Current Reading: October 2025

Working my way through Douglas Haig and the First World War. Intended as an objective biography of Haig, it seems to have achieved that goal. The writing is clear and lively. Descriptions of the battles concisely describe the plans, Haig's role in developing them, the action itself and the factors that influenced the outcome. Haig's political maneuvering is also covered. The author Harris's analysis and judgements are well articulated and appear to be sound. So far (Haig has just replaced French) Haig comes across as sometimes tentative, usually fairly competent, and showing some sign of believing what he wants to and holding on to that. Not as much of a shining star that one would hope for in a new commander of the British army in France, but he had supporters in the highest places.

Finished Steering to Glory: A Day in the Life of a Ship of the Line by Nicholas Blake

Finished up Fiat Fighters, which is up to the author's standards, but falls a little short of Crecy's, in as much as there's no bibliography.

I put The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark down a couple of years ago about a third of the way through it. Picked it back up. And ordered The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 Prelude to the First World War by Richard C. Hall to supplement that history with more detail.

Finished Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth by Norman Lewis. First published in 1978, it is a very interesting diary account of the author's time in Italy with the British Field Security Police and his interactions with Italian civilians, from coming at ashore at Salerno in 1943 (a near debacle in itself) to the authors departure in late 1944. It is pretty fascinating reading, and you come away with the impression the Allies really did not have a plan in place for the governing and security of the Italian populace once they landed. A lot of the problems faced could probably have been headed off by simply ensuring the civilian population was fed, especially during the winter of 1943-44. Also surprising was how 'medieval' (for want of a better term) southern Italy was in 1944.

In a similar vein, Osmar White's Conquerors Road: An Eyewitness Report of Germany 1945 is well worth a read if you can find a copy. Refused publication in the '40's it only saw the light of day after the author's death in the 1990's.

Finished All Souls Day, which has some good journalism about the U.S. efforts to recover the remains of those men still missing from the battles of the Second World War, and an account of one action in the Huertgen Forest campaign where the intention seems to have been to cram in as many gaffs of understanding as possible.

Knocked off Russian Aviation Colours 1909-1922. Volume 3: Red Stars. This is another book from Mount TBR. If nothing else it features some of the best color profiles across the whole set of these books.