Warrior Race : A History of the British at War

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant history of empire and war
Review: Lawrence James, the distinguished independent historian of the British Empire, has written a fascinating account of Britain's wars and their impact on British culture. It is based on huge research in private papers and secondary sources.

It is in six parts: conquests 43-1100, disputed lands 1110-1603, civil wars 1637-1800, overseas wars 1660-1870, total war 1914-1919, and the people's wars 1919-2000. He constantly notes the forces' pay and conditions, and tells us how the fighting and killing must have felt.

Part I depicts the conquests by Romans, Vikings and Danes. Part II tells of the wars against Ireland, Wales and Scotland that determined Britain's shape. The hundred years' war against France (1337-1453) started with the early victory of Crecy, then slowly collapsed into military debacles abroad and spiralling debt and taxes at home. At this time, chivalric tales glamorised war, setting up the lasting themes of crusade and sacrifice, 'Church and King', 'king and country', and 'natural leaders' (public school prefect types) 'rallying the ranks'.

In Part III, James includes under 'civil wars' the American War of Independence and Ireland's 1798 rebellion, which were really national liberation wars against colonial oppression.

In Part IV, he tells us about the vast wars for empire: the second hundred years' war against France (1688-1815), the wars to seize and control India (1757-1858) and its North West frontier (1897-1924), the 64 years war to control China (1840-1904) and the South African (1879-1902) and North African wars (1882-1898). These cast some doubt on the slogan 'Pax Britannica'.

Part V looks at World War One, where James damns Earl Haig's reliance on attrition and 'fighting spirit'. Part VI examines World War Two and the many bloody retreats from Empire.

To finish he asks, 'What next?', answering 'further wars of intervention' and 'the wonders of the electronic battlefield'.

This brilliantly written and deeply researched account proves, possibly against the author's intentions, that capitalism means empire and empire means war. The ruling class alone gains from capitalism, empire and war. Our working class is not a warrior race, a nation of Ghurkhas; we are for industry and peace.

Rating:
Summary: Milieu-ism or Cloth Writing
Review: This is a wonderful example of 'milieu-ism' or 'cloth writing,' two terms which make sense to me but not to you because I thought them up when I was thinking how to describe this book. 'Milieu-ism' is when a writer just trawls happily through an histoical milieu, letting the historical detritis speak for itself, while 'cloth writing' is when everything distinctive and meaningful is submerged in a broad flat narrative that can best be evaluated by how long it is rather than what shape it is.

The fact that this is a thick book of 800 to 900 pages and that the author has 'churned out' several other similar efforts should alert the reader as to what to expect. What we get here are the undigested research notes of the author as Lawrence runs through a plethora of anecdotes, statistics, and 'factoids' about warfare and people's experience of warfare -- being fashionably PC, he tries to include the women and children in his endeavour. Although it is divided into chapters and these are arranged chronologically these divisions are entirely arbitrary as he darts back and forth between roughly similar anecdotes in different historical periods and parts of the World. After a while you realise that this book has no structure, no organising idea, and no purpose. It starts to seem like someone babbling on and on without knowing what they really want to say. The point or the punhline never arrives.

It might even be speculated that this is post-modernist deconstruction -- i.e. present the reader with all the material and let him put it togetgher to make his own story. The trouble with this is that the reader is too busy to do that, especially after having paid an author to do it for him.

I nevertheless found this book highly readable, but, I reflected, rather in the same way that a comic or a pornographic magazine is -- stimulating but with nothing left in the brain afterwards.

The British at war have always been a rather uninspiring lot. Seldom did they fight for strong beliefs. In fact, most of the forces were press-ganged family men, resentful Irish Catholics, Highlanders cleared off their crofts, and the outscrapings of the prison system, or, later on, unwilling conscriptees. Seldom was there a burning cause to drive them on, with possible excptions being the Scottish War of Independence, the Religious fanaticism of the 17th century, and -- yawn -- our "proudest hour" when we defied Hitler by putting the Channel between us and the Nazis.

Rather like this book, it now appears that British history had no great ideologial purpose except the desire to make money by raiding France and later on by conquering and exploiting primitive or technologically backward societies around the World. Looked at in this way, Lawrence's anecdotal accounts of brutal officers, skivving squaddies, and hapless sailors seems to capture the overall meaningless of Britain's mission in World history. After I finished the book, I didn't put it in the bookcase. I popped it in the bin.