Resources This book is available in Oxford Scholarship Online - view abstracts and keywords at book and chapter level.
Related Categories
|
|
|
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson
A Political Soldier
Keith Jeffery
348 pages
|
4 maps, frontispiece, 8pp plates
|
234x156mm
978-0-19-923967-2
|
Paperback
|
24 January 2008
|
|
This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
|
|
|
- Winner of the 2006 Templer Medal and Book Prize, awarded by The Society for Army Historical Research
- Lively biography of the ebullient Henry Wilson, at the centre of Edwardian military affairs
- First modern study of one of Britain's most influential soldiers in the years before and during the First World War
- Reassesses the controversial career and reputation of the man regarded as one of the earliest martyrs for the Irish Unionist cause
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, an Irishman who in June 1922 was assassinated on his doorstep in London by Irish republicans, was one of the most controversial British soldiers of the modern age. Before 1914 he did much to secure the Anglo-French alliance and was responsible for the planning which saw the British Expeditionary Force successfully despatched to France after the outbreak of war with Germany. A passionate Irish unionist, he gained a reputation as an intensely 'political' soldier, especially during the 'Curragh crisis' of 1914 when some officers resigned their commisssions
rather than coerce Ulster unionists into a Home Rule Ireland. During the war he played a major role in Anglo-French liaison, and ended up as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, professional head of the army, a post he held until February 1922.
After Wilson retired from the army, he became an MP and was chief security adviser to the new Northern Ireland government. As such, he became a target for nationalist Irish militants, being identified with the security policies of the Belfast regime, though wrongly with Protestant sectarian attacks on Catholics. He is remembered today in unionist Northern Ireland as a kind of founding martyr for the state.
Wilson's reputation was ruined in 1927 with the publication of an official biography, which quoted extensively and
injudiciously from his entertaining, indiscreet, and wildly opinionated diaries, giving the impression that he was some sort of Machiavellian monster. In this first modern biography, using a wide variety of official and private sources for the first time, Keith Jeffery reassesses Wilson's life and career and places him clearly in his social, national, and political context. Readership: Readers with an interest in the First World War and in early twentieth-century military history; military historians; historians of modern Ireland.
|
|
|
Keith Jeffery, Professor of British History, Queen's University, Belfast
|
|
|
"a scrupulous, well-documented, and often witty contribution to imperial and military history. It is a tribute to thsi long-awaited, many-faceted, yet succinct biography that one is left craving for more." - David Fitzpatrick, English Historical Review
|
|
|
1: The Irish Context
2: The Making of a Staff Officer
3: South Africa
4: Work in the War Office
5: The Staff College
6: Preparing for War
7: Politics, the Irish Question, and War
8: With the BEF
9: IV Corps
10: Coalition Warfare
11: Winning the War
12: Defending the Empire
13: Losing Ireland and Saving Ulster
14: Death and Reputation
Bibliography
Index
|
|
|
|
Recently Viewed
|
|
|
Christine Gray
£78.95
|
|
|
|
|
Mark Elliott, Jack Beatson...
£34.99
|
|
|
|
|
From advanced disease to bereavement
Victor Pace, Adrian Treloar...
£37.99
|
|
|
|
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
|
