Annual Booklist 2022 : Professor Nick Lloyd
Nick Lloyd is Professor of Modern Warfare at King's College London, based at the Defence Academy UK in Shrivenham, Wiltshire. He is the author of five books, including The Western Front: A History of the Great War 1914-1918 (Viking, 2021), which was shortlisted for last year's Templer Medal.
My top five reading recommendations for this year are as follows:
Alessandro Barbero, The Battle: A New History of the Battle of Waterloo
The Italian historian, Alessandro Barbero, has written a beautifully evocative, day by day - almost hour by hour - account of the most famous battle in European history. Barbero is excellent in giving us a feel for the battle and all the different nationalities that took part, taking us into the smoke-wreathed squares and battered farmhouses where the crucial moments took place.
Thomas Packenham, The Boer War
This wonderful narrative of the South African War is a classic and will probably never be bettered. This is the kind of book that should be written more often; a big, long narrative full of detailed character studies; excellent, clear prose; and telling judgment. Packenham gives the reader a real feel for the ups and downs of the campaign, including the stuttering performance of the British Army against its doughty opponents.
Robin Prior & Trevor Wilson, Command on the Western Front
Prior and Wilson’s account of the military career of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, the man who would command the British Fourth Army on the Somme, offers key insights into the British Army and the war it fought on the Western Front. Filled with detail, searching, and always critical, Rawlinson emerges as a commander of skill, but who failed to properly think through some of his ideas and lacked the strength of character to stand up to Haig.
John Terraine, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier
John Terraine’s celebrated work on the most controversial British commander in modern history is still the biography to read. Although Terraine was not able to use archival material in his work and some of his conclusions can be challenged, The Educated Soldier is a fascinating read; a well-balanced and convincing portrayal of a flawed character in truly difficult circumstances. Crucially, Terraine devotes significant time to the campaigns of 1917-18, which are often underappreciated when compared to the Somme, giving the book a great, rounded quality.
Correlli Barnett, The Desert Generals
Corelli Barnett’s hard-hitting account of five British commanders who served in North Africa during the Second World War has lost none of its power, particularly regarding the reputation of Field Marshal Montgomery, the famed ‘Victor of El Alamein’. Barnett’s lively prose, his great level of detail and vigorous style made this book an instant classic and it remains an outstanding analysis of command and operations.
A book I’d like to see written? We could certainly benefit from some more research into the South African War, which remains underwritten, and I would like to see an up-to-date biography of General Sir Herbert Plumer, who is probably my favourite British Army commander from the First World War.