Scottish Military Disasters

137. McCrae's Battalion
by Jack Alexander
This account of the 16th Battalion of the Royal Scots in the First World War was a labour of love - a 12-year labour of love. Jack Alexander spent a dozen years working on this book and it shows - both for good and bad. The "good" is that it is well researched, the "bad" is that he may have been too reluctant to jettison material when it came to writing the book. Sometimes it just gets bogged down in too much detail. The 16th was one of Kitchener's battalions. It was unusual in that it included many of the Hearts first team and many other Scottish footballers. The book relies heavily on letters home and diaries that Alexander found during his research, which appears to have involved a lot of time hunting down the surviving family members of the battalion's soldiers. The battalion was pretty much wiped out twice - on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and again while trying to hold back the German Spring Offensive of 1918. The descriptions of the fighting are well done but the book might, and this really is a very minor criticism, have been benefited from a look at the battles in the wider context of the war. Although written in the Queen's English, some of Alexander's phrasing had me doing a double take. Maybe I've been away from Scotland too long to immediately recognise the nuances and rhythm of English as it is used in the Lothians. This book was a best seller in Scotland, and rightly so.

136. Losing Small Wars
by Frank Ledwidge
A British former naval intelligence officer takes a look at what went wrong with the British campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the answers Ledwidge gives are straightforward. There are too many British generals and too many of them have mediocre minds. The British rotate as many as they can in and out of active theatres to give them hands-on experience. These mediocre minds have bought in too easily, and lazily, to the notion that the British Army has much to teach the world about conducting anti-insurgency operations. Believing your own publicity comes before a fall. Ledwidge, a lawyer in civilian life, makes a good case for the proposition that the Generals gave very bad advice to the politicians and bit off more than they could chew in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This has all damaged the British Army's reputation in the eyes of Uncle Sam. The Americans have made big mistakes too. The difference is that the Americans are able and willing to learn from their mistakes - unlike the British. German general Erwin Rommel noted the same in North Africa in 1942-43 and it would appear it remains true. Ledwidge shies away from naming names when it comes to the jobs-worths who made such a mess of things. He also stops short of claiming that this is because the senior ranks are mainly drawn from such small sliver of British society, namely the privately educated. There might be those who argue that drawing from a talent pool made up of only 7% of the population is, to say the least, unwise. Ledwidge argues that one of the answers to the present malaise might be to follow the American example and send officers on the promotion fast track to civilian universities to get a broader education than can be provided at military institutions. He appears to be believe that this might result in some of them actually starting to think- maybe even think outside the box. The sooner there is a major shake-up, the fewer the number of squaddies who will be killed by these bunglers. This is a thought provoking book and well worth reading. But it carries both the advantages and baggage of being written by an insider.  He should have named and shamed.

Scottish Military Disasters has been launched as an e-book. And it’s now improved.
Preparing the book in e-book format offered the chance to correct some minor errors.
“I wouldn’t say it’s worth someone who has the print version going out and buying the e-book,” said author Paul Cowan.
“But in preparing the e-book we’ve corrected a couple of little irritating misprints and one mistake that probably only annoys me and a couple of my relatives.”
The book is one of the first from the Neil Wilson Publishing catalogue to be released as an e-book.
“Neil’s stable of authors includes such giants as Nigel Tranter, so this is a real honour for me,” said Cowan.
“This will make the book far more accessible to readers in Scotland and around the World – and also in certain countries far more affordable.
“I’ve found where it is reasonably priced overseas, it’s been selling like hotcakes.”
Glasgow-based Neil Wilson said the move into e-books was as a result of public demand.
Wilson teamed up with the respected e-book team at the Faber Factory for the conversion to the new format which will make Scottish Military Disasters available on a variety of devices, including most e-readers and mobile phones.
“We will also go online with Apple soon,” he added.
For details of how to buy the e-book version –

Neil Wilson Publishing