1812 Napoleons Fatal March on Moscow

It's a few years ago, but I read a review of this book and decided to buy it. Once bought it sat waiting for an opportunity to read it and was almost forgotten. Problem was that every time I thought about it I had a couple of books already waiting a turn. However I finally got round to reading it and have to admit I really enjoyed it. Part of the reason I took so long to actually read the book has been the idea that the part of the book dealing with the retreat would be repetitive and so grim as to wear down the reader. Whilst it is grim by the very nature of the retreat I feel Adam Zamoyski did a great job of narrating the events and kept the text fresh as he moved along the retreat.

Not that the book was all about the retreat of course, much of the book deals with the build up of events that lead to the forming of the Grande Army and how Napoleon and Alexander slipped towards a war neither really wanted and how the tragic events unfolded. Most interesting was the level of losses taken by the advancing army to which Napoleon was for the most part unaware as commanding officers gave false reports so as not to anger Napoleon. Indeed the whole venture showed that Napoleon seemed not to be his old self and the steady erosion of the army was avoidable to a fair extent and the rushed preparations and fairer to follow up orders sent was a root cause of the eventual loss of the campaign and the fall of France as the major power. Shades of Hitler's invasion from start to finish really are apparent.

Adam Zamoyski's view of Kuturzov being extremely cautious and incompetent really makes interesting reading and leaves the reader with the thought that if overall command had been given to a more aggressive and competent commander then far less of the Grande Army would have made it back to friendly bases and the 1813 campaign would have been much shorter if it had happened at all. This leads to the question of the possibility of the return to power of Napoleon and the whole 100 days campaign being a none starter? 

The book provides less meat for possible battle ideas than I was hoping for but certainly will add some flavour to anyone thinking of wargaming this campaign. I can fully recommend picking up a copy of this book though don't sit on it like I have done.

Civil Strife in the Midlands 1642-1651 Book Review

I have promised myself that I will try to blog about all the historical books I read this year, something I got out of the habit of over the last couple of years. I have owned this book for years, it was published in 1974 but uses a lot of first hand snippets that have become favoured more recently and as such has one foot in modern day writing. Indeed this could have been written more recently than it's actual date.

For anyone interested in the English Civil War (first) then this book is worth picking up, especially if you live in the UK with a price tag of £1 on Amazon, plus postage of course. Those who are looking for ideas for a skirmish game then this again will be a source of information. Some of which would transfer to other periods so has some use outside wargaming the ECW.

The main point behind the book is that the Midlands suffered more during the First Civil War and was more important to all sides than any other area. My view has always been that it's ironic that the first Civil War started and ended in Nottinghamshire but overall the war passed us buy in this area for the most point. This book goes someway to redress such a view but the truth is that it actually had less effect than the author claims. Sure both sides did march and fight their way through the Midlands but most of the actual battles that actually happened in the Midlands were on the midlands boarders rather more central (ignoring Naseby). I would argue that the North has a much better claim to most effected region, especially when you consider the time the Scottish field army spent in that area before coming south. 

However few books sell with tag lines of "not the most important, but things did happen here" OK not really fair as quite a bit happened in the Midlands and my main grip is the lack of detail R E Sherwood put into such activities but this is not a book about battles but social upheaval. I am not sure Sherwood actually had a good understanding of the periods weapons, tactics and battles and seemed to take too many sources at face value even giving many of the pamphlets the benefit of the doubt which is risky indeed.

So a book that took too long to get round to reading and a little disappointing but I am still happy I have read it and as mentioned at the price it goes for on Amazon it's worth getting for the reasons mentioned above.

Wellington in the Peninsula by Jac Weller

I bought this book well over a year ago from a local second hand book shop called Scarthin Books a book shop near Matlock Bath (in Cromford) Derbyshire. A bookshop I can not recommend enough for both second hand and new books. I have bought many a book there through many years though it has taken on a greater proportion of new books than in times past.

When I finally got round to starting reading this a month ago I thought it was going to be too infected with the need to push Wellington at the cost of all others. This was born from the introduction that talked up the companion volume that read very much that Wellington not only won the battle of Waterloo but could have done so if the Prussians did not turn up and that the other allied troops held him back!!

Fortunately I pressed on and whilst it often points out failings in some of the Spanish actions actually seems rather more balanced to both the Spanish and Portuguese than I expected. I still have no desire to buy the Waterloo book but will dive back into this book whenever we are looking to play a battle from Wellington's Peninsular period both to get a flavour of the battle but also an aid to which troops to use and the ground we will be fighting over. 

Typical of a book of this one's age the maps are not a great help but the short paragraph at the end of each chapter discussing the ground is a definite help. Indeed I am rather drawn to the idea of fighting through all the battles described in the book one after the other in a kind of campaign. What more can I say?

Amazon UK has it in paperback from 1p and in hardback from £9.99 to £16.99 for a new copy. It's also available for 99p on Kindle so a few good buys available.

I found Weller's style very easy to read and I give it a big thumbs up for those wanting something that has a nice depth to it but at the same time does not feel like your wading through facts and figures despite the fact that you are indeed doing just that.

The Anatomy of Glory, Napoleon and his Guard Book Review

Originally written in French by Henry Lachouque and adapted into English by Anne S K Brown. Brown (1906-1985) was an American who as a young journalist became very interested in France and Napoleon. It's a heavy hitter running to just over 560 pages.

Lachouque is unashamedly pro Napoleon and France and it shows greatly in his treatment of some of the sticker subjects such as living off the land and the treatment of the Spanish even stating that the Spanish resisting French domination was the core reason for these acts. Not that she was uncritical of French actions but even when she admits to any wrong doings she tended to give excuses for such as if that made such actions OK.

The main focus of the book is how the Guard was dressed and at what cost and goes into great detail down to the smallest of items. Whilst this is actually the least interesting part of the book for me it was still fascinating to read of the shear scale and cost that the Guard. In uniforms alone the expenditure ran into millions of Francs and these costs were not one off's but were regularly repeated. In the later years when the Guard was at it's largest this cost was such a burden on the state that it could be argued that the day to day running costs and regular uniform orders actually helped bring around the fall of Napoleon as France struggled to keep the army equipped and the difficulty juggling the finances to keep the country fiscally viable.

The campaign details are far less detailed and as it's focus is on the Guard tends to be incomplete. That's not to say it's not of interest to the reader who is solely interested in the military campaigns but it certainly helps to have a reasonable knowledge of the battles when reading this book. 

What I was a little disappointed in was that it was somewhat repetitive. Each time Napoleon stopped for the night Lachouque goes into detail of the Palace and who guarded Napoleon and often the comments are echo's of the previous few nights. The same can be said for when the Guard was at a battle but did not fight, the comments on their disappointment just seemed to be lifted from the previous battle and inserted again.

On the other hand I have to say that the illustrations are probably the strongest part of the book. Most of them will have been seen before but these are referenced in the main body of text and as such have greater meaning than in some other books I have seen them in.

What becomes very clear in the book is how little the Guard actually took part in the battles, they being mere spectators so much of the time. Again of great interest was how the Guard coped with the retreat from Moscow and the level of losses it sustained. I was not aware that post Russia the Guard started to recruit heavily from conscripts from the army and civilians who met the height criteria of the Guard. Indeed when reformed for the Hundred Days campaign the amount of untrained men in the ranks (especially the Young Guard) had to have effected their ability to fight and sheds some light on their performance at Waterloo.

I did enjoy reading the book and recommend it to anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars as Lachouque casts light on so many details than the typical Napoleonic book may not even mention.

Civil War:The War of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660 Book Review

As The title suggests this is not just a book covering the English Civil War but also the Bishops War and the following wars up to the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II. In fact it goes further with a short section running up to 1690 and the fall of Charles II

The book has just over 800 pages of written word with the rest of the 888 pages dedicated to index and bibliography. Indeed the list of books used is very expansive and probably less than the whole truth. Today's insistence on listed as many books as humanly possible is really off putting to me, especially as the list does not seem to match up to the references. 

Royle's style is relatively easy to follow and whilst this book does not roar along (over 800 pages of close printed text is never going to be a quick read) however it's engaging and for the most part an interesting read. It may be a bit much for anyone who does not have an active interest in the period but for those who do it is likely to have some details you may not already know and possibly a few you might question his view.

Given the page count you can expect most subjects to get good coverage, this is true for most events but others get quite little attention and some times I was left wanting him to go deeper into the subject. What you don't get is a great deal of social history or any real feel for what it was like for the common troops etc. This for me was not an issue as so many books these days are written with this as the main focus and I am more interested in the larger picture when it's the whole war theme. 

What I was a little disappointed in given the size of the book was the restricted detail of the battles. Given the thickness of the book I would have expected more detail. I know there are books catering for single battles but it left me thinking Royale may not have a good understanding of such subjects, a worrying weakness in his work if so. However he makes up for it in other parts of the book where he is more detailed and clear in his writing. Political and Religious subjects get full measure and how each group effected the others was well written. Also the sections covering Ireland was far more in depth than the typical book. 

I suspect the author is both Scottish and slanted towards Parliament from his interpretation of the events and his portrayal of some of the leading personalities within the book. From his feeling that Charles I was so divorced from reality to his indulgence of Cromwell when Cromwell deserved a greater censure.  Though this is nothing new as so many histories are towards one side or the other.

The only real issue I had with the book was the almost slavish reliance in Lucy Huthingson's published account of her husbands involvement in the Civil War and later events. He seems to take what she has written as gospel even though it was clearly written to place him in a good light (difficult as he was a Regicide and died whilst imprisoned) and drips venom on anyone she felt did not see events in the way she did or had any part against her husband. Hutchinson is quoted far more times than any other source, something that should not be considered anything but a worrying sign of over reliance on a dodgy source.

Apart from that rather glaring concern I think the book is well worth getting if you want a book that covers the whole period and helps you understand the wider picture without being too partisan to one cause or the other. Unfortunately it's not on Kindle as that would be the best method of reading as it's quite a heavy book.

Escape From Arnhem Book Review

I borrowed this book from the local Library a couple of weeks ago, even started to read it in the Library whilst waiting for the kids to pick their books. It's not a thick book running to 160 pages in total with a fairly low word count per page. As such I romped through it in a few days making me glad I did not buy it.

Godfrey Freeman had no intention of making his story into a book as he says their are many books on the subject and many of these are written by those who were better placed to write an authoritative book on the subject. This may be the reason he offers only a few pages to the subject of the surrender and a few more much later to his journey into Arnhem and what seems to be his only bit of actual combat.

One point that needs to be made early on, Freeman did not escape from Arnhem! and having read the book I can't help but think the decision to call the book by this title was not his but the Publisher. In deed Freeman comes across as a very decent chap and whilst he felt he did not need to add to the books on Arnhem I was left wishing he had written more on his experiences whilst caught in the cauldron. 

Freeman has an excellent style and left me wishing the book was much larger or that Freeman had written more books, I would be happy too read books on other subjects by him as his style was so good.

Humour runs through the whole book as does self depreciation, Freeman kept moving from the story to dash back in his past or the occasional step forward. Some of those dashes though were irrelevant and added nothing to the understanding of the situation or his frame of mind at the time and seemed to just be filler. However these diversions did not derail the narrative nor diminish the enjoyment of the book.

Still I felt the book could have been more and some of the events were rushed through with to little detail. Probably the result of too many years between the events and the writing them down. The story of the escape (from a military hospital) and the Dutch he met along the way who helped him is the real story and you can not but be amazed at the bravery of the Dutch civilians who risked not just their own lives but that of their family and even neighbours. 

It's well worth a read for sure but alas not the full purchase price as it's over just too quick and has little re-read value. Amazon has this on Kindle for £7.20 and Hardback for £15.63 and is published by Pen & Sword. I would recommend getting it from the Library if possible given the speed you will get through it.

I will give it 7 out of 10, really glad I read it but won't pick it up again.

The Recollections of Rifleman Harris Book Review

It would be fair to assume I had either given up on reading or doing book reviews on the blog but in reality it's been a mix of reading the wrong books and just not getting round to it. Expect a bit of a rush as I catch up with some of the books I should have reviewed.

Some of you may remember that I won a blog-giveaway some months ago ran by Loki on his excellent blog Lokis Great Hall. I collected the book (and a bonus second book at Blog Con two). It's a fairly slim book running to just 128 pages including the index but excluding the forward by Christopher Hibbert. The pages are not exactly filled with tiny text either so you can be sure it will rattle along at a fair pace.

Whilst most readers of this blog will not need introducing to Benjamin Harris a few will not be aware that this is the man Rifleman Harris from the Richard Sharpe books. Harris was made one of the Battalions cobblers and as such was often made to repair the boots and belts of his comrades even after long marches where all that was wanted was sleep!

Hibbert in the introduction points out that he has made no attempt to correct a few mistake is the original manuscript but also points out how well Harris had managed to remember the events that he recalled so many years later. Indeed praise should also be given to Henry Curling who took down what Harris as accurately as is assumed.

For the Napoleonic fan and indeed those of Sharpe it's an interesting book for sure, though I would disagree that it's essential or even all that important as it really does not fill in gaps others books may have failed to fill. Not that I think it's not worth reading, indeed if you have an interest in the period, especially early Peninsular then this is well worth reading and it does add some colour to the works dealing with the wider view. This after all is an account of one man, not privy the bigger picture and unable to distinguish the truth from what he did hear. Despite all this what you do get is a great insight to what the common soldier was expected to go through and what he thought of such. Whilst Harris would not have had much of an education he still was obviously quite intelligent. Not only could he spin a good tale he was able to keep it in context much of the time. 

For such a short book he still manages to start being somewhat repetitive which in my mind adds to the account as it shows the level of mundane that takes over the troops lives when on both active and garrison duty. The retreats Harris was involved in are testament to this, Rifles lead the advance and take up the rear in retreat, something that Harris tells with a mix of pride and a sense of unfairness.

The book has had a good number of published versions through the years a testament to it's timeless appeal. The version of the book I own is on Amazon.co.uk for £10.00 new or from £0.01p second hand. Well worth the cover price but if your just wanting to read and be done then take the cheaper option. A different version not edited is also available on the Kindle for £3.20

1815 The Waterloo Campaign Book One by Peter Hofschroer

Maybe I like to be different, or was just plain lucky but I read the second book in this series first. That one covers the battle of Waterloo and the rest of the campaign until Paris fell. This book covers the campaign till the end of the 16th of June.

So why am I so pleased to have read the second book first? Well Hofschroer is akin to a rabid dog when it comes to Wellington in the first book and if I had not already read the second book which looks like his publishers forced him to rein in the hate. It's not that he does not have a point, it's the delivery and the rate of delivery. A brain damaged goldfish would understand that Wellington was a deceitful, self promoting, deceitful, lying, deceitful cad. The reader, well this one started to wonder if their was any direction to the book as Hof. again and again took the slightest opportunity to point out one or all of the above points. Indeed more than once he stretches credibility to tie in another attack on Wellington. If your looking for objectivity, look elsewhere. The crying shame is that it's a great book turned into a good book and should be read as it supplies a much needed view of the German side of the battle though he admits that he has slanted the narration massively in favour of the German so as to right the balance against all the English slanted accounts in print. Well that makes sense on planet stupid. 

I would still recommend reading both books (but in order) though I would say that his attitude is enough to get a sympathetic reader to start to resist his view. I think he added about 5% to the page count just on his attacks on Wellington, some based on flimsy points but here is the real shame it's mostly just repeating what he has said before. He is writing about Ligne but he harps on about something that happened two days before, then moves onto Quarte Bras and again out of context reminds the reader about said event. Often each reason to have a go at Wellington is repeated time and time again. Indeed the last chapter was all about Wellington's failings and one point was driven home at least five times with no explanation why he felt he had to repeat the point so many times. That chapter took some finishing not because I became angry, I just got bored. 

I think if you want to understand the 100 days campaign these books are a must if you want more than the Wellington subscribed view of the events but don't take his word for anything that involves Wellington and do read Waterloo New Perspectives by David Hamilton-Williams which is a more neutral view point. 

ISLAND OF FIRE, The Battle for the Barrikady Gun Factory in Stalingrad November 1942 - February 1943 Book Review

If you think the books title is long you need to see the book! This beast comes in with a whopping 641 pages, but that's only half the story. Whilst the book has lots of photos, many of them never before published and mini maps showing the action being covered the majority of the space is reserved for fairly small type text as you can see below.

Jason D. Mark is not only the author of the book but owns the Publishing Company who produce it, Leaping Horseman Books. This is a very small publishing house specialising on the Russian Front in WWII in general and Stalingrad in particular. They have to date (including a soon to be published book  ten titles of which four are written by Mr. Mark, one co-written by him and two books in part translated by him! Quite simply the whole thing stands or falls based on his shoulders and it's fair to say that you have reason to be weary of such an organisation especially when you see the price tag of books themselves.

When you consider that Mr. Mark is not a qualified Historian and indeed has been attacked for presuming to have written such books as this without such training by others who do have such training then you may be forgiven for hearing warning sirens in your head. However unqualified Mr. Mark may be he has managed to get access to far more unused sources than any other recent author qualified or not! However I really can't comment on how well he has managed to sift through this and come up with a balanced or enlightened view. If I was put on the spot I would say he does allow his attachment to the combatants to colour his opinion and he does come across as naive regarding the brutality that both sides were clearly not just capable of but performed throughout the whole of the war let alone specific to Stalingrad. This does not really make his work overly flawed but the reader needs to realise that it's possible that the author fails to see what he does not want to see and this could impact on other details within the book.

Stalingrad was a huge battle and given it's pivotal roll on the Eastern Front and as such the whole war it has had a great deal written about it. However to my knowledge no book has ever gone into the detail as this book. It's not just day by day, it's building by building, many of the men who you get to know through the book die further in the book, many more go missing, this is a relatively recent way of writing books and in this case many of these men can be fixed in your mind through photographs so it can get personal for the reader as well. Mr. Mark shows a tendency to show a neutral stance during the narration but I am not convinced this is more than smoke and mirrors. To me I believe he is pro-German if only for the tragic end for oh so many of the men of the Sixth Army.

Mark's objective seems to have been to make the whole battle a more personal affair taking just one section of the battle and focusing on the combatants in this relatively small area of Stalingrad. This is the part of the city that for the most part was a war of attrition over blocks of buildings and factory complexes then as the offensive power of the Germans waned the fight became a battle of singular buildings and finally down to room by room bloody affairs. He does an excellent job of using the combatants own words and adding the detail missing to give you a fairly clear picture of where and when these actions took place. 

Unlike so many other books that will zoom in to give you some specific detail to highlight events in a sector then zoom back out quickly to brush over other events and on with the main narrative. For Mark this IS the main narrative and as such he only zooms out occasionally so as to give the reader a quick look at the bigger picture. As such the book is a treasure trove of detail for the urban skirmish wargamer, not just WWII many of the little actions could be transferred into many a setting, especially given the claustrophobic nature of much of the action.

Anyone who wishes to play the ASL Red Barricades campaign, this is indeed essential reading and will go a long way towards making you realise what a sterling job the designers did with that module. Indeed it's such a deep pool of scenario ideas for ASL I would not be surprised if a good number have not had this book at the heart of their creation. 

If you want to read the book for the history then you will get a lot of nitty gritty detail, Mark does a good job of keeping it in context to the bigger picture and makes sense of why the battle broke down into attacks on single buildings and why and how the Germans were sucked into a high cost low gain assaults and why it ultimately failed and then how they changed tactics which were working. This book indeed supplies better answers than many a history book dealing with the battle in it's entirety. However don't be fooled into thinking the lessons learned about the Barrikady can be repeated for the rest of Stalingrad, not that Mr. Mark attempts to connect the two. This is in a way a weakness of the book, it's never sets out to be a book about Stalingrad, yes it covers the run up to and post Stalingrad battle but this book is squarely dealing with the factory complexes that became cut off from the rest of the Russian lines except by the tenuous link via the Volga. 

If you are new to Stalingrad then I would suggest one of the other great works available on the battle but if you have a particular interest in this part of the battle or already have a firm knowledge of the battle then this book has a lot to offer. However it's not without possible pitfalls. The book starts to fall into a steady pattern that whilst giving a real feel of the daily grind of the late stages of the battle also by definition starts to become a little tedious as a pattern emerges with little sign of the German's bucking the trend. As such I found it starting to lag and even looking forward to reaching the end just to break the cycle. Fortunately it managed to keep my attention to the inevitable collapse, if only just at times.

The book could have ended here but Mark had gathered far too much material to just leave in there and instead gives a potted history of all the Pioneer units that were brought into the battle about midpoint. The trouble for me with this was that I was ready to put the book down and move on so reading one potted history after another (and their being somewhat similar) really ended the book on a downside. With hindsight I would have done much better to have put the book down, read another book then returned to the latter sections of the book a little more fresh and enjoyed the final chapters that bit more. Given the weight of the book how uncomfortable it can get with prolonged reading always at it's worst at the start or end of the book it was a bit too much a bit too late.

However if you a big fan of Stalingrad and or small unit detail then this book may well be a perfect fit for your library. Given it's an Australian book and at the moment out of Print in Hardback (mine is paperback) it can be a little hard to track down. Leaping Horseman Books have copies of this book in softback for sale at $100 Australian, $92 US, 70 Euro or £60 plus postage which is to say the least, eye wateringly expensive. 

The second hand market may be the direction to go, it seems to hold it's value well as more people seem to want to own it than copies to supply all. E-bay At the moment no copies are on e-bay UK though four other books are for between £40 ish and £70+, it's a sellers market.

One Square Mile Of Hell Book Review

It was not that many years ago when I could say that I had not read a single book on the Pacific and even go as far as saying that I doubted I ever would. If you guess that the HBO series The Pacific you would miss your target. Indeed by the time I got these on DVD I had already read Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed, both worth reading by the way. No, my interest in the Pacific war came with my taking the plunge into the jungle in ASL. As I got to enjoy the PTO scenarios I got more interested in the history of the battles. Having watched Thin Red Line a couple of times and not many other WWII films on the PTO really left me without a vision of the battles. John Wukovits book was actually one of the first I read on this theatre, as such I was revisiting old ground. 

That may be so but the it did not feel old to me, not at all. I once read a book on the Battle of the Somme, this book reminds me of that but where in that case I was left worn out and rather bruised from such a waste of life this book both manages to get under your skin and yet uplift you in almost equal parts. This book is typical of today's mass history books in that it is not a dry or small detail book that most professional historians had put out for so long but uses quotes from interviews and original letters etc. so that the human face of the battle comes across, indeed it is the mainstay of the books appeal. Whilst I do like the dry by the numbers books and more from a distance style of writing I also like the in close and personal style when it's done well. Too often though it's not. Too often the writer seems to ignore the cold facts so that he or she can conform to a favourite witness. It's a sad fact that many witness statements are full of inaccurate statements, mistakes and down right lies. Not surprising when so many interviews are conducted decades after the event. Even when events are written about soon after the event the account is coloured by lack of the bigger picture, reasons to expand one's involvement  or the wish to protect a lost buddies memory. In short this style of writing is both much easier to do and more difficult to do accurately and many a book that tries has glaring errors that even fairly basic research would have brought to light.

I do not know enough about the battle to say if this has happened at all with this book, though I caution that it is not the way of men to bring to the fore their buddies failings when talking about their deaths. From this book you get a sense that the Marines were made up of virtue and light, I counter that many may well have had those virtues but on that small atoll it was something far more base that kept them going forward than faith, love and charity.

Wukovits has used skill to bind the period of pre-war America, the lives of some of the troops to be involved and how they went from for the most part high school kids to the men about to storm the most completely defended island in the Pacific. he does this delving into the childhood of some of the soldiers he picks out to follow. In short he manages to get you to connect with these men and as you go through their training and deployment you get a sense of knowing them. Just like in fiction the author needs you to care about the characters and he did a good job with me.  The first 100 odd pages are filled with this, spending a few paragraphs on their first campaign and whole chapters on the period between this campaign, the rest and training period in New Zealand and voyage out to Tarawa. The next 100 or so pages deal with the battle and  the last 50 deal with the aftermath of the men and family's of those who were killed and the effect on the home front. Wukovits certainly has the skill of a writer as I am not a fan of to much filler. A book covering a battle should not have over 60% of it's pages filled with either what happened before and after unless it's as relevant to the battle as the battle itself. That is where the facts and figure books tend to have the advantage, they put the battle in perspective to the campaign or war and get on with the matter in hand. Sometimes it's important to know the logistics involved, often you need to know how the outcome of the battle went on to shape the future campaigns and it's value to the war itself. However the people history style of book often fails to put the battle into full context and often fills the pages with unimportant facts about the bit characters of the battle, who happen to be major actors of the book. This is the case with this book but at least it is done well, you do care about the people who populate the book and when some of them die it is real, it's the truth and it happened. Of the personal perspective style of writing this is in the better vein.

The true skill of Wukovits is in the middle section, the period of three days that the battle was fought. The nature of the battle meant that most of the action was very similar if not the same as each other. There is only so many ways of describing combat that especially was the same time after time. Somehow he manages not only to not make this just repetitive page by page but he manages to embrace that repetition and turn it into a positive feature of the fighting. Again it shared some of that book on the Somme's mind numbing brutal repetitive death into a more personal and feeling death. This is down to your living through some of the normal parts of the lives of these people but of course it's the detail of the individuals that means that the book as a study of the battle itself is flawed. If you want to know what it was like to wade ashore through bullet swept waters, to know that to get up to move forward an almost certain death or injury then this is for you. How ever if you want to know how this plan was to be devised and what was done to improve the situation and how it shaped future operations this is just not the book for you.

Personally it fulfilled the small unit action interest that I have, it's made me want to play something from the MMP's Bloody Reef Tarawa, maybe even the beech landings themselves. The two books I mentioned before are better if you want to know what it was like fighting through campaigns and getting the day to day of battle. This is a snap shot of the battle, focusing in on single men spread out across the battle who were picked out either because they were still alive to talk about it or because their loved ones or comrades told their story. It's both sad and uplifting, the Japanese side is told as best as possible and considering only 17 men survived the battle this side is told fairly well. Recommended reading even if your a dogface or none PTO fan, just for the sheer guts and human story.

Peninsular Cavalry General 1811-1813 Book Review

 

 

Peninsular Cavalry General edited by T.H. Mcguffie is a series of letters sent home by Lt. General Robert Ballard Long to his brother Charles. Though in fact it also covers his life up to taking up a post in the Peninsular and has a narrative from the editor. The great thing about Long's earlier life is it is kept fairly brief running to 44 pages but with enough information to be interesting and help understand Long's attitude during the rest of the book.

 

However McGuffie had an agenda in editing this book. The letters are taken from nine volumes so a great deal of Long's correspondence is missing, much of it of no relevance or use in telling the story. But on has to wonder how much material was left out that would harm McGuffie's view of Long. To put it in modern terms, Long was somewhat of a prick! Sure this comes through in the letters but given what you do read you just know so much more is left out. Now I am not saying that I developed a dislike for Long, far from that and I could see where he came from but much of what made Long of interest to McGuffie in the late 40's and indeed to me today was exactly the stuff that would get him treated as he in the end was. Long is great in his inability to hold back his scorn of others whilst taking insult of anything said against him. Add to this his inability to be a good subordinate but seemingly a rather good commander of others. Long curiously though hated war and it's cost of human life and was responsive of the suffering of the Spanish under both French and British actions. Through the whole book the breach between Long and his original commander Berisford is never far from the surface and Long's refusal to let it go was in fact the ultimate reason Long suffered the end of his career in the way the way he did. Not that this was the only friction Long happened to have with his superiors but it was the one that ran the longest (in fact long after his death).

 

What you get from this book is details of the daily life of the commander of a brigade and the little details such as coming across a common soldier burying his brother. Long actually had a good eye for what was to come but with a fair chunk of pessimism that must have drove his superiors nuts. McGuffie does a good job of supplying a summery of the coming chapter and fill in in the detail that helps make the letters more sensible. I have to admit though that to say Long was in action for the best part of three years he seemed to be in far less action than you would expect. His moaning also sometimes gets a bit much and he can be a bit of a bore but overall this book supplies a great deal of information that is not in the typical book about this period.

 

Long did not serve with Wellington until the last campaign, rather he was part of the southern army that mostly acted independently. It's purely conjecture asking the question of would Long have fared better if Wellington had a more direct contact with Long or would it have sped up his return to England? The book provides a few scenario ideas, more of the skirmish variety than set piece and I would recommend the book to anyone  who has beyond a passing interest in the period.

 

I bought my copy at a local book store that stocks many thousands of second hand books as well as a fair few new (Scarthin Books) and doing a search on the Internet it seems very likely this book only had the one printing (1951) but copies of the book are available between £5 and £20 for the most part with the odd copy in excellent condition running to £50+ I  paid £6 for mine and it was money well spent. Modern revisionist works have tended to portray Long in a better light than contemporaries and earlier works, maybe this book and the Napier correspondence have influenced this change of attitude, if so McGuffie will have achieved his aim.

Anglia Rediviva Book Review

This review I fear will be of little use to all but a few readers and as such I will be keeping it brief. Anglia Rediviva was originally written in 1647 by Joshua Sprigge who was Sir Thomas Fairfax's personal chaplain whilst he was the commander of the New Model Army. The book relates to the forming of the NMA through to the surrender of the last Royalist Garrison on the mainland. It has received a number of reprints but currently out of print but still possible to get hold of.

 

This book has been used by generations of historians as a corner stone of their own books and remains to this day a very important text for anyone wanting to understand the final two years of the First Civil War. Though it's value does not stop here as it gives a good idea of what it was like to campaign during the mid 17th Century. Sprigge goes into detail of some of the more mundane aspects which is a boon for those interested in the day to day stuff.

 

Also included is a list of Officers names and which regiments they served in, final rank achieved or fate for the unlucky. Another really useful appendix is a log of the armies main line of march including the dates and miles travelled. Again great stuff for wargamer and history fan alike. Often detachments of the army were sent off to either to blockade or lay siege to locations or to screen or block enemy forces. This Sprigge covers fairly well as he does events away from the army. Surprisingly Sprigge does a good job of linking this as a whole narrative and was way ahead of his time. One major item he has neglected to record (as has everyone else) was the make up of the colours of the New Model Army of which we know next to nothing about.

 

Reading this book is always fun in that it is written in early modern English or as Sprigge would have it Englifh. With far to many f's and v's and a real shortage of s and w just to name two letter changes. Once you get used to it all is fine, Latin sometimes gets thrown in as a quote but you still get the gist.

 

However you need to know the period fairly well or read a modern book on the same subject at the same time or run the risk of taking as fact some of the assumptions both of the day and of the political stance. The book being published less than a year after the final garrison had fallen and whilst the king was a prisoner but still treating with Parliament whilst trying to gain advantages with any party that would support him and the New Model was clamouring at it's loudest for money, rights and power. Sprigge is unashamedly pro Fairfax who to be fair everyone likes, possibly because he did what he was paid to do then dropped into the background having done his duty. But he also sees God's hand in all that goes Parliaments way and ignores when it does not. What Sprigge fails to acknowledge is that in the final months of the war when all was seen to be lost it was not providence that delivered such strong garrisons but a realisation that defeat had already overtake their cause when the King surrendered himself to the Scotts.

 

The best book on The New Model I have ever had the pleasure to read  is The New Model Army by Ian Gentles published by Blackwell. Amazon has this book for between £450.00  and £37.53 for hardback (yippee my copy is MINT) and £22.70 and £14 for paperback.

 

Anglia Rediviva is also available on Amazon for between £200 and £8 based on hard back, softback or limited numbered edition.

Battle For Budapest - 100 Days in World War II Book Review

Driven by recently playing a couple of the scenarios from Festung Budapest (the latest Historical Module from MMP for ASL) I revisited this book. It's been a few years since I first read it and my view of it really has not changed much with a second reading.

The Author lays out a fairly clear account of the events leading up to the encirclement of Budapest and then breaks down the stages of the battle leading with the Pest side of the siege first (Budapest was effectively two cities astride the Danube). This actually helps focus the reader on set parts of action, the time line can be slightly blurred but Krisztian Ungvary references key events to help keep track of events. With Pest falling before Buda it also made sense to use the reverse order of the cities name. The translation is for the most part very good making the reading of the book somewhat smooth. However the extensive use of Russian Names for the lesser part and the greater use of Hungarian place names around Budapest and extensive use of the names of Hungarians makes for a challenge in both reading them and remembering some of the people cropping up occasionally. Given that this is a human story as well as a history this makes it harder to empathise with the lesser characters.

Ungvary strives to put forward his view that this was the longest and bloodiest siege of WWII. To make this true he turns the siege of Leningrad into a blockade which in my eyes reduces the achievements of this book a little. The battle of Budapest is unique enough without fighting over the crumbs to be the biggest and worst. He also compares Budapest against the almost none existent battles for capitals of the rest f Europe. Berlin lasting two weeks, Vienna a whole 6 weeks. The western capitals failing to make a week and such as Paris none a single day. Only Warsaw suffered a major battle with the failed uprising. What made Budapest so bloody, even forcing Stalingrad into it's shadow was not the military deaths alone, but the civilian population were not able on the whole to get out of the city before it was encircled such was the propaganda and the residents ability to fool themselves. For this they paid dearly, 38,000 of them died, similar in number to the Hungarian and German military losers combined. Add the Russian 80,000 dead and you get a butchers bill of 160,000 dead. Whilst Stalingrad supplied a large number of German, Romanian and Italian prisoners Budapest supplied as a percentage and actual numbers far fewer. Of course if you look at how many of those prisoners from both battles survived to see home again Stalingrad would come out as the greatest cost in human life of any single campaign. This of course was not Ungvary's goal so this fact is ignored.

I point out these things not to lower the quality of his work but to put it into context, if you are like me and are aware of the bigger picture you could be put off the book early as he tries to manipulate the battles position to number one. The simple truth is that it was a dirty, bloody battle that even saw Hungarian troops switch sides and fight with the Russians, Civilians and even troops sabotage the defence in the hope of bringing the siege to an early end and the continued persecution of the Jews and politically unreliable (By the Arrow Cross) even as the siege was coming to an end. In fact the execution of the Jews was stepped up at the end, rather amazing as ammunition for the break out was in short supply and was a factor in how few were successful in breaking through the cordon around Budapest.

The book itself has lots of detail and uses many small events to get the reader into the conditions. Many times I felt myself asking why such and such would put up with what was happening and why at this late stage did so many Axis troops and commanders not take the easy way out. Part of this is explained by the fact that Hungarians hated the Russians and a large part of the German forces were both SS and in many cases ethnic Germans from what were Russian controlled states at the outbreak of the war on the Eastern Front and could expect (or receive) little mercy. If you are looking or something uplifting or glorious look elsewhere. This book deals with the gritty side of life in a siege, I found it difficult not to dislike the people sabotaging the defences such as steeling the dwindling supply of shells for the AT guns or whole Battalions dodging the fighting for the whole siege! Though curiously I had less trouble with Hungarians deserting to the Russians and then fighting against their former comrades.

A error in the pictures possibly a translation issue? The picture above was captioned as being a anti-tank gun when it clearly is a Panzershreck. Just struck me as funny.

Is the book worth reading? If you are into general WWII battles and campaigns possibly not. It's difficult to get your head round some of the names within the book and whilst he strives not to fall into the trap of each small section of the action sounding the same as the previous as most battles tend to be) it still has a feel of repetition though not excessively so. How ever if you have a keen interest in the east front, especially towards the end or want something different then yes this book is for you. Amazon.UK has this book in paperback for just over £8 at the moment with second hand copies under £5 so what are you waiting for?

Cropredy Bridge 1644 Book Review

After reading a few heavy books I fancied a change and went back in time both historically and when written. This is an old book from my rather large ECW collection. Written by Brigadier Peter Young and Doctor Margaret Toynbee and printed in 1970 just three years after my birth! The book is just a joy to read though it's neither page heavy running to 156 pages nor word heavy being larger type set and well spaced. Never the less they manage to pack in quite a bit of information and the style of writing is really easy to take in. The subject matter is that of the Cropredy Campaign in early 1644 that saw Waller pit his army against Charles I and was in fact the first time Charles himself was a direct target of Parliamentarian fire (lending a lie to the idea that they were trying to rescue the King from evil councellors.

Young and Toynbee had worked on a number of books together and all of the ones I have read were well worth the effort though you have to bear in mind that all the works are done with a definate Royalist slant. Not that they are in bad company regards the English Civil War as so many authors have an obvious bias towards one party or another. The book also has a reasonable number of colour and B&W plates and photographs of mixed quality or use and for a really nice touch it also has quite a few line drawings scattered amoungst the pages that really add a nice feeling to the book.

One of the many line drawings in the book.

But all this aside how does it stand up with facts and figures. Rather well is the answer, so much so from the point of a wargamer that I will be running a short campaign based on the information held within the pages. I have had to do only a little extra research to knit together a few external details so it scores high for the wargamer, supplying details such as a few coat colours, strength of many of the units and a good time line of events that impacted on the campaign. At the end of the book it prints in full a number of accounts of the actual battle which for me was great. Nothing like brushing up on your old English, a skill of it's own I can tell you, keeping a straight face whilst reading "the rest were forced to retreat, and came over a Bridge called Crapridden". I failed but thank you Richard Coe for the laugh!

For anyone interested in this period it's a must read, especially if you also like to wargame the period as not just the battle itself but plenty of other scenario ideas. General readers may well also like the story but I have seen it going for about £25 a copy it's not great value for the page and word count. Me, I would not part with it, one of the few books I have read in ages that was a joy to read. It's my favorite period so I am biased and it won't be the last book I re-visit from my collection.

Liberation, Book Review

Liberation: The Bitter Road To Freedom, Europe 1944-1945 by William I. Hitchcock. (Bold added by me). This is a book not about the military actions themselves but what is left behind afterwards and as such was of a fair bit of interest for me. We all have read about the campaigns and battles themselves and of course the often used pictures of smiling civilians draping themselves on the victors etc. In fact the only ugly side you get close up is the shaving of the Women's heads if they had German boyfriends! Very little is written about collaboration at any level below Vichy Government so I had high hopes.

I bought this book in a small clearence book store for the princely sum of 99p yep less than a pound so it did not have to try hard to deliver value, but how about depth? First of all the reading of Hitchcock's military commentary left me a little concerned. He comes across as having a dislike of the military, possibly this is to show empathy with the civilian (the hero of his work) but it smacks of someone not well read on the subject. This is reinforced by a stunningly bad error in his coverage of Stalingrad. He covers the German Armies break out from Stalingrad where they torched the buildings and operated scorched earth tactics. Really? How many readers of this who have a slightly greater than moderate interest in WWII don't know that the Germans NEVER either broke out nor actually attempted to as a organised force? Sure the relief force was sent to them and if it connected then it was possible such an order was to be given but NO SUCH ORDER OR ACTION TOOK PLACE! This is such a major flaw, ignoring totally that the Russians were the first to operate scorched earth tactics that it brings into question his validity to use military doctrine and actions to back up his views. In fact the book has a number of other smaller errors and others I would have questioned if I could be bothered. All these errors did make me question his work in the area's I did not have knowledge, but by the time I finished the book I would say that he had a good knowledge of the civilian aspect but the suspect military accuracy is probably down to what seems to be a personal dislike of all things military. I did my usual guess his Nationality and did sway a bit during the book but when it came to late in the book it became obvious he was American (I was right he, is) due to his view on British Colonial policies and whilst he admits that the British made far greater progress at Belsen in the first 6 weeks than the Americans managed at any camp in their sector, he continued to use the Jewish propaganda that it was as bad under the British as under the Germans (only once did he dismiss this as the tactic to get the British to change stance on Palestine), in each other opportunity he let it stand. In fact he seemed to go out of the way to quote such comments even when it was not in direct need.

The book itself is split into sections, first we have Normandy where as many French civilians died as Allied Troops died in the landing itself. Which obviously was horrendous but lets take a closer look. So the number of allied troops who died in one day was the same as the French lost in over three months! That's like saying the Germans lost 50 times more planes than the British in the Battle of Briton then throwing in somewhere later in the text total German losers during the war. Yes it was a high number and yes it needs highlighting but and intelligent reader will separate the two and reduce the value of what he is trying to get across. What he does a good job of is getting across the material damage. Whole villages were destroyed and well we all know what happened to Caen. In balance he went on to mention that for the most part the rest of France was spared the worst of the war as the Germans were in full retreat over much of France. What is obvious though is that Normandy got the lions share of destruction but aid both foreign and French were slow to come as much of France was wrapped up in the idea that their war was as bad as anywhere else and the Allies were busy fighting a war. He moved swiftly on to Holland and Belgium, both of which suffered in different ways to France. Belgium due to repercussions from the Germans when they recovered ground and Holland through starvation. The problem with Holland was that it became a strategical backwater after the failure to bounce the Rhine and the troops garrisoned in Holland almost became guards of their own prison camp. The issue was that Holland was not self sufficient in food before the war, requiring a large import to feed it's people, but what with the effects of the war and the virtual stopping of food imports the people of Holland were literally on the point of starvation and many thousands died in the last months of the war. Firstly Hitchcock felt that some form of military action should have been taken, even though he admits that would slow down the assault on Germany (he fails to consider the amount of Europe that would then be under control of the Russians by wars end!) and when this did not happen the slow speed that food aid was supplied into what was enemy territory and much of this aid would reach few of the civilians and much of the occupying forces. The fact that any aid was given was a small miracle (not a small amount was supplied once it started) and make no mistake war making was effected by these acts, such as the bombers that dropped food over Holland instead of bombs over Germany, ships carrying foodstuffs to civilians instead of supplies to the front, medicines etc etc.  The prostitution and spread of VD also gets a close look (as each Country is covered) and this again is quite interesting in how the military dealt (or mis-dealt) with the effects. Mostly the problem was either unlicensed brothels or women so desperate for basic day to day items that the only sure way to gain them was trade sex for goods. Also rape and other violent crimes are covered but either through poor research, political correctness or a disgusting wish to protect the Russians he played down the rape by the Russians and even made excuses for them. Not once did he mention that women were rapped over and over till they died (and often well after!) nor the age range that was acceptable (pre teen to 90+). Yes he said that some women killed themselves afterwards but it is clear his agenda is to focus on American and Commonwealth troops and such barbarity would get in the way of his real target. Not disappointing, it was sickening! That covers the first 122 pages and if the book ended there I would have been disgusted with this book, how ever it also covers the conquest of Germany and liberation of the camps. The first 100 pages covers the reaction to Tommie and the GI's reaction to coming face to face with German civilians and Ivan's blood lust. I recommend Hitchcock to read Last Laurels by Georg Gunter for a taste of Russian blood lust, it rather makes his view insipid. What is striking is first that especially the GI's the Germans are seen as rather polite, well dressed and clean people who stack up much better than the dirty French, the ungratefully Belgians and against all orders and attempts freely fraternised with the Germans. Good explanations for this and it made interesting reading. What comes next though for me was the best part of the book and I would say is Hitchcock's real interest and knowledge. That is the work of UNRRA, from formation to the end of it's work in Europe (it mentions but does not cover the work elsewhere). So have you even heard of it? If not then your not on your own. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was a world wide (but principaly funded by America and a lesser degree Commonwealth) organisation that through Government Grants and private donations was founded in November 1943 with the aim to help the people of conquered countries , help with displaced persons and the high goal of helping stop the need for future wars. The members of this organisation were mostly American, often professional and in so many cases unprepared or unskilled for the work they were to do. The fact that they did so much with so little is amazing enough in itself. Truly this would make a book in itself and was worth reading the book in itself. Mixed in with this we also have the discovery of the work and extermination camps as well as an explanation of the death marches away from on coming armies. Again some of this was new territory for me and was  an eye opener in a few cases. I always assumed that once the camps were found that help was swift and all got what they needed, this was not the case and whilst I mentioned about Belson above it needs pointing out that whilst the best treatment was dished out by the Brits (they had the least Deposed People (DP's)) that the British were slow to realise the special needs of the Jewish DP's. In fact it's fair to say they refused to acknowledge this need. Hitchcock even belittles the good the British did saying rather childishly that they did it to show that the Brits were made of the proper stuff and wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing. I have a different theory, embarrassed by the fact that within days the British had specialist Doctors in their camp, proper food and had forced Germans to hand over clothing and forced a local bakery to supply the camp the Americans failed to do ANY of this within two months in any major camp. Hitchcock comes across really badly in this chapter and a line could be drawn through anything he writes about the British in the final chapters. A shame as it is useful, the official line and treatment of the Jews in British territory was ill conceived and was wrong, though events of today show that their reasoning was correct. The Jewish acts in the British sector get approval from Hitchcock and I think this especially the rough handling of Cpl Cooper when he ordered the removal of placards. I also found it interesting that had a guard been attacked in a German ran camp so many would have paid with their lives. Nothing was done in return, indeed many acts that would have caused the death of many and suffering of all got no more than a meaning less arrest or two and yet that was not mentioned by Hitchcock despite the consistent analogy that you could not tell the difference between SS guards and British.

So I was glad I read it, disagree with a number of points and question his qualifications to quote military actions or ability to understand them. Even taking this into account the book has a lot to offer and has given me some interest in UNRRA and what was the direct result of 100,000 Jews being allowed to migrate to Palestine and if it was all they had hoped for after such suffering. Now for a change of pace!

The Commandos at Dieppe Book Review

This book refreshingly takes a look at one successful part of the disastrous operation that was the attack on Dieppe. This book I gave away as part of my blogs giveaway and I am happy to say it was a good read. Typical of most books of this type it goes into detail regarding the formation and original training of the Commandos which is very welcome and a run through of the war to this point, which is not. It's a specialist book so why do we need what is essentially filler. Anyone who does not know the order of things up to that point really are unlikely to be reading the book anyway. So the question has to be, was it filler to pad out a thin book or worse was other more interesting detail missed out? I really think it's a mix of the two and whilst the actual engagement is well covered further information regarding the run up or after affects of the action could and should have been included in the book. So it's a bit like being cheated out of some detail for the lack of being prepared to go the extra mile. Whilst this is a little unfair it stands up as long as they continue to waste our reading time by putting the usual Germany Invaded Poland etc etc shite in books that clearly the reader already knows. Rant over.

The detail of both the run up and raid itself is both good and well presented. Whilst the area of the fight was relatively small Will Fowler does a great job of keeping the action separated into compartments but also knitting them together. The section on the battle is chock full of possible scenario's for small actions and whilst the famous mortar round would be hard to replicate you have plenty on other small actions that warrant table top representation. As for those just wanting a good read they will be happy with the way it is written. The human element comes through very well and we get a view of the action from all three sides.

What makes this a hit for me is that given the strange habit the Brits have for highlighting our failings in war and the seemingly desperate attempts to make all Generals seem either plodding, stupid or most often both, this book celebrates the part of the action that went right and where it did not, the action taken to get it back under control. Yes the raid was a disaster and yes it was one of many but reading so many other books it's a surprise we ever got to France never mind Germany. It's nice to read a book for a change that does not paint up Tommy as a accident waiting to be shot and as such thank you Mr. Fowler, I will forgive you for the potted history, maybe.

God's Executioner, Book Review

OK lets start with a bit of a moan. The full title of the book is God's Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland. So I think it's fairly reasonable to think that the book will be about, well Oliver Cromwell and the period of time that he was in Ireland with a section covering the period prior to Cromwell's direct involvement and another following his return to England to deal with the pesky Scotts. I suppose in fairness this is more or less what you get but I can't shake the idea that Cromwell's name was used more to sell extra copies than his being a central character within the book.

Dr Micheal O' Siochru does a good job of setting the scene and comes across at the start as being able to write up a historical vision without taking up either sides cause. As I got further into the book though I found that he came across as being Partisan to one side then the other almost like he was arguing with himself or really was not sure who was right. This is really the crux of the book though, at times it could be confusing what conclusions the author was coming to but he does make one thing very clear, that neither side could hold there heads up with pride for how they conducted themselves. The Catholics seem to have been doomed to failure due to internal power struggles. a lack of a clear purpose and intervention from Rome that forced the Irish into a no win situation. What made the situation worse was that it was not as simple as two sides, within the Catholic camp you had Old Irish and New Irish (often two generations of what was English Catholics) and Rome, whilst set against these you had English Settlers of the New Prayer Book bent, English troops under command of Ormond (Loyal to Charles I), troops under command of Parliament and troops and settlers that were Scottish. At any one time many of these factions could be working together or against each other and loyalties were more than a little blurred.

Drogheda and Wexford are commonly known as Cromwell's worst cases of excess and you will get few people who will defend his actions here. Though O' Siochru is bold enough to question the level of deaths at Drogheda and I personally think you can run parallels to the Atomic bombs dropped on Japan, the argument that such actions saved other lives as many Towns surrendered before a storming in fear of what would follow, even after Cromwell had left Ireland. The other side of the coin was the killing of Irish by the Irish and burning of Villages within Parliament control by the Catholic forces, especially after the field armies had been defeated and large scale resistance had been replaced by a more Partisan style resistance movement with Catholic forces taking refuge in the peat bogs and sallying out to attack any venerable Parliamentary garrison or body of marching troops. Indeed whilst this would never gain Ireland's freedom from the English Parliament it did more damage than any of the armies that had taken the field.

By the very nature of the conflict it is confusing to follow, but O' Siochru did a fairly good job of helping you understand the events. By the end of the book I could not help but feel sorry for the Catholic people of Ireland, the Gentry come across as self serving, the Church as Manipulative, Rome as just uncaring but the people, well they just suffered no matter who or what happened. As for Ormond, well I already knew of his incompetence but was not aware of how desperately he clung to power for his own sake rather than that of the two Charles. Whilst Cromwell is cast as the villain of the times I can't help but feel he was the most honest of them all. Same for Parliament, yes at times it was underhand but given the double dealings of the rest it came out the better looking of the lot. As such it was a fascinating book that has increased my interest in Ireland during the 17th Century so as such has achieved it's goal.

From a wargaming perspective I have to say that it's a bit of a damp squid. Few large battles occurred and what did were very much one sided so no conversions to Irish regiments required. What could be done though would be skirmish games with 10-30 odd figures per side based on raids, ambushes and rustling. Makes it almost worth buying some 28mm's and giving it a go.

Voices From Stalingrad Book Review

I am a big fan of Stalingrad as most WWII wargamers are. The shear scale of the butchery and tragic end for the German soldiers who were captured just has a great deal going for it. As such I have read a good many books on the subject from really good to rather pathetic. My expectations from Voices from Stalingrad was fairly low. I picked it up for a couple of pounds from a bargain bookshop for starters but also I am not the biggest fan of the history through others mouths kind of book. I like quotes and use of extracts but I just am not a fan of quotes making up the books substance. Jonathan Bastable though, manages to tread a line between over use of quotes whilst keeping the first person perspective strong. The book starts with the usual potted history of Hitlers move to the East and war up to the drive on Stalingrad and then through the encirclement through drive through the shattered city and then the counter attacks on the flanks and envelopment of the trapped German forces. Then on to the slow steady starvation of the German forces and eventual surrender and the effects on the city afterwards. in many ways it is a shame that he did not cover the German prisoners fate and the return of the few who made it back years later. A shame as Bastable captures the human element really well. he seems to have equal compassion for the Russian families bombed out of their houses, as for the trapped Germans in the freezing rubble as well as the Russian troops holding out in such places as the Grain Elevator or Pavlov's House.

This is the crux of the book and what it gives beyond the typical voices type of book. He connects you to the people who wrote the original lines and he seems to have been fairly choosy with what he included. It's not all rhetoric (though it has it's say as well) and whilst he removed the names of most of the German soldiers comments it was still poignant when you then read that the writer was killed and the letter had been taken from the body etc. What really makes this book work is what Bastable actually writes between the first hand accounts. His words hold the story in place and keeps the reader well informed of the bigger picture that influenced the writer at the time. Also you do not feel that he has a axe to grind, he comes across as neutral, some what at odds with to many who seem to have to play down the evil of one of the two regimes so that they can set the other up as the bad guy. Given the record of both sides in the war I would say it's best to keep away from such nonsense. It is good to see this being the case here.

Amazon have the book in the UK for £6.56 new and a cracking 88p second hand. Well worth a look at if WWII is your thing and if like me, the Russian Front remains your hot spot, then just get it, you will enjoy.

Crete The Battle and the Resistance Book Review

New to this blog, but old to my other blog is the book review. I decided to swap the reviews to this blog for a couple of reasons. First of all in the polls I ran the Book Reviews were fairly low on popularity as they were not directly attached to ASL. Secondly, given that I try to keep everything on Wall Advantage WWII based it limited the reviews to just WWII and the surrounding periods. Moving it here allows other historical periods and even dare I say it fiction.

Antony Beevor is greatly respected as a WWII Popular Historian. His work on Stalingrad and Berlin are seen as some of the best mainstream books on the subject. His writing style and skill supplies a good mix of information and a feel for the battle that more dry number based accounts fail to achieve. So when I mentioned elsewhere that I was going to/was reading the book I was taken back by the amount of negative comments. Well maybe not negative, more, not his best work to his worst book kind of comments. Well I pressed on and I can see where they are coming from, but that as always is half a story.

Beevor does not start in Crete but Greece, which is required to both set the scene and help explain what follows. This was welcome as whilst I did know formations that were beaten up were sent to Crete I did not know about others that were not, nor about the units that were left in Crete such as Cretan Regiments that would have fought well on home soil. It covers the usual foul ups and missed chances that always seems to go with Commonwealth Operations but also has a very interesting view of what I will call the ULTRA excuse. I read this book whilst I was playing a campaign on Crete and it was great to be using a historical map and seeing places mentioned in the book whilst I was fighting over them.

Moving onto the battle itself I was only confused about one thing, the lackluster praise I had heard from my fellow gamers. This was just as interesting as Stalingrad and in my mind better than Berlin (both of which I want to re-visit due to this reading). In parts tragic, funny and valiant. Both sides have their moment of glory, well three sides really as The native Cretans did more than their part. But also shame and folly. All in all this section of the book is very strong and I did not want it to end as quickly as it did. This seems a good point to break the book down into it's three parts. Part one Greece 56 pages. Part Two The Battle 176 pages. Part Three 84 pages.

This is the rub. The last 84 pages will seem after all the action to be rather bland. Most of the events seem trivial, and worse repeats of previous actions. Your enjoyment of this section of the book I believe will rest on the amount of interest you have in Guerrilla Wars and Resistance fighters. I suspect the comments I had heard from others shows they had little interest themselves. Again though even if you have an interest the value of the accounts are somewhat reduced through repartition. Personally I found this section interesting at first and whilst I never became bored of it, I was glad to finish it. The exact opposite of Part 2. I think it's a case of too little stretched to far. 40 odd pages and you get the flavour without the gristle but it's the chewing not the flavour that seems o stick in the mind.

Overall I think it's a good book, I am glad I read Part Three but when I read it again I may well skip the last part. If you have an interest in Crete then I can recommend the book fully, as I could if you have interest in Paratroop drops or just a good old war story.

I have somehow managed to get two copies of the book so I am offering one up as a giveaway (the unread one LOL). So between now and the end of February any follower leaving a comment on this blog will be entered in the draw (once) and the lucky winner will be announced as soon as I get round to forcing the kids to pick a name out. Again to join in you need to be a follower so anyone accusing me of trying to pad out my followers is 100% correct!

Good Luck and all that.