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Allan Mallinson

1914: Fight The Good Fight: Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War Hardcover – International Edition, September 9, 2013

by Allan Mallinson (Author)

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One of Britain's foremost military historians has written a significant new history of the origins -- and the opening first few weeks fighting -- of what would become known as 'the war to end all wars'. Intensely researched and convincingly argued, Allan Mallinson explores and explains the grand strategic shift that occurred in the century before the war, the British Army's regeneration after its drubbings in its fight against the Boer, its almost calamitous experience of the first twenty days' fighting in Flanders, and the point at which the British Expeditionary Force -- the 'Old Contemptibles' -- took up the pick and the spade in the middle of September 1914, changing the war from one of movement into the now familiar image of the trenches and the coming of the Territorials, Kitchener's 'Pals', and ultimately the conscripts -- and of course the poets. And with them, a sense of pity and of futility.

An ex-infantry and cavalry officer, Mallinson brings his experience as a professional soldier to bear on the individuals, circumstances and events and the result is a vivid, compelling new history of the beginnings of the conflict -- and one that speculates -- tantalizingly -- on what might have been.

Print length

528 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bantam Press
Publication date

September 9, 2013
Dimensions

6.25 x 1.56 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0593067606
ISBN-13

978-0593067604
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

ALLAN MALLINSON is a former infantry and cavalry officer of thirty-five years' service. He is the author of the acclaimed Matthew Hervey series of historical novels, Light Dragoons, a history of four regiments of British Cavalry (one of which he commanded) and The Making of the British Army. As well as writing on defence matters for The Times, he writes for the Mail Online and is a regular reviewer for The Times, Spectator and Literary Review. He lives near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam Press (September 9, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593067606
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593067604
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.88 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.56 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #6,444,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10,554 in World War I History (Books)

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73 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

73 global ratings

5 star		68%
4 star		27%
3 star		3%
2 star		2%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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jackson Butterworth

Magnificient portrayl of the British involvement in WWI!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 26, 2014

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Allan Mallinson is well known for his outstanding fictional descriptions of the British Army as well as for developing characters who jump with life from the page. In this book one sees another face of the author. While he has written non-fiction recounts of the Cavalry and other units, this is the first I have read of that description. The author takes a unique route in 1914, Fight the Good Fight to describe World War I while completely avoiding the terrible venue of the
" trenches". His very detailed recount of the stumbling Governmental efforts to prepare for coming chaos on the continent almost subdues the reader who may not be familiar with the personalities. However as many of these enter into the fracas and interact with the French military, that same reader is tempted to re -read the lead-up to become better acquainted. There is a blend of the despair of military errors with the heroic British fortitude related in this tale. The journalists and poets that emerged from this, the largest involvement of the British Army ever, are multiple. Mallinson blends their sentiment into the mix of with appropriate presentation. Finally one is touched by the willingness of English, Irish, and Scottish men to volunteer to fight for "King and Country" in the Territorial and PALS outfits. The reader is moved to speculate whether that same total commitment exists anywhere today. That message came to me clothed in subliminal drapings. If only the footnotes were published, they would be a wonderful addtiion to the detailed history of this "War to End All Wars." Pick it up if your interests lie in this important period of history.

One person found this helpful

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Writing Historian

How the British Army's experience in South Africa influenced its performance in the opening weeks of WW1

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 14, 2013

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Excellent Story of the British Army in the Period Leading up to 1914 and How Those Events Influenced its performance in the opening weeks of the First World War. Mallinson has penned about the most even-handed account of Mons and Le Cateau that I have read. He adroitly avoids the pitfalls of partisanship and revisionism as respectively exhibited by his British and American predecessors. The author's professional experience adds immeasurably to the narrative, as he evaluates British Army, Corps, Division, Brigade, and Battalion commanders on their adherence to, and understanding of, existing doctrine as applied to continental warfare. Mallinson paints a justifiably laudable picture of BEF logisticians, which many other authors have ignored in order to concentrate on (and highlight) the combat actions that took place. Mallinson places himself in the first rank of Great War historians by including the German perspective, interweaving it expertly with events taking place on the British side. On the plus side, his writing style is both informative, fluid, and entertaining. Highly recommended. Am buying a second copy for a friend interested in military history.

7 people found this helpful

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Mamber

Excellent; informative and incisive.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 22, 2019

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This may be one of the best books I have read on the build up for WWI by the UK. In reality, apart from a few exceptions (Churchill) the British government seemed to feel that war wasn't going to happen, until it was too late. The lamentable lack of preparation and any strategic idea about where to position the BEF, essentially resulted in its almost complete destruction. Mallinson writes with authority and spares no blushes in describing the events of 1914, in this highly readable and informative book.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

A good military history book about the early involvement of United Kingdom at the Start of the "Great War"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 30, 2013

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While reading this book I got the basic understanding of the British Empire and it's professional Army before their entry into World War (one). It is a English book, English views and spelling; other than that it is a good read to understand what was going on during this time. I would recommend this book to gain insight, and reasons that Britain entered the war.

3 people found this helpful

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Paul A. Myers

Great history and intriguing 'what ifs'

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 4, 2014

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Mallinson has focused on that first small British Expeditionary Force, capable and well trained, that deployed to France in mid-August 1914 and fought and was itself consumed in the bitter fighting of August-September-October 1914. He asks some intriguing questions about how possible other deployments of the BEF might have resulted in a more decisive outcome for the Allies in the September fighting at the Battle of the Marne. Reads a counterpoint to some of the arguments made by Max Hastings in his recent book "Catastrophe 1914."

6 people found this helpful

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Robert

Excellent book. A little dry in a few spots ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 31, 2018

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Never really understood before how the assassination of the ArchDuke led to WWI. Excellent book. A little dry in a few spots but such is politics.

One person found this helpful

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PJJ Ryan

Well written

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 2, 2013

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This is well put together. Historical context and background are put together clearly and Mallinson brings his flowing writing style to what could be dry old stuff. What could be called accessible history but no less erudite for that.

6 people found this helpful

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Jimmy Mac

A very good read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 30, 2018

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Best book I have read for understanding the 'behind-the-scenes' military, social and political run up to the war.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

A. Callow

Well told and some fascinating insights

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 15, 2017

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It took me a year to read this book, and I don’t know why as it is really rather good. To be fair, after starting it whilst on holiday in Vienna, work (or more accurately the need to find some) got in the way and I didn’t pick the book up again for a long time. Mallinson is a former member of the British General Staff so brings a soldier’s eye to his subject and as a good staff officer, the Operational level of command, as well as the Strategic and Tactical, is very well covered here – how the British Army, in the immediate pre-war years and then in its deployment to France is provisioned in ammunition, guns, wagons; in how reserve troops and horses (165 000 obtained in just 12 days) are mobilised for war. We often forget that, although in Khaki, Britain’s soldiers started the war with essentially modernised Napoleonic (or should that be Wellingtonian) equipment and methods of war (indeed the later chapters, once fighting begins, reports are included of the use of swords by cavalry and Officers to kill Germans at close quarters). But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As Mallinson himself says, Fight the Good Fight is an Anglocentric perspective of the BEF’s first twenty days, and of what came before – specifically, Britain’s wishful detachment from the affairs of continental Europe, notwithstanding the implied alliance of the Entente Cordiale. It was a full month after the shooting in Sarajevo before the cabinet properly discussed the situation in Europe; and even once the fighting began, a mood of semi-detachment persisted. The book shows the developments, mostly positive, in the training and doctrine of the British Army brought about by the lessons learned from the South African Wars. Haldane’s reforms in organisation go hand in hand with these. Ironically the strenuous efforts to reform the army after the Boer War had an unintended consequence: they brought the army to an unprecedented pitch of efficiency, but in August 1914 they also brought it to the wrong place, at the wrong time, and trusting in an ally – France – whose own army, in its obsession with the overwhelming moral power of the offensive, had put its trust in the wrong generals and the wrong strategy.
At the same time the strategic drift, and detachment from European politics of the various governments, distracted as they were by constitutional crises over the ‘peoples budget’ and later (as late in fact as summer of 1914) Irish Home rule along with the emerging social programmes of the Liberal Government to improve the lot of the ordinary people. The lack of Strategic direction to the Army in the years just before the war is well chronicled. The upshot of this was that without direction from above, the relatively junior Major General Henry Wilson effectively committed Britain to fight alongside France without the government’s instruction. Wilson effectively decided the what and the where if not the when of British military commitment to the defence of France whilst the Government was struggling to decide whether the Entente with France was an alliance or simply a statement of friendship (thus supporting both Germany’s belief that Britain would not get involved in the war and France’s confidence in her support!). The British political detachment is clear even throughout July 1914 to recognise the growing continental crisis. Even as late as the War Council meeting in the Cabinet room in Downing St at 4pm on 5 August ‘an historic meeting of men, mostly entirely ignorant of their subject’ (Maj Gen Wilson) the government could only resolve to send the BEF to France, in a strength to be decided, to a place to be determined, and to operate along lines as yet unspecified (though as mentioned Wilson had in reality decided it for them).
As the BEF embarked for France it was ‘incomparably the best trained, best organised and best equipped British Army that ever went forth to war’. By midnight on 22 November it had fought ferociously at Mons, Le Cateau where Smith Dorrien delivered a checking blow to Kluck’s 1st Army, the Marne and at Ypres. It was however a shadow of the army that had left Britain in August. These engagements are well recorded by Mallinson and he is no fan of FM Sir John French the C in C of the BEF for whom he has few good words. The II Corp commander, Smith-Dorrien, whose troops bore the brunt of fighting at Mons and Le Cateau is treated with more sympathy in doing the best that could be done against much superior numbers whilst the French 5th Army failed to attack on his right and Haig’s I corps (on the left) was only partially engaged.
In the retreat to the Marne, Joffre regained the balance of his French armies and defeated the German advance, with help from the BEF that had been constantly on the move and in contact with the enemy for 3 weeks. It is not surprising, though Mallinson is a little harsh here, that given casualties and exhaustion Smith-Dorrien did not seize the one possible opportunity to open a gap in the enemy armies after the Marne. In truth the BEF and the British army was tiny compared to the continental powers but it performed superbly. Corps commanders Smith-Dorrien, Haig performed well and were brilliantly supported in logistics by Wully Robertson whose positioning of supplies in the advance to and then retreat from Mons would have made Wellington proud. The BEF was under-equipped in High Explosive shells and was just smaller than its enemy but it was well trained, generally well equipped and adaptive to new technologies (the 1st squadrons of RFC aircraft were in France before the ground troops and were used from the outset for reconnaissance).
At the beginning of this book, Mallinson asserts that the War ‘was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which …were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of fate.’ At the end he offers an interesting, though unproveable counter factual of a lost opportunity that if instead of dashing the BEF against the might of the German invasion in August, what if Britain had waited until other Empire troops, in particular the Indians, had become available from late September ? We will never know but the tantalising possibility the author holds out is that a then much larger, fresh, well trained and supplied BEF may well have been able to smash the flanks of a German army attempting to wheel around France in pursuit of Schlieffen’s strategy.
This is military history at its best, covering strategy, operations and tactics. Mallinson tells the story with a staff officers eye to the importance of effective command and identifies with laser precision where those areas where this was lacking in the decade before and 1st month of the war. He also has a wonderfully wry soldier’s sense of the ridiculous which is used to great effect here. A great read this.

One person found this helpful

David Bisset

Military history by a professional soldier

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 3, 2018

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This book has been much praised in reviews; and rightly so. It is graphic and we'll researched. The detailed military explanations often have wide implications. But the political level is not neglected. There are numerous footnotes which contain particularity useful comment and information.

Brum5613

Apology

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 19, 2021

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apology for previous review of supplier as issue was down to Royal Mail in the end

Hed M

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 8, 2018

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Nice one from Mallinson. Up to his usual standard and very readable.