Recommended reading on the British Empire 1919-1945

[Andy H]

Just in case anyone has missed it Basil Colliers The Defence of the United Kingdom is now available via the good folks at Hyperwar

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/U ... index.html

Regards

Andy H

[phylo_roadking]

Which reminds me, I haven't yet put up -

"We Shall Fight On The Beaches: Defying Napoleon & Hitler, 1805 and 1940" by Brian Lavery.

For anyone who might have caught him in recent years on the box, he's one of the leading modern experts on the Royal Navy of Nelson's day...but also on the RN of the WWII era.

This book is comparison of the threats of invasion and the preparations made against them - in 1803-4 and 1940 - set against the social and political backgrounds of the UK in both periods. In the process however he manages to provide us with FAR more information on the defence of the UK in 1940 than any other British author yet has. He's not a british Schenk - but together with Daviod Newbold's Defence of the Uk thesis, and Fleming for a broader picture of the social and political environment and psycholoigcal warfare aspects of the invasion threat period, they form the core of an invaluable canon of British works on the Sealion Period.

[Tom from Cornwall]

I've just finished reading "Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign: The Eighth Army and the path to El Alamein" by Jonathon Fennell - which Santa delivered for Xmas!

An academic (and therefore blooming expensive!) book, the author has done a great job of discovering new sources and analysing them to trace the morale of 8th Army during the summer of 1942. Using sources as varied as sickness rates, absence rates and most intriguingly previously un-published censor reports which he found in the Australian archives, Fennell's work tends to support the thesis that 8th Army suffered from a serious morale crisis during June and July 1942. His research extended to South African, Australian, New Zealand and UK archives so his work begins to reflect the Commonwealth nature of the 8th Army.

His work also shows that the improvement in morale that followed was not down solely to the appearance of the little man with the "funny hat". As well as the undoubtedly benign influence of Montgomery's arrival and immediate orders, there appears to have been a more general improvement in the standard of training, recruitment and retention of British troops during 1941-42 which began to bear fruit around this time. Combined with the improvements in equipment that were beginning to be supplied, and perhaps the more static fighting environment, these sufficed, just!, to produce success at Alam Halfa and then later in the offensive.

These few sentences really fail to do justice to the depth of research that has gone into this work, which I would strongly recommend for anyone interested in either the North African campaign or the Commonwealth armies more generally. It appears to be the first in a new series from Cambridge University Press - I hope they are all this valuable (although my bank manager might not appreciate the prices!). An Interlibrary loan is definitely recommended if you have the ability to do it.

Regards

Tom

[Attrition]

Glad to see that it'sa good book. Alas CUP titles don't drop in price much second-hand....

[Gorque]

March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland, A Study in the Continuity of British Foreign Policy by Simon Newman. Its an older study from 1976 and published by the University Press in Oxford. Generously footnoted from published and unpublished primary sources as well as numerous secondary sources consisting of books, articles and essays and, unpublished academic theses.

[Andy H]

Peter Clarke's The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire (Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana).
Published by Penguin Press 2007

This excellent tome covers the period from September 1944 and Operation Market Garden to August 1947, when the independence India signified to many around the world the end of the British Empire. Though it did in fact struggle on for another 15 or so years, this was its pinnacle moment.

The author chronicles Churchill's hopes and beliefs, whilst weighted against those of the US President and the wider nation. We see how the strength/power of the British Empire was gradually but obviously (sometimes viciously) eroded or undermined. Yes the mythical 'Special Relationship' is there but its laid out bare for all to see, as each side fought for there ounce of flesh. From manipulative British politicians, myopic American newspapers, Soviet appeasers within the American Govt to British Empire builders in the British one. It is all ably supported by a litany of impressive characters such as Cripps, Molotov, Atlee, Eden, Stimson, Bevin, Patton, Ike, Monty, Marshall, Brooke, as well as the leading actors of Churchill, FDR, Truman and dear Uncle Joe Stalin himself.

We see through this book the birth and maturing of the US into a political superpower, as well as military/economic one. Also how Britain relinquished this roll, sometimes through clenched teeth and a non to level playing field, whilst on other occasions most willingly.

Regards

Andy H

[Andy H]

Douglas Hurd's Choose Your Weapons (British Foreign Secretary-200yrs of Argument, Success and Failure)

Though the books starts its tale 1809, the link between thoughts & ideals of the Foreign Secretaries Castlereagh and Canning, who fought a dual, run through all subsequent British Foreign Secretaries. Castlereagh was the proponent of the quiet negotiation, in compromise and in co-operation with other countries. Forming of alliances or international bodies. Whilst Canning was the more brash and bold policy sculpture. An emphasis on independent British action and national prestige, liberal minded and a willingness to intervene, sometimes by force to help these causes prevail.

All of these traits are to be seen in the actions of Grey, Ramsey McDonald, Austen Chamberlain, Bevin and Eden between 1914 and 1946, when war and conflict test us all beyond normal limitations. We see how each man coped with the high office and its strains upon their personnel and professional lives, and in many cases they didn't. For in the end they all paid the price, even when out of office.

Regards

Andy H

[Mostlyharmless]

A fairly new publication is Professor David Egerton 'Britains War Machine (Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second Wolrd War).
...

I am having fun reading this in parallel with Correlli Barnett's series of four books, especially "The Audit of War". They are a classic pair contrasting 'this glass is half empty' with 'this glass is half full'. For example, Egerton notes that Britain received the majority of its imports from its traditional suppliers rather than from Lend-Lease while Barnett notes that this depended on the suppliers extending credit based on an implicit American guarantee and led to the post-war issue of the sterling balances.

[phylo_roadking]

Douglas Hurd's Choose Your Weapons (British Foreign Secretary-200yrs of Argument, Success and Failure)

Andy, I missed this recommendation back in May. I like Hurd as a writer - suprisingly for those that remember him as the dalek in Spitting Image as well as a politician, he had an early career writing political fiction! His Scotch On The Rocks about Scottish nationalists and independence is a great read...and inspired a longlost BBC serial of the same name in the early '70s I remember as a kid.

[Attrition]

"I want my two hondred poonds!" I remember that as well, really liked it. Do you remember the one set in Iceland?*

*Running Blind.

[Attrition]

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1753/1/C ... egions.pdf

[Attrition]

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=37557

Andrew Stewart. A Very British Experience: Coalition, Defence and Strategy in the Second World War. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2012. ix + 247 pp. Illustrations. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-84519-439-0.

Reviewed by Douglas Delaney (Royal Military College of Canada)
Published on H-War (March, 2013)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey

Episodes in British Strategy, 1939-1945

A Very British Experience: Coalition, Defence and Strategy in the Second World War is a fascinating collection of essays from an author well versed in the strategies (and grand strategy) of Britain and its empire during the great global struggle of 1939-45. In chapters dealing with the British Empire Air Training Scheme, the preparations for home defense, the East African Campaign of 1940-41, British generalship in the Western Desert, the rocky relationship with Australia during the Japanese Southeast Asian offensives of 1941-42, the difficulties of the alliance with the United Sates, the political repercussions of the June 1942 fall of Tobruk, and the Royal Navy’s expedient development of a naval base at Mombasa during 1942, Andrew Stewart teases out four prominent themes: the importance of coalitions in British grand strategy, the prominence of Africa in the overall British war effort, the 1940 decision to fight on, and the centrality of Winston Churchill in all strategic undertakings. Ctd....