What do you do when your guest is Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, former Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, former senior historian at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham, author of innumerable books, articles and essays, a member of the Royal Historical Society, President of the Western Front Association, former President of the Guild of battlefield Guides, and one of the world’s most distinguished authorities on the First World War, amongst many other accolades?
That’s right, you distract him by talking about toy soldiers!
In fact, this charming and most approachable of men, whilst clearly having a formidable knowledge bank inside his head, was a delightful guest, and it was simply wonderful that he and I – both being 1961 babies – had a fair amount in common. Indeed, we realised that we could have ended up as undergraduates at the same university, as well as having a number of friends and acquaintances in common.*
I hope that you, too, will be delighted to hear his revelations about some of the biggest figures in both military history and wargaming, including the late and much lamented Paddy Griffith, Christopher Duffy, David Chandler, Charles S Grant and Richard Holmes, several of whom, as we hear, were and are also wargamers. These are men with whom Gary rubbed shoulders as colleagues and friends at Sandhurst, and yet more names bubble to the surface when he describes his time at Shrivenham.
But the real joy of the conversation lies in the fact that Gary talks freely and knowledgeably about such a gamut of subjects, ranging from, of course, his passion for history, but also his use of various types of wargaming as an educational tool, his personal confirmation of the efficacy of our hobby for mental health, the morality of wargaming, the value of walking battlefields and his interest in other eras of history.
However, I think the real excitement here comes when we discuss Gary’s favourite subject, the First World War, and the work he and his colleagues have done to revise the outdated assumption that the men of the British Expeditionary Force were simply ‘lions led by donkeys’. In particular, Gary’s work has done much to rehabilitate Field Marshal Douglas Haig, shifting our view of him as simply a stupid, behind-the-lines butcher of men, to a man saddled perhaps with too much responsibility in an ever-changing environment who, nevertheless, became the first ‘modern’ general whom we should regard more as a ‘war manager’.
Along with this comes a re-assessment of the Western Front as something far more complex and revolutionary than simply men sent forward in waves to be butchered by artillery and machine guns, and rulesets like Through the Mud and the Blood from TooFatLardies attempt to replicate this fundamental change in tactics. Gary reveals that the British, far from falling behind, were innovative in ways that were never replicated by the Germans, leading to incremental advantages that finally overwhelmed the enemy.
It’s a long show, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the content justified me ‘letting the cameras roll’, as it were, to give you as full an insight as possible into one of our leading academic historians who is also, let’s forget, an out and proud wargamer (and he even reveals some others waiting in the wings to appear on this show!).
Henry
*I should point out for younger and overseas listeners that when Gary refers to Wolverhampton University being an “ex-poly”, this has nothing to do with an old Monty Python sketch about dead parrots, but actually refers to the fact that Wolverhampton used to be a polytechnic – you can read up about them on Wikipedia here – a tertiary education institution often denigrated by snobs who went to ‘proper’ universities before polytechnics were converted to universities in 1992. In fact, ‘polys’, as they were affectionately known, often offered courses that were for more likely to secure the student a job after graduation, and were widely the source of teaching and technical degrees. It’s a bone of contention in my own household because I went to Sussex (a ‘proper’ university), whereas my partner Ann went to Brighton – literally on the opposite side of the A23 main road – which was ‘just’ a poly at the time! 😆
Gary at the University of Wolverhampton
Some of Gary’s books on Amazon
British Journal for Military History: Gary’s article on Gallipoli
The Guild of Battlefield Guides
The History of Wargaming Project Professional Wargaming section
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