“The Hundred Years War: The English in France, 1337-1453”, by Desmond Seward

296 pages, Macmillan, ISBN-13: 978-0689109195

The Hundred Years War: The English in France, 1337-1453 by Desmond Seward is an excellent (if rapid) retelling of The Hundred Years’ War, which was not so much one war, but a series of bloody conflicts, started by the English refusal to recognize the French Salic law which denied inheritance through the female line.

Edward III’s mother, Queen Isabella, was the daughter of King Phillip the Fair, and as such many, including Edward, felt that he, and not King Phillip’s nephew, ought to inherit the throne. Meanwhile in France, dependence of Salic law had only recently been revived and was, of course, being used for political reasons, including specifically that of keeping an Englishman off the throne. Alas, nothing is even so simple and there were many pretenders and schisms, including the Great schism between the Popes of Avignon and Rome as well as between French factions during this period.

Seward covers the motivations for conflict on different class levels and the effects of various conflicts while giving us a variety of thumbnail sketches of some intriguing characters. There are several genealogical charts which go far in explaining the dynastic imperatives of the players involved, as well as attention to military detail and descriptions of different kinds of weaponry, particularly the Welsh longbow versus French crossbow. Naturally, one cannot read a book on The Hundred Years’ War without discussing several of the battles, each of which are accompanied by military diagrams, allowing those who are military minded can have a real grasp of the actions at Crecy and Agincourt, for example, as well as of the military intelligence of Edward III, John of Gaunt, Henry V and Joan of Arc.

Seward relies on many primary sources, but in particular on Froissart and the Bourgeois of Paris. He quotes Shakespeare and ancient songs appropriately at the beginning of each chapter, and provides an excellent appendix of maps showing the vicissitudes of French territories and English occupations, as well as an appendix explaining the meaning of the currencies in the economics of the time.

This is a straightforward, exceedingly comprehensive delineation of one of the most confusing occasions in Western European history. Although it must be said that one is still rather confused at the end about how and why the dynastic, commercial, political and military factors interacted as they did. And it becomes very difficult to sort one French King and political pretender from another (I never did quite figure out what Phillip of Burgundy was up to). One has the sense that Seward might have better served his purpose by writing a book a hundred pages longer and by drawing attention to the less heady (but equally important) details of character, personality and relationship.

“The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871”, by Geoffrey Wawro

344 pages, Cambridge University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0521584364

The world watched in surprise as Prussia easily defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), nearly annihilating the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz. The new Prussian breech-loading rifle – the Dreyse Needle Gun (or Zündnadelgewehr) – allowed the Prussian forces an overwhelming superiority in fire power over the slower muzzle-loading weapons of the Austrian army. In addition, Prussian “swarm” infantry tactics (which called for units advancing in supporting skirmish lines until they overlapped the enemy’s flanks) confused the Austrians. Lastly, the Prussians had completely revised their tactics regarding the use of artillery, allowing batteries to be quickly moved and concentrated anywhere on the field of battle, pulverizing enemy forces. Military strategists all over the world analyzed the conflict and tried to adapt their doctrine to the new style of waging war introduced by the Prussians.

And then, it was the turn of France.

The Franco-Prussian War forever changed the social, political and economic balance in Europe. The major European powers were stunned as the military might of France was devastated by a newly united Germany, and the seeds were sown for the constant political maneuvering and arms race that lasted until the start of the First World War. France was largely caught unprepared when war came in mid-July 1870, even though war with Prussia had nearly occurred every year since 1866. Prussian leaders – King Wilhelm Hohenzollern and the Statesman Otto von Bismarck – were motivated by a desire for revenge against France stemming from the Napoleonic Wars, the possibility of regaining Alsace and Lorraine, formerly German territory, and providing a national motive for uniting Prussia and the independent German States. The French sought to “keep Prussia in its place” and maintain France's position as the leading power in Europe.

The French defeat was owed as much to deficiencies on the part of the French themselves as it was to Prussian superiority. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte III was corrupt, indecisive, and unschooled in military matters. France’s generals had a penchant for political infighting and bitter rivalry, created in large part by the Emperor’s habit of passing over senior officers to promote his friends and supporters, subordinating the more experienced commanders to their juniors. France’s generals also were indoctrinated to believe that their strength lay in defense rather than attack, and French officers repeatedly passed up opportunities to attack and destroy smaller or weaker Prussian units, even when French forces were overwhelmingly superior.

Organizationally, the French had a larger professional army than Prussia, as well as a developed system of reserves. The French army, however, proved to be poorly disciplined and the reserve system was wholly inadequate, as were mobilization plans, railways, etc. The Prussian army, though smaller, was better educated and trained, and backed up by a vast, quickly mobilized reserve. The one bright spot for France was their superb infantry rifle, the Chassepot. This powerful breech-loading rifle had double the effective range of the Prussian Dreyse, allowing the French troops to cut Prussian infantry to pieces before they closed. Unfortunately for the French, the Prussians more than offset this advantage with their overwhelming artillery, blasting French units to pieces under a rain of high explosive shells.

Aside from the discussion of the actual fighting, Mr. Wawro treats all the facets of this brief but bloody struggle, from personal accounts of soldiers of both antagonists and the foreign observers and reporters of the conflict (which included US General Phillip Sheridan) to the Republican rebellion after the Prussian capture of Emperor Napoleon. For those interested in military or European history this book is a must have!

“Cromwell: The Lord Protector”, by Antonia Fraser

797 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0394470344

Cromwell: The Lord Protector by Antonia Fraser is a diligent and conscientious look at the life of Oliver Cromwell from his modest beginnings as a small landowner, his spiritual evolution into a devout (but self-righteous) Puritan, to his election to the English parliament, followed by his role as the chief protagonist in the English civil war in the 1640’s which culminated in the beheading of Charles I (1649). The events leading up to the dismissal of the Rump Parliament in 1652 and the establishment of the protectorate (essentially, Cromwell’s dictatorship) are also narrated ably. All of the important battles (Edgehill, Naseby, etc.) are sketched in detail.

Antonia Fraser does a pretty good job collating and narrating all the major events in Cromwell’s life, but what's missing from this book is life. It is an OK history but a fairly mediocre biography of one of the most important and transformative personalities ever to rule Britain. For instance, Cromwell is widely regarded as the man who galvanized the energies of 17^th Century England (by getting rid of an effete monarch and massively building up the navy) and for effectively laying down the foundations of the subsequent British Empire, but this book gives the reader very little sense of that. Considering that Cromwell’s contemporaries included figures like Cardinal Mazarin, Milton, William Harvey, Francis Bacon, and the birth of Newton, Fraser does a fairly poor job of giving us a “feel” for the post-Elizabethan England and the dynamic energy that must have characterized it.

Cromwell is perhaps the single most controversial figure in English history. Only King John and Richard III have attracted as much venom as he has, and there are still people alive today who hate him. Naturally, the truth is complicated, and Fraser lays out a good deal of detail in support of her case, which is that Cromwell was much maligned and was, on the whole, a good and religious man trying hard to do what he thought was right. However, a good biography is more than just a day-to-day narrative of the subject’s life, and this is quite a leaden and turgid book. I finished it more out of a sense of obligation than pure reading pleasure.