In the popular imagination, the battle fields of the Western Front were dominated by the machine gun. Yet soldiers at the time were clear that artillery - not machine guns - dictated the nature, tactics and strategy of the conflict. Only in the last months of the war when the Allies had amassed sufficient numbers of artillery and learned how to use it in an integrated and coherent manner was the stalemate broken and war ended. In this lucid and prize-winning study, the steady development of artillery, and the growing realisation of its primacy within the British Expeditionary Force is charted and analysed. Through an examination of British and Dominion forces operating on the Western Front, the book looks at how tactical and operational changes affected the overall strategy. Chapters cover the role of artillery in supporting infantry attacks, counter-battery work, artillery in defence, training and command and staff arrangements. In line with the 'learning curve' thesis, the work concludes that despite many setbacks and missed opportunities, by 1918 the Royal Artillery had developed effective and coordinated tactics to overcome the defensive advantages of trench warfare that had mired the Western Front in bloody stalemate for the previous three years.

In 1914 the artillery of Britain's 'Field Army' encompassed those weapons judged to have sufficient mobility to keep up with troops in the field. This book describes all major variants, from the 60-pdr guns of the heavy field batteries, perched somewhat uncomfortably on the cusp between field artillery and siege artillery, to the 2.75in. guns of the mountain batteries, almost toy-like in comparison. Between these two extremes lay the bulk of the artillery of the Field Army: the 13-pdr guns of the Royal Horse Artillery, and the 18-pdr guns and 4.5in. howitzers of the Royal Field Artillery batteries.

The Greater War is an international history of the First World War. Comprising of thirteen chapters this collection of essays covers new aspects of the French, German, Italian and American efforts in the First World War, as well as aspects of Britain's colonial campaigns.

In King of Battle: Artillery in World War I, a distinguished array of authors examines the centrepiece of battle in the Great War: artillery. Going beyond the usual tables of calibres and ranges, the contributors consider the organization and technology of artillery, as well as present aspects of training, doctrine, and other national idiosyncrasies. Artillery dominated the battlefields of World War I, and forever changed the military doctrine of war. No nation that had participated in significant ground combat would blithely assume that morale could ever replace firepower. The essays included in this volume explain how twelve countries, including all the major combatants, handled artillery and how it affected the Great War. Contributors include Filippo Cappellano, Boyd Dastrup, Edward J. Erickson, Bruce Gudmundsson, James Lyon, Sanders Marble, Janice E. McKenney, Dmitre Minchev, Andrey Pavlov, Kaushik Roy, Cornel and Ioan Scafes, John Schindler, and David Zabecki.

Presents the first full-length study of one of Britain's most important military thinkers, Major-General Sir Charles E. Callwell.

The Anglo-Zulu War was one of many colonial campaigns in which the British Army served as the instrument of British imperialism. The conflict, fought against a native adversary the British initially under-estimated, is remarkable for battles that included perhaps the most humiliating defeat in British military history-the Battle of Isandlwana, January 22, 1879-and one of its most heroic feats of martial arms-the defense of Rorke's Drift, January 22-23, 1879. While lasting only six months, it is one of the most examined, studied, and debated conflicts in Victorian military history. Anglo-Zulu War, 1879: A Selected Bibliography is a research guide and tool for identifying obscure publications and source materials in order to encourage continued original and thought-provoking contributions to this popular field of historical study. From the student or neophyte to the study of the Anglo-Zulu War, its battles, and its opponents to the more experienced historian or scholar, this selected bibliography is a must for anyone interested in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War.

 From the Crimean War through the Second Boer War, the British Empire sought to solve the "Great Gun Question"--to harness improvements to ordnance, small arms, explosives and mechanization made possible by the Industrial Revolution. The British public played a surprising but overlooked role, offering myriad suggestions for improvements to the civilian-led War Office. Meanwhile, politicians and army leaders argued over control of the country's ground forces in a decades-long struggle that did not end until reforms of 1904 put the military under the Secretary of State for War. Following the debate in the press, voters put pressure on both Parliament and the War Office to modernize ordnance and military administration. The "Great Gun Question" was as much about weaponry as about who ultimately controlled military power. Drawing on ordnance committee records and contemporary news reports, this book fills a gap in the history of British military technology and army modernization prior to World War I.

The soldier-horse relationship was nurtured by The British Army because it made the soldier and his horse into an effective fighting unit. Soldiers and their Horses explores a complex relationship forged between horses and humans in extreme conditions. As both a social history of Britain in the early twentieth century and a history of the British Army, Soldiers and their Horses reconciles the hard pragmatism of war with the imaginative and emotional. By carefully overlapping the civilian and the military, by juxtaposing "sense" and "sentimentality," and by considering institutional policy alongside individual experience, the soldier and his horse are re-instated as co-participators in The Great War. Soldiers and their Horses provides a valuable contribution to current thinking about the role of horses in history.