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Anonymous
Posted April 4, 2008
This is the compelling story of England's struggle to build, equip, and run its army during World War I. As Messenger notes in his introduction, most studies of the Great War have focused on one of three areas: operations the everyday experience of soldiers and unit histories. Messenger addresses a fourth and crucial area: how the army was recruited, trained, motivated, and administered. Building the army was a difficult job for England, not least because of the prejudice of the regular army toward the eager flock of volunteers--'rather an encumbrance than an aid' in the words of one observer. Everything was new and had to be administered in mass scale: new weapons, new training, new approaches to discipline and morale. This sort of history faces an unfair barrier: the assumption of many readers that such material can hardly be as interesting as operations and battles. Messenger deals with this assumption impressively. His unadorned style, choice of details, and his ability to convey the magnitude of the tasks at hand give us a volume that will quickly become the standard reference on its subject. This book is simply one of the very best comprehensive views of army administration available. After reading it, one realizes with a shock what a gap existed in one's knowledge.
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