Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front 1915 (Wolverhampton Series)

This superb book contains fifteen essays about the British Army on the Western Front in 1915, edited by Dr Spencer Jones of Wolverhampton University. Dr Jones' previous books include the indispensable Stemming the Tide, Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914. The current volume is every bit as good.This book is very welcome because there are few really good books on the Western Front in 1915. Here are to be found fascinating chapters on such topics as Haig and Neuve Chapelle, the Royal Flying Corps in 1915, Anglo-Indian cavalry, and the battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, Loos and Second Ypres. There is a fascinating study of the 8th Division at Bois Grenier, and much more. I found the book to be very readable, and packed with fascinating information and detail that was new to me. The book provides really useful (colour) maps of the battles covered, is printed on good quality paper, and is nicely bound. For those who care about such things, it smells fantastic - just as a new hardback book should!Helion are a wonderful publisher, producing excellent military history books like this for around £25. (Shame on those publishers who charge £50 plus for this kind of book, such as OUP and Routledge.) I shopped around among Amazon sellers, and bought my copy for around £15. If you are interested in the Western Front in the First World War then you need to own this book.

Not always a comfortable read, but it shows the British army beginning to grapple with its task

For anyone wanting to gain in understanding of the challenges facing the BEF in 1915, this book is indispensable. It describes the main offensive actions and the defence of the Ypres perimeter very well, explaining the difficulties resulting from extraordinarily rapid expansion of the Army, the inability of manufacturing industry to deliver the guns and ammunition needed, particularly HE, and the struggle to man divisional, Corps and Army HQs with competent staff. It is leavened with graphic descriptions of the experiences of individual battalions in attack and defence, including the gas attacks on the north of the Ypres salient.It is an excellent compilation of essays that gives a god insight into the challenges facing the BEF and its commanders as they struggled to master siege warfare on the Western Front in an effort that has been much overlooked.

1915 can be a difficult year for a British historian to write about. The British army was still adapting and coming to terms with fighting a continental war. In addition, there were no really large engagements as are found in 1916 and 1917, but instead a series of often unconnected smaller battles which resulted in no appreciable gains of territory and no compelling victories. This book tackles the campaigns by the British army in 1915 through a series of essays written by different authors. In some books, this approach doesn't work, but here it works well. The authors of the individual chapters know their stuff and write with clarity. The account of the defence of the Frezenberg Ridge by the Territorials is quite moving - more so because it is a relatively unknown story. The book contains a series of clear, well drawn maps, which is a pleasant change - many modern histories are accompanied by inadequate maps. Highly recommended.

An absolute "must" for anyone who wants a readable but academic view of the British Army's performance in 1915. I only found one chapter a bit off-key in terms of quality (Indian cavalry chapter). The idea of using essays by 15 different authors has produced an excellent book for any student of WW1 but is equally readable for the more casual history buff.

As Spencer Jones notes in his Introduction, within the welter of books on the Great War, 1915 is the forgotten year of the war on the Western Front. In contrast to the plethora of works on the Gallipoli campaign, little has been devoted to the British Army’s experience in France and Belgium during the same period, other than two volumes of the Official History written in 1927 and 1928, and a few works on specific battles, notably three studies of the Battle Loos published a decade ago. More influential, however, has been Alan Clark’s The Donkeys (1960), which delivered a seething and damning indictment of British generalship in 1915. Of rather dubious scholarship and shallow analysis it has, nonetheless, left an enduring public perception of the war. His much touted ‘German’ quote of British soldiers being ‘Lions led by Donkeys’, later admitted to be Clark’s own invention, still permeates and distorts the popular view of the war to this day. While the British High Command made mistakes and contributed to the disastrous results, the reasons surrounding the failures of 1915 are far more more complex than Clark’s simplistic approach. This becomes abundantly evident in the fifteen studies contained in Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front 1915. Based on solid, scholarly research of primary sources, together with fine analysis and evaluation, this excellent book provides a perceptive understanding of the issues involved, why 1915 was such an agony for the British Army, and how it addressed the enormous challenges confronting all armies at that time. As such it delivers a finely argued and compelling corrective to the popular view that has been long overdue. Beginning at the macro level Jones leads off with a first class overview of the problems and difficulties facing the British Army throughout 1915. It is an Army reconstituting itself after the grievous losses of the previous year, expanding rapidly well beyond expectations and the resources available, and being woefully short of the professional experience, training, weapons and munitions required to fight a new type of warfare none were expecting. We are then treated to a range of topics including the problems of supplying munitions to the Army, the expansion of the Royal Flying Corps, senior commanders, various studies of the battles fought including three little known actions, the experiences of particular territorial battalions, command in the Canadian division, and the operations of the Indian Cavalry Corps. Despite the diverse spread of topics, and being the work of many authors, several consistent themes run across these chapters. Rather than being Donkeys, numerous examples arise of senior officers analysing actions, drawing lessons, some wrong and others correct, and implementing innovative tactics as they struggled to deliver success with minimal casualties. Their views on the ways and means of overcoming the awful conundrum confronting them were divided, yet the desire to find a winning solution which gave the infantry the best chance was strong. Thus through trial and error, and suffering terrible losses for few gains, the Army experimented under difficult conditions with inadequate resources, lacking the technology and associated techniques needed to overcome a strong and determined enemy. Yet these technologies and techniques were emerging, and remarkably quickly. While nascent in 1915, together with evolving tactics, they formed the foundation for the later developments and eventual success in 1918, when the British Army was the finely honed force it wasn’t in 1915. Compounding the problem were the realties of operating as the junior partner in a coalition war. Relentless pressure from their French Allies to participate in offensives forced the hands of a reluctant British High Command that recognised the inadequacies of their force, the unfavourable ground over which the attacks were made, and the difficulties they faced. Yet it was a High Command that struggled with the problems facing it, was divided in its thoughts on the best way ahead, and repeated mistakes, which while easy to criticise in hindsight were not so evident to everyone in 1915. Being a compendium of work from several authors, the approach and style of the chapters differ, yet most are well written, interesting, and offer new insights. One gains the impression the authors chose their own topics, so rather than following an orderly progression from the political and strategic to the tactical, pulling together the threads of the developments as they occurred, there is some repetition of thought and issues, and we have two chapters addressing battles through the experiences of two territorial battalions. Nonetheless, this fine book delivers something for everyone whatever their specific interests in the Great War are, thus offering an appeal to a wide readership. Congratulations to Helion for the uncluttered, coloured maps supporting the battle narratives, and for re-introducing footnotes at the bottom of each page. Both are a professional touch that many will appreciate. In summary, Courage without Glory is a comprehensive study from top to bottom of an Army in transition and adapting to the new challenges of industrialised trench warfare As such it is a highly valuable and important contribution to a neglected period of the Great War that merits a place in one’s bookshelf.

Exactly as expected

Very good collection of scholarly essays on British army on Western Front in 1915. Good maps and illustrations . Essays on strategy, personalities, air operations and logistics are especially good. Some of the essays on tactical operations are heavy going.