BULL RUN TO BOER WAR: How the American Civil War Changed the British Army

1-222720

The American Civil War is often said to have predicted the way in which later wars such as the Boer War and WWI would be fought. As a result, the British Army has been criticized for not heeding its lessons -- a view that can be traced back to the 1930s.

This book challenges that long-held view and demonstrates that the responses to the lessons of the war in the British Army were more complex, better informed, and of higher quality, than normally depicted.

Key to this new interpretation is that it takes a19th century perspective rather than pre-supposing what the British should have seen based upon hindsight from the South African veldt or the Western Front trenches. It demonstrates that strategists and policy-makers reacted to the changes in the nature of warfare suggested by American experience, looks at how officers in the cavalry, infantry, artillery and engineers applied their observations in America to the technical and tactical issues of the day, and even examines the war's influence on the development of aeronautics.