Lately I have been on a First World War aviation reading kick. I don't know why, but the topic is engaging me more than others. I read a couple of books back in February, and I've been searching for some others that can fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.

That's how I found about Harald Penrose and his five-volume series on British aviation. Penrose was an amazing individual, a test pilot who later in life wrote several books on flight and the history of it. I have no doubt that I've seen his books on shelves before, only now my interests have aligned with his work, and I wouldn't mind trying him out.

Only I can't. My usual starting point after a brief confirmation that my local libraries don't have a book is to request it through Inter-Library Loan. Then after a week or so the book shows up for me to peruse, after which I start it, buy my own copy, or pass on it and move on. But I can't do any of those this because — well, you know why.

At this point, I'm deciding whether to take a plunge on one of the first two volumes, which are the ones that currently interest me the most. This would be easy if the price were right, but while I'm willing to spend $70-80 on a book that I want, I'm much less willing to do so to decide whether it's a book I want. So I'm bidding on a copy on eBay to get it to a price I can live with. Fingers crossed that the seller is either reasonable or desperate!

Discussions of British strategy during the First World War usually frame it in terms of a debate between “Westerners,” or the politicians and generals who wanted to focus British military efforts on the fighting in France and Belgium, and “Easterners,” or the ones who sought to open up fronts elsewhere in the hope of breaking the grinding stalemate. In this book, the first of two volumes he wrote examining the development of British war aims and the ways British leaders sought to achieve them, David French rejects this framing as a distorted product of postwar memoirs from the major figures involved. Instead he frames the debates as less a matter of “where” and more a question of “how”: namely, how the British could best accomplish their goals of maintaining the Entente and defeating Germany while ensuring that Britain would emerge from the war as the strongest of the belligerents. The hope was that by achieving these aims, Britain would maintain be in a position to dictate the terms of the peace and maintain their position as the dominant power in the world.

To argue his case, French begins his book by examining prewar British policy and the main people involved in making it. Here his focus is on the Liberal government of H. H. Asquith, though he also notes the important role played by the civil servants in the Foreign Office in influencing what were at times sharp disagreements on how best to advance British interests in an increasingly polarized international environment. These debates were unresolved when the war broke out in August 1914, forcing policymakers to take decisions based more on the course of events. Here the figure of Lord Kitchener looms large, as French sees his advocacy of the New Armies as key. Not only did this undermine the “business as usual” approach involving a war waged with the Royal Navy and financial subsidies that was favored by many politicians, but with the British army only reaching its maximum strength by early 1917 it would, Kitchener believed, leave Britain in a decisive position to dictate terms to the exhausted participants on both sides of the struggle. Until then, it was a matter of playing for time to achieve this position.

After establishing Britain’s underlying approach to the war, French then examines the response of policymakers to events as they unfolded over the next two years. Here his focus is predominantly on the high politics and the strategic views of the major actors, addressing their interpretation of developments from the standpoint of British interests and their overall goals in the war. What emerges in these chapters is the gradual shift away from prewar strategies and assumptions, which were driven by the demands of a war increasingly different from the one the British expected to fight. Yet for all the numerous ad hoc adjustments, policy deviations, and failed efforts that the British undertook during this period, their strategic goals remained the same, serving as the lodestar guiding British decisions throughout the early years of the conflict.

Though French’s book covers ground that has long been trod upon by other scholars, the author succeeds in providing a provocatively fresh interpretation as to how British policymakers approached the war. While it suffers to a degree from a too-rigid exclusion of consideration of domestic considerations, such as home-front politics and morale, it’s easy to see why his book and his follow-up volume have become the starting point for anyone seeking to understand the development of British strategy in the First World War. Even if one disagrees with some of French’s conclusions, it’s a book no one interested in the subject can afford to ignore.

Today I began addressing my usual pre-travel problem of what to take to read. It's one that I've been facing for a few days now, but with my commitments for the week out of the way I can give it the focus it needs.

As usual, I have plenty of books from which to choose -- so much so that it poses the perennial problem of option paralysis. And also as usual, books that seemed ideal at first became less appealing upon further consideration. But I think I'm narrowing it down successfully.

The first book that I'm planning to take is a Ross Macdonald novel. They're as close to a sure thing as I can get in terms of reading enjoyment, and I have a paperback of one of his books that I haven't read yet, so it will be perfect for the trip. The only problem is that I enjoy them a little too much, so I can't count on that occupting me for more than a day or two.

The second book will probably be Joanna Trollope's book in the Austen Project. I enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld's contribution to it so much that I decided to give another of the volumes a try. We have the updates of Sense and Sensibility and Emma, but for some reason the latter has little appeal for me (Amy Heckerling may have ruined me in terms of Emma updates) so I'll try Trollope's volume instead. I may supplement it with another novel, probably one of my sci-fi paperbacks, but I haven't decided on that yet.

That leaves my big choice -- and I mean that in more ways than one. I'm hoping to take one of my larger nonfiction books with me as my primary read, in part because I realized why I have some many of them waiting to be read on my shelves. I do a good amount of my reading when I work out, which usually favors books that I can hold while I'm pedaling on a recumbent bike or a treadmill. This precludes bringing my whoppers, as they're a little much to handle. That's not a problem at the farm, though, as I end up spending hours stretched out on a sofa, which is an ideal way to read a nice, thick tome. Currently I'm leaning towards a history of the Manhattan Project, but I may select something on the First World War or even take a second crack at the first volume of MacFarquhar's Origins of the Cultural Revolution. It's a major decision, but by giving myself a day and a half to make it I'm pretty sure I'll be able to select something that will make the next week especially enjoyable.

The passing of the one hundredth Remembrance Day since the end of the Great War 1914-18, last November, gave good reason (if it was needed) to revisit some of the written records of that gloomy period of European history. Often poignant, the poetry, letters and tragic lists of the fallen offer reminders, lest we forget, of the sacrifice of a generation. However, given the colossal loss of life, what sometimes appears absent from contemporary accounts is a view from the non-commissioned ranks, a ‘Tommy’s’ experience from the trenches of the front lines. As such, this memoir by Cpl Sam Sutcliffe, collated/edited by his son Phillip, offers a telling insight into the chaos of conflict visited on so many and the mind-set of those so often cast as ‘cannon-fodder’. Even allowing for the retrospective writing of this lengthy book, the vivid descriptions created by the author and the accompanying endnotes, cross-referencing a wide range of confirmatory material, make this a sobering but compelling read.
The title of the book gives an immediate flavour of the self-effacing humility of the author and yet he goes on to describe joining up aged just sixteen, with his older brother (Ted) and friends (in fact, Sam lied about his age, as the youngest recruit allowed was 19). The swell of public patriotic fervour in 1912 and the casual acceptance of the need to do ‘one’s duty’, in hindsight, seems naive. Moreover, the apparent absence of apprehension suggests a misunderstanding of the carnage of war. The phlegmatic acceptance of Sutcliffe’s parents to their young son’s decision also perhaps an echo of the national willingness to tolerate sacrifice. Though later, conscription became necessary and through his journey the author develops a certain cynicism about those who avoided service altogether and those who sought to distance themselves from the trenches at the front line, tempered only by the psychological breakdowns he witnessed there.

Subsequently Sutcliffe’s tender age did confer a temporary reprieve. Still not eighteen, the author had already fought in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign and the first battle of the Somme, rising to the rank of acting Sergeant, when he was plucked briefly to safety until 1917 (when he became nineteen) and could be returned to the western front, in time for the anticipated Spring offensive. Captured during that monumental effort by Germany to end the war, Sutcliffe relates his subsequent experience as a prisoner-of-war and an equally challenging personal struggle to just stay alive and survive the attendant risk of disease and privation.

This book is an extraordinary account of a teenager’s experience of a brutal conflict that culminated in a vast body count. After Gallipoli (wherein having been evacuated his unit was returned to cover the withdrawal of the foremost positions), the author laments the decimation of his original battalion of volunteers from London, culled from a thousand men to around just two hundred. Indeed the scale of this loss appears to haunt Sutcliffe throughout his account and his perspective clearly changes regarding the veneer of national pride, which he sees laid bare amid such abject failure.

At times the book reads like a novel. For example, the author is separated from his brother early on, but their paths cross several times in the course of the war. Yet, there is no disguising the sense of relief when the siblings both survive, albeit Ted’s exposure to gas in the trenches had a lasting effect. No commentary on the strategic mistakes pored over by historians in subsequent decades, nor criticism of the class system which conferred leadership roles on some ill-equipped to inspire others, though Sutcliffe does single out a couple of officers revered for their compassionate and resilient example, who did indeed lead from the front. Nonetheless, the reader is left with the distinct impression that notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary, Sam Sutcliffe’s contribution was indeed heroic and it is the collective efforts of many such ‘nobodies’ and a preparedness to do their ‘bit’ that ultimately made the crucial difference. We shall remember them...

Done at last! That it's taken me over six months to read it is in no way a judgment on the book, as it's absolutely magnificent.