Featured battle : Le Cateau

Part of First World War

Date : 26 August 1914 - 27 August 1914

A hard-fought rear-guard action by Gen. Smith-Dorrian's II Corps held off massively superior German forces to permit the rest of the BEF to continue it's retreat. The cost was very high bt it bought valuable time for the rest. The survivors fell back as night fell on the 27th.

The Eighth Army in North Africa

Simon Forty
This series of Images of War is intended to be all about the pictures and this book is a very good example of that genre. There are photographs taken on both sides of the conflict showing the men and their equipment. Almost every type of armoured vehicle used in the desert campaign is shown some in pristine others in a well battered state. There is sufficient text to give the photographs a context but most usefully the bulk of the writing is as captions to the photographs. A few maps and schematic drawings fill out the story. Particularly informative in an easily understood way are the comparisons between Axis and Allied guns in both range and penetration on pgs. 36 & 37. The further reading list guides the interested reader to fuller explanations of the to and fro of the North African campaign. One tiny criticism is that on page 87 the captions for the two men have switched left to right.
We thoroughly enjoyed looking at this book and recommend it to you.


Pen & Sword Military, 2019