by RNS | Mar 16, 2021 | Beating Tsundoku
Michael Sage, Septimius Severus & The Roman Army (Pen & Sword, 2020)
Septimius Severus ranks as one of the more important Roman Emperors and he is well documented in the contemporary sources. As a military commander with no previous experience, Severus won two civil wars, defeated the Parthians, and overpowered the Caledonian tribes. Michael Sage had plenty to work from then when he came to write this biography of Severus with a military history slant.
Sage begins by placing Severus and Rome into their African context with Africa’s rise in prominence to become rich and influential. He also examines the sources that form a sound basis for understanding Severus’ reign in contrast to the previous century’s dearth. Then we move into Sage’s biography, beginning in Severus’ childhood and an early uninspiring career under the Emperor Commodus. When he fell in 192CE, which also marked the end of the Antonine Dynasty, politics at the apex of the Roman Empire fell apart. The elderly Pertinax became Emperor but he was unpopular with the Praetorians and assassinated. Julianus took up the position, but Severus reacted swiftly to dethrone him. Civil war followed in which Severus defeated Niger then Albinus. He established a ruthless control afterwards, thus securing his Emperorship.
Severus was more of an administrator than a warrior, notes Sage, yet his was a military victory. And he was soon at war again, this time with Parthia; he returned in triumph though not without a struggle. Sporadic fighting in Africa followed, but generally, Severus’ reign proved peaceful, at least from 203 to 210. Much of his time in that period was taken up with the succession (his sons hated each other with a passion), self-aggrandizement, and the political intrigues that go hand in hand with being Emperor. Severus’ last expedition was to a restless Britain and across the Wall to fight the Caledonian tribes. But he was seriously ill by this time and died at York in 211. The succession struggle that ensued was bitter but belongs to another story.
If you have read this far, you will no doubt wonder where the Roman army of the title is in all this. The answer is in the appendix where Sage describes the army at the end of the 2nd Century. Severus brought in several reforms regarding enlargement of the army, changes in command structure and terms of service. However, Sage does not dwell too long on any of these. So where does that leave us? Sage provides a well-written and confident potted biography of Severus, in which he picks his way through the various arguments that are closely tied to the sources and their interpretation of events. But other than the brief appendix, he offers little to justify the book’s title.
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by RNS | Mar 14, 2021 | Beating Tsundoku
Justin Swanton, Ancient Battle Formations (Pen & Sword, 2020)
In Ancient Battle Formations, Justin Swanton attempts to expand our understanding of the armies that dominated the classical world and sometimes beyond. Swanton laments the lack of hard source material, so he puts his sources on ‘trial’, setting what they wrote against other evidence to establish their plausibility. He notes how controversial his conclusions might be. Swanton argues that battle formations were designed to instil confidence in the soldiers whose battle usually came down to their fight with the man in front of them. A list of typical troop types follows before Swanton gets into his battle formation descriptions and analysis. Before you get too excited, however, Swanton makes it clear he is only examining three formations: the hoplite and Macedonian phalanxes and the Roman Triplex Acies; the three-line formation used in the Republic.
The discussion of battle formations begins with a chapter on the fundamentals of formations, including heavy infantry, cavalry, skirmishing infantry, peltasts, elephants and chariots (!). Swanton moves on to the Hoplite phalanx. He describes the phalanx’s origins, panoply, the famous shield that gave the hoplite his label, swords, armour, the formation’s structure, deployment and performance in combat, and an analysis of its effectiveness. Swanton’s description of the Macedonian phalanx follows approximately the same structure with detours for specific issues with this formation such as the problems associated with close-order fighting. Like the other two formations, the Triplex Acies begins with a description of an exemplar battle, this time Vesuvius in 340 BCE. Swanton then follows the by now familiar structure with a bit more evolution evident in the Roman legion formation. He also takes the time to dismantle the Roman quincunx formation. Curiously, Swanton does not attribute Roman success to their battle formation, but martial stubbornness, the cost of a soldier’s kit, and citizen military experience. Swanton concludes with a chapter titled The Golden Age of Heavy Infantry, which summarizes and justifies Swanton’s choice of battle formations to analyse.
Ancient Battle Formations falls into the category of creative speculation, which stands or falls on the nature of the ‘extra’ evidence brought into assist the primary sources. Ironically perhaps, Swanton’s best arguments are situated in his translations of those sources. Other interpretations slide along the scale of validity, depending on Swanton’s method of inquiry. In addition, a lack of footnotes for some important points makes it difficult to know where some of the analysis is coming from, although many of the major points made by the sources are made available in the text. It is also difficult to take seriously field experiments conducted with home-made equipment, while asking readers to look up youtube videos as evidence is a strange approach to descriptive writing. Nevertheless, Ancient Battle Formations is a thought-provoking book and Swanton, a graphic designer by profession, incorporates many excellent illustrations to bolster his arguments. He is also immersed in his subject and is worthy of our attention. Readers in ancient military history of the Classical period will certainly find Swanton’s approach and conclusions stimulating.
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by RNS | Mar 8, 2021 | Beating Tsundoku
Michael Livingston & Kelly DeVries, 1066 A Guide to the Battles and the Campaigns (Pen & Sword, 2020)
Who hasn’t heard of 1066 and the Battle of Hastings, the foundational battle in English history? And do we really need another book on it? Well, if two notable medieval historians are writing that book, then perhaps we do need to take notice. This is also an unusual little pocket-sized book designed for you to carry around on the five guided tours contained within, all of them relating to this most famous medieval campaign.
A colourful description of the end of Hastings draws us into this book before the authors fill in the background to William of Normandy’s invasion of England to secure the throne he claimed was rightfully his. With the stage set, they embark on their first tour: the origins of the conqueror. The tours in the book are preceded by the relevant background story, then the authors list all the best stops to complete their story, describing architectural, geographic, and cultural points of interest along the way. The other tours follow the Norwegian invasion that sapped much of the Anglo-Saxon strength over two battles; William’s landing and his road to Hastings; the fateful Battle of Hastings; and the victorious William’s march on London. The authors provide a helpful further reading list for when the reader is not on one of their tours.
1066 A Guide to the Battles and the Campaigns presents a straightforward narrative of these pivotal events in English history. That includes, however, vignettes on sources, some of the main players, archaeological artefacts, feudalism, aspects of medieval warfare, and other cultural notes that flesh out the context for the campaigns and battle. The book is also lavishly illustrated with colour photographs of locations, and it almost goes without saying that scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry are sprinkled throughout the text. All in all, this is an excellent little primer on 1066 and a first-class resource for those that want to follow in the footsteps of the victor and the vanquished.
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by RNS | Mar 1, 2021 | Beating Tsundoku
Yves Beraud, German Mountain Troops 1939-42 (Casemate, 2020)
For the German war effort in World War II, a clear bell curve emerges, illustrating their military rise and fall. The peak seems to occur sometime in 1942 when German expansion ground to a halt and defence and withdrawal became the dominant strategy. In German Mountain Troops 1939-42, Yves Beraud surveys a select branch of the Wehrmacht that fought at the cutting edge of the German advance across its European borders.
Beraud opens with a timeline of the development and operations of the Gebirgsdivision from 1935 to 1942. He gets into the details over the next series of chapters, starting with troop development before September 1939. The mountain troops first saw action in the invasion of Poland. They performed well, but it was not long before they displayed some disturbing practices in treatment of civilians and prisoners, which Beraud is a bit quick to excuse. From Poland, they helped attack Norway in 1940 and fought in some proper mountains in some proper winter weather. Afterwards, some mountain troops remained as the occupying force, while others took part in the invasion of France. The French offered stiff resistance at first, causing many casualties, but the advance was irresistible. With the French defeated, the Gebirgsdivision troops embarked for the Balkans and Crete in 1941. In Greece, they helped break through the Metaxas Line in difficult terrain but with considerable losses. The fighting in Yugoslavia was no picnic either but again they succeeded. In Crete, the Gebirgsdivision all but saved the combined air and sea operation from disaster, according to Beraud. Then came the Eastern Front. The mountain troops fought with Army Group South and breached the hastily constructed Stalin Line with relative ease, but the further they pushed, the greater the Soviet resistance, and then the weather started closing in. Spring 1942 brought more Soviet counterattacks and a thaw, bringing movement almost a halt until May. Some mountain troops fought with Army Group North that faced many of the same problems as their counterparts in the south. Beraud returns to Norway and Finland to review the mountain troops and their failed attempt to take Murmansk along with other operations in hostile conditions. Beraud concludes his work with appendices on organization, tactical symbols, and some useful abbreviations.
German Mountain Troops 1939-42 is a narrative operational history interspersed with vignettes on uniforms, commanders, and foreign recruits fighting for the Germans. Beraud’s text, structured somewhat repetitively in ‘clipped’ paragraphs with little extraneous detail, is supported by a great collection of colour and monochrome photographs – one with the men wearing patterned tablecloths to stave off the cold in Norway is my favourite. These were undoubtedly resourceful soldiers, marching thousands of miles across Europe, sometimes fighting on skis, often using mules in mountainous terrain to carry supplies, almost always taking on the hardest tasks at the cutting edge of German assaults. Beraud’s description of their hard-earned reputation as fierce soldiers, however, occasionally masks their more brutal methods, and his evident sympathy for them is sometimes unsettling. There is not much depth of analysis in this book, but it will appeal to readers interested in the German army in the early phases of World War II.
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by RNS | Feb 27, 2021 | Beating Tsundoku
Simon and Jonathan Forty, Tank Warfare 1939–1945 (Pen & Sword, 2020)
Is it possible to cover the entirety of tank warfare in World War II in just over 200 pages, including photographs? You might not think so, but Simon and Jonathan Forty set out to do just that by emphasizing the theatres of combat you need to know about while seeding their text with technical aspects of tanks and tactical vignettes on tactics and other useful pieces of information. The result is an engaging introductory survey that will appeal to general readers.
Forty provides tank-related abbreviations and Glossary to get the ball rolling, which is handy for the uninitiated. A potted history of tanks follows by way of an introduction, narrating the evolution of the machines and tactics by many nations through World War I and the inter-war years. Forty lingers on Nazi Germany and Heinz Guderian’s influence, which is fitting because the Nazis were ahead of the game when it came to tanks. That brings in the next chapter on the Blitzkrieg that showed what tanks could do, though Forty points out the Germans did not have things all their own way and had to evolve their tactics on the hoof. North Africa is next on this survey where the Allies persevered to overcome the Germans despite inferior tanks. The introduction of American designed tanks helped with that. The other major tank battlefield was the Eastern Front where a war of relentless attrition ensued that the Germans could not win. With the war turning in favour of the Allies, Sicily and Italy then Normandy became crucial battlegrounds for tanks and are given their due consideration. The most difficult battlefields were in the Far East where the environment often caused the problem for the Allies rather than the inadequate Japanese tanks. That concludes the narrative. Along the way, Forty injects many useful vignettes and sub-topics, including tank crews, concepts of armoured warfare and tactics, an extensive section on how tank battles were fought, and infantry cooperation with tanks. Forty closes with various appendices on Tank Guns, Gunnery, and Ammunition, Antitank Warfare, Tank Maintenance and Recovery, Tank Radios, Bridging and Bridgelayers, Amphibious Tanks, a survey of Allied Tank casualties in WWII, and Tank and SP Gun Production numbers.
The tracks could easily have come off this book because there is so much to cram into relatively few pages. Yet Simon and Jonathan Forty succeed in producing an engaging survey using elements of narrative mixed with description and analysis. They also avoid a dry and dusty text through an informal writing style that may not be to everyone’s taste but largely works. They are assisted by many interesting contemporary photographs and the vignettes sprinkled throughout. Their book is not for specialists and does not cover every aspect of WWII tanks, but for those with a general interest in the period, Tank Warfare does that job quite nicely.
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