Scarlet to Green details the ‘boom and bust’ cycles of the Canadian Army’s intelligence organization from its inception in 1903 to 1963, the eve of the Integration of the Canadian Armed Forces. The book analyzes the role of intelligence in Canadian Army operations in World Wars I and II, and the Korean War, as well as its activities in Canada. The influence of intelligence on operational decision-making, the development of new intelligence collection techniques, and the challenges of countering enemy espionage and subversion are some of the enduring aspects of military intelligence explored. Elliot draws particular attention to the imperatives for having a highly capable and professional military intelligence organization and staff, and shows the challenges when the situation is otherwise, in both peace and war. With a new Foreword and Afterword by Dr. David A. Charters (Professor of Military History (retd) and Senior Fellow at The Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society, University of New Brunswick), this second edition commemorates the 35th Anniversary of the Canadian Intelligence Branch, the 75th Anniversary of the formation of the Army’s Canadian Intelligence Corps, and the latter’s formal re-instatement in December 2016.

The British Expeditionary Force at the start of World War I was tiny by the standards of the other belligerent powers. Yet, when deployed to France in 1914, it prevailed against the German army because of its professionalism and tactical skill, strengths developed through hard lessons learned a dozen years earlier. In October 1899, the British went to war against the South African Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State, expecting little resistance. A string of early defeats in the Boer War shook the military’s confidence. Historian Spencer Jones focuses on this bitter combat experience in From Boer War to World War, showing how it crucially shaped the British Army’s tactical development in the years that followed. Before the British Army faced the Boer republics, an aura of complacency had settled over the military. The Victorian era had been marked by years of easy defeats of crudely armed foes. The Boer War, however, brought the British face to face with what would become modern warfare. The sweeping, open terrain and advent of smokeless powder meant soldiers were picked off before they knew where shots had been fired from. The infantry’s standard close-order formations spelled disaster against the well-armed, entrenched Boers. Although the British Army ultimately adapted its strategy and overcame the Boers in 1902, the duration and cost of the war led to public outcry and introspection within the military. Jones draws on previously underutilized sources as he explores the key tactical lessons derived from the war, such as maximizing firepower and using natural cover, and he shows how these new ideas were incorporated in training and used to effect a thorough overhaul of the British Army. The first book to address specific connections between the Boer War and the opening months of World War I, Jones’s fresh interpretation adds to the historiography of both wars by emphasizing the continuity between them.

No American military unit can claim as colorful and volatile a history as the Rangers, who have led the way in America's wars for well over 300 years. This book traces the Rangers from the time of Robert Rogers during the French-Indian War of the 18th century to the most recent combat operations in Iraq. With a focus on today's Army Rangers, who combine the rugged individualism of American frontiersmen with the finely honed ability to operate as a close-knit team, wreaking havoc behind enemy lines, this fascinating volume incorporates many first-hand accounts of dramatic Ranger actions by the combatants themselves.

This work records the various Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVC) that were created throughout England, Scotland and Wales as a result of the formation in 1859 of the Volunteer Force. Listed under the counties in which they were raised and numbered are the RVC that were accepted by the War Office.

A prevalent view among historians is that both horsed cavalry and the cavalry charge became obviously obsolete in the second half of the nineteenth century in the face of increased infantry and artillery firepower, and that officers of the cavalry clung to both for reasons of prestige and stupidity. It is this view, commonly held but rarely supported by sustained research, that this book challenges. It shows that the achievements of British and Empire cavalry in the First World War, although controversial, are sufficient to contradict the argument that belief in the cavalry was evidence of military incompetence. It offers a case study of how in reality a practical military doctrine for the cavalry was developed and modified over several decades, influenced by wider defence plans and spending, by the experience of combat, by Army politics, and by the rivalries of senior officers. Debate as to how the cavalry was to adjust its tactics in the face of increased infantry and artillery firepower began in the mid nineteenth century, when the increasing size of armies meant a greater need for mobile troops. The cavalry problem was how to deal with a gap in the evolution of warfare between the mass armies of the later nineteenth century and the motorised firepower of the mid twentieth century, an issue that is closely connected with the origins of the deadlock on the Western Front. Tracing this debate, this book shows how, despite serious attempts to ’learn from history’, both European-style wars and colonial wars produced ambiguous or disputed evidence as to the future of cavalry, and doctrine was largely a matter of what appeared practical at the time.