The Battles of the British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1915: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography (review)

With the centenary of the First World War fast approaching, the vast literature examining the role of the British Army in the conflict continues to grow. If anything, the flow of publications has increased in the past decade as historians have seized on the notion of a "learning curve" on the Western Front and sought to plot its trajectory within the British Expeditionary Force. Given this continuing accumulation of scholarship, any attempt to catalogue and critique existing work is to be welcomed. Fred van Hartesveldt has contributed significantly in this respect, previously publishing annotated bibliographies of the Somme and Dardanelles campaigns. His most recent volume assesses the literature on British operations in France and Belgium in 1914 and 1915. Although subsequent Anglo-French initiatives dwarfed these early battles, van Hartesveldt points out that "an understanding of the future difficulties of the forces on the Western Front must be rooted in an examination of the beginning" (p. 2).

To facilitate such an examination, van Hartesveldt prefaces the bibliography with three short historiographical chapters. The first two offer a brief overview of British operations on the Western Front in 1914 and 1915 respectively, identifying key events that have sparked debate in the literature. The third chapter considers the question of "Generalship," focusing in particular on Sir Douglas Haig and his ill-fated patron, Sir John French. Inevitably, given the brevity of these chapters, certain events and issues receive short shrift. Van Hartesveldt summarizes the "Race to the Sea" and the First Battle of Ypres in a single paragraph. He does not discuss the role of the Indian Corps on the Western Front.

The major contribution of this volume, however, is the annotated bibliography comprising 1,018 entries, each accompanied by a brief, occasionally critical, description. It includes biographies and memoirs of senior commanders and ordinary soldiers, regimental and divisional histories of British and Canadian units, French and German histories of 1914–15, as well as modern scholarship pertinent to the early months of the war. The bibliography is particularly rich in little known sources published during the conflict and in the interwar period. It also includes numerous journal articles from a wide range of publications.

The volume is less effective, however, as a guide to contemporary scholarship. This is a reflection of the frenetic pace of activity in the field. The past two years alone have seen the publication of important studies of the First Battle of Ypres by Ian Beckett and the Battle of Loos by Nick Lloyd. Keith Jeffrey has published a new biography of Henry Wilson, the notorious "Sub-Chief" of Staff at General Headquarters in 1914. Gary Sheffield and John Bourne have weighed in on many of the controversies of 1914 and 1915 in their recent edition of the Haig Diaries. The fact that all of these studies have appeared too late to be included in this volume is hardly the fault of its compiler, who clearly has a strong grasp of the literature. Nevertheless, it suggests that a relatively expensive hardcover is not the best means of capturing the current state of the field. Despite this limitation, any serious scholar commencing a study of British or Canadian experiences on the Western Front in 1914-1915 will find this volume to be a gold mine of useful and often obscure sources.