Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/August 2024/Book reviews
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Richard Doherty - Aspects of Arnhem: The Battle Re-examined |
- By Hawkeye7
Operation Market Garden has generated a great many books and two good films: Theirs Is the Glory (1946), filmed on the actual battlefield with veterans of the battle, including John Frost and Kate ter Horst, reprising their wartime roles; and A Bridge Too Far (1977), with an all-star cast and a script that also covers the American part of the operation. The battle holds a fascination for military historians, largely attributable to its uniqueness and breathtaking scope: landing three airborne divisions behind German lines to capture a series of bridges over major rivers, including the Meuse and the Rhine. That it was a defeat never bothered the British, who are accustomed to celebrating heroic failures. (And to Americans I say: Remember the Alamo.)
This is a very disappointing book. I was expecting a critical reassessment but it falls well short of that. It never draws all the threads together. Editing is terrible: many passages are repeated several times. The book references the literature on the battle, pretty much assuming that the reader, like the author, has a shelf of books on the operation. Unfortunately, most of the books in question are quite old, dating to the period after A Bridge Too Far came out and stirred up great public interest. It makes little use of more recent sources. The author picks on Lewis Brereton, who is a big target, since he was also involved in the attack on Clark Field and the raid on Ploiești, two other notable disasters, but the case is unconvincing. In particular, the author highlights the decision to have only one glider towed per aircraft, but omits the explanation that this was on account of the long range over which they had to fly.
Publishing details: Doherty, Richard (2023). Aspects of Arnhem: The Battle Re-examined. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-399-04391-5. OCLC 1369311813.
Christian Wolmar - The Liberation Line |
- By Hawkeye7
I am always on the lookout for books on the logistics of 20th century campaigns, and snapped this one up when I saw it. The book is well researched, and contains a great deal of new information. The author, Christian Wolmar, has written many books over the last twenty years, but almost all of them are about railways. This is not his first venture into military history; he wrote about the role of railways in conflicts in his Engines of War (2010). In any case he does not venture very far from the railway tracks.
This book is well written and well researched. It is aimed primarily at the general reader of military or railway books, and combines top-level overviews of strategy and how the railways fit into it with first-hand accounts. The author notes that while the Red Ball Express has received accolades over the years, the Allied transport system relied on rail, not road transport. It was not possible to maintain forces of the size deployed in North West Europe in 1944–45 using only road transport, which in any case was not designed for long-haul work.
The book recounts not just the operation of the railways, but the efforts by the Allies and Germans to demolish and rehabilitate them. It covers the British and French as well as the Americans. It contains a lot of interesting information, such as the fact that while Frenchmen drive on the right, their trains drive on the left like they do in the UK. (And an American attempt to drive on the right led to an inevitable derailment.) The book is not a dry recounting of facts and figures, but full of personal accounts. There are some minor errors: the US First Army was commanded by Courtney Hodges after 1 August 1944 (p. 211), and James Van Fleet was a general, not an admiral (p. 246). Nonetheless, highly recommended.
Publishing details: Wolmar, Christian (2024). The Liberation Line: The Untold Story of How American Engineering and Ingenuity Won World War II. New York: Hachette Books. ISBN 978-0-306-83198-0. OCLC 1396553160.
Alexander Merrow, Agnostino von Hassell and Gregory Starace - Caesar's Great Success |
- By Hawkeye7
Another work on logistics: while my special field is the 20th century, this title looked too good to pass up. The first chapter of the book is a brief recap of Caesar's campaigns in Gaul, Spain, Greece and North Africa, but it is presumed that the reader is wholly familiar with them. This is not unreasonable.
The book concentrates on the basics of supply and transport in a readable and accessible form. It is not chock full of jargon and figures, and there is minimal Latin and references to classical works. There is a chapter about subsistence, which describes how the Roman Army of Caesar's day was fed. There is a description of the diet and common beverages, such as the famous posca vinegar ration. Another chapter covers how supplies were procured and distributed. Caesar usually arranged for foodstuffs to be obtained from allied local tribes. Forced acquisition and pillaging were also employed on occasion. A defeated tribe was normally required to provide provisions for Caesar's army. This allowed him to operate well beyond the reach of supply lines from Italy.
The working of Caesar's supply lines is detailed, but the book emphases how he was willing to sacrifice security for operational mobility, moving away from his supply lines. The thrust of the book is about how logistical considerations affected Caesar's strategy, operational art and tactics. As with tactics, Caesar was not so much an innovator as someone who took full advantage of the possibilities of the military machine that he inherited. Each chapter of the book includes a recipe for a Roman delicacy, so the reader can bake their own Roman hard tack (bucellatum), make their posca and prepare their own langoustines with herb sauce ("serve with Roman mice").
Highly recommended.
Publishing details: Merrow, Alexander; von Hassell, Agnostino; Starace, Gregory (2020). Caesar's Great Success: Sustaining the Roman Army on Campaign. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Frontline Books. ISBN 978-1-47385-587-8. OCLC 1151197085.
Recent external reviews |
Overy, Richard J. (2024). Why war?. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780241567609.
- Milley, Mark (July 2024). "Humanity Finds Many Reasons to Fight". July 2024 book reviews. Association of the United States Army.
Grann, David (2023). The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. New York City: Doubleday. ISBN 9780385534260.
- Brantley, Richard R.G. (July–August 2024). "The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder". Military Review. Army University Press.
Sodergren, Steven E. (2017). The Army of the Potomac in the Overland and Petersburg Campaigns: Union Soldiers and Trench Warfare, 1864-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press. ISBN 9780807165560.
- Lyman, Benjamin (July 2024). "Review of Sodergren, Steven E.. The Army of the Potomac in the Overland and Petersburg Campaigns: Union Soldiers and Trench Warfare, 1864-1865". H-War, H-Net Reviews.
Hampshire, Edward (2024). The Royal Navy in the Cold War Years, 1966–1990: Retreat and Revival. Barnsley, United Kingdom: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 9781399041225.
- Smith, James W.E. (26 July 2024). "The Royal Navy in the Cold War Years, 1966-1990: Retreat and Revival". The Naval Review.
Laird, Robbin (2024). Australian Defence and Deterrence: A 2024 Update. Second Line of Defense.
- Blaxland, John (1 August 2024). "From the Bookshelf: 'Australian Defence and Deterrence: A 2024 Update'". The Strategist. Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
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