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1914: Fight The Good Fight: Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War
One of Britain's foremost military historians has written a significant new history of the origins -- and the opening first few weeks fighting -- of what would become known as 'the war to end all wars'. Intensely researched and convincingly argued, Allan Mallinson explores and explains the grand strategic shift that occurred in the century before the war, the British Army's regeneration after its drubbings in its fight against the Boer, its almost calamitous experience of the first twenty days' fighting in Flanders, and the point at which the British Expeditionary Force -- the 'Old Contemptibles' -- took up the pick and the spade in the middle of September 1914, changing the war from one of movement into the now familiar image of the trenches and the coming of the Territorials, Kitchener's 'Pals', and ultimately the conscripts -- and of course the poets. And with them, a sense of pity and of futility.
An ex-infantry and cavalry officer, Mallinson brings his experience as a professional soldier to bear on the individuals, circumstances and events and the result is a vivid, compelling new history of the beginnings of the conflict -- and one that speculates -- tantalizingly -- on what might have been.
An ex-infantry and cavalry officer, Mallinson brings his experience as a professional soldier to bear on the individuals, circumstances and events and the result is a vivid, compelling new history of the beginnings of the conflict -- and one that speculates -- tantalizingly -- on what might have been.
503 pages, Hardcover
First published August 29, 2013
11 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Allan Mallinson
45 books87 followersBrigadier Allan Lawrence Mallinson is an English author and was an officer in the British Army.
Mallinson is best known for writing a series of novels chronicling the (fictional) life of Matthew Hervey, an officer serving in the (fictional) British 6th Light Dragoons from the late Napoleonic Wars through subsequent colonial conflicts in India, North America and south Africa.
Mallinson is best known for writing a series of novels chronicling the (fictional) life of Matthew Hervey, an officer serving in the (fictional) British 6th Light Dragoons from the late Napoleonic Wars through subsequent colonial conflicts in India, North America and south Africa.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 6, 2014
I have greatly enjoyed reading Allan Mallinson's Matthew Hervey series of novels about the career of a British cavalry officer, a junior in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo who goes on to fight in many of the colonial wars of the early 1800's. Mallinson is a career armour officer (13th/18th Royal Hussars), who rose to command of his regiment, and then to flag rank (Brigadier).
I looked forward to reading this book both for his ability to tell a story well, and for his military knowledge. This book did not disappoint on either aspect.
The book is concerned for the most part with the fate of the original BEF (the Old Contemptibles) - its mobilization, the advance into Belgium in August 1914(and, in particular, why it was there), the encounter battle at Mons, and the subsequent retreat, including the battle at Le Cateau. It includes the background of Army reorganization following the South African War.
There are some wonderful details in it, for example, how the BEF was able to mobilize its wartime horse strength (165,000 horses drafted in 12 days), as well as the call up of the soldiers. Likewise, there are some illuminating comments on the early usage of airborne reconnaissance. Of particular interest is his commentary on leadership at the army and corps level in August 1914, as well as the what-if discussion at the conclusion of the book. The footnotes are wonderful, many of them little stories in themselves.
I looked forward to reading this book both for his ability to tell a story well, and for his military knowledge. This book did not disappoint on either aspect.
The book is concerned for the most part with the fate of the original BEF (the Old Contemptibles) - its mobilization, the advance into Belgium in August 1914(and, in particular, why it was there), the encounter battle at Mons, and the subsequent retreat, including the battle at Le Cateau. It includes the background of Army reorganization following the South African War.
There are some wonderful details in it, for example, how the BEF was able to mobilize its wartime horse strength (165,000 horses drafted in 12 days), as well as the call up of the soldiers. Likewise, there are some illuminating comments on the early usage of airborne reconnaissance. Of particular interest is his commentary on leadership at the army and corps level in August 1914, as well as the what-if discussion at the conclusion of the book. The footnotes are wonderful, many of them little stories in themselves.
October 21, 2016
There have been many histories of the First World War and the centenary of its outbreak will no doubt see several more released. In his book, Mallinson explores the political and military history of the century before the war, starting with the first treaty of Paris in 1814. This sets the scene for his detailed exploration of the first twenty days of fighting by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) against the Germans in France.
Mallinson has over three decades experience as a soldier and a staff officer and this brings an authority and insight to his writing. He has clearly done extensive and meticulous research but his professional experience means he understands the psychology of soldiers of every rank.
He uses first-person accounts from his research to great effect. During the fierce fighting on 24 August 1914 (known as ‘Shrapnel Monday’ because of the amount of shots fired), he quotes Captain Francis Grenfell of the Lancers: “We galloped about like rabbits in front of a line of guns, men and horses falling in all directions.” Another recalls the relief of being soaked in a downpour after carrying fifty pounds of equipment in the relentless heat: “Good as a bath, and twice as refreshing.”
Mallinson’s writing style is fresh and vivid throughout. His own account of politicians assembling and arguing in the stifling offices of the secretary of state is as gripping as any novel, as are his accounts of battle. There is excellent use of battle plans in the book, and the supporting photographs and old cartoons are superb. Highly recommended as both an authoritative and accessible history of the period.
Note: I received a free review copy of this book via the Historical Novel Society. This review (or an edited version) has appeared in the Historical Novels Review. My review is my independent opinion.
Mallinson has over three decades experience as a soldier and a staff officer and this brings an authority and insight to his writing. He has clearly done extensive and meticulous research but his professional experience means he understands the psychology of soldiers of every rank.
He uses first-person accounts from his research to great effect. During the fierce fighting on 24 August 1914 (known as ‘Shrapnel Monday’ because of the amount of shots fired), he quotes Captain Francis Grenfell of the Lancers: “We galloped about like rabbits in front of a line of guns, men and horses falling in all directions.” Another recalls the relief of being soaked in a downpour after carrying fifty pounds of equipment in the relentless heat: “Good as a bath, and twice as refreshing.”
Mallinson’s writing style is fresh and vivid throughout. His own account of politicians assembling and arguing in the stifling offices of the secretary of state is as gripping as any novel, as are his accounts of battle. There is excellent use of battle plans in the book, and the supporting photographs and old cartoons are superb. Highly recommended as both an authoritative and accessible history of the period.
Note: I received a free review copy of this book via the Historical Novel Society. This review (or an edited version) has appeared in the Historical Novels Review. My review is my independent opinion.
August 7, 2014
A meticulously researched book which provides a useful introduction to the start of the First World War. The coverage of the political decision making in the run up to war is particularly interesting and contradicts some of the myths of the inevitability of the 'rush to war'. However despite understanding military terminology, for the most part, the book could still be hard to follow at times. The authors habit of adding long and rambling footnotes also broke up the flow of the narrative and could have been left out.
Overall it's worth a read and is especially good at the beginning but you need to stick with it in the middle.
Overall it's worth a read and is especially good at the beginning but you need to stick with it in the middle.
August 5, 2021
This was quite a slog. Mallinson clearly knows his topic and is exhaustive in covering his topic. Where the book struggles is containing its scope.
Mallinson is trying to explain how the tragedy of WW1 unfolded, arguing, to some extent, that if certain events in 1914 had played out differently then the carnage of the subsequent stalemate of the western front wouldn’t have occurred. It is feasible that Germany could have been dealt a decisive enough blow at the start of the war so as to end it before it truly began.
I can’t fault Mallinson’s argument; it’s more the manner in which he spells it out. This is a book about plain old facts more than anything; he resists making it a story of personalities or trying to make the reader empathise with the regular troops. Instead, we get long and complex descriptions of how the British Army was organised (what’s a battalion vs a Corp vs an Army??) and what was their make-up of artillery vs horses vs men etc. It is all solid background detail which should help the reader have a handle on how the various forces lined up on the fields of Belgium for those all important first engagements. However, this reader found trying to follow the battles and troop movements in the detail that Mallinson gets into all a bit too complicated.
The book is great where Mallinson explains how the complex circumstances that triggered the war came into being – relating the story all the way back to Waterloo and the end of Napoleon, the rise of Bismarck and his unification of the various German states, the effect of the overseas Empires of Britain and France, the crumbling of the Hanoverian and Ottoman Empires – all of this is told with energy. He is great when it comes to relating the political manoeuvring in the aftermath of the assassination of the Archduke; his final summaries are full of insight.
Ultimately, I think this one volume is trying too much – there’s a compelling narrative about the events that led Germany to trigger its march into Belgium and then maybe another book about those early few months and how they led to the tragedy of the trenches.
Mallinson is trying to explain how the tragedy of WW1 unfolded, arguing, to some extent, that if certain events in 1914 had played out differently then the carnage of the subsequent stalemate of the western front wouldn’t have occurred. It is feasible that Germany could have been dealt a decisive enough blow at the start of the war so as to end it before it truly began.
I can’t fault Mallinson’s argument; it’s more the manner in which he spells it out. This is a book about plain old facts more than anything; he resists making it a story of personalities or trying to make the reader empathise with the regular troops. Instead, we get long and complex descriptions of how the British Army was organised (what’s a battalion vs a Corp vs an Army??) and what was their make-up of artillery vs horses vs men etc. It is all solid background detail which should help the reader have a handle on how the various forces lined up on the fields of Belgium for those all important first engagements. However, this reader found trying to follow the battles and troop movements in the detail that Mallinson gets into all a bit too complicated.
The book is great where Mallinson explains how the complex circumstances that triggered the war came into being – relating the story all the way back to Waterloo and the end of Napoleon, the rise of Bismarck and his unification of the various German states, the effect of the overseas Empires of Britain and France, the crumbling of the Hanoverian and Ottoman Empires – all of this is told with energy. He is great when it comes to relating the political manoeuvring in the aftermath of the assassination of the Archduke; his final summaries are full of insight.
Ultimately, I think this one volume is trying too much – there’s a compelling narrative about the events that led Germany to trigger its march into Belgium and then maybe another book about those early few months and how they led to the tragedy of the trenches.
December 3, 2018
Military history by a professional soldier
This book has been much praised in reviews; and rightly so. It is graphic and we'll researched. The detailed military explanations often have wide implications. But the political level is not neglected. There are numerous footnotes which contain particularity useful comment and information.
This book has been much praised in reviews; and rightly so. It is graphic and we'll researched. The detailed military explanations often have wide implications. But the political level is not neglected. There are numerous footnotes which contain particularity useful comment and information.
December 24, 2018
A very interesting book and is worthwhile reading. I hovered between three and four stars only because it is not a sit down read for too long.
Having said that it was well written with lots of interesting facts.
Having said that it was well written with lots of interesting facts.
August 23, 2014
I have read many of Allan Mallinson's historical novels (the Hervey series) which are well written and are, essentially, Sharpe on horseback. The military information is rather better then Sharpe which is to their advantage. "1914" is an excellent piece of military history that looks at the events of 1914 from the point of view of the British Expeditionary Force. After their mauling by the Afrikaners in the Boer War military thinking regarding mobilisation and mobility had to be revised. How this was applied to the opening months of the First World War is discussed in detail alongside a critique of the decisions that were made as the year progressed into the fixed trench warfare that is remembered. However, the first few months of WW1 were genuinely mobile warfare before the lines became fixed.
How well did the BEF and its senior officers fare during the year of 1914? Were the weaknesses in the German military machine exploited to the full? Was there an opportunity to achieve a break through in the first months of the war that could have genuinely ended the war before Christmas? These questions are all addressed with the knowledge of a lifetime's experience soldiering. His conclusions may startle some people; for others it will confirm what they already knew.
His writing is engaging, as I would expect from his fiction, and uses sources at all levels of the BEF at the time and from many more recent historians. He is not afraid to take on the accepted view and argues his corner cogently, consistently and concisely.
The real problem with this book and the many others of its kind that will be published this year is that they make no difference to what actually happened. With the retrospectoscope vision is always perfect and with intelligence available from both sides it could well have been that Haig, French or Smith-Dorien could have done something different. Those outcomes could have changed the whole face of the war. Based on the intelligence (usually next to none) they had available to them at the time they made the decisions that could only lead to trench warfare at its most grotesque. Furthermore should history be allowed to judge individuals who, in its estimation, made wrong decisions? If an individual was found, incontrovertibly, to have been culpable one hundred years later, what is the benefit to us now? "War is an area of uncertainty; three quarters of the things on which all action in War is based are lying in a fog of uncertainty to a greater or lesser extent." (von Clausewitz). In 1914 the fog was pretty thick, often impenetrable.
This is an excellent book, readable and thought provoking, which seeks to burst some of the bubbles that have built up around the BEF. To some extent it is successful. It points out that numerically the BEF was small beer compared to the French and German armies and the expectations of it both at home and abroad were in excess of its abilities on the ground showing that the area of overlap between politics and soldiering can become very blurred.
Perhaps we should make the effort to mourn the dead of all nations in the following years.
How well did the BEF and its senior officers fare during the year of 1914? Were the weaknesses in the German military machine exploited to the full? Was there an opportunity to achieve a break through in the first months of the war that could have genuinely ended the war before Christmas? These questions are all addressed with the knowledge of a lifetime's experience soldiering. His conclusions may startle some people; for others it will confirm what they already knew.
His writing is engaging, as I would expect from his fiction, and uses sources at all levels of the BEF at the time and from many more recent historians. He is not afraid to take on the accepted view and argues his corner cogently, consistently and concisely.
The real problem with this book and the many others of its kind that will be published this year is that they make no difference to what actually happened. With the retrospectoscope vision is always perfect and with intelligence available from both sides it could well have been that Haig, French or Smith-Dorien could have done something different. Those outcomes could have changed the whole face of the war. Based on the intelligence (usually next to none) they had available to them at the time they made the decisions that could only lead to trench warfare at its most grotesque. Furthermore should history be allowed to judge individuals who, in its estimation, made wrong decisions? If an individual was found, incontrovertibly, to have been culpable one hundred years later, what is the benefit to us now? "War is an area of uncertainty; three quarters of the things on which all action in War is based are lying in a fog of uncertainty to a greater or lesser extent." (von Clausewitz). In 1914 the fog was pretty thick, often impenetrable.
This is an excellent book, readable and thought provoking, which seeks to burst some of the bubbles that have built up around the BEF. To some extent it is successful. It points out that numerically the BEF was small beer compared to the French and German armies and the expectations of it both at home and abroad were in excess of its abilities on the ground showing that the area of overlap between politics and soldiering can become very blurred.
Perhaps we should make the effort to mourn the dead of all nations in the following years.
February 10, 2017
I have read a number of books dealing with the politics which led to the outbreak of WWI. This book is slightly different as it deals with the military position of the UK in the lead up to the war. It looks briefly at the effects of the Boer Wars on the Army and Haldane's reforms in the first decade of the 20th century. A previous book I read, The Sleepwalkers, rehearsed the attitude of Sir Edward Grey and how as Foreign Secretary he played his cards close to his chest, not always keeping his Cabinet colleagues abreast of what he was saying to foreign powers. This book deals in some details with the similar actions of Maj.General Henry Williams as Director of Military Operations at the War Office. The book then turns to deal in details with the first months of the war as it affected the British Expeditionary Force at the Battles of Mons and of the Marne. The author has little praise for the then overall commander of the BEF, Sir John French. He hints (sometimes more) at ill feelings between him and other generals and sometimes with his French counterparts. The book ends with a couple of 'what ifs' arising out of such planning for the eventuality of war as there was. The author suggests that had the BEF been concentrated at Amiens or Antwerp rather than Mauberge as actually happened and kept in reserve, rather than thrown immediately into battle when so many seasones soldiers of all ranks were lost, then the war might have ended far more quickly without being bogged down in three years or more of trench warfare. Who knows - if ifs and ands were pots and pans what need would we have for tinkers.
Edit - I haven't read this book twice. Just because a book has 1914 in its title doesn't mean it's the same book!
Edit - I haven't read this book twice. Just because a book has 1914 in its title doesn't mean it's the same book!
August 20, 2014
This is clearly written by someone whose inside knowledge of the military staff is very profound. Takes one inside many of the dilemmas and issues facing the British military in 1914. An invaluable insight.
April 6, 2017
Certainly the best book I have read about this, the most interesting period of the Great War.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews