Battling British: Boudicca et al

Both of these books attempt to bring together a vast collection of information about the history of warfare. Lawrence James has written a historical narrative of the British at war over the past 2,000 years, while Richard Holmes explores an even larger canvas. His approach is that of an encyclopedia, with contributions from 150 academic experts. It is a work of reference that seeks to provide articles of general interest as well as to act as a quick reference guide. In this it succeeds admirably, although as the editor admits, it can never be comprehensive.

James claims, not unreasonably, that Britain is a nation shaped by wars. His source material is inevitably thinner for the distant past than for the 20th century, and he races through the first 16 centuries. Starting with Boadicea, or more correctly Boudicca, he focuses as much on her role as a curious icon for Victorian times as on her rebellion against the Roman empire, showing how she has become a symbol of British independence.

The Oxford Companion , which also reminds us that the correct name is Boudicca, draws on the same references. It covers the short known history of the great warrior queen in just nine lines, but gives no such reference entry for the legendary King Arthur, who is seen as a key figure in the emergence of the British warrior race.

James admits that the historical evidence is scant for the various tales of Arthur, but he believes that the ethos of the Camelot legend was important in the development over the next 1,500 years of the British respect for chivalry. We rush through the centuries of rape and pillage by the Vikings to the next key event - the Norman conquest and the new political structure that followed. The relevant entry in The Oxford Companion appears under "William the Conqueror" with no cross references to help the reader.

If James manages to cover the first millennium in short order, he also covers the next 500 years rapidly, focusing on the problems of overstretch as wars drag on at home and with France. Surprisingly, the battle of Agincourt is given less prominence than in The Oxford Companion , which describes it as a prime example of success in battle by a small, well-disciplined, well-led force. This is a lesson the British learnt over the centuries in their approach to warfare.

Internal conflicts were also a source of misery. In particular the wars of the roses between 1455 and 1487 are seen as a key period for the country. A thoughtful analysis by A. J. Pollard in The Oxford Companion gives the reader a much broader insight than is available from Warrior Race .

The past 400 years of conflict are dealt with in much greater depth by both books. This reflects the ever-expanding data available in modern times. There was also a vast increase in British military activity around the world as international trade built up, maps improved and empire was acquired, and then lost. This period is also one of intermittent internal strife within the British Isles. From the end of the wars of the roses, England enjoyed 150 years of domestic peace, but this was to be broken by the wars of three kingdoms under Charles I. An essay in the Holmes volume entitled "British civil wars" describes the chronology of these wars from 1638 to 1652, and is made clearer by the accompanying maps.

James, meanwhile, deals with the individual stories of people swept up in such bitter fighting, and conveys the widespread misery of this period. He believes that the experience of military rule left the country with "a pathological aversion to standing armies which would endure".

After the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II, there was still trouble to come from Scotland and Ireland, and from the American colonies. Despite a dislike of standing armies, there was no shortage of work for British soldiers and sailors.

For 200 years between 1660 and 1870, the British fought campaigns for expansion overseas, as well as defence at home. As James makes clear, the wars that made this expansion possible were not the products of a carefully prepared long-term strategy. They were more responses to crises that might have put British interests at risk. While Sir Walter Raleigh's formula for global supremacy was: "Whosoever commands the sea, commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, commands the world itself", the reality was much more one of taking opportunities when they occurred.

The biggest military force was in India. Between 1757 and 1849, military force was used to extend the East India Company over the whole subcontinent. The Oxford Companion tells us that generations of British officers were transformed by their experience of the Indian army. Possible threats to Indian security extended British power yet further, and the costs of these operations mounted year by year. The priority for defence spending was the navy, which provided for the defence of Britain, and for expeditionary forces to secure the colonies. The need to be assured of control of the sea led Britain to match the combined power of France and Spain. This led to ever-increasing numbers of frigates, and yet more costs. By the early years of the 19th century, the Royal Navy was the largest employer of civilians in the country. The battle of Trafalgar in 1805 is ranked by The Oxford Companion , along with the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the battle of Britain, as the decisive battle to end the threat of invasion. The investment in naval power had paid off. Ten years later at Waterloo, the army was also to have its day.

The Victorian age saw the growth of British power overseas, and military activities in distant places were filtered by the war reports in the press of the day. Despite occasional invasion scares, it was a period of insulation from the reality of war for most people. But the industrial revolution had military implications as well as economic ones.

James devotes a large section of his book to the horrors of the first world war. The nature of the military changed: technical ability was now needed among the soldiers as well as the officers. Nelson had said: "You can't be a good officer without being a gentleman." But gentlemen were in short supply. Every family in the country was touched by death and injury, with more than 700,000 killed. Although the killing power of the machine gun should have been known after experience of its use in colonial wars 20 years before, the lessons had not been learnt in Europe. Mass production of such weapons and their ammunition became the war-winning requirement. Industrial capacity was everything. The need for people to fight and to operate the factories meant that society was changed as women took on more and more tasks. Technological innovation came thick and fast with the development of tanks, aircraft, new weapons, submarines and wireless.

There had been concerns before the outbreak of the first world war about the resilience of the common man in Britain. It was thought, by the elites, that factory workers and office clerks were unlikely to be able to stand up to the rigours of battle. Robert Baden-Powell had founded the Boy Scouts as one way of preparing young people for disciplined action. Yet, in the event, the concerns were largely unwarranted. In retrospect, the assumption that the upper class could provide the necessary intellectual leadership was the bigger question. Stories from every level of society fill Warrior Race .

While the slaughter in the trenches seemed to offer little in the way of chivalry, the early exchanges between pilots over the battlefield were seen as more refined. Yet, even here, the death rate was such that more than half were dead within three months of arriving at a squadron. One Royal Air Force doctor at the end of the war puts the British success down to using officers rather than NCOs as pilots. This belief has been long lasting.

In The Oxford Companion , Hew Strachan is given the unenviable task of covering the first world war in three pages. He does so admirably and provides many cross-references to other entries. Richard Overy has the same task for the second world war. In both cases, it must have been difficult to distil so much expertise into such brief entries.

In Warrior Race , James, who has the space to paint the human stories behind the list of campaigns, plots the political changes that led to the defeat of Churchill in the 1945 election and reminds the reader that not everyone was devoted to the greater national war effort. In one month of the Blitz, some 150 looters were prosecuted.

There were upheavals to the social order everywhere. The evacuation of children, the arrival of the Americans, the black market and all the shared stresses of the people's war changed British society.

It is more difficult to characterise the cold-war period as shaping the British as a warrior race. James perhaps places too much emphasis on the role of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. With the exception of the Cuban missile crisis, most of Britain seems to have gone about its business without giving much thought to nuclear strategy. The military had a curious role of preparing for a war that it could not win. Only by deterrence would the strategy succeed.

Irish terrorism at home and occasional conflicts abroad gave some scope for sharpening military skills. Britain now spends less of its national wealth on its military forces than at any time in the past 70 years. Yet the residual assumptions of 2,000 years of warfare do still linger. There is a widespread assumption that British forces do better with less. The rigid class structure that would be familiar a century ago is still visible in the armed forces, when the rest of society has moved on. While war may have shaped British society radically in the recent past, it is by no means certain that the military ethos that Britain so relishes will be sustainable in the years to come.

Both books will be welcome to any reader with an interest in military affairs. The Oxford Companion in particular brings an extraordinary range of expertise together in an accessible form.

Sir Timothy Garden is visiting professor, Centre for Defence Studies, King's College London, and former commandant, Royal College of Defence Studies.