1915 Campaign in France. the Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert & Loos Considered in Relation to the Field Service Regulations

1915 Campaign in France. the Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert & Loos Considered in Relation to the Field Service Regulations
Author: A. Kearsey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2002-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781843422235

This account is primarily intended for officers studying the 1915 campaign and considers the battles in relation to the Field Service Regulations to which there are many references. It is the result of a very great deal of study and also of personal experience on the Western front. It comprises appreciations of the situation at various dates, diaries of events and narratives of battles. It analyses results and critically examines planning, preparation and conduct of the battles. Reasons for our failure at Aubers Ridge and for the more encouraging results at Festubert are clearly brought out, and a series of points are made explaining the further failure at Loos.

The Battles of the British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1915

The Battles of the British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1915
Author: Fred R. van Hartesveldt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2005-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313068437

In this valuable resource, over 1,000 annotated sources from Great Britain, France, and Germany offer a historiographical reference for study of the British army at the beginning and in the first battles of World War I. Unique to this bibliography is the comprehensive coverage of sources, resulting in a more complete picture of the circumstances of activities of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Sources include coverage of the BEF's military role, as well as background information about domestic military considerations and Allied and enemy efforts. This volume will support researchers and students in their efforts to find out what the Expeditionary Force's contributions were in World War I, and for expanding their knowledge of the Great War and British military history. In this valuable resource, over 1,000 annotated sources from Great Britain, France, and Germany offer a historiographical reference for study of the British army at the beginning and in the first battles of World War I. Unique to this bibliography is the comprehensive coverage of sources, and it results in a more complete picture of the circumstances of activities of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Sources include coverage of the BEF's military role, as well as background information about domestic military considerations and Allied and enemy efforts. This volume will support researchers and students in their efforts to find out what the Expeditionary Force's contributions were in World War I, and for expanding their knowledge of the Great War and British military history. The volume includes four chapters of historiographical essays discussings the interpretations and controversies that surround the performance and leadership of the BEF in 1914-1915. The essays direct readers to the major sources that support various ideas and indicate gaps in the historiography of the subject. Following the historiographical essays is an annotated bibliography of more than 1,000 sources that are relevant to the study of the BEF.

1915: The Death of Innocence

1915: The Death of Innocence
Author: Lyn Macdonald
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 939
Release: 2014-09-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1466881097

Lyn Macdonald's 1915: The Death of Innocence is a uniquely compelling blend of military history and poignant memories of the fighters who survived the ordeal. By Christmas 1915, the wild wave of enthusiasm that had sent men flocking to join up a few months earlier had begun to tail off, and though the Regulars of the original Expeditionary Force had suffered 90 percent casualties, most, particularly the soldiers themselves, still believed that 1915 would see the breaking of the deadlock. Their hopes were shattered on the bloody battlefields at Neuve Chapelle, at Ypres, at Loos, and far away on the shores of Gallipoli. Generals failed to understand the importance of heavy howitzers and machine guns, convinced that wars were won by the cavalry. They could not imagine a war in which hundreds of advancing troops could be wiped out in minutes by machine-gun fire. As disillusionment began to set in and grim resolve replaced easy optimism, innocence was among the casualties in the trenches that ran through the Flanders swamps. The story of 1915 is stark, brutal, frank, sometimes painfully funny, always human. Above all, it is history from the ground up, told from the point of view of the men themselves. Never before has any writer collected so many firsthand accounts of the experiences of ordinary soldiers, through diaries, letters, and interviews with survivors--and it is the dogged heroism and sardonic humor of the soldiers that shine through the pages of Lyn Macdonald's epic narrative.

1915 Campaign in France

1915 Campaign in France
Author: Alexander Horace Cyril Kearsey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 99
Release: 1926
Genre: Aubers Ridge, Battle of, France, 1915
ISBN:

Shoestring Soldiers

Shoestring Soldiers
Author: Andrew Iarocci
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2008-09-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442692790

The Great War was a pivotal experience for twentieth-century Canada. Shoestring Soldiers is the first scholarly study since 1938 to focus exclusively on Canada's initial overseas experience from late 1914 to the end of 1915. In this exciting new work, Andrew Iarocci challenges the dominant view that the 1st Canadian Division was poorly prepared for war in 1914, and less than effective during battles in 1915. He examines the first generations of men to serve overseas with the division: their training, leadership, morale, and combat operations from Salisbury Plain to the Ypres Salient, from the La Bassée Canal to Ploegsteert Wood. Iarocci contends that setbacks and high losses in battle were not so much the products of poor training and weak leadership as they were of inadequate material resources on the Western Front. Shoestring Soldiers incorporates a wealth of research material from official documents, soldiers' letters and diaries, and the battlefields themselves, surveyed extensively by the author. It marks an important contribution to the growing body of literature on Canada in the First World War.

Climax at Gallipoli

Climax at Gallipoli
Author: Rhys Crawley
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2014-03-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806145277

Gallipoli: the mere name summons the story of this well-known campaign of the First World War. And the story of Gallipoli, where in August 1915 the Allied forces made their last valiant effort against the Turks, is one of infamous might-have-beens. If only the Allies had held out a little longer, pushed a little harder, had better luck—Gallipoli might have been the decisive triumph that knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War. But the story is just that, author Rhys Crawley tells us: a story. Not only was the outcome at Gallipoli not close, but the operation was flawed from the start, and an inevitable failure. A painstaking effort to set the historical record straight, Climax at Gallipoli examines the performance of the Allies’ Mediterranean Expeditionary Force from the beginning of the Gallipoli Campaign to the bitter end. Crawley reminds us that in 1915, the second year of the war, the Allies were still trying to adapt to a new form of warfare, with static defense replacing the maneuver and offensive strategies of earlier British doctrine. In the attempt both the MEF at Gallipoli and the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front aimed for too much—and both failed. To explain why, Crawley focuses on the operational level of war in the campaign, scrutinizing planning, command, mobility, fire support, interservice cooperation, and logistics. His work draws on unprecedented research into the files of military organizations across the United Kingdom and Australia. The result is a view of the Gallipoli Campaign unique in its detail and scope, as well as in its conclusions—a book that looks past myth and distortion to the facts, and the truth, of what happened at this critical juncture in twentieth-century history.

Command or Control?

Command or Control?
Author: Dr Martin Samuels
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2013-11-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135238421

This is a comparative study of the fighting systems of the British and German armies in The Great War. Taking issue with revisionist historians, Samuels argues that German success in battle can be explained by their superior tactical philosophy. The book provides a fascinating insight into the development of infantry tactics at a seminal point in the history of warfare.