Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II. Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "storm troop tactics" by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "Commando-style" trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.

A “truly exceptional” account of how Churchill’s experiences in the armed forces helped him lead Britain to victory in World War II (Booklist). No defense minister in modern times has faced the challenges that Winston Churchill did during the Second World War. Fortunately, he had a unique and intimate inside knowledge of all three services, which allowed him to assess their real needs—a crucial task when money, material resources, and, especially, manpower were reaching their limits. Churchill Warrior looks at how Churchill gained his unique insight into war strategy and administration through his experiences after joining the army in 1896, and the effect this had on his thinking and leadership. Each period—before, during, and after the First World War, and in the Second World War—is divided into four parts: land, sea, and air warfare and combined operations. The conclusion deals with the effect of these experiences on his wartime leadership. From a Sunday Times–bestselling author, this is a grand narrative that begins with the Marlborough toy soldiers and the army class at Eton, then leads us through those early military and journalistic experiences, the fascinating trials and lessons of the First World War, and the criticism and tenacity culminating in the ultimate triumph of the Second. It explores how some of Churchill’s earliest innovations were to bear fruit decades later and how his uncompromising, uniquely informed hands-on approach, and his absolute belief in combined forces in Normandy, led to a systemic victory against the odds.

‘The heavy smell of blood filled the air, and every moment you had this intense fear that the next bullet was meant for you. So remembered William Thorne, a South African volunteer soldier who fought in the muddy trenches along the River Somme in France on Europe’s Western Front. A boy of nineteen at the time, he was one of thousands of South Africans who took part in the 1916 Somme Offensive between the Allied forces and the Germans. It was one of the bloodiest and costliest conflicts of the First World War, resulting in over a million deaths. The men of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade were involved on a large scale and distinguished themselves in all major engagements during the campaign. But their bravery came at a price. In the first month alone, after six days of fighting to recapture the village of Longueval and clear Delville Wood of enemy soldiers, of the brigade’s 3 433 soldiers, only 750 were left standing. The rest were dead or wounded. By the armistice, the South Africans had suffered some 15 000 casualties in France, of which one third had died.