‘Well written and persuasive …objective and well-rounded….this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography’ **** Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday‘A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it … a balanced portrait’ Sunday Times‘Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy’ Sunday TelegraphDouglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British hi...

Becoming a Major League ballplayer for Dwight and me, that was the dream.Dwight is Dwight Gooden. Most people know him for winning the Cy Young Award. To me, though, he’s family, an uncle, but at four years older, really a brother. I can still remember those games of catch with Dwight in the backyard: him rearing back, and me somehow getting my mitt up to stop one of his fireballs. Often the two of us would sit with Grandpa (Dwight’s dad), and he’d tell us how hard it woul...

This collection of correspondence and newly discovered family papers is " a good read for anyone interested in WWI, or the British Army" ( The NYMAS Review).Hugo De Pree was the nephew of the better-known Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. However, De Pree had a distinguished military career in his own right. He served in the Boer War. He was sent to the Western Front, as Chief of Staff of IV Corps, and pla...

Wellington is a giant because he was one of the greatest military commanders in British history, an important figure in the emergence of Britain as a great imperial power, a man who dominated British society and politics for 35 years. He was the only one of Napoleon's contemporaries who can be mentioned in the same breath as a general - a master of logistics, politics and coalition warfare as well as strategy, operations and tactics.The book's focus is on Wellingto...

'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' - Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it ... a balanced portrait' - The**Sunday Times'Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy' - Sunday TelegraphDouglas Haig is the single m...

Despite countless conflicting assessments, Field Marshal Douglas Haig remains one of the most controversial and fascinating characters in British military history. To some he was a mindless butcher, to others a true patriot who masterminded Allied victory in the First World War under the most trying circumstances.The papers of Colonel Eugene 'Micky' Ryan, Haig's long serving doctor and confidant, are a significant find as they throw fresh and invaluable light on the life and character of t...

Gary Sheffield is one of the most versatile and stimulating of military historians at work today, and this selection of his outstanding essays on the First World War is essential reading for anyone who is keen to broaden their understanding of the subject. For three decades, in a series of perceptive books and articles, he has examined the nature of this war from many angles from the point of view of the politicians and the high command through to the junior officers and other ranks in the...

On 1 July 1916, after a stupendous seven-day artillery preparation, the British Army finally launched its attack on the German line around the River Somme. Over the next four and half months they continued to attack, with little or no gain, and with horrendous losses to both sides.This book, written by the world's foremost expert in the subject, describes in chilling detail everything from the grand strategy to the experience of the men on the ground. Illustrated throughout, it is ...

The book starts with on the capture of Vimy Ridge and the nearly spur of Notre Dame de Lorette in October 1914. The major battles of spring and autumn 1915 is described as is the twelve month period from late autumn 1915 when British forces occupied the lines on the western Ridge. The period from late autumn 1916 onwards when the Canadian Corps was preparing for the April 1917 assault on the ridge, is given detailed treatment, with special emphasis (based on original German intelligence an...

What was the soldiers experience of the Battle of the Somme? How did the men who were there record their part in the fighting or remember it afterwards? How can we, 100 years later, gain an insight into one of the most famous and contentious - episodes of the Great War? Matthew Richardsons graphic account, which is based on the vivid personal testimony of those who took part, offers us a direct impression of the reality of the battle from the perspective of the ordinary soldiers and junior...

The siege of Kut is a story of blunders, sacrifice, imprisonment and escape. The allied campaign in Mesopotamia began in 1914 as a relatively simple operation to secure the oilfields in the Shatt-al-Arab delta and Basra area. Initially it was a great success, but as the army pressed towards Baghdad its poor logistic support, training, equipment and command left it isolated and besieged by the Turks. By 1916 the army had not been relieved, and on 29 April 1916, the British ...

Winston Churchill did not describe General Sir Charles Monro in the most glowing terms. Referring to Monro's brave decision to recommend a withdrawal from the Gallipoli disaster, Churchill said: 'He came, he saw, he capitulated.' Monro was one of a handful of senior officers selected to command a division with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 and also led a corps on the Western Front as the war progressed. After Gallipoli he was instrumental in supporting the war ef...