Victory on the Western Front: The Development of the British Army 1914-1918.

[Crunchy]

Victory on the Western Front: The Development of the British Army 1914-1918. Michael Senior, Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2016. 238pp

    

In Victory on the Western Front  Dr Michael Senior set himself a laudable and ambitious task: to describe the development of the British Army from a small regular  force primarily designed for garrisoning the Empire in 1914, into a multifarious, innovative force of 1.8 million men at its peak, which made a major contribution to winning the Great War.  As Dr Senior makes clear, the expansion and transformation was dramatic, and was a brilliant achievement that is rarely recognised in the historiography of the war.  Although a commendable effort full of information, the product falls short of a cohesive study of just how this Army progressively developed into the war winning organisation of 1918.

  

 With a focus on the Western Front, Senior presents his narrative thematically.  Commencing with the expansion and character of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), he then takes the reader through chapters discussing the generals on the Western Front, the Royal Flying Corps, Tanks, Artillery, Tactics, and the Western Front in 1918, before wrapping them up in a lengthy conclusion. Each contains considerable material and data on each of the subjects discussed, highlighting aspects of the improvements in technology, weaponry and the Army’s component parts, and the various tactics that were employed.  These are the strength of the book, and one gains a comprehensive overview of just how much was achieved over four short years, especially in the expansion of the force, its munitions, weapons, and techniques.

    

What is missing in most instances, however, are the details of how the improvements in tactics and techniques evolved in a progressive manner, their place in the overall maturing of the BEF, and their context in its integrated war fighting capabilities as the war ground on. Rather we are presented with a hodgepodge of issues that jump around from one year to another, and back again, leaving the reader with an unclear view of where each fitted, or tied in with other developments at the same stage of the war. Partly this is due to the thematic approach, but more often than not it results from the author’s disjointed presentation, and a style that lacks the finesse and flow of an experienced writer. Thus there is a degree of repetition within and between chapters. Moreover, rather than a story of steady evolution, we are offered slabs of information in a disconnected narrative, both within the each subject, and their relationship to other capabilities at a particular period of the war. 

    

This is disappointing as much more could have been done in detailing the introduction, implications, and integration of the many technological and tactical developments as they occurred chronologically.  This would have allowed a cohesive narrative, and progressive understanding of just how the British Army’s war-fighting capacity changed year by year.

    

Digressions into topics that have little direct bearing on the book’s principal theme are a distraction that add little to our understanding of the subject. For example, in the artillery chapter we are treated to a description of the Belgian forts at Liege, the German heavy guns designed to pummel them, and their subsequent destruction in the opening weeks of the war, together with two quite seperate discussions on work in British munitions factories and labour unrest in Britain. In the Chapter titled ‘The Western Front in 1918’ half is devoted to the naval blockade of Germany, the subsequent unrestricted submarine warfare, and its effect on the United States, followed by the situation in Russia leading to revolution, and its collapse as an Ally. 

  

 Despite these criticisms of presentation and style, Dr Senior has delivered an extensive overview of the subjects he addresses, and highlights just how much the British Army changed between 1914 and 1918.  For those with an extensive knowledge of its involvement in Great War, there will be little new for them here, but for people with little understanding of the subject, Victory on The Western Front : The Development of the British Army 1914-1918 provides a useful and informative primer that further, and comprehensively, dispels the long discredited ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ view of an incompetent British Army.  Read it as a launching pad into other, more detailed studies on the various aspects of a subject that is much misunderstood and maligned in the popular, but poorly researched and ill-judged literature of the Great War.
 

[josquin]

Crunchy,

As always, your review is informative and discriminating in its evaluation of the strengths and shortcomings of this

ambitious effort.  Do you have any recommendations for studies that present a more comprehensive, coherent and

sequential account of the evolution of the British Army during 1914-18?

Best regards,

 

Josquin

[Crunchy]

Good morning Josquin,

 

To the best of my knowledge there is no one volume that specifically addresses all facets of the development of the  British Army. Most books I have read look at various aspects of the development. For example Stephen Badsey's Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry 1880-1918 which covers the Great War in the last chapter, and Gary Sheffield and Dan Todman (Eds) Command and Control on the Western Front: The British Army's Experience 1914-1918. Another is Peter Simkins  From the Somme to Victory: The British Army's Experience on the Western Front 1916-1918 which I haven't read it yet, but am being sent a copy for review by Pen & Sword.  

 

Other Forum members may be best placed to advise you on other books.

 

Regards

Chris 

 

 

[paulgranger]

14 hours ago, josquin said:

Crunchy,

As always, your review is informative and discriminating in its evaluation of the strengths and shortcomings of this

ambitious effort.  Do you have any recommendations for studies that present a more comprehensive, coherent and

sequential account of the evolution of the British Army during 1914-18?

Best regards,

 

Josquin

You might like 'The British Army and The First World War' a collaborative offering from Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman, and Mark Connelly, which provides a narrative account of the Army pre-war, its expansion, and it's efforts in the war years. It is primarily about the Western Front, devoting only one chapter to the war elsewhere, but it is informative and readable.

Another book on the development of the Army is shortly to be published,  'Learning to Fight' by Aimee Fox. I have no knowledge of the contents, but advance publicity suggests a detailed look at the 'learning curve' and whether it actually existed, and fellow academics are being complimentary about it on social media. 

[Crunchy]

40 minutes ago, paulgranger said:

You might like 'The British Army and The First World War' a collaborative offering from Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman, and Mark Connelly, which provides a narrative account of the Army pre-war, its expansion, and it's efforts in the war years. It is primarily about the Western Front, devoting only one chapter to the war elsewhere, but it is informative and readable.

Another book on the development of the Army is shortly to be published,  'Learning to Fight' by Aimee Fox. I have no knowledge of the contents, but advance publicity suggests a detailed look at the 'learning curve' and whether it actually existed, and fellow academics are being complimentary about it on social media. 

 

 

Learning to Fight should be a good one Paul  Published by CUP http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/history/military-history/learning-fight-military-innovation-and-change-british-army-19141918?format=HB#Vs1bw3bxleg8Gbxf.97 and due out next February. IIRC correctly it is based on Aimee's PhD. She gave a very good presentation on the British Army's adaptability during the Great War at the Chief of Army's History conference (The Skill of Adaptability: The Learning Curve in Combat) in Canberra last month.

 

Regards

Chris

[paulgranger]

Chris

Thanks for the rep[y. I have her book on my wish list.

[josquin]

Crunchy and Paul,

Your recommendations are appreciated and I will follow-up on the books by Fox and Beckett et al..

I was hoping that someone had written a book examining British Army evolution similar to

Marble's three books on the artillery of the Great War, and Fox's book seems to fully address

this demanding subject. The story is as unprecedented as it is interesting in its development                                                                          from what was essentially a colonial policing and garrison force to a modern, mass army capable of

combined arms offensives on the largest scale.

Best regards,

Josquin

Edited 29 November , 2017 by josquin

[The Ibis]

Aimée Fox's excellent dissertation is online. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/6113/  Hopefully, her forthcoming book will add some new insights.

 

Here is a lecture she gave a few years ago.

 

 

Edited 3 December , 2017 by The Ibis

[Crunchy]

Josquin,

 

Another book you may care to read on British battle techniques and development during the latter half of the Great War is Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Western Front; The British Army's Art of Attack 1916-18. It is relatively old, being published in 1994, but there are copies at good prices on Bookfinder.com here: https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t1_1&qi=M7Y176.MsE6Z7HqC0tIV0Yn2VHU_1497963026_1:12:53&bq=author%3Dpaddy%20griffith%26title%3Dbattle%20tactics%20of%20the%20western%20front%20the%20british%20army%60s%20art%20of%20attack%2C%201916-18

 

Cheers

Chris