This is the first biography of General Sir Edward Bulfin, who rose to high rank despite his Catholic Irish republican background, at a time when sensitivities were pronounced. Not only that but by the outbreak of the Great War, Bulfin was a brigade commander despite having not attended Sandhurst or Staff College and never commanding his battalion.In his early career he was a protg of Bullers and he made his name in the Boer War. In 1914 Haig credited him with saving the day at First Ypres despite being wounded and gave him 28th Division. Unable to get on with Gough, he was sent home. He raised the 60th London Division and took it to France, Salonika and Egypt where Allenby chose him to command a corps. His success against the Turks at Gaza, Jerusalem and Megiddo justified Allenbys confidence.Despite ruthlessly crushing disturbances in post-war Egypt, Bulfins beliefs and background led him to refuse Churchills order to command the police and army in Ireland.A private man, Bulfin left few letters and no papers and the author is to be congratulated on piecing together this fascinating biography of an enigmatic military figure.

As a young officer in the prestigious 21st Lancers (motto 'Death or Glory') Douglas Haig played a leading role in Kitchener's bold expedition which ended in the defeat of the Khalifa of Sudan at Omdurman. He described the action, as he did the whole campaign, vividly in words and diagrams which survived virtually untouched at the family home Bemersyde in the Borders. These letters and diaries allow the reader to trace Haig's career and developing character. What they reveal may well surprise his critics. Field Marshal Lord Haig will remain a hugely controversial figure due to his pre-eminent role during The Great War. He was a hugely popular public figure in the post WW1 years and revered by those who served under him. His death in 1928 was a major occasion for mourning. Only later was he heavily criticised for the slaughter of the trenches.

Orchestrating Warfighting provides a detailed and wide-ranging examination of the employment of corps and divisions from the First World War through to the early twenty-first century. Division and corps formations have been at the forefront of the British Army’s prosecution of war since 1914. They constituted the major command and organisational elements that underpinned the conduct of large-scale warfighting on land. Divisions and corps were of central importance to the conduct of the First and Second World Wars, the maintenance of a conventional deterrence posture during the Cold War, and were also employed in major confrontations since 1945, including the Korean War and two Gulf Wars. The British Army of the early twenty-first century still retains two divisional formations alongside the British-led Allied Rapid Reaction Corps within NATO. Orchestrating Warfighting examines British, Dominion, and imperial corps and divisions, taking part in the total wars of the first half of the twentieth century and smaller scale conflicts since 1945. It throws new light on questions of command, generalship, and the management of battles and campaigns across a diverse range of theatres. Orchestrating Warfighting is of interest to historians of the British Army, operational military history, and modern war.

'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' - Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday 'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it ... a balanced portrait' - The Sunday Times 'Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy' - Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never recovered. Drawing on previously unknown private papers and new scholarship unavailable when The Chief was first published, eminent First World War historian Gary Sheffield reassesses Haig's reputation, assessing his critical role in preparing the army for war.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Following the career of one relatively unknown First World War general, Lord Horne, this book adds to the growing literature that challenges long-held assumptions that the First World War was a senseless bloodbath conducted by unimaginative and incompetent generals. Instead it demonstrates that men like Horne developed new tactics and techniques to deal with the novel problems of trench warfare and in so doing seeks to re-establish the image of the British generals and explain the reasons for the failures of 1915-16 and the successes of 1917-18 and how this remarkable change in performance was achieved by a much maligned group of senior officers. Horne's important career and remarkable character sheds light not only on the major battles in which he was involved; the progress of the war; his relationships with his staff and other senior officers; the novel problems of trench warfare; the assimilation of new weapons, tactics and training methods; and the difficulties posed by the German defences, but also on the attitudes and professionalism of a senior British commander serving on the Western Front. Horne's career thus provides a vehicle for studying the performance of the British Army in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. It also gives an important insight into the attitudes, ethos and professionalism of the officer corps which led that army to victory on the Western Front, exposing not only its flaws but also its many strengths. This study consequently provides a judgment not only on Horne as a personality, innovator and general of great importance but also on his contemporaries who served with the British Armies in South Africa and France during an era which saw a revolution in military affairs giving birth to a Modern Style of Warfare which still prevails to this day.