Reader’s Guide to Military History

The literature of warfare is comprehensive on matters of strategy and tactics, campaign histories and biographies of field marshals, naval admirals and air force leaders. Thus, this book informs us that “from the battle of Waterloo to the outbreak of the Spanish‐American and South African wars, land warfare manifested six general characteristics. The first of these was symmetry.” One doubts whether the poor francs‐tireurs, irregulars and volunteers who fought and died in the Franco‐Prussian War of 1870‐1871 recognised that symmetry was the first general characteristic of the land warfare that they were following. It is only in more recent...