by RNS | Feb 1, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Gareth Glover & Robert Burnham, The Men of Wellington’s Light Division (Frontline, 2022)
The Light Division of the British Army was engaged in almost every encounter with the French in the Peninsular War. Operationally, that tells us something about the calibre of the soldiers who fought, but much of modern military history centres on what was it like to fight in this war; we survey war from the ground up. Fortunately, Glover and Burnham have uncovered multiple previously unpublished accounts from members of the 43rd Regiment of the Light Division and collected them in this volume for our enlightenment and enjoyment.
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The authors set the context for their sources with an annual history of the 43rd Regiment from their arrival in the Peninsula in 1808 through to their role in the Waterloo campaign. Fourteen accounts of varying lengths and quality follow, all written by officers with one exception, Private John Timewell who kept a journal of his actions in the Peninsula and the 1814 American campaign. Each chapter begins with a potted biography of the source and a note on any technical problems, mostly related to accuracy. The accounts are also well annotated with background information and clarifications on particular details. The accounts themselves offer valuable insights into military life in Wellington’s army, not just combat operations, although the latter provides the thread linking the accounts. Most of the accounts are letters, adding complexity to the soldier’s lives as domestic affairs rarely stop for wars and battles.
Glover and Burnham have collected a most useful anthology of primary sources, and they handle them with due caution, highlighting discrepancies where they appear as they inevitably do when hindsight is involved. Admittedly, this isn’t quite ‘ground level’ observation from the view of the common soldier – literacy and record-keeping were more within the purview of the officer class – but it is probably as close as we can get for the period. Nevertheless, for careful readers seeking to discover what it was like to be a part of Wellington’s army, this collection will inform and entertain.
by RNS | Jan 24, 2023 | Beating Tsundoku
Raffaele D’Amato & Andrea Salimbeti, Post Roman Kingdoms (Osprey, 2023)
The Dark Ages is a term long out of favour for the period between the end of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of the organised mediaeval world. But in some ways, it is still apt because of the lack of sources and artefacts. In this useful survey, Raffaele D’Amato and Andrea Salimbeti extract what they can from the evidence to reveal Britain and Gaul undergoing often violent reconstruction and the military means by which they did so.
In their introduction, the authors stress the importance of a transitioning sub-Roman period rather than a neat break with the Roman empire, though they subsequently talk mostly in terms of Post-Roman. We can see that transition in the helpful chronology the authors provide before getting into their more detailed survey. That begins with Post-Roman Gaul. The authors outline the history of the region with Roman authority collapsing amid armed migrations. We should, however, expect the retention of some Roman military methods in the new era, and so it proved, particularly with regard to titles and unit designations even as the main armies collapsed.
The action switches to Post-Roman Britain and the rise of the warlords in the wake of the Roman military evacuation. The authors visit the stories of Ambrosius and Arthur before touring the new kingdoms and moving on to their military organisations. That includes an interesting review of army sizes, illustrating how difficult the sources are to work with for this period. Archaeology is placed front and centre for the authors’ descriptions of equipment, arms, and clothing, though here too difficulties emerge with the paucity of finds and their interpretation. And there the book ends abruptly except for an excellent bibliography for a book of this type.
Post-Roman Kingdoms achieves its purpose in surveying the military aspects of the ‘dark ages’ in Gaul and Britain. The evidence is well laid-out, and though the authors sometimes edge into very technical territory with their sources, they just about keep the reader on track, informing without overwhelming. This being an Osprey book, you would expect quality illustrative support by way of artefact photographs and imaginative colour plates, but these are better than most Ospreys I have read, particularly the artwork. Overall, anyone interested in the post-Roman period of military history will find this book an excellent starting point for further exploration.
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.
