"Challenge of Battle - BEF in 1914" Topic

This book about the BEF in 1914 says they weren't supermen. It is available in hardcover and as a Kindle book. My crowded bookshelves say Kindle – but if the maps are really good then I'll get the hardcover.

Anyone read it? How are the maps? For that matter, how's the book? Thanks in advance.

I have read the book. It is ok but very uneven. The author started out trying to prove that the BEF did not comprise supermen. He only applied this pattern of analysis to Mons and Le Cateau. The analysis was based on two broad categories of approach. One was to draw on secondary sources, particularly Samuels and Zuber. Neither were good on analysing the BEF in actual fact. The second approach was to quote a set of anecdotes that only illustrate some of the problems experienced during these battles. The quotes are too selective and are not balanced by the many positives that also appear in the literature.

The rest of the book is just a precis of the subsequent involvement of the BEF up until the end of the First Battle of Ypres. Nothing special IMHO. The maps are unlikely to be of help if you are planning to use them for specific wargames. What would you like to do? There may be better sources.

Robert

I'd like to drill deeper than Purnell's History of WWI and the Guns of August. If that leads to being able to create better scenarios for OP14 (each basic unit a brigade) so much the better. I certainly have trouble seeing Le Cateau as a British victory, given the losses and the amount of artillery captured. I have seen it written up that way.

But yes, please tell me better sources. If they are on Kindle that's even better, for my bookshelves are groaning.