"Books the Generals Might have Read."

[Justin Moretti]

I'm looking for the sorts of books that might have been read and used by officers at the Staff College, Sandhurst etc. in the WW1 days and preceding. If Tim Travers ("The Killing Ground" etc.) is anything to go by, a lot of them didn't read much - but in that case, what were the titles that sat on the Staff College library shelves gathering dust?

What did the well-read young officer read to make himself a better soldier? I'm mainly looking for the more technical materia.

[joseph]

Field Service Regulations Vol I Vol II

Field Service Manuals from Artillery through to Signals

Financial Instructions in relation to Army Accounts

The Art of Command by Colonel Von Spohn

Instructions in the care of Barracks

Notes on Company training

Historical Records of the British Army

Just a few of many, there is also a list of books officers are to be in possesion of.

Regards Charles

[Paul Hederer]

I'm looking for the sorts of books that might have been read and used by officers at the Staff College, Sandhurst etc. in the WW1 days and preceding. If Tim Travers ("The Killing Ground" etc.) is anything to go by, a lot of them didn't read much - but in that case, what were the titles that sat on the Staff College library shelves gathering dust?

What did the well-read young officer read to make himself a better soldier? I'm mainly looking for the more technical materia.

I can give you one example, more operational and strategic in scope:

"Story of the campaign in eastern Virginia, April, 1861 to May, 1863: Including " Stonewall Jackson's " operations in the Valley," H.M.E. Brunker. I own a copy from an officer of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, dated 1912. The book has copious annotations about papers and discussions--it seems to have been used in some form of instruction.

Paul

[Pete1052]

My understanding is that the study of the campaigns of Lee and Jackson was part of the British army's curriculum at Staff College for about two or three generations. Colonel G.F.R. Henderson (1854-1903), a York and Lancaster veteran of Tel el-Kebir, wrote the book The Fredericksburg Campaign in 1886, which brought him to the attention of then-General Garnet Wolseley and led to his appointment as an instructor at Sandhurst in 1890. In 1898 he published Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, the book for which he is best known. Henderson was appointed chief of intelligence in South Africa in 1900 but he caught malaria and was invalided home, where he died in 1903. Regular officers serving in the Great War would probably have studied Lee and Jackson's campaigns.

[John(txic)]

I've heard "The Defence of Duffer's Drift" was also widely read.

[Ian Riley]

The pink pages at the back of Infantry Training and other official pre-war manuals will give a broader view.

Official History of the Russo-Japanese War produced by the Committee of Imperial Defence. This takes up about a foot of shelf space with its map volumes. My set (sadly short of Volume 1, probably still acting as a doorstop in some Macedonian farm) was sent out to an officer in Salonica for light reading.

Principles of War by Major General EA Altham (two volumes). He also mentions Précis of Modern Tactics by Colonel Home and Minor Tactics by Captain Clery but these sound more Sandhurst/Woolwich to me than Camberley although Altham's preface does place them in a Staff College context. The Solution of Tactical Problems by Lt Col J Layland Needham also comes with a Staff College utility 'puff' in its preface though I think it more of applicability in actually getting into Staff College than necessarily during the course. Layland Needham's book ran into a lot of revised editions. He revised it throughout the first fifteen years of the twentieth century at least; the ninth edition is March 1915 and it is the previous edtion of October 1914 that has taken into account the Four-Company organization.

Combined Training (a slim volume produced at the behest by Lord Roberts and amenended in 1905) also seems to be required reading alongside FSR.

Whether The Defence of Duffer's Drift with its 'Comic Cuts' cartoon cover (at least my copy has a jolly cover of the clueless and dreamy hero, Lt. Backsight Forethought, when printed in 1916) was actually on the shelves of the Staff College Library is another matter. However, given that it is advertised as being in its 'Thirtieth Thousand' it was obviously on a few military top shelves, probably not the sort of thing to be caught reading by your batman. More seriously it does say on the cover 'Reprinted in the USA and used as a textbook at West Point Military Academy and translated into Urdu for the use of the Indian Army.

Someone at the Foreign Office was reading a French-English Dictionary of Military Terms and Other Terms Useful to Officers (1905). In the latter category comes the word 'duvet', sandwiched somewhere between 'dureé de la guerre' and 'dynamite', and translated into English as 'eiderdown', presumably in case you need to reprimand the chambermaid in your Army Command chateau. The dictionary is one-way only. They did not seem to bother with English to French; presumably one relied on Henry Wilson being present or one just sent the interpreter from the room (for secrecy) and shouted a bit more loudly at your French counterpart.

My copy of Major General Aylmer's Protection in War (from the 'Pall Mall Military Series') was being extensively cross-referenced and under-lined by an excessively squiggly-signatured (and therefore anonymous) officer in Chitral during 1913 and 1914 although he does not appear to finish the book. Presumably he found other things to capture his interest later in 1914, polo perhaps.

Ian

[SMG65]

Caeser's campaigns were studied in the 1700's and 1800's - Napoleon certainly was a big fan of him. I would assume Great War officers also studied Caeser.

German and French officers would surely have studied the Franco/Prussian War of 1870, so why not British officers.

A lot of Generals had served in the Boer War so I would assume they would have picked up knowledge there without having to read about it.

Sean

[Justin Moretti]

Thanks, all.

I have the bulk of the text of Haking's "Company Training", except that the particular volume which served as the primary source had had some pages removed or lost long ago. I have a paperback reprint of the 1911 Manual of Field Engineering, and Dr Stephen Bull's "Officer's Manual of the Western Front". I have tried and tried and tried to find FSR Vol.1, 1909, and failed again and again. Somewhere I have a copy of "Duffer's Drift" that had been placed online.

I need to start scrounging for some of those other titles, as well as for things like SS135 (IIRC the one that Andy Simpson references again and again and again in his book on corps command). Thanks again. *Shoulders credit card and marches off towards online bookstores*

[Gibbo]

The Defence of Duffer's Drift is available online from several sources, including:

As a PDF file from Fort Leavenworth's website

As an HTML file from Fort Leavenworth

From another site as an HTML file but the maps are quite small

Fort Leavenworth is the US Army Command and General Staff College.