour of the main events in the period 1918 to 1921.
Jowett introduces us to the chaos that enveloped the Habsburg Empire after the armistice, helpfully providing a brief chronology. Then we meet the major players – Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes – and learn how they organised their armies. Jowett describes how these armies depleted the stores of the former empire for their weapons, uniforms, and equipment, though the Romanians and Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes benefitted from the support of the former Allied powers. Jowett moves on to the major operations, including the Carinthia War, Romania’s invasion of Hungary, the Polish-Czechoslovak War, the Hungarian-Czechoslovak War, and other conflicts involving the busy Hungarians.
This is a slim book that appeals to a niche readership. But if, like me, your gateway into a historical period is through understanding the human experience, however pretentious that might sound, then wee survey books like this can lead to more in-depth reading on the subject. Jowett’s text is an easy read and clarifying on a highly complex series of events. He is aided by Osprey’s graphic illustrations of soldiers and an excellent array of contemporary photographs. I expect that Jowett’s book will be well received by his target audience.
by RNS | Oct 4, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Lucy Betteridge-Dyson, Jungle Commandos (Osprey, 2025)
The story of Lieutenant-General William Slim’s brilliant campaign to drive the Japanese out of Burma in 1945 has rightfully captured the imagination of military history students. Set against that, the simultaneous operation to reclaim the crucial coastal Arakan region has been seen as something of a sideshow. In this new book from Osprey Publishing, Lucy Betteridge-Dyson rescues the fight for the Arakan from the shadows, highlighting an equally stunning victory without which Slim’s campaign might have stalled or maybe have even been defeated.
The Arakan campaign in 1945 was built on lessons learned from previous failures. This time, the campaign would have better commanders leading better trained troops in a combined arms operation some had doubted could succeed. At the forefront of the drive south to entrap and destroy the Japanese 28th Army were the Royal Marine and Army Commandos, in which Betteridge-Dyson’s grandfather fought, more than ably assisted by West African and Indian infantry. Betteridge-Dyson describes the formation of the Commandos and the raising of the West-African and Indian Divisions, and relates the myriad problems they faced, particularly from the unforgiving Burmese terrain, which included the familiar jungles and knife-edge mountains and adds the almost impassable mangrove swamps found along the Arakan coastline. And then there were the highly experienced and often fanatical Japanese soldiers determined to hold their ground to the last drop of blood. Yet Britain’s imperial forces out-manoeuvred and outfought the Japanese in a series of bloody fights culminating in the all-out struggle for Hill 170 at Kangaw.
Jungle Commandos is an excellent narrative history that brings the Arakan campaign fully into the light and easily earns its place on the Burma War bookshelf alongside Fergal Keane’s Road of Bones and James Holland’s Burma ’44. Betteridge-Dyson takes a while to set-up the campaign, but then the narrative flows, leading to the crescendo at Kangaw. The author also keeps the events grounded in the soldiers’ experiences, on both sides, allowing her readers to follow individual soldiers, their trials and tribulations, and their courage. She is particularly adept at emphasising the contributions from Indian and African soldiers, when most Anglocentric historians had relegated them to support forces. Betteridge-Dyson integrates those soldiers’ stories seamlessly into the broader operational narrative. All in all, this is a first class narrative of which Betteridge-Dyson’s grandfather would be proud.
