William

My Salamis Campaign 9: How an Osprey book was written

A few weeks ago my manuscript was delivered. The childbirth metaphor is entirely appropriate and the labour pains have kept me off blogging for a couple of months. Back in January I claimed to "have been making good progress with the writing". This was three months on from triumphantly blogging that the book had been formally contracted. Back in February 2008, now feeling like a lifetime ago, my first post on the subject was grandly titled "How to write an Osprey book". As if I knew......!

New evidence from Bosworth Field

Some interesting archaeological research was published in April last year that located the area of marshy ground which, according to contemporary sources, significantly shaped the battle that brought the reign of Richard III, the Plantagenet era and the Wars of the Roses to an end. The new evidence strongly suggested that the main fighting was done some distance to the south of the area generally identified as Bosworth Field. Further investigation and significant finds of artillery shot have now confirmed this interpretation.

Napoleonic Picture Competition Answers

How did you get on? This was meant to be challenging, but we were a bit disappointed by the number of our Buonapartistas who rose to the challenge! We thought you'd enjoy burrowing into your reference libraries and digging and delving on the web, and hope some of you did do just that. Mike will be contacting prizewinners shortly.

Visiting Bannockburn

The National Trust for Scotland's Bannockburn Heritage Centre, just south-west of Stirling, is closer to the location of the first day's fighting than that of the decisive second day, further east and now mostly built over. However, the open country to the west and south must still bear some resemblance to the ground on which Robert Bruce won his famous duel with Henry de Bohun, dancing round his lumbering charger on his nimble grey and splitting his helmet and skull with one blow of his axe.

Snipers and Service Aces

An article in the Independent’s Saturday Magazine, "Return of the Sniper", provided a nice updating footnote to Martin Pegler’s gripping studies of the lethal craft, Out of Nowhere and Sniper, full-length sequels to his best-selling Elite on the subject. Reading the piece as I watched Wimbledon, I remembered the post I wrote a couple of years ago on sniping and tennis.

Win "Armies of the Napoleonic Wars"!

How well do you know the vast range of images that document and celebrate the extraordinary career of Napoleon Bonaparte, from Gentleman-Cadet, who, according to one of his instructors, “would go far if circumstances favoured him”, to L’Empereur. Answer the questions about the following four paintings for a chance to win a copy of the sumptuous "Armies of the Napoleonic Wars".

The Greatest Generation: Tuskegee Flyer and Two Gunns

A while back I did a couple of posts inspired by recent obituaries. I saw a brief article the other day recording the death of Walter Palmer, one of the now very few surviving Tuskegee Airmen, feared and respected by the Germans as the 'Schwartze Voglemenschen' (Black Birdmen). Palmer makes a couple of appearances in Aviation Elite Units: 332nd Fighter Group – Tuskegee Airmen, which we published just in time for the ceremony belatedly honouring this extraordinary unit . I found a great portrait of Palmer. In the same paper there was a fuller obituary of another remarkable World War II veteran, John Gunn, and this led me to another....

The battle at Rorke's Drift (continued)

After two hours fierce fighting Chard had been forced to fall back on his “retrenchment of biscuit-boxes” and abandon the hospital and the barricades and yard between it and the storehouse. Over the next hour or two, the few defenders of the hospital, including any of the sick who were capable, carried out their heroic, nightmarish fighting retreat through with the roof burning over their heads. The Mission had been designed to include cell-like guestrooms for travellers wanting a night’s shelter. For the privacy and security of Revd Witt and his family, these rooms only had outside doors. So, famously, Private John Williams burrowed through the connecting mud-brick walls as his comrades, able-bodied and sick, desperately held the Zulus back with bayonet and bullet. Private Waters, wounded in the arm, hid in a cupboard and then succeeded in melting into the darkness outside, camouflaging himself with what is variously described as Mrs Witt’s black fur coat, one of the Revd Witt’s

The battle at Rorke's Drift

Lieutenant John Chard, the second Royal Engineer hero of January 22, 1879, the officer-in-command at Rorke’s Drift by a whisker of seniority over Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead of the 24th, was having a quiet day. His report to Queen Victoria is essential reading! His superior officer had left him in charge while he went down to the main camp at Helpmakaar with the assurance that “of course, nothing will happen, and I shall be back again this evening early”. During the morning, whilst attending to the ferry at the river crossing, his responsibility, Chard had become aware of Zulu activity. But, “ I then went down to my tent by the river, had some lunch comfortably, and was writing a letter home when my attention was called to two horsemen galloping towards us from the direction of Isandhlwana. From their gesticulation and their shouts, when they were near enough to be heard, we saw that something was the matter...."

Visiting the battlefield at Isandlwana

It was great to return from two weeks in South Africa to catch up with this blog and see Richard’s post on the Anglo-Zulu War, having just visited Isandlwana myself a few weeks after the anniversary. A while back I wrote about Gettysburg and how I felt it richly combined all the best ingredients for a deeply satisfying and moving battlefield visit: manageable dimensions, distinctive landscape features, a high level of conservation and a load of readily accessible, detailed information about what happened there (no guarantee of unanimity in interpretation, of course!), and, above all, atmosphere, and great characters and stories! Isandlwana is absolutely on a par with Gettysburg.

My Salamis Campaign 8: The Mythology of Thermopylae

I have now reached the point where the Greek fleet falls back on Salamis and the land army falls back on the Isthmus of Corinth after the battles of Artemisium and Thermopylae. Looking as closely as I have had to at the former, I began to see both battles in a rather different perspective, justifying the slight unease caused by many of the accounts I have now read. The glorious mythology of Thermopylae is, of course, justified by the heroism of the ferocious three days resistance and the ultimate, willing sacrifice of the rearguard. However, in terms of assets, the Greek commitment was far greater at Artemisium than at Thermopylae. Defeat at Thermopylae was as tragic as it was inevitable, but it was survivable. Defeat at Artemisium, yielding control of the sea to the Persians, would have lost the war. Artemisium would then indeed have been one of those “battles that changed history”

Double Cross spies, secret armies and unsecret publishing

I’m really enjoying Deceiving Hitler, published in September. I remember the thrill of reading The Double Cross System in the War of 1939-45 when it was published in the ‘70s by Yale University Press and wishing the University Press I then worked for had got in first. I didn’t immediately appreciate that the author, J C Masterman’s University Press of choice would naturally have been Oxford rather than Cambridge, and that he had gone to the USA and Yale because the British Government and security services were firmly opposing the book’s publication in the UK! Masterman was a key architect of the greatest counter-espionage and deception campaign of all time in his role as Chairman of the Twenty (XX) Committee, the ultra-secret element of MI5 responsible for counter-esponage and deception.

The Roman invasion that never was

Julius Caesar is more popularly associated with the Roman invasion of Britain than the Emperor Claudius. However, whilst the former carried out a useful reconnaissance in 45BC, penetrated a much larger area with a considerably stronger force in 44BC, and ultimately won decisive victories in both years, he left no occupying force behind. This did not arrive until 43AD when Claudius’ general Aulus Plautius established a bridgehead at Rutupiae, modern Richborough, in an excellent natural harbour on the Kent coast. The shoreline is now two miles away from the remains of the substantial fort, but excavations earlier this year have pinpointed the beach which the Roman ships would have been pulled up on under the protection of the earthworks. The quite widespread media coverage of the Richborough dig and its revelations led me to an earlier article reporting “astonishing new archaeological finds” that proved “the history of Britain will have to be rewritten. The AD43 Roman invasion never

My Salamis Campaign 7: Overview Writing and Reading

A couple of weeks ago Campaign: Salamis 480 BC was presented at one of Osprey’s fortnightly Publishing Meetings, which wield power of life & death over all projects, and it was commissioned: I am now officially an Osprey author. The delivery date of June next year still seems comfortably far off but this commitment has brought about a swift change of gear from what has been a very enjoyable research ramble (literally, on the island itself at the top end of the battlefield) to the somewhat more disciplined business of writing.

Napoleonic Competition Results

Well, we seem to have stumped quite a few of you with the competition that I ran last month. I asked you to name the eight victories listed around Napoleon's tomb to stand the chance of winning five Napoleonic titles of your choice.

Death on the Nile

The British Museum have followed their excellent "First Emperor" show with the equally gripping "Hadrian: Empire and Conflict". Hadrian is generally best known in Britain for his wall. This spectacular feat of military engineering, as important symbolically as tactically for the control of this north-west frontier of the vast Roman empire, formed only a part of the legacy of Hadrian's two decades of rule as one of Rome’s greatest emperors.

Napoleonic Competition

Visiting Paris earlier in the year I spent half a day in the Musee de l’Armee in Les Invalides and hardly scratched the surface, even with the vast Napoleonic section closed for major renewal work. I started with what must be must be the largest collection of suits of armour that can be seen anywhere. It became a little wearing, in fact, inspecting this mile-long parade through room after room, but for those with an eye for the evolutionary detail, it’s all there! The shining steel, much of it so elegant, contrasted intriguingly with the assorted Kevlar of the CRS detachment relaxing in the street outside the nearby cafe we had lunch in.

The Sound of Vulcans over Mull

Seeing recent footage of the magnificently restored Avro Vulcan XH558 reminded me of an extraordinary experience I had back in the 70s when the V-bombers were such a distinctive element of Britain’s cold-war weaponry...

Alternate Occupation, Resistance and Collaboration

In a post back in May I touched upon some of the still very live concerns raised by the World War II occupation of France. I was sharply reminded of these by a great novel I read the other day, Resistance by Owen Sheers. Its alarmingly convincing background is Britain in 1944-5 with Russia defeated, the Normandy landings rolled back and a successful German invasion and occupation.

My Campaign Salamis 6: Cruising the Straits

I’m back from a wonderful fortnight in Greece , some Osprey research, some culture (Athens and Delphi) and quite a lot of pure lotus-eating. There was a major demonstration and some strike action on our first day so, eager as I was, we decided not to entrust ourselves to the public transport system, which we needed to get us to Salamis. Parliament seemed to be well defended, but clearly the police needed elite army support

My Half-Track Neighbour

On my regular route into Oxford , which takes me through the neighbouring village of Kirtlington ( great pub! ) I occasionally pass a beautifully preserved Half Track , surreally perched on the grass verge in front of a row of houses on a country lane. When I have time to stop and take a photograph or two, I never have my camera with me...

More of the greatest generation

A couple of days after my last post on the subject, two more amazing individuals were celebrated in obituaries on the same day, again heroes from the French Resistance and the Royal Air Force...

What happened on MY birthday?

Well, Phil may have started something with his post on April 24; I had a birthday (rather bigger than his) coming up four days later and thought I should see what I could find. If you want to see what happened in US military history on yours, try this, and here’s my own selection for April 28...

My Salamis Campaign : Part 5

In my previous Salamis post I ventured to disagree with Professor Barry Strauss over his representation of the overnight manoeuvres of the Persian fleet and its position at dawn just before the fighting began. I have been finding his book on the battle, and his other writing on Greek naval warfare in general, all several years more recent than the literature I was previously familiar with, tremendously helpful. However, as I wrote to him (only fair to give advance warning of the public assault on his academic reputation about to be launched from this blog!), “I just find it too improbable that they would have risked moving all the way...

"King of England this day I shall die"

The BBC aired a short documentary on the Battle of Bosworth the other day. Advance publicity promised revelations about the true location of the battle with the implication that the fine visitor centre was therefore wrongly positioned on Ambion Hill. However, this is very widely accepted as the site of Richard III’s camp and of his initial position, attacked or at least advanced upon by Henry Tudor...

The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw’s 1998 bestseller celebrated “the greatest generation”, the US citizens who fought in World War II “not for fame or recognition, but because it was the right thing to do". This term repeatedly springs to mind as, more than sixty years on, our newspapers’ obituary pages continue to recall the extraordinary bravery, and combat and other skills that were displayed by so many individual men and women...

Doughboy's letter in a bottle Pt 2: Dreadnoughts and gum

I can never resist reading random pages of our old newspapers as I bundle them up for recycling, because I always find something good that I missed. On the same day as my post went up about the story of Sgt Liepmann and his lovingly preserved letter from Aunt Pete, I came across its happy ending...

Pistols at twelve paces

I went to a book launch the other day. It could be described as a family affair as the author was my cousin, Giles Hunt, and the book was "The Duel".

Writing an Osprey book - My Salamis Campaign (part4)

I am just about ready to submit my Bird’s-Eye View (BEV) and Battlescene efforts to Marcus, the Series Editor I will be working with. We have worked closely before when we were co-editors of Osprey Military Journal. I’m not sure if that makes his power of life or death over my enterprise more or less comfortable, but he’s a nice guy and really knows what he’s about...

Doughboy's letter in a bottle and a chance to win signed copies

Nice story in the papers recently about an American Expeditionary Force (AEF) artillery sergeant who buried a letter in a beer bottle in Lorraine in 1918, presumably to keep it safe. It was from his "Aunt Pete" in Oklahoma...

Writing an Osprey book - My Salamis Campaign (Part 3)

Research has been going well. My Bodleian card gives me access to the superb Sackler Library and I already have answers to most of the questions I had lined up a couple of weeks ago, giving me a pretty good idea of what the landscape and coastlines of the island of Salamis and mainland Attica could have looked like from the south-east, the angle I think I have now settled on for my bird's-eye view of the battle...

Writing an Osprey book - My Salamis Campaign (Part 2)

Before getting a contract, an Osprey first-timer obviously has to give fair evidence of knowing about his or her chosen subject, and of being able to write. But there is another hurdle to be cleared and this is both highly challenging and, very probably, unique to Osprey...

How to write an Osprey book - My Salamis Campaign

I formally retired from Osprey in December but will happily be staying involved in much the same way as I began in 1999, doing various freelance and consultancy jobs. To these I am hoping to add some writing, and I have started work on a proposal to do Salamis 480 BC for the Campaign series.

Teaching Military History

Back in July Richard set off a lively discussion about the place, desirable and actual, of military history in education with his post "When did military history go out of fashion?" In the course of this discussion I mentioned that we had invited a distinguished military historian to write a short article making the case for military history...

War Music - Beethoven's Battle Symphony et al

Following on from Joe's post about the music of war, I heard Beethoven’s 10th Symphony the other day (he actually seems to have slipped in between the 7th and the 8th). This is his fascinating Battle Symphony, or Op.91 Wellingtons Sieg oder Die Schlacht bei Vittoria, if you must. Ludwig originally wrote it as a bit of a pot-boiler...

300 - A great war film or just CGIed abs and pecs?

I missed seeing 300 when it was breaking box office records and provoking rather unmerited heavyweight controversy. Our recent discussion about war movies, the publication of our Campaign title on Thermopylae, my personal interest in the period and its wars, and its release on DVD prompted me to buy a copy...

Sniper Aces

I have been enjoying an early copy of our lead summer title Sniper, in bookstores this month. It chronicles the evolution of the US marksman and his weaponry from colonial times to the present. There is evidence that sniping and counter-sniping took their place on the battlefield at least as early as King's Mountain in 1778...

Battlefield Touring

Reading about Gettysburg the other day made me think of the place. Often a historic battlefield is fairly featureless, sometimes no more than a few fields or a hillside, making it very hard (for me anyway) to visualize the action or get any real feeling of the drama enacted there, beyond the resonance of the names...

Civil War Stories and Characters

I have just joined James Reasoner's Civil War Battle Series at Gettysburg, the sixth in his ten-book chronicle of the fortunes of a Virginian family. It isn't "Cold Mountain" on the home front nor "The Killer Angels" in the line of fire, but it's an enjoyable, well-crafted read and you don't need...