Britannia's Shield

BRITANNIA’S SHIELD: Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton and Late-Victorian Imperial Defence

Craig Stockings

Cambridge University Press, 2015, 348pp, $59.95

Professor Craig Stockings has cast a bright light on the troubled career of Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton. Like a modern Cassandra, Hutton seemed condemned to produce well thought out, practical, plans to improve Imperial defence (at least as regards Britain and the self-governing colonies) while being unable to ensure their implementation. Even today many of his ideas, particularly about infantry mobility, have resonance.

As Stockings demonstrates, a significant part of the problem was Hutton’s own personality. Hutton’s failures were often for constitutional reasons that he respected in theory, but ignored in practice. His difficult personal relationships with political leaders in the colonies were a significant obstacle to achieving his objectives, while his habit of appealing directly to the press, over the heads of his constitutional masters, was not particularly helpful.

Hutton regularly warned his British colleagues and superiors that the colonies could not be forced to commit themselves to binding peacetime arrangements. He saw that while leaders in the self-governing colonies were willing to seek volunteers in time of crisis, they would not commit themselves at other times, without some control over Imperial policy. However, he then pressed the governments he worked for to move further than they were willing.

Hutton believed that a system of ‘Cooperative Empire Defence’ could be based on an Empire-wide volunteer militia force comprised largely of mounted infantry. This would provide a deployable reserve that could be used wherever the Empire was threatened. Stockings shows that Hutton’s emphasis on mounted infantry developed at Staff College, was confirmed by command of a mounted infantry company in South Africa in 1881, and polished in Egypt and during campaigns against the Mahdists. In 1888, in one of his few clear successes, Hutton established a mounted infantry school at Aldershot.

Stockings shows how Hutton used his time as Commandant of the New South Wales forces to plan a force based on a split between a static Garrison Force and a mobile Field Force. Economic problems, and Hutton’s arrogance towards, and impatience with, the compromises inherent in politics left his plan incomplete. Similar problems ensued during Hutton’s periods in command in Canada, and commanding the new Australian Army after Federation. The period in Canada was particularly difficult, as Hutton attempted to reform a politicised militia.

However, Stockings shows that even though his ‘master plan’ was never implemented in any of the forces he commanded, those forces did benefit from improvements to training and organisation that Hutton was able to put in place. The closest that Hutton came to implementing his dream was as commander of the 1st Mounted Infantry Brigade in South Africa. Stockings’ discussion of this period demonstrates again Hutton’s inability to ‘cooperate to succeed’.

As well as falling out with his colonial political masters, Hutton also antagonised his British superiors. Stockings records that when the ‘Roberts Ring’ replaced the ‘Wolseley Ring’ in the War Office, the writing was on the wall for both Hutton and his ideas. The cavalrymen French and Haig later ensured that mounted infantry did not replace the cavalry. Even the Australian light horse, given the role of mounted infantry by Hutton in 1902, was converted to cavalry regiments from late 1917, albeit some regiments were again converted to motor or machine gun regiments in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

It would take another war before mounted infantry (particularly in the British motor battalions, American armoured infantry battalions, and Germany panzer grenadiers) became fully accepted. Ironically Hutton’s old regiment, the 60th Rifles (King’s Royal Rifle Corps), provided many of the motor battalions.

Hutton was at the centre of the development of Imperial defence policy in the last decade of the 1800s and the first few years of the 1900s. As Stockings demonstrates, however, while Hutton’s theories were known in London, the actual course of events followed a path based on the work of others. Reforms to the British Territorial Army implemented after Hutton’s retirement were based on the work of others, though they resembled his ideal scheme.

That did not stop Hutton from claiming that he could see his ideas in many developments before and during the First World War. Despite his failures, however, Hutton seems to have been the most capable of the men discussed in Jim Wood’s book (Chiefs of the Australian Army, 1901-1914, AMHP, 2006).

While the printing standard is excellent, the editing is somewhat eccentric for a product of Cambridge University Press. The words ‘a’ and ‘the’ seem to have been dropped on random occasions and there are other quirks. Homonyms seem to have been used incorrectly in a couple of places.

JOHN DONOVAN

Australian Soldiers in Asia-Pacific

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS IN ASIA-PACIFIC IN WORLD WAR II

Lachlan Grant

NewSouth Publishing, 2014, 276pp.

ISBN 9781742231419

As I read this book, my mind continually returned to a simple question. What was Lachlan Grant’s purpose in writing it?

At first, I thought it was another work of that genre in which today’s educated thinkers reflect critically on the attitudes of an earlier generation, often with a smug attitude that they would not hold such crass attitudes. However, as I read the book, this did not prove to be so. Indeed, Grant explicitly acknowledges that the beliefs and language of an earlier generation might not be comfortable for today’s generation.

Grant’s story starts when Australians arrived in Singapore and Malaya, where they rubbed against British racial and class attitudes. Grant portrays the Australians sympathetically, suggesting that they found themselves in a similar position to the Empire’s colonial subjects. He notes, however, that many adopted colonial practices, including siestas and hiring servants for menial tasks. The latter, especially, he sees as suggesting an acceptance (perhaps too ready) of British attitudes. Maybe, but Grant shows that many wealthy Asians used servants too, implying that the relative wealth of the individual was a key factor.

Strangely, given the background of anti-Chinese feeling in Australia dating back to the gold rush days, Australians seemed to get along better with Chinese than with others. However, racism could be a two-way street, with Grant noting that some Chinese girls ‘won’t look at white men’. Views about Indians were mixed. Men who served in Malaya and Singapore, or visited India, were less positive than those who liberated Indian prisoners of war in New Guinea. Finally, Australian prisoners who were taken to Japan found their relationship with Japanese civilians more amicable than they might have expected. Individual behaviour could overcome cultural attitudes.

When the story moves from Asia to Papua New Guinea, Grant sees a different dynamic. There, Australians seemed comfortable with being colonial masters. Indeed, Grant mentions the ambitions of the Curtin government, particularly the Minister for External Affairs (H.V. Evatt) for greater Australian post-war control over nearby regions.

Using letters to the Army’s Educational Service periodical Salt and other sources, Grant argues that some Australians saw the war as being about the ideals of the Atlantic and United Nations charters. Perhaps so, but those documents post-dated the enlistment of many, and cannot have influenced their initial war aims. The evidence used by Grant is somewhat sketchy. A debate in Salt on independence movements in Asia apparently involved letters from only 31 men, from a force numbering over 400,000 at the time, suggesting that while a debate occurred, it was limited.

Grant does not accept that there was a so-called ‘battle for Australia’. He argues instead that the cause for which many Australians fought was the liberation of Asians from colonialism. One wonders how many of the soldiers fighting in 1942, lacking knowledge of Japanese wartime decisions and the benefits of hindsight, did not believe they were fighting a battle for Australia? It seems difficult to support Grant’s suggestion that because ‘defending Australia – either from invasion or … a “battle for Australia” was not of immediate concern within soldier debates’ late in the war, that they were not high among their concerns earlier.

Ultimately, the book seems to conclude that a generation born anywhere between 90 and 150 years ago broadly reflected the attitudes of their era, attitudes that were imparted during their adolescence. Australians (and others in the British Dominions) were inculcated with stories of  ‘symbolic images of empire’ by authors like Kipling, Buchan, Ballantyne and Australia’s Ion Idriess.

As examples, an army pamphlet written by an anthropologist emphasised the ‘attitude of superiority’ that whites must maintain in PNG, while a journalist/war correspondent used ‘natives’ for manual work, and sometimes assaulted them. Another regarded Papuans as ‘not far removed from stone-age savagery’. Grant notes, but does not seem to see the significance of, the attitudes of the editorial staff of Salt. Even these educated elites, supposed ‘left-wingers’, shared attitudes with less educated junior soldiers. Perhaps authors who study the attitudes of earlier periods should, as Grant generally has, approach the task with a modest recognition that their own attitudes might come under critical scrutiny in 50 or 75 years.

As an aside, Grant implies some criticism of those who considered themselves both British and Australian. Nowadays, such attitudes are reflected in the common practice of holding dual nationality, and praised as elements of a multicultural Australia. Perhaps the men of 1940 were Australia’s first multiculturalists, albeit affected by what Grant describes as ‘British race patriotism’?

To try to answer the question posed earlier, I suspect that Grant sought evidence to support a theory that Australian soldiers serving in the Asia-Pacific during World War II were converted to anti-imperialist the cause by their experiences. Perhaps they were, but the evidence is not obvious in this book.

Grant lapses occasionally into anachronisms (using the term ‘whiteness’ in a context that is suggestive of the modern sociological fields of ‘whiteness studies’ and ‘white privilege’, for example). Strangely, claimants to ‘whiteness’ and its power apparently spent much time sunbathing, presumably to reduce their power of ‘whiteness’!

JOHN DONOVAN

The Ottoman Defence at Anzac

THE OTTOMAN DEFENCE AGAINST THE ANZAC LANDING 25 APRIL 1915

Mesut Uyar

Big Sky Publishing, 2015, 181pp

ISBN 978-1-9221322-99-4

Mesut Uyar, a former Turkish officer, but now Associate Professor of Ottoman History at the University of NSW in Canberra, has presented a clear account of the Ottoman defence on 25 April 1915. He has the advantage sometimes not available to English speakers of being able to read original documents, including those in the old Ottoman script, adding depth to the study.

Professor Uyar starts with a review of reforms to the Ottoman army after its defeats in the period 1911-13. He notes that the Ottoman forces had the advantage of experience repelling attacks on the Gallipoli Peninsula, including an attempt by the Italian Navy to enter the Dardanelles in April 1912, and preparations for ground defence during the Balkan Wars. Professor Uyar is more critical than is usual in English language sources of the German General Otto Liman von Sanders, head of the German military mission to assist with the reform program. Interestingly, the major reforms to Ottoman divisional and army corps structure preceded his arrival.

Discussing the Ottoman preparations for defending the Peninsula, Professor Uyar describes the detailed defence plan for the Ariburnu area prepared by Mehmed Şefik, commander of the 27th Regiment, who believed this area was the key to the defence of the northern peninsula. Also, as commander of the corps reserve 19th Division, Mustafa Kemal conducted an exercise to counter a landing between Suvla and Kumtepe on 19 April, and had scheduled a further exercise for 25 April. Together, these should have given the Ottoman forces a major advantage on 25 April.

However, Professor Uyar explains the detrimental effect on the defences around Anzac Cove resulting from intervention by von Sanders just weeks before the landing. When von Sanders overturned Şefik’s plan, he reduced the force allocated to the Gabatepe-Anzac-Suvla region from a regiment to a battalion. Had Şefik’s plan been in place on 25 April, the Anzac landing might have faced a stronger force than the four (large) platoons actually occupying the area between Bolton’s Ridge and the Fisherman’s Hut and inland on Third Ridge.

Instead, von Sanders gave greater emphasis to the Bolay1r area, where a British diversionary force simulated a landing on 25 April, confirming his predilections at a crucial moment. Perhaps Australia and New Zealand have reason to be grateful to von Sanders for actions that made the landing easier than it might have been! The former Ottoman Empire might have had less reason to cheer his use of frontal attacks as he attempted to remove the invaders in the following weeks.

Professor Uyar shows how von Sanders’ obsession with Bolay1r, and the failure of the 9th Division commander Halil Sami to react promptly to the landings, endangered the Ottoman positions at Ariburnu and Helles. Mustafa Kemal’s initiative saved the situation around Anzac, where he sent first the complete 57th Regiment, rather than the single battalion requested by Halil Sami, and later the rest of his division. At Helles, Halil Sami’s command paralysis was also overcome by the initiative of his subordinates. Between them, Şefik, Kemal, and Halil Sami’s subordinates at Helles saved the situation for the Ottomans. While Anzac forward elements reached Third Ridge, they could not hold it. Professor Uyar follows in detail the actions that eventually stabilised the front. From there the campaign proceeded to its inevitable conclusion in December.

Professor Uyar resolves the enduring controversy about the presence of Ottoman machine guns and artillery on 25 April. He confirms that while machine gun positions had been prepared on Ariburnu, on 400 Plateau, and near the Fisherman’s Hut, the initial pre-dawn landing was not opposed by machine guns, which had been kept in reserve. The first four machine guns arrived at Scrubby Knoll on Third Ridge around 0740, and four more arrived at Chunuk Bair around 1000. Four more arrived around 1530.

As well, Professor Uyar shows that only limited Ottoman artillery was present on 25 April (only 13 operational pieces before 1030, three of which were captured near The Cup around 0700, but later re-captured). Another eight arrived around 1030, a further eight around 1600, and a final eight around sunset, but those were not actually engaged on 25 April.

This book complements that by Brigadier (Rtd) Chris Roberts (The Landing at ANZAC 1915, BSP, 2013). Read together, they provide as good a picture of events on 25 April as is likely to be available at this remove.

JOHN DONOVAN

To Kokoda

TO KOKODA

Nicholas Anderson

Big Sky Publishing, 2014, 236pp, $19.95

ISBN 978-1-9221322-95-6

Australian military history has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years, and no doubt this will continue as the anniversaries associated with the Centenary of the First World War occur. Within that revival, some battles (Fromelles, but mainly around the time of the discovery of the Pheasant Wood burials, most battles on the Western Front, Greece, Crete and Syria, Alamein, the 1943-44 campaigns in New Guinea, and those in 1945 on Borneo and Bougainville) receive only occasional attention. Some others, notably Gallipoli, Tobruk and Kokoda, are regularly the subjects of books.

Nicholas Anderson has produced an informative history of the campaign up until the recapture of Kokoda, with some useful summary judgements on its place in the history of the war against Japan. The style of recent books on Kokoda varies from popular ‘yarns’ to detailed academic studies. This book, like others in the Australian Army Campaign Series, is academically rigorous, but written and published in a highly readable style.

The descriptions of events during the Australian retreat and subsequent advance are well written, enabling the reader to understand events as they occurred. Anderson avoids the temptation to over-analyse events, which led one recent author (Peter Williams, The Kokoda Campaign 1942, Myth and Reality, CUP, 2012) to produce somewhat artificial estimates of the numbers engaged at specific times.

Anderson’s account describes the logistic problems of operating along a tenuous foot track, with air dropped supplies capable of providing only a limited supplement to the work of Papuan carriers. As an illustration of the difficulties of the Kokoda Trail, some wounded from the early part of the Australian advance back across the mountains could not be evacuated until weeks after the battle had moved on. These difficulties did not seem always to be understood by senior officers in Port Moresby, leading to friction between them and the commanders on the Trail.

Anderson’s summary of the significance of the campaign is balanced. Kokoda did not save Australia from invasion, however, as Anderson notes, the information available at the time suggested that a ‘Battle for Australia’ was underway. There might not have been an actual Battle for Australia, but it probably seemed at the time as if there was. That the Japanese had already decided against invasion was recorded in Japanese archives that were not then available to Australia’s intelligence authorities (but some recent historians seem to ignore this reality).

Pre-war strategy held that the Singapore strategy would ensure Australia’s safety. In the event, however, Australia’s security from invasion during the Second World War was ensured by the maritime power of the United States Navy at the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, not by the Royal Navy operating from the Singapore base. After those battles, the Japanese ability to land troops at Port Moresby was minimal. This led to the Kokoda campaign, as the Japanese attempted an overland advance.

As Anderson points out, Guadalcanal was more important than Kokoda (or Milne Bay) because the Japanese made it so. Japanese power could not support both campaigns, particularly if they gave priority to holding Guadalcanal. They did this, easing the pressure on the Australian forces on the Kokoda Trail. Success at Kokoda, however, did keep space between the Japanese and the Australian mainland. The campaign also provided the opportunity for the army to learn jungle-fighting skills, which were valuable well beyond the end of the Second World War.

Anderson deals fairly with the relief of senior officers during the campaign. Brigadier Potts lost his command in part because under pressure he was insufficiently informative in his reports; he might have been reinstated had Lieutenant General Rowell remained in command, but Rowell’s successor Lieutenant General Herring would not accept Potts. The impact of his sacking on the 21st Brigade was exacerbated by poorly worded (to put it tactfully) speeches by Herring and General Blamey to the brigade at Koitaki, implying that the troops had not fought bravely.

Rowell allowed his personal dislike of Blamey to overcome his discipline, and was sacked; even lieutenant generals cannot persistently be insubordinate! Major General Allen was replaced in large part because of his poor relationship with Blamey and Herring. His successor, Major General Vasey arrived just as the Japanese withdrew from Eora Creek, leaving the way to Kokoda open. Vasey then gained the credit for Allen’s work.

Anderson sees the experiences of the individual soldiers along the Kokoda Trail as the most significant legacy of the campaign. It is invidious to select any one soldier to exemplify those who fought on the Kokoda Trail, but Sergeant Bede Tongs of the 3rd (Militia) Battalion stands out.

On 17 October 1942, the 3rd Battalion was preparing to attack strong Japanese positions at Templeton’s Crossing. Tongs identified a Japanese machine gun post as a potential obstacle to the attack. He crawled forward alone and threw a hand grenade into the post, destroying it. Tongs then ran ‘like a Stawell Gift runner’ back to his platoon, where the company commander ordered him to ‘Get that attack going Sergeant Tongs’ He then led his platoon forward in their successful attack. Thousands of such young Australians combined to win the campaign.

JOHN DONOVAN

Deployment of British Infantry Divisions, First World War

FORMATION AND DEPLOYMENT OF BRITISH INFANTRY DIVISIONS, FIRST WORLD WAR

While preparing the article on a separate page (see page list on right) on the Over-Expansion of the AIF in 1916, I needed to get a benchmark on the necessary timetable for deployment of a division. I used the formation and deployment of British infantry divisions for that purpose.

I looked at the British New Army, First-Line and Second-Line Territorial divisions, using Martin Middlebrook (Your Country Needs You, Pen and Sword, 2000) as the base source. He has some anomalies, and the dates of formation for some divisions are not clear, however, he has enough detail to give an indication of time taken from formation to deployment. For the five Australian divisions, I used Bean, though he also has some vagueness on the dates of formation.

When counting the time before a division went into action, I ignored the month when it was raised, then counted months either until it sailed to France for British divisions that went directly there, or until it went into action for Australian divisions, and those British divisions that went via Egypt to the Dardanelles. For the Australian divisions, I ignored the time lost on sea voyages, and any consequent disruption to training.

On that basis, the average time to get the first 18 New Army divisions into action was around 10.5 months. The quickest was seven months for the 12th, followed by eight for the 9th and 14th. Five more had ten months before going into action, the other ten took either eleven or twelve months.

Formation dates in Middlebrook for some of the last twelve New Army divisions are a bit vague, as several changed titles in April 1915. However, the lowest numbered of this group formed as the 37th in 'late 1914', becoming the 30th in April 1915, while the 36th (Ulster) Division formed in October 1914, and the 37th around September 1914, so it is probably reasonable to interpolate that those numbered in between (the 31st to 35th) also formed around September/October 1914. The 38th (Welsh) Division (Lloyd George's Army) also had a number change in April 1915, but its original date of formation is unclear. The 39th to 41st have firm dates of August and September 1915, when they were formed mostly from existing battalions.

Taking (conservatively) November 1914 as the dates for the 31st to 35th, and sticking (again conservatively) to April 1915 for the 38th, the average time to get into action for these twelve divisions was also 10.5 months, with the lowest eight and the highest 13 months. Most had eleven or twelve months before moving overseas. As an aside, Ray Westlake (Kitchener's Army, Spellmount, 1989) gives dates of December 1914 for the 33rd, September 1914 for the 36th, March 1915 for the 37th (which seems a bit late for deployment in July, certainly compared to the other divisions), and December 1914 for the 38th, but these do not change the argument significantly.

Ignoring the two sent to India in late 1914 to relieve regular garrisons there, the First-Line Territorial divisions had an average of ten months before being committed, with a minimum of six months (the 46th) and a maximum of 18 months (the 56th); the 55th also had an extended preparation, of 17 months. Both the 55th and 56th, however, had been stripped of their original infantry battalions in late 1914/early 1915, and had to re-gather their infantry component, delaying their deployment. These two push the average up noticeably, as without them the average for First-Line Territorial divisions was 8.5 months. Eight of the twelve that served in action as divisions were deployed within nine months.

The Second-Line Territorial divisions also have some anomalies. They were apparently brought into existence in late 1914, to control new recruits and the Second-Line battalions formed with non-deployable personnel from the First-Line divisions, but they were given numbers only in August 1915 (except for the 45th, also sent to India in late 1914, and numbered early in the First-Line series). I have counted August 1915 as their formation dates as divisions, 'writing off' the earlier period as draft finding duties only.

Those Second-Line divisions that went into action took an average of just over 16 months to prepare. The only two to deploy early were the 60th and 61st, after ten and nine months (in June and May 1916 respectively). The performance of the 61st at Fromelles in July might have discouraged early deployment of the others, as no other Second-Line Territorial division was deployed in less than 18 months. The 66th took 20 months. Five never left Britain, the number of one of these (the 63rd) being re-allocated to the Royal Naval Division after the original 63rd was broken up in July 1916 to provide reinforcements.

Turning to the Australian divisions, I think it is reasonable to equate them to New Army divisions, as they were formed ab initio. While the 4th and 5th have some similarities to the Second-Line Territorial divisions, being formed from cadres (albeit the cadres had some experienced personnel, unlike the Second-Line Territorial divisions), their supporting arms and services, particularly their artillery, were raised ab initio, so I think the New Army comparison remains broadly valid.

The 1st Division had about eight months from its formation to the Gallipoli landing. The 2nd was formed in Egypt in June/July 1915, but its brigades were formed in Australia around February/March, giving its component brigades about six months preparation before they moved to Gallipoli. The 3rd Division was formed in Australia in about February 1916, and went into the line in France that November, nine months later. All three lost some effective training time during their sea transits to Egypt/Britain.

The 4th and 5th Divisions had the shortest preparation periods, four and five months respectively. The average for the Australian divisions was six months, well below the 10.5 months average for the British New Army divisions, and even the 8.5 months for the First-Line Territorial divisions. Indeed, only the 1st and 3rd Divisions received more than the seven months for the fastest deploying New Army division.

Even accepting that the training time available to divisions, and their leadership, varied, these figures suggest that the 4th and 5th Divisions needed extra time before being sent into the line, and particularly into major offensive action. Leadership might have helped with the gap, but the 5th had McCay, who doesn't seem to have been one of the best and brightest. The 4th was luckier, getting H.V. Cox, formerly of the 29th Indian Brigade, and it could be argued that this explains some of the difference in the two divisions' performance in their first actions.

What does this mean? For the British, the delays in forming the last three New Army divisions (in August/September 1915), and the problems experienced deploying the Second-Line Territorial divisions, suggest that Britain probably could not maintain in action more than about 55 divisions on the twelve infantry battalion establishment. Either the Fifth New Army (the 36th to 41st Divisions) or the Second-Line Territorial divisions were 'a bridge too far'. Given that the Fifth New Army was deployable more quickly than the Second-Line divisions, and included the 36th (Ulster) and 38th (Welsh) Divisions, each of which had a strong political support base, I am inclined to consider that the Fifth New Army should (or certainly would) have proceeded.

All of the Second-Line Territorial divisions should probably have remained as draft finding organisations and/or static garrison formations (as some did), perhaps retaining their territorial designations rather than receiving numbers, to emphasise their restricted role.  That said, there were a couple of 'dodgy' divisions among the final twelve New Army divisions. Both the 35th and 40th 'Bantam' divisions needed drastic change to become effective formations.

Britain could have followed the French and Germans to divisions of nine battalions, to gain the flexibility provided by more, but smaller, divisions. If implemented in early 1917, this change would have allowed the extra battalions to be used to raise additional divisions, as the French and Germans did. Whether they could have been maintained during 1918 might, however, be questionable. When the change to a nine battalion organisation was made in 1918, it was under pressure to reduce personnel, not to raise new formations.

For Australia, while the twelve battalion establishment was in place, the 5th Division should not have been formed, and the 3rd should not have been committed to the Western Front after the failure of the first conscription referendum. By the end of 1916, the trend in recruitment without conscription was clear. It might have been possible to maintain four divisions on a nine battalion establishment with voluntary recruitment, but it is unlikely that five divisions could have been maintained at full strength without conscription, even on the lower establishment.

JOHN DONOVAN

Development of the Australian and Canadian Armies

DEVELOPMENT OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND CANADIAN ARMIES FROM THE SECOND WORLD WAR UNTIL EARLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

This was not written as a stand-alone book review, but as a summary of my reviews of three books covering this subject in Australia and Canada.

I recently reviewed two books on the development of armies, Australia's (John Blaxland's The Australian Army from Whitlam to Howard) and Canada's (Peter Kasurak's A National Force, The Evolution of Canada's Army, 1950-2000). Reading them prompted me to re- read Dayton McCarthy's The Once and Future Army, on Australia's CMF between 1947 and 1974. Blaxland's book is published by Cambridge, McCarthy's by Oxford, and Kasurak's, logically, is Canadian - published by UBC Press.

Looking at all of the books, Kasurak is much better than Blaxland on 'his' army overall, while McCarthy (who also perforce covers a fair bit on the regulars) is better on the Australian Reserves than Kasurak is on the Canadian Militia. McCarthy also provides a brief concluding up-date on events in Australia since 1974. McCarthy's book holds up well, even after a decade (as such a book should).

Looking at the two armies, it is notable that each had two 'big army' phases, but with different results. Australia went through its first phase with the 1950s national service scheme, at a time when surplus Second World War equipment was available to equip the part-time force of two infantry divisions, three independent infantry brigade groups an independent armoured brigade, and four Army Groups, Royal Artillery, that the 1950s scheme supported. This was alongside an under-strength regular infantry brigade group and armoured regiment.

Ultimately, demography (the imminent arrival of the baby boomers would have destroyed the universality of the scheme) destroyed Australia’s 'big army' even as the equipment died of old age, with no realistic hope of replacement on the necessary scale. This change led to massive (and traumatic) changes to Australia's CMF, and particularly to huge reductions in its order of battle. This phase is well described by McCarthy.

Australia had a second 'big army' phase in the 1980s, after the period McCarthy describes, when it developed the Army Force Structure Plan and the associated Army Development Guide. These documents went nowhere. Albert Palazzo covers them briefly in his The Australian Army, but Blaxland does not discuss them. Perhaps the Army is still a bit embarrassed about them.

Apart from the matter of resources for the necessary equipment, the reductions in the CMF/Army Reserve force structure during the 1960s removed the 'skeleton' on which a 'big army' might have been constructed, and the Army had spent much time in the intervening period arguing against the 'skeleton' philosophy, leaving it in a logical bind. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, the Army Reserve (as the CMF had since become), developed a viable future role. While still a bit narrower than might be possible, it is at least realistic. Taking the trauma early seems to have led eventually to a useful outcome.

Canada's army held hopes for a 'big army' for most of the post-war period, but was distracted from attempting to implement it by the NATO commitment and the Canadian political aversion to conscription. This aversion was largely caused by the reluctance of les Quebecois to accept conscription, even in time of war, when la Belle France was actually invaded. After the Second World War, the Canadian Army proposed to its government a 'big army' of two corps supported by conscription into the Militia, akin to that actually implemented by Australia in the 1950s. The proposal was rejected, and NATO became the main game for Canada after Korea.

The Canadians did not start planning again in detail for a 'big army' until the 1970s-1980s, and these plans ultimately collapsed when it became quite clear after the end of the Soviet Union that the Canadian government would not provide funding for the personnel (even if they were predominantly militia) and equipment for a force up to 200,000 strong (there were two versions, Corps 86 and Corps 96, the latter being a slightly reduced version). Students at Canada's staff college also rebelled at having to learn and be examined on organisations that they realised would probably never be implemented.

Through all this, however, the Canadian Militia retained a huge order of battle, which the regulars wanted to keep to provide the 'skeleton' for the 'big army'. (In Australia, the regulars were more willing to cut the CMF order of battle - see some of the quotes in the McCarthy review.) That Militia order of battle seems to exist still, and changing it is likely to be as traumatic for Canada as the 1960s changes to the CMF were for Australia.

One other event stood out in Kasurak's book. After being in Europe for some 35 years, at high readiness for a Third World War, less than two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union the 4th Canadian Mechanised Brigade Group was not able to be deployed to the 1990-91 Gulf War for logistic reasons. One wonders how long it would have lasted against the Soviets? Perhaps not even long enough to see the first nuclear flash! Keeping a 'big army' ready for high-level combat is clearly a very complex business. Whether small nations can do it even at brigade level seems problematic! If you can find it, read Andre Beaufre's 1974 Strategic Studies Centre book Strategy for Tomorrow for an alternative approach.

Of the three books, McCarthy and Kasurak are the pick.

My reviews of all three books are available on this blog

JOHN DONOVAN

To Win the Battle/We Lead, Others Follow

TO WIN THE BATTLE/WE LEAD, OTHERS FOLLOW

This was prepared as an email to a friend, to discuss two books that I read, but on which I did not prepare reviews. It has been lightly edited.

I think I mentioned to you that I had read Robert Stevenson's book on the 1st Division in the Great War, To Win the Battle, but did not gain any startling insights from it. I have now read the Canadian equivalent. We Lead Others Follow: First Canadian Division 1914-1918, by Kenneth Radley (Vanwell Publishing, 2006) follows a similar theme. Radley uses a thematic approach, emphasising the roles of command and control, staff work and training in the development of an effective fighting force, with a summary chapter on three Canadian battles during the Hundred Days, showing how ‘It All Came Together’.

Again, there were no startling new insights (or maybe I am just old and jaded). After all, who would possibly have guessed that good leadership, effective command and control systems, efficient staff work and vigorous training would lead to a successful fighting organisation? That said, Radley's book is very interesting, and there were some useful points of detail (such as the demands by some Canadian battalion and brigade commanders for machine guns and trench mortars to be integrated into infantry battalions, rather than operating separately, and the strong engineer elements in Canadian divisions in 1918, three battalions and a pontoon bridging unit each).

Radley's book is generally more readable, but I think he must have spent a posting (he is a retired Canadian army officer) as directing staff at a staff college, as he has a propensity to ‘grade’ orders he has found in the Canadian archives. This makes the chapters on staff development, in particular, somewhat dry reading!

Looking at both books, I get the impression that a lot of effort is going into attacking the ‘citizen soldier’ myth, that once a uniform is on a magical transition occurs from citizen to soldier. However, books like Stevenson's and Radley's are preaching to the converted. Their likely readers already know that time, training, good staff and effective commanders are needed to make an army. The real audience is (or should be) the readers of ‘pub yarns’, or popular histories. The Campaign Series is a good approach to that audience, and should be continued, if only to get a toe into the ‘pub yarn’ market.

JOHN DONOVAN