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The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West - William Royston Geise |
The core of this work is a previously unpublishedUniversity of Texas at Austin PhD thesis from 1974. Geise was a World War II veteran who spent over 20 years in the U.S. military. He later received his doctorate and was a professor for several years before he died in 1993. According to the introduction, this thesis was recommended to Savas Beatie for publication by Bryce Suderow, who is probably best known for his book on theBattle of Pilot Knob. The manuscript was then lightly edited by Michael J. Forsyth, a long-time veteran of the U.S. military who was a staff officer for theAlaska NORAD Region and was (as of 2022) a PhD candidate at a Canadian military college. Geise's original notes/citations are clearly delineated from Forsyth's by the separation of the author's and editor's commentary by two backslashes.
This work is focused on the Confederate high command in theTrans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War and is not intended to be a traditional battle/campaign history of the theater, which isstill needed. While the major military operations in the theater are discussed as appropriate, this is done as a summary of the operation, without the traditional focus on individual battles. Some operations of limited long-term strategic significance, mainly cavalry raids, are not really discussed at all, with Marmaduke's First Missouri Raid andShelby's Great Raid being the two that stood out to me the most. In a few cases, I felt that omitting references to specific events excluded some necessary context (the most glaring of which were the lack of a reference to theCamp Jackson affair in the discussion of divided civilian attitudes in 1861 Missouri and a description of theBattle of Mine Creek as "the last fight of [Price's Missouri Expedition]" (p. 164)), but on the whole Geise was able to appropriately balance the strategic and tactical level views.
What Geise does focus on is the Confederate administration of the region. He lays out the effects of the lack of unified command in the region early in the war, and the effects of both uncoordinated and sometimes overlapping division of the region into districts and subdistricts. Confederate departmental commanderTheophilus H. Holmes comes under criticism from Geise, and this is the consensus view. A topic of emphasis is the necessity ofEdmund Kirby Smith's military administration to take over much of the civilian administration of the region after theSiege of Vicksburg cut off the Trans-Mississippi from the Confederate central government. The most unique aspects of Geise's study are the chapters dealing with Confederate logistics in the Trans-Mississippi and the relationship between the Confederate military administration and the Confederate civilian state governments of the region, particularly after Kirby Smith took over several areas that in the American tradition have been handled by the civilian authorities, such as certain economic policies and the postal service.
Forsyth's footnotes are mainly intended to point to post-1974 additions to the scholarly literature on the Trans-Mississippi. What are now the definitive works on operations such as Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Hindman's autumn and winter 1862 Ozarks offensives, the 1863 operations in Arkansas, and Price's Missouri Expedition post-date the 1970s, along with most of the modern literature on the Red River campaign. Geise was an English major, while Forsyth was not, which is the cause of the somewhat ironic circumstance where the editor's annotations are less well-edited than the primary text. Many of the other notes are Forsyth applying his experience as a staff officer to the command-and-control problems faced by the Trans-Mississippi Confederates.
All-in-all, I would consider this to be an essential text for those studying the Trans-Mississippi theater of the war.
Publishing details:Geise, William Royston (2022). Forsyth, Michael J. (ed.).The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861–1865: A Study in Command. El Dorado Springs, California: Savas Beatie.ISBN 978-1-61121-621-9.
Operation Steinbock 1944 - Chris Goss |
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This is the 52nd book in Osprey Publishing's Air Campaign series. It coversOperation Steinbock, a highly unsuccessful air offensive conducted by Germany against British cities in early 1944. The author, Chris Goss, has written many books on aerial warfare in Western Europe during World War II, and served in the RAF.
Operation Steinbock is an interesting topic as it illustrates the collapse of the GermanLuftwaffe by the second half of the war, yet the campaign is somewhat obscure. Therelevant volume in the British official history only allocates two pages to the topic, for instance! I had high hopes for the book as most of the works I've read to date in Osprey's Air Campaign series have been good, as they take a somewhat more scholarly approach than Osprey's other series. I was even willing to try three different online retailers to buy it after the first two turned out to not have any copies in stock after accepting my order!
My efforts were somewhat wasted, as this book is a disappointment. The main problem is that the narrative is quite confusing. Goss doesn't adequately explain the strategic situation and nature of the air war over the UK and France at the start of the book - for instance, that the Allies dominated the skies over the UK and were rapidly developing air superiority over France, yet the Germans were able to mount successful fighter-bomber raids. Once we get into the account of the campaign, it's a mess. There's no clear structure to the narrative on most of the raids, which - unusually for Osprey - is largely explained through excerpts from the diaries of German personnel rather than a summary in the author's own words. Obscure German terms are over-used, which I always find irritating, and there's very little about how British civilians experienced the attacks on their cities. Goss also seems to struggle to explain just how hapless theLuftwaffe was. For example, he notes that many bombers involved in the campaign were lost in flying accidents, but doesn't explain why (presumably due to the combination of poor training and winter weather) and doesn't explain the implications of the destruction of many of the German bombers by Allied fighters when they were conducting routine ferry flights between their bases in occupied France.
There are some hints that Goss intended a better book. The maps are generally excellent and there are detailed orders of battle for the German and British forces. The final section of the book analysing the campaign is quite solid and interesting.
Overall, this is a real missed opportunity for Osprey to have provided the standard work on this campaign. I can't recommend this book.
Publishing details:Goss, Chris (2025).Operation Steinbock 1944: The Luftwaffe's disastrous last Blitz over England. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.ISBN 978-1-4728-5532-9.
Jean-Paul Michel and Monique Briuillet Seefried - Général Louis Dio: The Wartime Epic of One of Free France's Greatest Soldiers, 1940–1946 |
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There is a great deal of scholarship concerning the French generals of World War II, particularlyPhilippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, who is really famous in France, and something of a favourite subject over there. The bibliography of this book lists more than a dozen works on Leclerc but, alas, only one is available in English. Why the publishers chose it to translate this particular book is a mystery, as the subject,Louis Dio, is not so well known, even in France, and, as the footnotes reveal, many other figures in the2e Division Blindée (2nd Armoured Division) have biographies in French that have not been translated into English. This book is not a complete biography, as it only covers the war years from 1940 to 1946. This is a pity and a lost opportunity, as Dio turns out to be a fascinating character, and while French people are most interested in the Second World War, I would have liked to know a great deal more about his pre-war career inFrench Equatorial Africa and his post-war one rebuilding the French Army in Africa and dealing with decolonisation.
This book is well researched and exquisitely detailed, and the translation quality is excellent, which I regard as sufficiently unusual to be remarkable. There are a lot of interesting tidbits woven into the narrative and footnotes, such as the waySaint-Cyr labels the months of the year after the letters in "Austerlitz" (making the anniversary of the battle "2s"). In France - or at least in this book -Charles de Gaulle is regarded as a Christ-like figure, and Leclerc as one of his disciples. Around them are theCompagnons de la Libération ("Companions of the Liberation") and in their front row are figures like Dio, who rallied to the cause of de Gaulle andFree France in 1940, i.e.before it became abundantly clear the Allies were going to win the war. After the war, they were lauded, but also marginalised, as they did not fit the national narrative of France liberating itself. This contributed to their sense of exclusivity, which they demonstrated in various ways, such as wearing theOrder of Liberation above the red ribbon of theLegion of Honour. When Dio had to reduce the2e Division Blindée to a brigade after the war, he chose to retain the units with Free French origins, such as the501e Régiment de chars de combat and his ownRégiment de marche du Tchad.
The first half of the book is literally beating about the bush, as it chronicles Dio's escapades in French Equatorial Africa, Libya and Tunisia. Along the way his command gradually builds up in size from a handful of men with camels to a battalion. In 1943, having attained the size of a brigade, Leclerc's command was upgraded to a division, and reorganised and re-equipped along American lines, with Dio leadinggroupement tactique Dio (GTD), one of three in the division (which would be called acombat command in an American armoured division). The book shows how Dio organised his men and women into smaller all-arms units. His ability to use armour, artillery and infantry effectively was a hallmark of his leadership, and of that of the2e Division Blindée generally. The book shows how GTD was dominated by those who fought in Equatorial Africa and Libya to the very end. Despite being much younger than their counterparts inArmy of Africa units (or perhaps because of it) they performed extremely well. When he was promoted togénéral de brigade in 1945 at the age of 37, Dio became the youngest general in the French Army at that time. Outdated tactics and leadership was one of the French Army's weaknesses in 1940, and this persisted into 1945. This was in stark contrast with the2e Division Blindée, and Leclerc resisted attempts to place it under French command, preferring to fight under the Americans.
This book therefore represents something of a rare find, covering several subjects that have not received much attention: the fighting in World War II in Sub-Saharan Africa; the war on the Western Front in 1944-1945 from the point of view of an armoured battle group commander; and Dio himself, a previously unexplored but worthy biographical subject.
Publishing details:Michel, Jean-Paul; Seefried, Monique Briuillet (2025).Général Louis Dio: The Wartime Epic of One of Free France's Greatest Soldiers, 1940–1946. Translated by Musteen, Jason R. Warwick: Helion and Company.ISBN 978-1-804517-62-8.OCLC 1492260413.
Max Hastings - Operation Pedestal |
Max Hastings is a well known British journalist, defence commentator and military historian who focuses on the Second World War. This book coversOperation Pedestal, a highly risky convoy undertaken in August 1942 to run supplies toMalta to prevent it from surrendering due to the blockade imposed by Germany and Italy.
I find Hastings a bit of a guilty pleasure. Many military historians seem to look down on him as a lightweight, and he has written some nonsense, yet his books are generally well researched and highly readable and bring attention to somewhat neglected topics. He also isn't afraid to make judgements, which can be refreshing even when I think that he's wrong.
That said,Operation Pedestal isn't one of his best. Hastings notes in the introduction that it's his first book focused on naval warfare, and it shows at times. While the narrative is solid and highly readable, it's somewhat oddly paced and some of his arguments and conclusions are suspect. For instance, Hastings argues that the British cruisers that took part in the operation were a liability, yet this follows on from a chapter where he noted that the convoy was lucky to escape attack from Italian cruisers - the British cruisers were intended for just this eventuality. The small number of maps doesn't help, and those that are included cover too much - a map for each phase of the operation would have been much more useful.
The book has many strengths though. The main one is the sympathy Hastings demonstrates towards the merchant mariners and Royal Navy personnel involved in the operation. He notes that many of the missteps and breakdowns in morale were the result of the incredible strain everyone involved was under. He also highlights the bravery of theMerchant Navy personnel and covers their experiences in great detail. The discussion of the strategic value of Malta and the convoys to sustain it is also well handled, with Hastings concluding that while it wasn't worth the effort in military terms it was important for political and morale reasons.
Publishing detials:Hastings, Max (2021).Operation Pedestal: The fleet that battled to Malta 1942. London: William Collins.ISBN 978-0-00-836495-3.
Mike Martin - How to Fight a War |
This nifty book is written as a primer on warfare for the aspiring national leader thinking of going to war, but of course is meant to be read by a much wider audience than that. The author,Mike Martin, is a former British Army officer who fought in theWar in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer and later wrote his PhD on the war.
The book is pitched at the reader who knows nothing about military history, and is written in a logical, engaging and entertaining manner. It has sections on strategy, logistics, training, and land and sea warfare. A great deal of what it says is common sense but as we all know that is often in short supply. The book points out trade-offs between costs and combat effectiveness that are often overlooked. As an aside, the description ofmission command as delegating how to perform a task to subordinates misses the mark; what is critical is understanding the superior commander's intent, so they can make the correct decision in changing circumstances. This could be clumsy wording, but the introduction of the concept in the British Army has been quite recent, and it may not have sunk in yet. (More on this next month.)
Writing for a British audience, nearly all the examples in the book are British or from recent conflicts or both. Using recent conflicts helps the non-military history reader, as they are less likely to know the details of Grant'sWilderness campaign or thePeloponnesian War. The one medieval example is theBattle of Hastings (1066), which is likely to be very familiar to British readers but much less so to others. However, the British examples are usually equally applicable to armies and politicians in other countries. In Australia, we have an opposition defence spokesperson wanting to repeat errors highlighted in this book that his party made in the last war (and the one before that):[1] cutting back on logistical units at the expense of combat ones and moving logistical functions to reserve units. This impacts the ability of regular combat units to deploy, thereby not only defeating the original purpose but actually making the situation even worse. Martin points out that the pursuit of the latest and greatest technology (or management trends) too often results in costly failure rather that the sought-after magic bullet.
He also points out that everyone has biases. (Saying that you don't is like saying that you don't speak English with an accent.) The author has his: an overemphasis on the psychological, morale and "shock and awe". During World War I, many British officers were convinced that morale was more important than technology, so what was needed for success was to attack with more enthusiasm. (An idea borrowed from the French.) This concept proved to be fatally flawed. The author's emphasis on the role of international opinion also seems overrated to me; a small country like Australia is likely to ignore international opinion so long as the United States is on board, and the United States is prepared to disregard international opinion completely.
This book should be required reading by all those involved in making military policy, and I am recommending it for reading not just by military wonks, but by everyone.
References
Publishing details:Martin, Mike (2023).How to Fight a War. London: Hurst.ISBN 978-1-911723-87-5.OCLC 1483120106.
Recent external reviews |
Jackson, Joe (2025).Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and the Birth of American Empire. Macmillan.ISBN 9780374718404.
Jones, Spencer, ed. (2018).At All Costs: The British Army on the Western Front, 1916. Warwick, United Kingdom: Helion and Company.ISBN 9781915070951.
Waller, Derek (2025).The Surrender of the U-Boat Fleet 1945. Barnsley, United Kingdom: Seaforth Publishing.ISBN 978-1-0361-3549-2.
Ly, Aliou (2024).Women of the Portuguese Guinea Liberation War: De-gendering the History of Anticolonial Struggle. London: Bloomsbury.ISBN 9781350383043.
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