Battles Long Ago
SCHOOLBOYS and undergraduates have long been familiar with wars in which nothing seems to happen between the causes and the results, both conveniently tabulated for use in answering examination questions. Green's revolt against the "drum and trumpet" school of history has been only too successful. But the historian of today, living in a less secure age than Green's, has come to appreciate that the sword as well as the ploughshare has had its part to play in the shaping of history. The complacent view that battles and wars "play a small part in the real history of England" is now abandoned by scholars if not in the schools. Colonel Burne's book will obviously be an important factor in the re-education of our educators. It consists of a study of all the important battles fought on English soil from Mons Badonicus to Sedgemoor. Each battle is set in its strategic background, its tactics and topography are carefully described, and the problems to which the evidence gives rise are soberly discussed. Well-produced and provided with clear maps and sketches, this book will appeal not only to the historian, but to the local antiquary and the curious traveller.
Colonel Burne possesses in high measure the qualities necessary for the author of a book of this kind. He has to be, rolled up into one person, historian, topographer and soldier. Colonel Burne has now had considerable experience as a military historian, and here we see the historian's search for -.original sources, his critical use of materials, and the ransacking of obscure periodicals for the often valuable contributions of local writers. Even if Colonel Burne does not always convince one—the Master of Trinity in his introduction remains sceptical about the solution of the Mons Badonicus problem—here can be found the evidence marshalled for use by anyone who prefers a different interpretation,. It must be admitted that such occasions are few, for Colonel Burne 15
not only eminently reasonable, but he makes no attempt to push his views too far when the evidence is scanty. It is to be regretted that, in learning so well his trade as a historian, Colonel Burne should have caught a little of the acerbity of the professional. One feels that he is a little too hard on Sir James Ramsay, that worthy, if uninspired, chronicler of mediaeval England. • The second quality which one finds impressive in this book is the author's eye for ground. Sometimes this has to be used to help in discovering a battle's site, always in solving the problems connected with the way in which a battle was fought. Colonel Burne is a skilled historical topographer, for he is able not only to see the ground as it now is, but to visualise it as it was at some date in the past. His account of Sedgemoor -is masterly in this respect, for the whole drainage system of the area has changed since 1685. Colonel Burne reconstructs the lie of the land as it was then, and his maps carefully relate the old features to the new. Particularly valuable are the panoramas from the author's own sketches, a feature of the work which one suspects owes some- thing to sound training at Woolwich.
Indeed, the fact that Colonel Burne is a soldier has added notice- ably to the value of his book. He looks at each problem with a soldier's eye, and he tries to appreciate each situation by thinking himself into the mind of the commander concerned. His sug- gested reconstruction of Harold's orders at Hastings, for example, forms a solid contribution to the study of the battle. This approach is called by the author "Working on Inherent Military Probability," and his careful use of I.M.P., his own abbreviation for the tech- nique, has provided him with a tool for working on the evidence possessed by few of his predecessors. So interesting is this book that one almost regrets that there were no battles in England after 1685. In asking for more, we can only ramind Colonel Burne that there were some good fights in the rest of the British Isles.
S. H. F. JOHNSTON.
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