The first biography of Chelmsford since 1939, a definitive
study by the leading historian of the Zulu War utilizing a wide range of
primary archival sources and providing expert analysis of Chelmsford’s
career, emphasizing his conduct of the Anglo-Zulu War.
Despite the
support of the Queen, Chelmsford never recovered his reputation, and Laband
explores not only the series of fatal errors that led to the loss of the
British camp at Isandlwana but also the constant underestimation of the
difficulties of campaigning in South Africa.
Laband’s
mastery of the sources is impressive, and his sound judgment shines through a
readily accessible text.
Lord Chelmsford is not a bad man. He is industrious and conscientious so far as his lights guide him. But nature has refused to him the qualities of a great captain. He has suffered much and is entitled to certain commiseration. - Thomas Gibson Bowles, Vanity Fair
General Lord Chelmsford's military career took him around the world; he served in the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the Abyssinian Expedition, before commanding the British invasion of the Zulu Kingdom in South Africa.
In January 1879, disaster struck when Chelmsford divided his forces at Isandlwana in the face of the enemy…
Based
on a conference held at the University of St Andrews in 2018, the volume is the
most comprehensive study of Britain between 1914 and 1918.
The
impact of the First World War is analyzed in terms of the
growth of government, the mobilization of industrial and agricultural
resources, wartime production such as munitions, and political and social
repercussions.
Many previously under-researched areas include
fisheries, wartime charities, and railways.
The First World War required the mobilisation of entire societies, regardless of age or gender. The phrase 'home front' was itself a product of the war with parts of Britain literally a war front, coming under enemy attack from the sea and increasingly the air. However, the home front also conveyed the war's impact on almost every aspect of British life, economic, social and domestic. In the fullest account to-date, leading historians show how the war blurred the division between what was military and not, and how it made many conscious of their national identities for the first time. They…
Cavan is one of the lesser-known Great War generals and, indeed, was one of the "dugouts" recalled from
retirement in 1914.
After commanding the Guards Division and XV Corps on the
Western Front, he took command of British forces in Italy, again not one of the
better-known campaigns. Yet, he rose after the war to be Chief of the Imperial
General Staff at a particularly testing time of economic retrenchment.
Senior
analyses Cavan's good generalship, including his regard for the
welfare of his men, and brings out the character of a man who was both respected
and trusted.
Field Marshal Lord Cavan (1865-1946) was one of the most distinguished commanders of the modern British army, but he divided opinion among his contemporaries. Some senior soldiers were disdainful. Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson described him as ignorant, pompous and vain' and Brigadier General Sir James Edward Edmonds commented that Cavan was bone from the neck upwards'. Yet many of Cavan's subordinates praised him, saying I had never seen Lord Cavan before and I was filled with admiration by the calm and quiet self-confidence of his manner' and Our new General, Lord Cavan, is simply A1 and the whole show…
This new concise history explores the British army from creating a permanent standing army in the seventeenth century to the present.
It sets the institutional development of the British army and the army's wider political, social, economic, and cultural role within international, imperial, national, regional, and local contexts.
Beckett traces the army's evolution through five chronological phases: the standing army of the seventeenth century, the national army of the eighteenth century, the imperial army of the nineteenth century, the people's army of the two world wars, the era of national service, and the return to a small professional army fulfilling a global role in the twenty-first century at a time of rapidly changing social attitudes that pose a challenge to the army's traditional core values.
