Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/February 2021/Book reviews


 * ''By Hugo999

Phenomenal and Wicked: Attrition and Reinforcements in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force at Gallipol is by two New Zealand historians, John Crawford and Matthew Buck. Service by Australian and New Zealand troops (the Anzacs) in the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 in World War I was a major source for the Anzac legend

Crawford and Buck reveal the high attrition rate at Gallipoli where over 16,000 (perhaps 17,000) soldiers in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force served. While the book is mainly a technical discussion of troop numbers, the revised numbers should be part of our Gallipoli story. The title is from a comment of the British commander in Egypt to General Alexander Godley that "the appetite of the Dardanelles for men has been phenomenal and wicked". Godley wrote in April that a proposal to send a complete new mounted rifles brigade should be resisted as "useless ... What we want is a perpetual stream of reinforcements. We cannot have too many."

The "demi-official" history The New Zealanders at Gallipoli (1919) says 8,556 NZEF (New Zealand Expeditionary Force) personnel landed at Gallipoli, according to General Sir Ian Hamilton’s introduction to Major Fred Waite’s book; but Waite himself thought the number too low. The resulting high casualty rate supported the idea of "New Zealand exceptionalism." Richard Stowers, author of Bloody Gallipoli: the New Zealanders at Gallipoli (2005) noted that this figure meant a much higher casualty rate than the Australians, although he found that the casualty rate for the Auckland Mounted Rifles was similar to Australia. His estimate from examining the NZEF Gallipoli war diaries was 13,977. Subsequent historians David Green, Ian McGibbon and Glyn Harper have arrived at 13,000 or more, perhaps 14,000 (Green). Chris Pugsley in Gallipoli: the New Zealand Story (1984) noted at least 14,720 disembarkations to the peninsula, but he found some were injured or sick soldiers returning from convalescence not new arrivals. NZEF deaths there were 2701 (Pugsley), 2721 (McGibbon) or 2779 (Stowers).

From 2015 Buck and Crawford were on a government inter-departmental working group studying the records; including the June-August notebooks of the Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, Captain Nathaniel Thoms, a staff officer at the Headquarters of the New Zealand and Australian Division who recorded at least 4332 fresh (not recycled) NZEF reinforcements, showing a significant understatement for the NZEF total. Individual service files for 2429 members of the 6th reinforcements were examined, and showed that at least 1860 had served on the peninsula. About 20% of the files were inconclusive although probably the majority of them had served there. Also examined were the "Distribution of Troops" records, as the New Zealand and Australian governments had agreed to pay the full costs for troops overseas, so paid the War Office six shillings per diem (day) based on a return at the first of each month. So they concluded New Zealand had 16,000 to 17,000 troops who landed at Gallipoli, with an upper number of 17,466. Up to November 1915, 25,000 NZEF personnel arrived in Egypt and so were available for Gallipoli.

Initially, fewer NZEF soldiers were landed than previously thought. After the disastrous landing of April 1915 too far north at ANZAC Cove the Australians and New Zealanders were confined to a tiny and precarious beachhead, with no space for support troops and equipment. At the end of April General William Birdwood told GHQ MEF (General Headquarters Mediterranean Expeditionary Force) that he could not land 6000 horses as there was no water for them. GHQ MEF was unhappy that the ANZAC force would be immobilised on the beachhead, but they would have been no use. Some of the thousands of men and horses remained on board ship for up to a month. Birdwood signalled on 17 May that 17 transports would be returning to Alexandria to offload 5251 horses accompanied by 3217 men. GHQ MEF insisted that some of the men remain in Alexandria to look after the horses and guard ANZACs "many vehicles and mountains of baggage." From 25 to 30 April only 44 horses were landed with the NZEF; for the artillery (NZFA); the No 1 Battery, Howitzer Battery and Divisional Train (but none for No 2 Battery!)

Prewar planning for the NZEF envisaged that to keep contingents up to strength, reinforcements of 5% of the strength would need to be despatched each month. In late 1914 this was raised to 10-15% based on British experience on the Western Front. The British and Dominion attrition rates at Gallipoli averaged 5% per week, caused by the August Offensive losses and the high rate of serious sickness. The Wellington Mounted Rifles landed 500 at Gallipoli, but only 24 of them were left when it embarked for Lemnos.

At Gallipoli there were troops from France (who sent 70,000, more troops than the Anzacs!), Britain, India and Newfoundland. Several New Zealanders served with British or Australian units; both Oscar Freyberg, brother of Bernard Freyberg (the WWII NZEF commander) and John Allen, the son of the Minister of Defence Sir James Allen, died there serving with British units.

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 * By Hog Farm

In some ways, Perryville can be seen as the sort of battle that happened because of political influence on the military. While there was some military support for a Confederate invasion into Kentucky, politics played a sizable role in the final decision to start the Confederate Heartland Offensive. Kentuckians were expected by influential Confederate leaders to revolt against Union control of the state and join the Confederate army, but didn't. Countering the Confederates, who were led by Braxton Bragg, was a Union army under Don Carlos Buell. Both Bragg and Buell were disliked by their soldiers and had trouble getting along with their subordinate officers. Complicating matters were a drought, an acoustic shadow during the battle, and the fact that one of Buell's corps commanders had a rather dubious claim to his supposed rank.

The historian Kenneth W. Noe does an excellent job of producing an informative analysis of this confusing situation. Noe examines how the disjointed command structures of both armies, the frequent blunders and psychological problems of Bragg and Buell, and political pressure from midwestern Union governors and the erstwhile Confederate government of Kentucky led to a fit near the hills and creeks around Perryville. Aside from the well-explained background exposition, Noe provides an excellent and very-detailed description of the battle proper, using first-hand accounts to provide an idea of what the ragged Confederate veterans and newly recruited Union volunteers who did the principal share of the fighting saw. Also well-examined is why neither side was able to bring its entire army to the field at Perryville - Bragg expected a Union threat to the north, and Buell did not hear most of the sounds of fighting due to the acoustic shadow. Noe uses the accounts of multiple Union soldiers to demonstrate the level of disconnect between HQ and the field.

The biggest drawback is that the aftermath of the campaign sees much less attention that the leadup to Perryville. In particular, one item that is not discussed in particular detail is the Buell Commission - essentially a military committee investigating Buell's handling of the campaign. The Commission is mentioned in passing several times, but it lacks thorough discussion, which I find strange, as it was one of the first tangible effects of Perryville. Overall, if you are interested in the ACW in the west and appreciate very detailed battle and command interaction descriptions, this book will probably be informative.

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 * By Hawkeye7

The Gulf War of 1990-1991 is not a well-known conflict. After an initial burst of releases of books in the 1990s, the literature on the war dried up. The memory of the war faded too, overwritten by that of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in early 21st century. In 2016, the US Army decided that the 25th anniversary of the war would not be celebrated, much to the annoyance of the veterans.

In a nutshell, the war began when Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait. A coalition of Western and Arab countries led by the United States then deployed to Saudi Arabia and drove them out. The author, Colonel Gregory Fontenot, commanded the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, of the 1st Infantry Division, in the conflict, so he knows what he is talking about, and there is a great deal of first-hand knowledge. This has been supplemented by reports and interviews with other participants.

The conventional American narrative of the war starts with the wreck of the US Army returning from Vietnam, and how it was rebuilt, shook off the spectre of defeat, and went ahead to win the war in the Gulf. The book follows this narrative arc closely, and takes an overly long time over the two decades before the war. Once the war begins, the book moves somewhat faster. The fighting itself is confusing, taking place at night, largely in poor weather, and in a largely featureless desert. The book emphasises how GPS was still in its infancy, and how orders were transmitted by the old World War II-era manner, that is, on paper.

A strength of the book is in the unflinching manner that it deals with errors, particularly the way it handles the circumstances surrounding the relief of commanders, and the issue of fratricides. The 1st Infantry Division suffered far more casualties from its own weapons than from Iraqi ones. (The book also follows other American works in that it also makes frequent, tiresome and often wrong-headed references to Carl von Clausewitz.) For the historian there is an aspect of frustration in that many problems that plagued the US Army in Vietnam, and indeed in World War II, remained.

This book is a sold contribution to the literature on the subject.

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