Mud, blood and determination
The history of the 46th (North Midland) Division in the Great War
by Simon Peaple
published by Helion Books 2015
Number 8 in the Wolverhampton Military Studies series
Hardback. 215pp including appendix, bibliography, index. Illustrated.
Cover price not stated.
ISBN 978 1 910294 66 6
Reviewed by Chris Baker.
A few weeks before I read this book I heard the author give a talk. He explained in his introduction that the book stemmed from his PhD study into the 46th (North Midland) Division and how he had been persuaded to focus on this formation in an exploration of the development of the operational effectiveness of the British Army in the Great War. The book itself does not actually say that this was its genesis, but it is immediately evident from its style that it is a product of much research and academic vigour. “Mud, blood and determination” reads like a thesis and comes complete with the intensity of references and footnotes that readers might expect of a book whose origins reside in one.
The study assesses how the division performed in its major actions, and explores the hows and whys of improvement. As such it is perhaps not quite right to call it a history of the division but it certainly covers much ground. The core of the work is that favourite subject of military historians of recent years: the “learning curve”. The authors digs deep to determine to what extent the division demonstrated such learning in its most harsh tests, and to some extent whether it is representative of the army as a whole.
Many readers will be well aware of the story of the 46th (North Midland) Division, one of the first Territorial formations to go to war. Its tragedies at the Hohenzollern Redoubt in 1915 and at Gommecourt in 1916 are well known; its extraordinary triumph in crossing the Saint-Quentin canal at Bellenglise and Riqueval in 1918 too. The months of trench warfare in between and its patchy performance at Lens in 1917 have received less attention. All are covered in this book. There is little doubt that at a summary level it did of course achieve improved results as the years passed by. Whether this was down to learning and operational improvement by the division is another matter and I leave it to readers of this book to form their own judgements on the authors analysis and conclusions.
Its not one for people new to the subject, but this is a good book for students of the detail of military operations and the changes in the army during the war. Produced as a first-class physical product, “Mud, blood and determination” is a model of clarity in terms of analysis and explanation of events. It contains some of the best maps I have seen in recently published work and makes for a very good reference work. There is perhaps still room for a genuine history of the division and ideally one that includes much more depth in terms of understanding who these men were and how they fared in the forge of the learning curve, for this book keeps things at a fairly high level.
Very good and I look forward to more from the Wolverhampton series.
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