Featured battle : Gumbinnen

Part of First World War

Date : 20 August 1914

Knowing that he had to defeat the Russian northern pincer quickly before moving to the southern on, Prittwitz ordered 3 corps of the 8th Army into line at Gumbinnen to make a frontal attack. The first into line under von Francois hit the Russian right who fought hard until they ran out of ammunition and broke. The other German corps were delayed, however, and when they attacked the Corps under Mackensen ran into forewarned artillery and were driven into retreat, von Below's corps who were even further behind, joined it in the retreat.

Battle Understanding Conflict Hastings to Helmand

Graeme Callister & Rachael Whitbread
This is a rather different sort of book in not being about a war, campaign or battle but rather about all battles. It gives the reader a framework through which to assess any particular battle or conflict. The authors make the case that every conflict has a number of contributing factors which add or subtract from the outcome. Their approach is to give each of these factors a chapter which concludes with an account of one or two battles in which the particular factor was significant. They do stress that all the factors have a part to play to a greater or lesser degree in every battle. They also point out the ever present difficulty of finding accurate information about these matters.
The aim of the book is to aid in the understanding of battles and in this it succeeds very well indeed.
We highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to understand battles of any place or period.

Pen & Sword Military, 2022