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WORK TITLE: Blood Royal
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Bicheno
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1948, in Cuba.
EDUCATION:Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, A.B. (with first-class honors), 1971.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Has worked as an educator, British Secret Intelligence Service officer, and international security consultant.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Hugh Bicheno is a historian whose books examine themes related to political and military conflict. Born in Cuba to British parents, he was raised there and in Britain. After graduating with first-class honors from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he worked for a time as an academic and then served in the British Secret Intelligence Service. He has also worked as a security consultant specializing in the resolution of kidnap negotiations.
Gettysbug and Midway
Bicheno’s early books include the narrative histories Gettysburg and Midway. The former title explores the context, strategy, and tactics of the American Civil War battle that is considered the turning point of that war. The battle, which took place near the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg in July 1863 and resulted in the largest number of casualties of the entire war, ended with the defeat of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of North Virginia. Lee, who had won a major battle that spring at Chancellorsville, Virginia, was continuing north in hopes of threatening major cities there and forcing a negotiated end to the war. But the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Major General George Meade, stopped Lee’s advance at Gettysburg, where fighting raged over the course of three days. Lee was forced to make a difficult retreat back to Virginia. The Union victory significantly boosted flagging military and social morale, and it convinced the North that it could achieve victory.
Midway focuses on a significant turning point in World War II. Six months after attacking Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and destroying much of the U.S. naval fleet there, Admiral Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy devised a plan to annihilate any remaining U.S. military presence in the Pacific. On June 4, 1942, the Japanese fleet attacked Midway, a small atoll at the northern end of the Hawaiian island chain, in hopes of sparking a major battle in which the Japanese would destroy the U.S. Navy’s entire fleet of aircraft carriers. But as Bicheno explains, the battle was a catastrophic loss for Japan and shifted military power in the region to the United States.
Razor's Edge
In Razor’s Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War, Bicheno discusses the background and prosecution of the war that ensued when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands as well as South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, all of which are British overseas territories, in April, 1982. Great Britain claimed to have discovered and settled the islands, which lie some 300 miles off the coast of southern Argentina, but the Argentinians disputed this claim and described their invasion as an act meant to reclaim their legal territory. Britain, under the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, responded by sending a hastily organized fleet to defend the islands. War was never officially declared, and hostilities ended on June with a British victory that did not result in changes to the islands’ political status.
Though the conflict was brief, much of the fighting consisted of small-unit engagements on land and led to considerable casualties. As Kenneth P. Czech pointed out in a Military History review of the book, Bicheno’s “blow-by-blow account reveals the madness and pathos of the combatants and the mistakes made by military and civilian leaders on both sides.” Writing in the London Guardian Online, Robert Fox appreciated the informed perspective that Bicheno, who had served a British intelligence officer in Buenos Aires during the period of military rule that preceded the invasion, brings to the book. In Fox’s view, Bicheno rightly blames both the Argentinian regime for cynically manipulating the conflict in order to bolster domestic support for its unpopular policies, and the British Foreign Office for, in essence, turning a blind eye to the brutalities of the Argentine junta. But Fox objected to the author’s mostly negative appraisal of operational matters, describing this analysis as “often based on little more than hearsay.” London Telegraph writer John Keegan, on the other hand, expressed unmitigated praise for Bicheno’s research, insights, and argument, stating that the author “knows exactly where to apportion praise and blame” for a bloody conflict in which Britain’s Foreign Office played an underhanded part.
Battle Royal and Blood Royal
Bicheno’s two-volume history of the Wars of the Roses, during which rival factions of the House of Plantagenet vied for the English throne, has received high praise for its meticulous research and accessibility. Battle Royal: The Wars of the Roses, 1440-1462 outlines the developments leading to the rift between the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose, and the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose. The author explains how the aftermath of the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) created economic instabilities in England, and how the ineffectual rule of Henry VI, a Lancastrian, lent support to factions that promoted the claim of Richard, Duke of York to the throne. Bicheno also discusses the important role played by Henry VI’s mother, whose liaison with Owen Tudor made her the grandmother of Henry VII, and of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, John of Lancaster’s widow, who became a staunch supporter of the House of York during her second marriage. A writer for Kirkus Reviews described Battle Royal as a “fast-paced study of savage battles full of longbowmen and the equerry” and of “much interest to students of late medieval British history.” Library Journal reviewer Kathleen McCallister considered the book overly detailed for basic readers but a “solid choice” for those seeking an in-depth treatment of the subject.
Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses, 1462-1485, published in England as Blood Royal: The Wars of Lancaster and York, 1462-1485, follows events leading to Henry Tudor’s defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, which ended the Wars of the Roses and made Henry (as Henry VII) the first Tudor king. In its analysis of the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III, the book focuses on the generational antagonisms among the families and particularly the ways in which the antagonists’ mothers fueled these conflicts. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly enjoyed the book’s “lively battlefield descriptions” and admired Bicheno’s skill in exposing the realities of this dynastic struggle and of the “rot” behind the archetype of the strong and righteous king. In Kirkus Reviews, a commentator hailed Blood Royal as “a well-written conclusion to a history perfectly suited to scholars and students.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
English Historical Review, April, 2002, Simon Ball, review of The Oxford Companion to Military History, p. 439.
Internet Bookwatch, February, 2017, review of Battle Royal: The Wars of the Roses, 1440-1462.
Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2016, review of Battle Royal: The Wars of Lancaster and York, 1462-1485; April 15, 2017, review of Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses, 1462-1485.
Library Journal, November 1, 2016, Kathleen McCallister, review of Battle Royal, p. 87.
Military History, June, 2007, Kenneth P. Czech, review of Razor’s Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War, p. 70.
Publishers Weekly, April 3, 2017, review of Blood Royal, p. 62.
Reference & Research Book News, February, 2007, review of Razor’s Edge.
Reviewer’s Bookwatch, August, 2017, Carl Logan, review of Blood Royal.
ONLINE
Guardian Online, https://www.theguardian.com/ (January 5, 2018), Robert Fox, review of Razor’s Edge.
Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (January 5, 2018), John Keegan, review of Razor’s Edge.
Hugh Bicheno
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hugh Bicheno (born 1948) is a political risk analyst and an historian of conflict. He is best known for his interpretations of the Falklands War in his best-selling Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War,[1] and of the American Revolution in Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War.
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Writing
3 Works
4 References
Biography[edit]
Bicheno was born in Cuba to British parents in 1948. He was educated in Cuba, Chile and Scotland before winning a scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he won a first class honours degree in History. He was first an academic and then an officer in the British Secret Intelligence Service. Later he became a security consultant in Italy and across Latin America, specializing in kidnap negotiations. He lived in the United States for several years and became a naturalised citizen, but now lives in England. He is bilingual English-Spanish, speaks and reads Italian and French, and can read Portuguese.
Writing[edit]
Reviewing Razor's Edge, the late Sir John Keegan noted that "Bicheno has much to say, highly entertainingly" about the Falklands War, and describes the book as "gripping and discomfiting."[2]
Bicheno collaborated with his friend the late Richard Holmes on Battlefields of the Second World War, In the Footsteps of Churchill and The World at War. Holmes wrote the prefaces to Rebels and Redcoats and Razor's Edge and also made a television series adaptation of Rebels and Redcoats.
Works[edit]
Gettysburg (Cassell, 2001) ISBN 0-304-35698-0
Midway (Cassell, 2001) ISBN 0-304-35715-4
Rebels & Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War (HarperCollins 2003) ISBN 0-00-715625-1
Crescent and Cross: The Battle of Lepanto, 1571 (Cassell, 2003) ISBN 0-304-36319-7
Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006) ISBN 0-297-84633-7
Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008) ISBN 978-0-297-84634-5
Elizabeth's Sea Dogs: How the English Became the Scourge of the Seas (Conway, 2012) ISBN 978-1-844-86174-3
Battle Royal: the Wars of Lancaster and York 1440-1462 (Head of Zeus, 2015) ISBN 978-1-781-85965-0
Blood Royal: the Wars of Lancaster and York 1462-1485 (Head of Zeus, 2016) ISBN 978-1-781-85968-1
Hugh Bicheno is a writer and historian with a specialist interest in politics and cutting edge culture. His books include: Gettysburg (2002), Midway (2002), Crescent and Cross: The Battle of Lepanto 1571 (2003), Razor’s Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War (2006) Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance (2008). His latest book is Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs and is now out in paperback.
Hugh Bicheno
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Dates EmployedMar 1971 – Dec 1998 Employment Duration27 yrs 10 mos
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Degree NameMA, 1st class hons Field Of StudyHistory
Dates attended or expected graduation 1967 – 1971
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Publication
Gettysburg (Cassell, 2001) ISBN 0-304-35698-0 Midway (Cassell, 2001) ISBN 0-304-35715-4 Rebels & Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War (HarperCollins 2003) ISBN 0-00-715625-1 Crescent and Cross: The Battle of Lepanto, 1571 (Cassell, 2003) ISBN 0-304-36
Hugh Bicheno
Hugh Bicheno
Biography
Richard Holmes was one of Britain’s most distinguished and eminent military historians and broadcasters. For many years Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science, he also taught military history at Sandhurst. He was the author of many best-selling and widely acclaimed books including Redcoat, Tommy, Marlborough and Wellington, and famous for his BBC series such as War Walks, In the Footsteps of Churchill and Wellington. He served in the Territorial Army, retiring as a brigadier and Britain’s most senior reservist, and was Colonel of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment from 1999 to 2007. Richard Holmes died suddenly in April 2011 from pneumonia. He had been suffering from non-Hodgkins’ Lymphoma.
Bicheno, Hugh: BLOOD ROYAL
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Bicheno, Hugh BLOOD ROYAL Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) $28.95 6, 6 ISBN: 978-1-68177-428-2
Bicheno (Battle Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1440-1462, 2016) continues his work on the War of the
Roses.A quick glance through the family trees, charts, maps, timelines, and cast of characters (20-plus
pages) will encourage British history buffs who know the connections and love the extras. Other readers,
however, will need to refer frequently to the detailed charts just to keep the story straight. Even those with a
strong knowledge of this internecine war may stumble while trying to remember the familial relations and
many interconnections and allegiances. The author turns upside down some of the most common myths
about the war, especially regarding the Woodville family. Edward IV's wife, Elizabeth Woodville, came
with a whole gang of siblings as well as a couple stepsons for Edward to favor. Bicheno asserts
convincingly that Edward was much too strong a character to kowtow to his wife. A strong queen, she
immediately usurped and made an enemy of Edward's mother, Cecily, who furiously spread it around that
Edward was a product of adultery, thereby making his brother, Clarence, the rightful heir. Unfortunately,
Clarence's only value was as a puppet to Richard Warwick, the kingmaker, who won control over the
apparatus of government but had no true authority. He felt he made the king and should be able to dictate
policy to him--so much so that he used Clarence to lead a failed rebellion. Edward's reign must be known as
much for the granting, revoking, attainting, and regranting of titles and lands. He knew that assigning lands
to men with proven followings would secure territorial claims and establish peace. England then enjoyed 12
years of relative political stability and rising prosperity, which ended with Edward's early death. For
academics researching the period, this book is a godsend; it not only allows, but demands consultation with
all the provided background information. For general readers, it may be too scholarly and confusing. A
well-written conclusion to a history perfectly suited to scholars and students.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Bicheno, Hugh: BLOOD ROYAL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489268498/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e1fd8a45.
Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489268498
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Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses 1462-
1485
Publishers Weekly.
264.14 (Apr. 3, 2017): p62+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses 1462-1485
Hugh Bicheno. Pegasus, $28.95 (446p) ISBN 978-1-68177-428-2
Bicheno wraps up the Plantagenet saga in this companion to Battle Royal, highlighting the reigns of Edward
IV and Richard III and foreshadowing the rise of Henry Tudor. He deftly describes how just a few
generations of familial politics among the Yorkists, Lancastrians, and Nevilles resulted in bloodshed, all
while the antagonists were egged on by their mothers. Both monarchs receive credit for leadership (in battle
and as a statesman of the north, respectively), but the blunders that hastened their dynastic end are
unsentimentally detailed. Bicheno makes his anti-Ricardian stance clear, but he also doesn't really like
Richard's relatives, calling them "psychopaths" without delving into how their often brutal actions fit within
the era of Florence's Medicis and the Spanish Inquisition. The famous Warwick claim that Edward was the
product of a well-known maternal affair repeatedly appears in the text, but the intentional lack of specific
primary source citations stunts its effectiveness. Clear maps and detailed backgrounds create lively
battlefield descriptions, and multiple relevant appendices clarify the roles of key figures and families.
Bicheno provides a broad look into the mythologized world behind the archetypal strong, handsome king
and the rot that invited power struggles and ruin. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses 1462-1485." Publishers Weekly, 3 Apr. 2017, p. 62+. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489813739/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=eed352be. Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489813739
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Bicheno, Hugh: BATTLE ROYAL
Kirkus Reviews.
(Nov. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Bicheno, Hugh BATTLE ROYAL Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) $27.95 1, 10 ISBN: 978-1-68177-306-3
Lancasters, Yorkists, and appendices, oh my!If you can read a history of the wars of Lancaster and York
without being confused then you are in a small minority and probably have a degree in the subject. As it is,
the conflict between contending bloodlines and their allies spills over into all sorts of events in the larger
European context. In his first book to be published in America, former British intelligence officer Bicheno
(Elizabeth's Sea Dogs: How the English Became the Scourge of the Seas, 2014, etc.) does very good work
by personalizing some of that larger picture. For instance, he notes that a key figure in the proximate causes
of war was the widow of the Duke of Bedford, who had married her so hastily after the death of his wife he
lost a "crucial English ally in the endgame of the Hundred Years War." Then there was King Henry VI,
whose mother had set up house, unmarried, with Owen Tudor, introducing a name into English history that
would soon be heard from again. Those striking personalities aside, Bicheno's history of a bloody war
among cousins is complex and sometimes tedious--not through any fault of his own but because the endless
back and forth of royal and anti-royal factions is simply tiresome and wrapped in overelaborate but needed
detail. A sentence such as, "it is not clear whether the first Lancastrian emissaries were sent after the
duchesses arrived at St Albans, or crossed paths with them," begs the question whether it matters. At its
best, Bicheno's book--the first volume of a history that will feature better-known figures than the early
stirrings recounted here--is a fast-paced study of savage battles full of longbowmen and the equerry.Of
much interest to students of late medieval British history, though a glance at the 20-odd pages of charted
royal lineages and ranking clergy will doubtless scare off casual readers.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Bicheno, Hugh: BATTLE ROYAL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2016. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A469865697/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f6e6d7c8.
Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A469865697
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Bicheno, Hugh. Battle Royal: The Wars of
Lancaster and York; 1450-1464
Kathleen McCallister
Library Journal.
141.18 (Nov. 1, 2016): p87.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Bicheno, Hugh. Battle Royal: The Wars of Lancaster and York; 1450-1464. Pegasus. Jan. 2017.416p. illus.
maps, bibliog. index. ISBN 9781681773063. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9781681773711. HIST
Historian Bicheno (Rebels & Redcoats) takes a leap back to the 15th century to examine the many threads
that came together to weave the Wars of the Roses (1455-85). The first of a two-book series, this volume
covers the period from the coming of age of Henry VI in 1437 to the essential midpoint of the
York/Lancaster wars in 1461, when the ineffectual Henry was supplanted by Edward IV. Dividing the study
of these events into two volumes allows Bicheno room to delve into the people, conflicts, and alliances that
shorter works must skim over by necessity, though this occasionally results in a narrative slowed by a mass
of personalities and details. Helpfully, the book includes numerous materials to assist readers in keeping the
various players and their actions straight, including family trees, detailed maps, appendixes on peerages and
titles, and a separate index of names with key information. VERDICT The plethora of facts and names
might overwhelm those looking for a snappy treatment of the subject, but readers interested in a more indepth
examination should find this a solid choice.--Kathleen McCallister, Tulane Univ., New Orleans
McCallister, Kathleen
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
McCallister, Kathleen. "Bicheno, Hugh. Battle Royal: The Wars of Lancaster and York; 1450-1464."
Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2016, p. 87. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A467830390/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=22a85f16.
Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A467830390
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Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the
Falklands War
Kenneth P. Czech
Military History.
24.4 (June 2007): p70.
COPYRIGHT 2007 World History Group, LLC
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history
Full Text:
Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War, by Hugh Bicheno, George Weidenfeld &
Nicholson, London, distributed by Trafalgar Square, North Pomfret, Vt., 2006, $37.50.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
When Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, it was with a two-pronged perspective:
their historic claim to the islands discovered and settled by the British more than a century earlier; and their
perception that the Anglo backbone had weakened to such an extent there would be no military response.
Argentina's military leaders reasoned that since Great Britain was already negotiating an end to its
sovereignty over the Falklands, an invasion would be an easy victory and would deflect some of the guilt
over the brutal "dirty war" they had waged against insurgents in their own country.
To international surprise, however, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government cobbled together a
strike force to win back the islands and free the British inhabitants known as "Kelpers." Despite a dwindling
operational window due to the imminent South Atlantic storm season, the British fleet sailed for the
Falklands, knowing full well that Argentine forces had had ample time to dig in and establish fields of fire.
In Razor's Edge, author Hugh Bicheno describes the ensuing battles and fire fights in ample detail.
A former British intelligence officer, Bicheno trekked throughout the Falklands to understand in context the
ferocious small-unit engagements that erupted as soldiers and marines clashed on land. Using the terrain as
a guidepost, he dissects the movements of both attackers and defenders. Bicheno's narrative touches on
combatants' personal experiences as they fought over Goose Green and the ragged summits of Longdon, the
Two Sisters and Tumbledown.
According to Bicheno, Longdon was the linchpin of the Argentine defense. Though not the highest of the
fortified hills, at just 600 feet, it offered the best zones of interlocking fire. The author suggests that had the
Argentines advanced their 155mm guns to this position, it would have set back the British assault. As it
was, Argentine mortars and machine guns took a toll among the attackers before British artillery and naval
fire, combined with heroic small group actions, finally forced the surrender.
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While there is mention of naval losses--including the devastating missile attacks against British support
vessels and the torpedoing of the Argentine heavy cruiser General Belgrano with heavy losses--Razor's
Edge centers on the heroics of British and Argentine soldiers and marines. Bicheno's blow-by-blow account
reveals the madness and pathos of the combatants and the mistakes made by military and civilian leaders on
both sides.
Far from a dispassionate historian, Bicheno indicts the governments of both Argentina and Great Britain.
He likens the Fascist regime that controlled Argentina to the Nazis, "on a smaller scale but no less
poisonous." As for the British, he suggests they "were increasingly convinced theirs was a failed society."
The resulting cultural collision led to the deaths of hundreds of young men and forced the remote Falkland
Islands into the international spotlight.
Czech, Kenneth P.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Czech, Kenneth P. "Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War." Military History, June
2007, p. 70. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A213402997/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fbf5b812. Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A213402997
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Razor's edge; the unofficial history of the
Falklands War
Reference & Research Book News.
22.1 (Feb. 2007):
COPYRIGHT 2007 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
0297846337
Razor's edge; the unofficial history of the Falklands War.
Bicheno, Hugh.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
2006
838 pages
$37.50
Hardcover
F3031
This is an unabashedly pro-British and pro-Thatcher narrative of the war between Argentina and Britain
over the Falklands Islands, that focuses primarily on the military aspects of the war. While the author
blames Argentine aggressiveness and perceptions of British weakness (justified in the case of many British
politicians, the author argues) for the war, he is not beyond praising occasional Argentine officers for
bravery and military competence on criticizing British officials and officers for incompetence, lack of
planning, and other sins. His coverage of the air, sea, and land engagements of the war is detailed and
comprehensive and attempts to understand the thinking of decision-makers on both sides of the war and at
the different levels of command.
([c]20072005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Razor's edge; the unofficial history of the Falklands War." Reference & Research Book News, Feb. 2007.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A159048094/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=da6313c8. Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
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The Oxford Companion to Military History
Simon Ball
The English Historical Review.
117.471 (Apr. 2002): p439+.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Oxford University Press
http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/
Full Text:
Edited by RICHARD HOLMES (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2001; pp. xvi+1048. 35 [pounds sterling]).
THE `companion' to this or that has, in recent years, become a popular publishing format for a number of
presses. OUP have an extensive series to which The Oxford Companion to Military History is the latest
addition. The companion is as ersatz a literary form as the ploughman's lunch is a culinary form. It is, as a
result, not entirely clear what its key ingredients should be or whom it should accompany. There seem to be
two main models. One relies upon the presentation of factual information in a concentrated form. The
information needs to be rehydrated by the reader's intelligent questions or intellectual framework. This type
of companion, seemingly simple to compile, is, in fact, amazingly difficult to do well. Anyone who has
tried to construct a detailed chronology of a seemingly well-known event can testify to the creeping
realization that the most trusted of reference sources contain mistakes. All too often this type of companion
falls down because it is not detailed enough. One does not need a companion to find out the month in which
an event occurred, what one needs is information accurate to the day, hour or even minute. Another staple
of such companions is the potted biography. Quite often they fail the `Winston Churchill test': famous
figures are well covered but obscure characters neglected. One does not need to know who Winston
Churchill was, one most certainly does not need to know that Churchill was a a celebrated war leader, one
might need to know some tiny detail about Harrow but that information is rarely forthcoming. The second
type of companion is a collection of lapidary essays on major aspects of a given topic. The most
distinguished scholars survey their field from an Olympian height. Their essays are quirky, controversial,
based upon a depth of research and contemplation that the reader would normally need to consult a slew of
monographs to understand. The second type of companion resembles the first inasmuch as its defining
characteristic is distillation: the reader finds between the covers much more material than he could hope for
in a book constructed in a conventional linear, literary, discursive and analytical pattern. This second type is
the ideal to which the Oxford series aspires. Unfortunately the finest minds in the field can but rarely be
persuaded to contribute to what all too easily can descend into hack work. The Oxford Companion to
Military History has many fine minds on its title page but they do not always contribute the entries one
would hope for.
The `companion' idea, at first sight attractive, is one fraught with difficulties. One might almost say that it is
fatally flawed from the outset. Most companions, The Oxford Companion to Military History included,
faced with these practical problems, manage to fall between the two stools of the ideal types. Given the long
gestation of this book, it is a tribute to the editor, Richard Holmes, and his team, that it has been published
at all. At times one feels that the editor has been spun a hospital pass by whoever initiated this project.
Organizing coverage of approximately five thousand years of human history by hundreds of contributors
must have been an exercise in masochism. In his `Introduction' Holmes outlines the aspirations of the
volume. The companion is to provide `thoughtful assessment for intelligent general readers of many kinds
but also serves as a reliable and quick reference for scholars' (p. vii). This is easy to write but almost
impossible to achieve. Instead, the companion oscillates between the first and second types. Frustratingly,
when one wants specific factual information one gets general discussion, when one wants an overview one
gets penny-packet dictionary-type entries. The reviewer's favourite entry in the latter category was
`Schmeisser'; explaining that the term is a misnomer for the German MP 38 and MP 40 sub-machine guns.
This is an entry for those, over-fond of Where Eagles Dare or Cross of Iron, who missed out on the pre-
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pubescent education of reading the Victor. Any book with such an editorial strategy is bound to be a curate's
egg. Depending on the author of particular articles, the amount of space and the brief they were given, some
entries will be very good, others less so. With such a wide range on offer it becomes hard to offer a coherent
review. There are many ways to read this book. The present reviewer started with those parts that the editor
himself flagged as being of particular interest and fanned out from there.
The editor's approach (and in a production of this size he is more of a project manager than an editor as we
usually understand it) was, as he outlines it, to let his contributors have their heads. There is no guiding
intelligence, no party line. Holmes does, however, admit to plenty of use of the red pen to shoe-horn the
entries in, to fill gaps and remove overlap. On occasion that is a little too obvious: one very much doubts
that the redundant, indeed crass, paragraph at the end of the subtle and thoughtful entry on `knighthood and
chivalry' was written by the putative author, Matthew Strickland.
The two entries Holmes mentions specifically as being ones in which the contributors had their own way
are Gerard de Groot on Douglas Haig and Hugh Bicheno on Braxton Bragg. This is rather odd since when
we turn to Bragg's entry it is short, straightforward and clearly labelled as having been written by Richard
Holmes. De Groot on Haig is more challenging. The contributor has written about Haig previously and does
have an interesting line. He does not rate Haig particularly highly but does think he was the best the British
had, or were capable of having. Immediately one feels that there is a problem. De Groot is offering an
institutional explanation under a biographical heading. What the contributor and the reader need is a
discussion of generalship, not a series of entries on generals. Gary Sheffield's entry on the British army is of
little help, even though he is a Great War specialist, being a narrative trot through four centuries. Mungo
Melvin's entry on the general staff is also descriptive. Neither take up de Groot's challenge: indeed there
was no way in a book of this kind that they could even have known of it. Similar discrepancies pop up in
the entries for the Second World War. Peter Caddick-Adams makes a familiar contrast between Harold
Alexander's soldierly bearing and his lack of grip at the highest levels of command. In an entry that verges
on the hagiograhical, Hugh Bicheno makes an equally familiar case in elevating Eisenhower's lack of
military grip into a brilliant system for conducting coalition warfare. Once again these biographical snippets
need to be brought together into a discussion of generalship under the conditions of coalition warfare.
In an attempt to solve these problems of co-ordination and cross-referencing the book is laced with a series
of thematic essays. Yet these seem to have been commissioned at the same time as the other entries. The
essays do not tend to grow organically out of the standard entries, addressing the problems that they raise.
The thematic essays are merely long contributions with a highlighted background. John Buckley's standard
entry on air forces, for instance, is as thematic, and arguably less skewed by American particularism, as
Daniel Moran's thematic essay on air power.
The editor of a work that attempts to cover a field from the Bronze Age to the present has, as Holmes
acknowledges, to make decisions as to what is important. In this the editor has shown exemplary fairmindedness.
He has struck a balance between the old and new military history that recognizes the latter --
there are entries on such issues as `hair' -- while remaining committed to the former. He has recognized the
importance of warfare outside Europe or North America even when it did not involve Europeans. Thus
there are good entries on warfare in the Middle East and China. This remains, however, a book about war
from a Western perspective. One could have a made a case for placing the locus of attention in China or on
the steppes for much of the course of human history, but such radicalism is eschewed. The cockpits straddle
the Rhine and the Potomac rather than the Oxus and Yellow River.
The Oxford Companion to Military History is a likeable book, well-written, well-presented and
entertaining. It has its frustrations for the professional historian. Its main frustration for the casual reader is
its weight. Only those with strong wrists will want to read this book in an armchair rather than at a desk. It
would be useful for any historian who, disliking military history, finds wars popping up ineluctably in his
field of study. The companion will provide a painless way of grasping the lineaments without going too
deeply into the subject.
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SIMON BALL
University of Glasgow
Ball, Simon
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Ball, Simon. "The Oxford Companion to Military History." The English Historical Review, vol. 117, no.
471, 2002, p. 439+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A86230492/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d0389bf3. Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A86230492
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Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1462-
148
Carl Logan
Reviewer's Bookwatch.
(Aug. 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1462-148
Hugh Bicheno
Pegasus Books
80 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004
www.pegasusbooks.com
9781681774282, $28.95, HC, 432pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: England, 1462. The Yorkist Edward IV has been king for three years since his victory at Towton.
The former Lancastrian King Henry VI languishes in the Tower of London. But Edward will soon alienate
his backers by favoring the family of his ambitious wife, Elizabeth Woodville. And he will fall out with his
chief supporter, Warwick "the Kingmaker," with dire consequences.
Told with extraordinary authority and narrative verve, "Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1462-148" by
British historian Hugh Bicheno is the second part of a two-volume history of the dynastic wars fought
between the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne from 1450 until 1485. In this second and
concluding volume, Bicheno tells the story of the Wars of the Roses as an enthralling, character-driven saga
of interwoven families, narrating each chapter from the point of view of a key player in the wider drama.
This latest volume describes three Lancastrian attempts to overthrow the Yorkists, ending with the death of
Edward's successor, Richard III, at Bosworth in 1485--and the accession of Henry VII and the rise of the
Tudor dynasty.
Critique: Impressively informative, exceptionally well researched, written and presented, "Blood Royal:
The Wars of the Roses: 1462-148" also features 8 pages of color illustrations, as well as family trees, maps,
six appendices, a seven page bibliographic listing of Further Reading, and a seven page Index, making it
unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library British History collections in general,
and War of the Roses supplemental studies lists in particular. It should be noted for students and nonspecialist
general reader with an interest in the subject that "Blood Royal" is also available in a digital book
format ($14.99). Also highly recommended is the first volume, "Battle Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1440-
1462" (9781681773063, $27.95 HC, $17.95 PB, $14.16 Digital, 416pp).
Carl Logan
Reviewer
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
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Logan, Carl. "Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1462-148." Reviewer's Bookwatch, Aug. 2017. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A504177993/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c8cca689. Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A504177993
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Battle Royal
Internet Bookwatch.
(Feb. 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
Battle Royal
Hugh Bicheno
Pegasus Books
80 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004
www.pegasusbooks.com
9781681773063 $27.95 hc/$14.99 Kindle amazon.com
Thoroughly accessible to historians and lay readers alike, Battle Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1440-1462
is the first of a two-volume, in-depth history of the Wars of the Roses, a violent series of dynastic wars
fought between the houses of Lancaster and York in 1400's England. This turbulent, brutal struggle for
power made a lasting mark on history, and is at once both fascinating and horrifying to learn about. Maps, a
handful of color plates, and an index round out this superb reference and resource, highly recommended for
public and college library collections as well as for personal reading lists and self-study.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Battle Royal." Internet Bookwatch, Feb. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A486309725/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ec26db43.
Accessed 17 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A486309725
Lost in the fog of war
Robert Fox takes issue with Hugh Bicheno's history of the Falklands conflict, Razor's Edge
Robert Fox
Saturday 1 April 2006 17.53 EST First published on Saturday 1 April 2006 17.53 EST
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Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War
by Hugh Bicheno
383pp, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £18.99
"Depend on it, he who pretends to give a general account of a great battle from his own observation deceives you - believe him not," observed Captain Mercer of his experiences at Waterloo. "He can see no farther (that is, if he be personally engaged in it) than the length of his nose." This holds particularly true of the engagements in the brief Falklands conflict of 1982, where the battles were intense, intimate (they involved a few hundred at most) and bloody. The strength of Hugh Bicheno's new unofficial history of the Falklands/Malvinas war is that he tells the story in detail from both sides. We are told how Lance Corporal Jose Luis Rios shot Lt Col H Jones as he charged up a re-entrant gulley on the hill above Darwin, only to be killed minutes later when Corporal Dave Abols fired a 66mm anti-tank rocket into his bunker.
Born in Cuba, fluent in Spanish and English, and a Cambridge-educated historian, Bicheno is steeped in the whole sorry story of Argentina's military juntas which ended with the Malvinas debacle. He was working for intelligence in the British embassy in Buenos Aires when the military dictators took over and began the Dirty War, bringing disappearance, torture and death to thousands and misery to millions.
He is fascinating about how much the British government, and the Foreign Office in particular, knew - and chose to ignore - of the Dirty War. Relations with Argentina meant two things for the men in King Charles Street - flogging secondhand defence kit and dumping the Falklands problem with minimum fuss. One of those on the receiving end of the Arthur Daley sales pitch for obsolete frigates was Jorge Anaya, naval attaché in London. As head of the Argentine navy, in 1981 he joined the junta of Leopoldo Galtieri, and his price for joining the military triumvirate was agreement to grab and occupy Las Malvinas.
For many in the military it would be a noble mission, an act of redemption for national pride and a way of salving the guilt of many officers at the dreadful deeds done in their name against thousands of innocents in the Dirty War. Bicheno explains that the Callaghan and Thatcher governments knew much of this, but chose to ignore it. The Foreign Office was keen on the leaseback solution to the Falklands problem at the point at which Galtieri, Anaya and co began planning the attack.
The game of intelligence and diplomatic bluff is explained in piquant detail. Under Callaghan the nuclear submarine Dreadnought was dispatched after the Argentines plonked a flag on a guano-encrusted rock called Southern Thule. The secret orders drafted by MoD lawyers were less than resolute, however: if the boat was challenged by Argentine forces, the captain was told to "surface or withdraw at speed submerged".
The most detailed passages of the book are those dealing with the land battles. The account of John Kiszeley seizing the summit of Tumbledown and the heroics of 2nd Lieutenant Estevez at Darwin are told almost blow by blow. The problem, however, is that these descriptions are evidently so close to the author's heart that the details are just off true, and key elements of the story are missing. In the desperate last charge of H Jones and the battle of Goose Green, for instance, important figures are left out, such as Ian Beresford, the man closest to Jones as he fell, and Mike Ryan, the most experienced British officer on the field that day.
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The mistakes of significant detail - more than a dozen in two or three pages in one passage on Goose Green alone - make Bicheno's Olympian judgments on the conduct of the campaign appear eccentric and snide or, as when he criticises Brigadier Julian Thompson, absurd. Thompson has written of his regret that he didn't follow Jones's request for light tanks and bring his own brigade HQ forward with another battalion in reserve when H was killed and things became unstuck, to which Bicheno remarks: "Bless, but he [Thompson] went too far in his desire to shield the memory of a fallen hero." In fact Thompson was right; he should have got there, particularly if the Argentines had seized the initiative and rolled the Paras off the Darwin isthmus.
Clearly, Bicheno and his mentor Richard Holmes, who provides a glowing introduction to the book, have "issues" with H Jones and 2 Para. One wonders why. More to the point, one wonders who or what the sources are for the narrative of the land campaign. Bicheno walked the ground and photographed it, but most of the accounts are from secondary sources. With some justification, he slags off the journalists present at the time, but, as Mercer knew, in a real battle you can't judge much beyond the end of your nose. Interestingly, many of the journalists' names are misspelt or mistaken entirely, even those whose work Bicheno claims to have read in detail.
Assessments of operational matters, decisions and dispositions taken or not taken, tales of incompetence and worse, are often based on little more than hearsay. A rattling good read this book may be, but rattling great history it ain't. It all goes to prove Alan Bennett's dictum: "there is no period so remote as the recent past."
· Robert Fox is a writer on military and foreign affairs, and reported the Falklands war for the BBC.
How we won the war in the wet Malvinas
John Keegan reviews Razor's Edge by Hugh Bicheno.
John Keegan12:01AM BST 16 Apr 2006
It may seem impossible for anything original to appear about the Falklands War of 1982, so much has been written about it, but Hugh Bicheno's book is that thing. That his loyalties are firmly on our side he makes clear by his robustly anti-junta political observations throughout. The author detests all political philosophy and practice at variance with high-minded conservatism, including the progressivism of pre- and post-Thatcher Britain and the Christo-Fascism of the Argentinian junta.
As Bicheno has much to say, highly entertainingly, on those subjects, he takes some time to get to the military events of 1982, but it is worth waiting for. While not a professional military historian (though he has been a British intelligence officer), he rightly identifies the influence of terrain on battle as among the most important factors in war and has taken the trouble to crawl over the wet, boggy and windswept hills of the Falklands battlefields until he knows their topography as well as any Kelper (as the islanders are known).
The author, thanks to his upbringing in several Latin American states, also understands South American culture and writes about the Argentinian troops with a certainty of touch. It is widely accepted in Britain that the quality of the Argentinian attack pilots equalled that of their Fleet Air Arm and RAF opponents. What was not to be expected was that its army would also field numbers of resolute infantrymen. In fact, as Bicheno demonstrates, some of the Argentinian troops fought both with bravery and skill in the battles for the hills above Port Stanley.
Nevertheless, the picture of the Argentine ground troops he paints is not flattering. Some junior officers were good leaders and respected by their soldiers. The middle ranks were hidebound, and the senior commanders were in the grip of inter-service rivalries and of Fascist and nationalist political philosophies that made them unfit for decision-making. The rank and file were under-trained and mistreated, but both the Amerindians of III Brigade and the Buenos Aires slum dwellers of X Brigade fought well when properly led and supplied.
The author's detailed knowledge of the minutiae of the campaign means that he has produced a picture of the war that will be unfamiliar even to those who lived through it or fought in it. Bicheno's viewpoint is shaped by his determination to demonstrate how the politics of the two sides, including the political views of minorities within the governments, shaped the outcome.
He knows exactly where to apportion praise and blame. Thus he views the Foreign Office, and many in the Ministry of Defence, with contempt. He loathes the BBC, which he accuses of losing interest in the war once it could be seen that the Task Force was winning. And he despises many individuals, including named numbers of the Labour Party and the anti-Thatcher wing of the Conservative Party. Unexpectedly, Michael Foot, the leader of the opposition, he exempts from his strictures - but Tony Benn, Ted Heath and Jack Straw he excoriates.
His depiction of the origins and direction of the war is exhilaratingly politically incorrect. He argues that the Argentine junta undertook the war because its campaign of terror inside the country was unsuccessful and was undermining its grip of power; that its drive to integrate the Malvinas into the national territory was aided and abetted by the Foreign Office and by certain British officials and politicians; and that, when it came to conflict, the unintended effect of using the Argentine armed forces against the civilian population was to rob them of the martial virtues necessary to defeat a purely military organisation such as the British armed forces.
Bicheno does not, however, wholly exempt them from his criticisms. He regards the decision to send the Foot Guards to the Falklands as both unnecessary and undesirable, and he levels harsh words at their commanders on the spot, even occasionally at Admiral Woodward and General Jeremy Moore. I think his criticisms of both Woodward and Moore are unjustified.
A factor he leaves out of his account is the technological surprise the Argentines achieved in the air campaign, by the use of first-generation weapons such as Exocet missiles, and the sheer derring-do of the Argentinian pilots. In the aftermath, Air Marshal Craig, Chief of the Defence Staff during the war, deprecated my reference to the totality of the British victory with the sober words: "If the Argentines had fused just seven more of their bombs correctly, we would have lost."
Were he alive, he and Hugh Bicheno would have much on which to agree. Whether they agree or not, readers will find this book gripping and discomfiting.