Hew Strachan

John Buchan and the First World War: Fact into Fiction

John Buchan, best remembered today as a novelist, was also a man of affairs, historian, and propagandist. During the First World War these attributes were the basis of his public reputation, but he did not cease to write fiction, and the war permeated the novels which he wrote after it. This article explores the ways in which Buchan exploited his privileged knowledge of the facts to write his fictions. It also considers Buchans thinking both about the wars conduct and the function of propaganda within it.

Book Reviews: On Clausewitz: A Study of Military and Political Ideas. By Hugh Smith. Palgrave Macmillan. 2005. xi + 303 pp. Paper. ISBN 1 4039 3587 4

War in History 2007 14 (2) as they passed through it. As for the battle of Crécy itself, important recent work on the topography of the battlefield by Philip Preston has emphasized the significance of a steep bank which means that the French could not have advanced along the route proposed for them here. Unfortunately, this came out too recently for the authors of the book to take it into account. The battle is vividly described, and an appendix explains some of the difficulties involved in reconstructing it. The lengthy debates that have taken place about how the English archers were arrayed are largely ignored, though we read how in the course of the battle they ‘would rest their aching backs and fingers, and probably boast about their achievements so far’. The authors are certain that three large bombards were employed by the English; it is certainly reasonable to assume that they had guns at Crécy, but such substantial weapons seem unlikely. This book, however, is about more than just the battle: it aims to tell a story about the campaign as a whole, and it tells it well.

Book Review: Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die amtliche deutsche Militärgeschichtsschreibung, 1914-1956

were to have an even greater role in the demise of both Japanese air arms than in the defeat of the Luftwaffe. Besides interesting photographs, maps and diagrams in the text, this book has over a hundred pages of appendices illustrated with diagrams by Jonathan Parshall. Those of Japanese seaplanes on pp. 288–91 have unfortunately been printed in the wrong order, but the ship’s plans on pp. 226–51 would by themselves justify a place on any buff’s bookshelf for this excellent volume.

Book Review: Anglo-French Relations and Strategy on the Western Front, 1914-18, Strategy and Intelligence: British Policy during the First World War

hoped that tensions over the Sudan would lead to war between France and Britain. Fashoda has often been depicted as a crisis more serious than it actually was. Rather, the confrontation on the Nile was in many ways an aberration in Franco-British relations. French public opinion was deeply divided not only over a forward colonial policy but also over Fashoda itself. For too long historians have given too much weight to the noise created by the vociferous nationalist press, which was unrepresentative of French opinion at large. Fashoda meant more to Britain than France, an interest soon recognized by Paris. Russia had no interest in actively supporting France over the upper Nile, and in any case wiser statesmen in both Paris and London were looking for an entente cordiale which was signed within a few years of the Fashoda crisis. Edward Spiers has brought together an excellent collection of essays which scholars, particularly those interested in imperialism and international relations, are likely to find both provocative and stimulating.

Book Review: On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861-1871

back again. The Scots, especially the Highlanders, showed great boldness and physical strength and moved amazingly quickly over bad roads in very bad weather. Going south, they maintained good discipline, travelling light and supporting themselves largely with public money taken from tax-collectors and donations forced from known contributors to the Hanoverian defence. McLynn mentions not only places passed, difficulties and incidents on the march and halts, but whose houses were quarters for which higher officers. His details are very full, showing study of many manuscript and printed sources. He describes the tasks performed by the various units, including the clans, disagreements among the officers, and measures taken to mislead the enemy about planned routes and the smallness of the army. After telling of the pivotal council of war on 5 December, the arguments of the two sides and Charles Edward’s efforts to change the decision, McLynn relates in like detail the return journey to Scotland. Aware that the Scots were retreating, the civilian population grew more resistant, capturing and even killing stragglers. Money was harder to get. Cumberland followed, but he never came close enough to force a battle, delayed by his government’s fear of a French descent. Besides, the Jacobites were led by skillful commanders and moved swiftly. McLynn compares this successful retreat with that of Xenophon’s ‘Ten Thousand’ from Persia. (Of course, Xenophon’s march covered 1500 miles.) There was some disorder, and discipline weakened. This book should be useful to readers concerned with the rebellion or with Jacobitism in general. It should also correct the assumption that study of Jacobitism needlessly complicates eighteenth century political history. Unfortunately, McLynn often fails to give full names of some of his characters, and his sketchy index gives little help. He does avail himself of his ‘what if’ privilege, particularly contending that a march on London would have had a good chance of success, thrown away by the decision made at Derby. I disagree. Support was lacking. Panic at London, being panic, was prone to exaggerate the real situation. The French had always failed in the past. We cannot really be sure. What we do know is that the Jacobites turned back, and that Cumberland later defeated them on their own ground, at Culloden. One of McLynn’s notes mystifies me. It appears on page 32, and no identification of the author or work cited appears anywhere: ‘Jones, pp. 199–211’. Who might this be?

Book Reviews : Falkenhayn, Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich. By Holger Afflerbach. Schriftenreihe des Militirgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes Band 42. Munich: R. Oldenbourg. 1994. xiii + 586 pp. DM 88 boards. ISBN 3 486 55972 9

Compared with many major commanders of the First World War -Joffre, Foch, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff all stand in need of satisfactory biographies Falkenhayn has been well served. Hans von Zwehl’s life, published in 1926, is workmanlike; Karl-Heinz Janssen’s Der Kanzler und der General (1967) gives a full and not unsympathetic account of his strategy. Indeed, the biggest blot in the literature is probably Falkenhayn’s own book. Written, as Holger Afflerbach makes clear, in a hurry and without papers to hand, its principal objectives were the making of money and the justification of its author’s actions in reply to the criticisms of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Afflerbach has capped the lot with what must now be regarded as the definitive treatment. Written with clarity, good judgement, and sensitivity, Falkenhayn none the less claims to be no more than an account of militarypolitical affairs. Through sensible use of the Vienna and Munich archives, as well as of the correspondence generated by the Reichsarchiv in the writing of the German official history and held in Potsdam, Afflerbach is able to make good the lack of Prussia’s military records and to flesh out -