#18
Post
by PaulJ » 10 Jun 2012, 23:55
Well, perhaps I’m biased here, but RichTO90’s comments on my work strike me as rather unfair, if I do say so.
This is Paul Johnston, the author of that article “D+20,000” (I thought that was a good title, if nothing else), and I’m just sitting down on warm sunny afternoon with my laptop, gin and tonic in hand, and what do I find?
What I was trying to do in that piece was succinctly introduce interested and intelligent but non-expert readers (in particular military officers), to the main debates in the literature, and identify for them the major competing schools of thought. I was not particularly trying to “endorse” any of those campaign histories.
RichTO90’s beef with my piece seems to boil down to me not being hard enough on Keegan, Hastings Ambrose, and perhaps Jack English. In my own defence, let me just say that the whole point of my piece was to survey the literature, and whatever one may think of those authors and their works, they are certainly, as I put it, “of note” i.e. prominent works of which one should be aware. And I would argue that Jack English’s book was indeed the definitive work on the Canadian Army in Normandy at the time I wrote, whether you or I might agree with his interpretation or not. Since then, what one might call the “Terry Copp” school has gained ground. And I did mention Copp in my section on German vs Allied Fighting Power. Since 2000, he has produced two significant works in this vein: Fields of Fire and Cinderella Army.
But coming back to the campaign histories from Keegan, Hastings and Ambrose, for what its worth, I suspect that I share much of RichTO90’s aversion to those works. Regarding Keegan, I rather like the way Christopher Bassford once put it – “willful misunderstanding of Clausewitz.” And I don’t think Keegan’s scholarly reputation has, or will ever, recover from The Iraq War (the fawning vignette of Franks in the appendix at end is almost physically painful to read). What puts many people off Hastings is his well developed Teutonophilia – is that the reason for your aversion to him? I did try to give at least a sense of that debate in my section on “Allied vs German Fighting Power.” And lastly, Ambrose, who to be fair did a lot of good work with oral histories, but whose analyses (such as he offers) I’ve never liked either. His reputation, too, is somewhat in tatters now of course (faking much of his Eisenhower research and all). The thing is, even as I look back on it now, those still seem to me the most prominent campaign overviews, flawed though they may be. Would you point to others? The interesting question, surely, is what should be added to what I wrote back then, in particular in the category of campaign histories? The only thing that comes to mind (in the way of campaign histories) is Anthony Beevor’s D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
And as I said, my article’s real point was to outline what the major debates are, and in that regard, have any major new subjects of debate emerged? I’m not sure that any really have, the only thing that might qualify as a new major debate would be the question of the campaign’s effect on the French civilians living in the area, something Beevor stresses in his new book. We’ll see if this catches on and sparks a new area of debate.
Of course, lots of new works have been published. Honourable mentions should, I think as I sit here pondering it, go to Stephen Hart for Colossal Cracks, Russell Hart for Clash of Arms and John Buckley for the collection he edited The Normandy Campaign: 60 Years On.
Lastly, the suggestion that I should have included Richard Lamb's Montgomery in Europe is, of course, absolutely correct. Looking back at my section on “Monty” I’m mortified that I didn’t include it. No excuse. And next time I write about them I shall try to be more critical of Keegan, Ambrose and Hastings. Perhaps I should use language like “calling shit shit.”
). You might want to try this book (just be prepared for the author to give, at moments, not very flattering views of some of the main players and combatants).
