Two Books about the British Army
A bulletin from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion
Early in the ‘oughties, I pitched a dozen books to the good people at Osprey Publishing. Nested within the “Battle Orders” series, each of book in this collection to describe the organization of one of the armies (whether British, French, or German) that fought in France or Flanders during a particular year of the First World War.
Unfortunately, the first two books in the collection found little favor with readers. As a result, the project went the way of the Mills bomb. Nonetheless, the two volumes that made it into print before cancellation can still be purchased from the Osprey website.
If I may say so myself, the great virtue of these books likes in its comparative perspective. That is, because I was comparing British practices to their French and German counterparts, I described peculiarities that often escape the notice of specialists in British military history.
A Splendid Alternative
Readers in the market for an online source for the information provided in these books will find much of interest on the section of The Long Long Trail devoted to the organization of the British Army of the First World War.
Errata
In the process of writing these books, I made two errors. On a map depicting Europe at the start of the First World War, I assigned Cyprus to the Ottoman Empire. (While the Ottoman Empire held title to Cyprus until November of 1914, the island had been occupied by the British Empire since 1878.) In the text, I added the prefix “Royal,” an honor not granted until 1922, to the title of the Army Ordnance Corps.
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