Brendan Simms

I'm not usually interested in military history but this short book sounded intriguing - and it is. Brendan Simms has uncovered a wealth of detailed information (some of it recently discovered in German archives). This enables him to construct a seemingly impossibly detailed account of this vital section of the battle. For those who don't know much about Waterloo, it points out how the forces fighting Napoleon were truly pan-European (a fore-runner of NATO) and this particular division were show more more German than British. Some of the details of military tactics, deployment and the sheer weight of names and information about individuals can become overwhelming at times.
However, it gives us a visceral, at times stomach-churning description of often hand-to-hand combat and the extraordinary bravery of men who fought on despite receiving horrific injuries. Other positives are the sympathetic portrayal of the French soldiers as not merely an anonymous enemy to be mown down (as the Zulus often are in accounts of the battle of Rork'e Drift) and the difficult decisions commanders had to make as to whether to order their men to launch suicidal attacks or take decisions to save their lives by ordering sensible retreats. show less

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This book, written in 2000 and revised in 2001, is an excellent polemic against the awfulness of British policy on Bosnia for most of the duration of the 1992-95 war. Simms describes with vicious accuracy the unwillingness of the Major government to intervene in the conflict, and its success in blocking other international actors from doing so. He convincingly points the finger at three senior figures - Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary for most of show more the war; David Owen, the EU's mediator; and General Sir Michael Rose, the UN commander in 1994-95 - as particularly culpable in fostering an intellectual and political climate where using the troops to change the political situation on the ground became unthinkable. The damage caused to Britain's credibility as a serious international player had not been reversed (certainly not by Iraq and Afghanistan), and the Bosnians remain certain that the international community will at some point betray them again.

For all that his case is good and fundamentally in line with my own views, Simms goes over the top on occasion. In the introduction to the paperback edition, he acknowledges being too kind to the Croats and too tough on Paddy Ashdown. I think he is also too kind to the Americans, particularly the Pentagon which on my understanding resisted using the largest military force in the world to actually fight until far too late; too uncritical of the Bosnian government; and too harsh to Misha Glenny, whose commentary has always been rooted in empathy for all sides, even those who may not be flavour of the month. He is also simply wrong to see the development of the EU's security capabilities as a dark and sinister conspiracy, and I note the irony that Graham Messervy-Whiting, who Simms consistently praises for his sane (but ignored) security advice to David Owen, was actually the first commander of the EU's rather virtual army. However Simms also performs useful services in skewering a couple of the pernicious myths about Bosnia: that the Germans killed off the 1991 process by recognising Slovenia and Croatia (it was already dead, and the Germans recognised the fait accompli with great reluctance), and that the Vance-Owen Peace Plan was killed off by the Americans rather than by the Bosnian Serbs (a myth which rather mystifyingly is peddled, despite the clear facts of the historical record, by none other than David Owen).

Those are minor points against the big background question of why John Major's government was so crap, and why there was so little questioning of it at the time. Simms rightly excoriates the performance of parliament, the media, and the intellectual community in failing to expose the inactivity and aggressive indolence of official policy. I was not observing Bosnia closely in those days, but it's actually a coherent pattern with Northern Ireland policy under Sir Patrick Mayhew during the same time period: do nothing in particular, and hope nobody notices. The British under Major and Mayhew were woefully unprepared for the IRA ceasefire in 1994, and the peace process ran into the sand until Labour came to power. There was a general air of uselessness about the Major government which the latter years of Labour probably exceeded, but for a shorter time.

Major's government was equally unprepared for the shift of international mood in 1995 on Bosnia which compelled intervention at last; but to be fair to the troops, under the new leadership of General Rupert Smith, they played their part in ending the war and keeping the peace. It should be pointed out that eighteen British soldiers lost their lives in the line of duty during the 1992-95 period of policing humanitarian aid but looking away from the politics; since 1995 I don't think there has been a single British combat fatality in Bosnia. These days, post-Iraq and Afghanistan, the pendulum has probably swung against intervention in the next crisis wherever it may erupt. It's worth remembering that the case for intervention in Bosnia was far stronger, both morally and legally, than the case for intervention in Iraq, and that the international community as a whole and Britain in particular got it wrong in the early 1990s; Simms' arguments will need to be dusted off when the next time comes. show less

The first 40% or so of the book that cover European history from 1453 to the French Revolution are incredibly hard to follow. There is great depth and a lot of erudition on display but unless one is already reasonably well-versed with the empires/wars/power politics of that period, it is pretty much impossible to make any sense of these pages. I am glad I persisted past that point though because it gets significantly more engaging and interesting (possibly because I have more familiarity show more with 19th/20th century history). Still, it was instructive to read the history of Europe as one continuum and appreciate how each of the seminal events in European history has their genesis in an earlier conflict. The primacy of Germany, both geographically and metaphorically, is critical to all that the book discusses but I felt that Simms carries it a little too far at times. Every event (Great Depression, Suez crisis etc.) is presented as being driven by an ulterior motive to control Germany and while that might have been true up until the mid 19th century, it is surely less so in modern globalized times.

Overall, a tough but moderately rewarding read. show less

A millennium's worth of history in 247 pages, not counting the end notes. This is necessarily a truncated tale, alternately galloping and glib in parts. As Simms states in his introduction, economics and political thought are neglected; demographics and national culture ignored entirely. This isn't as big a problem as it sounds for the first half of the book, which concentrates on a dry geopolitics, arguing that Britain - and specifically England (England's Europe would have been a more show more honest title) - has always had a large stake in European politics as a matter of simple security. Calais was a defensive rampart rather than some projection or expansion, etc. The need for England to secure its borders from European intrigue caused the United Kingdom to be born. In this light it would be interesting to know more about how the diplomatic and military successes of Cromwell were reversed almost over night by Charles II, which this rather fast-paced text reduces to a single-sentence observation. But such abbreviations are to be expected in a work of this size.

The book's real problem is in its second half, which leaves dry geopolitics behind to becomes sentimental, subjective, and speculative. The trigger for this is Britain's refusal in 1889 of an alliance with Bismarck's newly unified Germany. This refusal broke with a long-standing British/English diplomatic tradition , which for centuries had tended to view Germany, or at least that geographic area, as a friend. Shortly before German unification, Palmerston supported this continuum: he wanted a strong Germany to deter Russia. Quite why this volte face occurred, or how it was justified, is not explained. This omission is curious, given that on a superficial analysis, the decision would lead to two supremely destructive World Wars and the ruin of Europe on the world stage. It is the period from the First World War to the present day which occupies the second half of the book, which is inferior in quality.

Simms' thesis is okay as far as it goes. Europe must be federalised on the American model for union to work. Such an occurrence is an event, not a process, as the Declaration of Independence reflects. There must be timing and drama and threat to make it work (or, perhaps, as Bismarck had it, blood and steel). The problem with the EU, Simms says, is that it is a process and not an event, and things such as counties/nation states/a federal Europe cannot be forged out of mere process. You need a defining event. If the Second World War couldn't do it, then what can?

Simms' believes that the constitutional model that Europe should adopt, when it finally gets around to federalisation, should adopt an Anglo-type consitution, and that Britain shouldn't be part of it. This is also okay, as far is it goes. The vital omission, implicit throughout the preceding pages, is that whenever a unifying European event has looked likely to occur, Britian has spent much men and material defeating it. There hasn't been a truly unifying European force that Britain hasn't sought to defeat, except (possibly) the Holy Roman Empire. It seems Simms' solution to this is for a federalising Europe to adopt a model that will be constitutionally likely to favour British interests. This might work, but it is politically unrealistic in the extreme. Unrealistic politics are par for the course with Simms, of course: he is the President of the Henry Jackson Society. As such it is difficult to know whether Simms is mad or bad. Probably both to some degree. His idea that Blair would have made a fantastic European president shows extreme cognitive dissonance over Iraq and the role of Anglo-US politics in European affairs. His belief that Europe should be headed by an American-style President, elected by popular vote, but without the safeguard of an electoral college, is particularly striking. Populism is how Atlanticist influence is expected to triumph over the European demos, presumably. show less