The British Expeditionary Force at the start of World War I was tiny by the standards of the other belligerent powers. Yet, when deployed to France in 1914, it prevailed against the German army because of its professionalism and tactical skill, strengths developed through hard lessons learned a dozen years earlier. In October 1899, the British went to war against the South African Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State, expecting little resistance. A string of early defeats in the Boer War shook the military’s confidence. Historian Spencer Jones focuses on this bitter combat experience in From Boer War to World War, showing how it crucially shaped the British Army’s tactical development in the years that followed.  Before the British Army faced the Boer republics, an aura of complacency had settled over the military. The Victorian era had been marked by years of easy defeats of crudely armed foes. The Boer War, however, brought the British face to face with what would become modern warfare. The sweeping, open terrain and advent of smokeless powder meant soldiers were picked off before they knew where shots had been fired from. The infantry’s standard close-order formations spelled disaster against the well-armed, entrenched Boers. Although the British Army ultimately adapted its strategy and overcame the Boers in 1902, the duration and cost of the war led to public outcry and introspection within the military.  Jones draws on previously underutilized sources as he explores the key tactical lessons derived from the war, such as maximizing firepower and using natural cover, and he shows how these new ideas were incorporated in training and used to effect a thorough overhaul of the British Army. The first book to address specific connections between the Boer War and the opening months of World War I, Jones’s fresh interpretation adds to the historiography of both wars by emphasizing the continuity between them.

From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army, 1902–1914 (Volume 35) (Campaigns and Commanders Series)

History

Jones, Spencer

Africa

University of Oklahoma Press

England and the Holy See an Essay towards Reunion

Europe

BiblioLife

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

England and the Holy See

Over the Top: Alternate Histories of the First World War

<p>Review\n" Another fine addition to the Tsouras production of imaginative 'what if' literature focused on military scenarios. In this one he has collaborated with British authors for some essays on British topics. Tsouras is especially strong on the Russian episodes as he is a scholar on Russian military affairs... The maps are excellent. I especially enjoy the deft use of the typical vocabulary one reads in accounts of actual military history. In each case the authors do not simply launch into a revisionist account, but rather create an altered 'historical' background of sufficient depth to make the subsequent account of the events plausible. And they follow through with some theoretical results. Then they bring the readers back to earth with a short summary of what really happened."<br />
John Sloan, xenophon-mil.org\n“One of the intellectual challenges and delights of reading history is imagining how past events could have followed different paths… The deviations from history are thought provoking, giving readers a good sense of just how many different ways the Great War could have gone, and shedding insight into strategic decision-making.”<br />
World War One Illustrated Summer 2018\nAlthough separated from the modern reader by a full century, the First World War continues to generate controversy and interest as the great event upon which modern history pivoted. Not only did the war cull the European peoples of some of their best and brightest, it also led to the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian empires, and paved the way for the Second World War.\nThis thought-provoking book explores ten alternate scenarios in which the course of the war is changed forever. How would the war have changed had the Germans not attacked France but turned their main thrust against Russia; had the Greeks joined the allies at Gallipoli; or had the British severed the communications of the Ottoman Empire at Alexandretta? What if there was a more decisive outcome at Jutland; if the alternative plans for the Battle of the Somme in 1916 had been put into effect; or if the Americans intervened in 1915, rather 1917?\nExpertly written by leading military historians, this is a compelling and credible look at what might have been.</p>

Literature & Fiction

Tsouras, Peter

Genre Fiction

Frontline Books

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