The British Army In Battle And Its Image 1914 18

In this collection of essays of incomparable scholarship, Stephen Badsey explores in individual detail how the British Army fought in the First World War, how politics and strategy affected its battles and the decisions of senior commanders such as Douglas Haig, and how these issues were intimately intertwined with the mass media portrayal of the Army to itself and to the British people. Informative, provocative, and often entertaining, based on more than a quarter-century of research, these essays on the British Army in the First World War range through topics from a trench raid to modern television comedy. As a contribution to progressive military history, The British Army in Battle and Its Image 1914-1918 proves that the way the British Army fought and its portrayal through the media cannot be separated. It is one of a growing number of studies which show that, far from being in opposition to each other, cultural history and the history of battle must be combined for the First World War to be properly understood. For more information visit Stephen Badsey's website www.stephenbadsey.com .

A comprehensive new history of the shaping and performance of the British army during the First World War.

An indispensable guide to the British Army during the First World War covers the men who fought for Britain: from the ‘Old Contemptibles’ – the professionals who stemmed the German advance at the beginning of the war – to the Territorials, the ‘Derby Men’, Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ and the conscripts who eventually defeated the Kaiser’s armies four years later. Andrew Rawson examines the impressive contributions made by the Dominions and the Empire and explores aspects of doctrine, training, communications, strategy and tactics, together with divisional organisations, histories and the roles of the different Arms and Services. He reviews all aspects of the soldier’s everyday life – uniforms, equipment, rations, trench life, leave and military discipline – and profiles the commanders and the legacy of the war in art, as well as providing information on cemeteries and places of interest. It is all here, in one book.

This handbook explores a diverse range of artistic and cultural responses to modern conflict, from Mons in the First World War to Kabul in the twenty-first century. With over thirty chapters from an international range of contributors, ranging from the UK to the US and Australia, and working across history, art, literature, and media, it offers a significant interdisciplinary contribution to the study of modern war, and our artistic and cultural responses to it. The handbook is divided into three parts. The first part explores how communities and individuals responded to loss and grief by using art and culture to assimilate the experience as an act of survival and resilience. The second part explores how conflict exerts a powerful influence on the expression and formation of both individual, group, racial, cultural and national identities and the role played by art, literature, and education in this process. The third part moves beyond the actual experience of conflict and its connection with issues of identity to explore how individuals and society have made use of art and culture to commemorate the war. In this way, it offers a unique breadth of vision and perspective, to explore how conflicts have been both represented and remembered since the early twentieth century.

The First World War was a turning point in history. It marked the birth of the modern era and established the pattern for large-scale violence, devastation and genocide throughout the wars of the 20th century. Old empires disintegrated and new nations emerged in the maelstrom of the war and its aftermath. The peace settlements reshaped national boundaries, leaving tensions and rivalries between nation states and people that resonate to the present day. Historians continue to explore and challenge many assumptions and perceptions surrounding the conflict, from its origins and causes, to the responsibility for its conduct, the reasons for Allied victory over the Central Powers, and the consequences and long-term outcomes of that victory. This book is a collection of the latest research findings by scholars from a number of nations, many of them renowned specialists in their field. They gathered for an international conference, 1918 YEAR OF VICTORY, convened by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra in November 2008 to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the war and to share their insights into issues surrounding the ending of the war, its memory and continuing impact. Lively, authoritative and wide-ranging, the chapters span the themes of war strategy and planning; the problems of raising, training and maintaining armies in the field; developments in technology and weapons systems; the role of command; the evolution of tactics and the use of combined arms; the development of war economies; and the exploitation of human and material resources in war on the home front, on land, at sea and in the air. CONTRIBUTORS Jay Winter Yale University, USA Robin Prior University of Adelaide, Australia Gary Sheffield University of Birmingham, UK Robert Foley University of Liverpool, UK Elizabeth Greenhalgh University of New South Wales, Australia Meleah Ward University of Adelaide, Australia Ashley Ekins Australian War Memorial Peter Pedersen Australian War Memorial Glyn Harper Massey University, New Zealand Tim Cook Canadian War Museum, Canada David Stevens Defence Sea Power Centre, Australia James Goldrick Australian Defence College Peter Hart Imperial War Museum, London, UK Trevor Wilson University of Adelaide, Australia Martin Crotty University of Queensland, Australia Stephen Badsey University of Wolverhampton, UK

During the Allied victory celebrations there were few who chose to raise a glass to the staff. The high cost of casualties endured by the British army tarnished the reputation of the military planners, which has yet to recover. This book examines the work and development of the staff of the British army during the First World War and its critical role in the military leadership team. Their effectiveness was germane to the outcome of events in the front line but not enough consideration has been paid to this level of command and control, which has largely been overshadowed by the debate over generalship. This has painted an incomplete picture of the command function. Characterised as arrogant, remote and out of touch with the realities of the front line, the staff have been held responsible for the mismanagement of the war effort and profligate loss of lives in futile offensives. This book takes a different view. By using their letters and diaries it reveals fresh insights into their experience of the war. It shows that the staff made frequent visits to the front line and were no strangers to combat or hostile fire. Their work is also compared with their counterparts in the French and German armies, highlighting differences in practice and approach. In so doing, this study throws new light upon the characteristics, careers and working lives of these officers, investigating the ways in which they both embraced and resisted change. This offers evidence both for those who wish to exonerate the British command system on the basis of the learning process but also for those critical of its performance, thus advancing understanding of British military history in the First World War.

From 26 September until 8 October 1918, the Allied armies in France launched their largest ever combined offensive on the Western Front of World War I. The British, French, American and Belgian armies launched four attacks in rapid succession across a 250km front between the Argonne and Flanders. At the centre of this huge assault the British, First, Third and Fourth Armies, led by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, breached the formidable Hindenburg Line defences and drove the Kairser's Army from its last fully prepared defensive position west of the German border. The impact of this defeat had a shattering effect on the Germans with their army admitting for the first time that an armistice was required to save it from annihilation. Although these decisive results were to a large extent consequences of the battle of the Hindenburg Line, the subsequent controversies over the conduct of the war meant that it went unheralded and has remained Haig's forgotten triumph.

The soldier-horse relationship was nurtured by The British Army because it made the soldier and his horse into an effective fighting unit. Soldiers and their Horses explores a complex relationship forged between horses and humans in extreme conditions. As both a social history of Britain in the early twentieth century and a history of the British Army, Soldiers and their Horses reconciles the hard pragmatism of war with the imaginative and emotional. By carefully overlapping the civilian and the military, by juxtaposing "sense" and "sentimentality," and by considering institutional policy alongside individual experience, the soldier and his horse are re-instated as co-participators in The Great War. Soldiers and their Horses provides a valuable contribution to current thinking about the role of horses in history.