Annual Booklist 2025 : Lieutenant General (retired) Sir John Kiszely
John Kiszely served in the British army for forty years. His operational service included Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands, Bosnia and Iraq. He is a former Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff and Director General of the UK Defence Academy. On leaving the army he was a visiting research fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre, University of Oxford, and for three years a visiting professor in war studies at Kings College, London. His first book, Anatomy of a Campaign: The British Fiasco in Norway 1940, won the 2017 Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History. His latest book, General Hastings 'Pug' Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat, was a runner-up for the 2025 Templer Medal.
John Keegan, The Face of Battle (London, Joathan Cape,1976).
I was lucky enough to be one of John Keegan's students at Sandhurst; he was an inspirational teacher. When first published, this fascinating book was groundbreaking, focusing not on the decisions of generals but on the actions and experiences of soldiers - why they did what they did, what it was like to be there. His analysis and conclusions have continuing relevance for an understanding of armies and warfare today.
Field Marshal Sir William Slim, Defeat Into Victory (London, Cassell, 1956).
I've lost count of the number of times I've read this book. Many people (myself included) consider Bill Slim to have been the greatest British general of the Second World War. He was a highly competent commander - a charismatic leader with an innate understanding, both of warfare itself and of those under his command. This memoir is full of wisdom and insights, written with modesty and humility. There is so much to be learnt from it.
Correlli Barnett, The Desert Generals (London, Allen and Unwin, 1983).
Barnett tells the story of the Western desert campaign 1940-1943 through portraits of five senior British commanders. The book is admirably researched, perceptive and brilliantly written. It sheds much light on the strains and challenges of high command, on the reasons for the British Army's wildly variable performance in that campaign and on the culture of the Army more widely. Highly readable and thought-provoking.
David French, Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British People, c.1870-2000 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005).
An understanding of the British Army's regimental system is fundamental to an understanding of the Army itself. Yet too often the subject is shrouded in myth and propaganda. This meticulously researched book, which won for its author the 2005 Templer Medal, cuts through to the reality. In doing so it may come as an unwelcome shock to those who believe that the regimental system is, and has always been, a thing of unsullied perfection.
Richard Holmes, Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918 (London, HarperCollins, 2004).
There are so many of Richard Holmes's books which jostle for a place on this list but Tommy just makes it. It's a brilliant, comprehensive study of the British Army on the front line in the First World War – a study of individuals, groups and communities; their behaviours and the interactions between them; of their opinions, thoughts and feelings, using the words of the participants themselves. Indeed, in providing an understanding of an army as an organism as well as in conveying a sense of what it was like to be there, this book is up there with the best. A classic.
For me, the book that doesn't exist but should do is a biography of Field Marshal Sir John Dill: a corps commander in the British Expeditionary Force in France 1939-1940; Chief of the Imperial General Staff 1940-1941 (where he famously clashed with Prime Minister Winston Churchill); and subsequently head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington and senior British representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff committee where he was a lynchpin of the Anglo-American wartime alliance. A book long overdue.