Annual Booklist 2020 : Joshua Provan
Joshua Provan is the administrator of the blog Adventures in Historyland (https://adventuresinhistoryland.com/) and the author of Wild East: The British in Japan: 1854-1868, his second book; Bullocks, Grain and Good Madeira: The Maratha and Jat Campaigns 1803-1806, will be published in 2021.
Necessary as they are, above every modern biography, whether it be the graceful pen of Longford, the detail of Muir, the clear sightedness of Holmes or the flair of Guedella, no work on the Duke of Wellington as a soldier can give you the professional insight that Gurwood’s mammoth The Dispatches of Field Marshal The Duke of Wellington can. No memoir or autobiography could have been half so instructional or imbued with such soldierly intelligence than this colossal body of work commonly known simply as ‘the dispatches.’ Though admittedly I have not read them all, I feel certain that no single or even double volume of second-hand studies could offer such a comprehensive look into the minutiae and mundanity of command in the early 19th century. For here the science of war, and why Wellington excelled at it, is revealed, not in framed oils in regimental museums, but in the day to day torpor of supplying, feeding, clothing and housing armies in the field. Alongside them, the works on and relating to Colonel Murray would be highly recommended.
When writing my own book on the Maratha and Jat campaigns of 1802-1806, I derived great enjoyment from the journals of officers and enlisted men such as the Blackiston, Welsh, Shipp and Young, to name but four, all of which became favourites; also, despite the inherent issues with later ‘memoirs’, the ‘memoir’ written by Ballie Fraser about Colonel James Skinner. All of them combine to provide a insiders picture of soldiering in India at the turn of the 19th century. However, amongst this band of voices from a long-forgotten war, the journal of John Pester will always stand out. Pester was an officer of the Bengal Army, but although distinct entities; where fought Sepoy armies of the Presidencies, so too fought HM’s Forces. Published initially as War and Sport In India, the daily life of a ‘sahib’ officer amidst the rigours of a south Asian campaign are rarely as vivid or indeed amusing as in the pages of Pester’s journal.
It would be too difficult, if not impossible, to select a favourite memoir of war in Europe between 1700 and 1854. The soldiers of Marlborough, Wolfe, Howe and Cornwallis, Wellington and Raglan all deserve attention and one without the others seems pointless. That is why I unhesitatingly turn to the work of perhaps the greatest popular 20th century historian of the British Army, Richard Holmes. Redcoat forms part of a trio of books looking at the experiences of the British Soldier, representing an immensely impressive survey of soldiering from 1700 to 1920. Few historians could write about soldiers and soldiering with such confidence, sensitivity and patent good sense as Holmes could. His thematic style, crisp storytelling and infectious enthusiasm made reading Redcoat an immersive and compulsive experience that I have never forgotten.
Whenever I get the chance, I try to read about the wars which have fallen out of common memory and are only remembered in regimental battle honours and toasts. Despite the idea of fifty years of peace following Waterloo, the British army was called on to engage in increasingly complicated campaigns in far flung corners of an expanding empire. One of which was the first Maori War, a bruising and thankless struggle against a clever and unconventional enemy, in a difficult climate over impossible terrain. To Fight the Daring Maori by Micheal Barthorp not only remains the best work on this subject but practically the only one as well. As a single volume work on a campaign it is a model of how to craft a clear narrative without compensating in detail. The survey of this war brings to light how the army had to adapt itself to overcome the Maori. More work can be done in this area of British military history and doubtless any who wish to start will seek out this gem, but that being said, this book would be hard to better.
A lot of my favourite books are those which offer less the view of the scholar and more the view of the soldier. This authenticity is naturally easier to be found amongst the officers and men of the British Army than amongst civilian researchers, though to be fair it is not impossible to find in the latter either. It is especially more common to find it in the writings of men of a previous generation of soldiers who have attained high rank. Perhaps I just prefer the unselfconscious ease with which senior officers who did their service in the post war years, like General Sir Peter Duffell, communicate their subject. Gurkha Odyssey is a new favourite of mine, and not just because it is a first-rate history of legendary Nepalese riflemen, but because of how Duffell can unerringly put his finger on the ‘specialness’ of what it means to be part of a regiment. The Gurkhas are an extreme case of individuality in the regimental system but it helps to prove a point. Duffell portrays the strength of regimental tradition clearly and gives an excellent case for why the army should maintain the ‘specialness’ of its regiments, as all costs.
There are so many books that remain unwritten, and so many that I am unaware of due to scarcity or ignorance, that it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at just one. However, I will confine myself to raising the subject of the experience of British forces in Southeast Asia and Australia in the 19th century. This might broadly comprise life, in cantonments and in the field, on the Australian and New Zealand Stations, Ceylon, Java and the ever-neglected Burmese campaigns.