Masterstrokes Of War by Nigel Cawthorne

I’ve something of an interest in history, and wars tend to be the most accessible thing in the field by television. We’re spoilt for choice in the UK with television series about WW2 and the Nazis, and I’ve collected magazines (the 20-part series things, though I rarely got to the end) and bought a few books on Hitler, the camps, and so on. By the standards of my generation, I’m pretty knowledgable, though I freely admit that that doesn’t actually mean very much.

However, if the subject is wars prior to 1914, my brain is disappointingly bereft of knowledge. Sure, I know that Nelson won a sea battle at some place called Trafalgar (“England expects” and all that), there was a major slaughter at Antietam in the US civil war (I got that from buying a wrestler’s book), and William The Bastard successfully invaded Englalond in 1066. That’s about it though, so I resolved to improve the situation on the small count that I get annoyed if I realise that I don’t know things, and the larger that this was pretty important stuff.

This book was a good place to start. It’s almost a collection of Wikipedia-style articles, which is exactly what I was after. I’d blanche at having to read a 300-page book on Constantinople or Yorktown. Just tell me the geopolitical situation at the time, what was at stake, who the players were, and what happened. Any trivia you’d like to throw in is a bonus that will make me all the more likely to remember that particular event.

Well this book delivers in spades. I can now consider myself versed a little in the stories of the Hun, the victories that prevented my area of the world becoming moslem rather than christian, what Crécy, Agincourt, and Gettysburg were really all about, what the Charge of the Light Brigade really was (madness!), and even more on how our world became that which we know it today.

Stuff like this is good for invoking the counterfactual, which is an interesting diversion in itself.

The only criticism I would throw at the book is the weight given to WW2. From today’s perspective I understand it perfectly, but I already knew about Iwo Jima, Dunkirk, Crete, Berlin, Alemein and so on, and these chapters were lengthier than the others, so I couldn’t bring myself to read them for the sake of it.

Good stuff though. I learnt a tonne from it in a fraction of the time that it would’ve taken me had I elected to buy specific books on those wars and battles.

Tags: History

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