This is a work that will appeal to those who enjoy First World war memoirs of the men in the trenches and is of special interest to anyone connected with the 1/9th (Highlanders) Battalion, the Royal Scots (the "Dandy Ninth").

At the core of the book - 78 pages - is an edited version of the diary of James Beatson, bought at auction by one of the editors. It covers his war from the first entry, when Beatson crossed the Channel with the battalion, up to December 1915 when he returned home on leave and got married. The editors' introduction explains much of his background, the early months of warfare and the battalion's history and movements. It provides a useful context in which the diary would make more sense to the reader. There is too, a dreadful epilogue, for Beatson was killed in action at High Wood in 1916.

In many ways the diary is unremarkable in that the experiences recorded are typical. Beatson and the Dandy Ninth enjoy at first the unfamiliar sights and experiences of France and Flanders, before the boredom and drudgery of uneventful trench occupation. There are moments of action (particularly in late April and August 1915) and inevitably there is the harrowing loss of comrades, which Beatson records in an understated and caring way. It is in his style that the diary becomes worthwhile; it is well observed and factual, but sensitive and sympathetic. There is no sign of disenchantment or criticism; none of the "lions led by donkeys" conceits of generations that followed. Beatson knows he is there to do a job, and goes through it with strength and good humour. The diary mentions relatively few individuals by name but places and events are frequently noted.The condition and atmosphere of early times at Ypres, Armentieres and Bois Grenier are of particular interest, knowing as we do of what happened to them later on.

One aspect of the diary is unusual and gives an insight into Beatson and perhaps into the British soldier of the time. He comments in depth on the diary of a Prussian officer, "Heinrich", which had been published in a magazine and does so in the second person, talking to Heinrich as "you". Beatson's commentary is reflective, respectful; it is easy to see that Beatson recognises himself and his situation in the German diary. The end note to this passage could not capture better the mood of men stuck in these dreadful, inhuman conditions, "The suspense in Purgatory is a real terror if it resembles in any measure this eternal waiting, waiting".

The book includes a selection of photographs, some of them stock images seen many times before but most are unusual, rare examples of the battalion and early trench warfare. It also benefits from photos of James Beatson himself and his family.

Of additional interest is a short foreword written by the late Henry Allingham, who achieved fame as one of Britain's longest surviving veterans of the war and for a while became the country's oldest man. Given that he wrote the piece at the age of 112 it is remarkably lucid.

All royalties raised by sale of the book are going to charity.

This book presents a collection of correspondence between Roland Gerard 'Ged' Garvin and his parents. Ged was the archetypal public schoolboy officer, having been educated at Westminster School and about to go up to Christ Church, Oxford, when he volunteered in 1914. He came from a well-to-do and connected family, for his father James (a self-made man, having risen from a poor background) was editor of the Observer newspaper. The trio of correspondents is completed by Ged's mother Catherine.

Ged was immediately commissioned into the 7th (Service) Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment. He had no prior military experience and like many of his brother officers had to learn his trade.

The letters flowed frequently, even during his time in France once the battalion had gone there in 1915. There were, however, severe constraints imposed by military censorship and Ged has to be very careful in what he says. In consequence places, events and individuals are rarely named. His correspondence remains cheerful, although at times he is clearly dog-tired, and usually ends with a request that his parents send something that he needs: it is in this minutiae that hints of the life of a subaltern can be discerned. Tiptree's jam, medicines and remedies, new boots, a replacement revolver for one lost on a muddy patrol. The parents letters are inevitably more forthcoming in detail, and James' letters are especially interesting as he comes into contact with the great and good of the day.

Ged's war was typically at once tedious and fatiguing, with occasional moments of real hardship, fear and danger. He finds solace in his companions, the comradeship of the battalion and the odd trip to a restaurant when the opportunity arises. We learn very little of his activities in detail, but it is clear that he is regularly out in no man's land and, during winter, in flooded and muddy posts. He was most fortunate to be away from his battalion for the early days of the Somme offensive, which he spent on attachment at 19th Divisional HQ. Soon afterward, with the battalion having suffered casualties, he was recalled, only to be killed in action on the Bazentin Ridge 22-23 July 1916. Naturally the correspondence ceases just before this action: the book includes a useful epilogue, describing the situation with some good maps and quotes. We can only imagine how his loving and devoted parents felt, especially as it seems that the first news they received was an envelope returned and marked "killed in action".

There is a good selection of black and white photographs. Extensive end notes complete the book.

I can not imagine that "We hope to get word tomorrow" will be a best-seller or become a Great War classic. There is just too little by way of detail in terms of military actions and events for it to be so; but it is a genuine addition to our knowledge and an insight into the strain on the emotional bonds of family at the time of the greatest uncertainty, stress and loss.

Originally published in 1997, "Shot in the Tower" covers the fascinating stories of eleven men executed at the Tower of London, having been convicted of spying for Germany during the Great War. Drawing mainly on records of the trials, which are held at the National Archives, Len Sellers paints a picture of a bygone era. Communications between spies and spy masters are by letter or telegram, and are found by an alert British postal and secret service. The letters use simple codes, with writing in invisible ink: the evidence of most of the cases includes pen nibs that have been in contact with lemon juice, a component of invisible writing at that time. The spies stay at hotels or guest houses: not terribly incognito. They travel to and from neutral Holland, often on forged or dubious passports.

The stories of each are at once compelling yet somehow quite pathetic. Most are not German but have some German element in their background. Most are not Germans. They are Latin America, Swedish, Russian and with curious motivations to get involved. Not down at heel but in some cases influenced by pay, they pose as commercial travellers and are on missions to spot Royal Naval ships in harbour, identify army units from men near bases or on leave. The messages they send to the spymasters in Rotterdam are of very limited military value and in some cases largely fabricated. All are apprehended quite quickly by what is apparently an efficient, no-nonsense internal security service. All are tried, convicted of the death penalty and executed at dawn.

The book concludes with an interesting chapter on the burial of the spies, not as rumoured within the Tower itself but at the public East London cemetery. One grave, that of the first to be executed and the only German national, Carl Hans Lody, was tended over the years and by the time the book was first published in 1997 had a splendid black headstone. There had apparently been wrangling, unresolved, about a German desire to move the graves to the war cemetery at Cannock Chase.

Great for those interested in spying or the early days of the MI5.

A compilation of 154 of the best of the well-known series of cartoons by Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, originally published during the war as "Fragments from France" in the weekly magazine, "The Bystander". Each of Bairnsfather's wonderful, wry, observations on the lot of the British Tommy in the trenches carries a short explanatory comment from the authors. The book closes with a short selection of cartoons by others, most of whom have drawn upon Bairnsfather's most famous of oft-seen work, "If you knows of a better 'ole".

Royalties from sales of this edition will go to the charity Help for Heroes. If you have not seen Bairnsfather's cartoons before, you are missing a treat and "The best of Fragments from France" offers a fine way to obtain a good collection and assist the charity at the same time.

The flow of publication of memoirs, diaries and letters of the Great War period seems unending - but here is one that stands out not only for the content but for a tremendously high standard of production. "Meet at dawn, unarmed" is based on the diaries and letters of Robert Caradoc Hamilton, who served with the Norfolk Regiment during the Boer War and was mobilised from the Special Reserve of Officers for service with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in August 1914.

Hamilton's tale of his time on the Western Front was short, for he returned to England in January 1915. During these few months, however, he experienced near-surrender by his commanding officer in the retreat and a good deal of fighting in the area of Meteren and Ploegsteert Wood during First Ypres. He is a fellow officer of, among others, Bruce Bairnsfather and Bernard Montgomery. In April 1915 he was made commandant of the Military Detention Barracks at Hereford, which from mid 1916 held conscientious objectors. This part of the diary is much shortened with only key points being picked out.

The highlight of the book, chosen by the authors as its central theme, is the involvement of Hamilton and the 1st Warwicks in the extraordinary unofficial truce at Christmas 1914.This is a genuine addition to our understanding of these events.

It is the treatment of the story that makes this book stand out. Illustrations, many being Bairnsfather cartoons that relate directly to incidents mentioned in the diary, together with clear maps, make the story vivid and understandable. There is useful, idiots-guide coverage of British army structures, the regiment and the early events of the war. Drawing too upon official records, postcards and "then and now" photographs, it makes for easy and highly entertaining reading. The book is beautiful from a graphical viewpoint, having been laid out professionally with an eye to design.

The authors also chose to avoid the standard route of approaching the known military pubishers and to set up their own channel of distribution. The book is only available via their website (shown right). Whether this will prove to be the best choice remains to be seen, but certainly "Meet at dawn, unarmed" deserves to be read and I wish them every success.

Meet at dawn, unarmed is only available via
this website

I am really pleased so see another work covering the trials of the British and Indian troops in action and subsequent captivity in Mesopotamia. It has been a terribly neglected campaign and "Captured at Kut" is a fine addition to our understanding of the conflict.

William "Bill" Collis Spackman was the RAMC Medical Officer attached to the 48th Pioneers of the Indian Army. He saw service at Basra, in the extraordinary water crossings and battles at Qurna and Shaiba, and followed General Charles Townshend up the Tigris to Amara, Kut and the very gates of Baghdad itself. His testimony, based on diaries, is one of the few that provides personal insight into the dreadful defeat of Townshend's force at Ctesiphon and the harum-scarum withdrawal back to Kut-al-Amara and many months of siege.

While Spackman's coverage of the military actions is perceptive and sympathetic, his diaries are perhaps most compelling when it comes to describing the conditions at Kut during the siege and in captivity once it falls. Many readers may be unaware of the appalling treatment of the thousands of men captured once Townshend surrendered, British attempts to break the siege having failed with heavy losses. A very great proportion of the captives perished on a forced march of many hundreds of miles across northern Iraq and into Anatolian Turkey. Spackman was most fortunate to avoid this; his role as a British MO led to special circumstances allowing him not to accompany the marches, but to be held in one or two locations where he - with few facilities, medicines or equipment - treated the sick and the lame before they were sent on. Gradually as the final troops are marched north, he is left behind and spends many months almost isolated, seemingly the only British officer left in the area. His own treatment is thankfully not of the brutal kind administered to so many of the Kut captives, but of sheer neglect and incompetence by the Turks. Increasingly lonely, he has a quite fascinating and atomospheric tale to tell. There are wonderful stories of times in the markets and villages, mixing with all manner of odd and sometimes shifty characters. His own personality and humanity mark these diaries as something special, and they are well selected and edited by his nephew, Tony.

A remarkable work and one that I heartily recommend.

By mid 1916 the British forces in France and Flanders were so large that they had been subdivided into five Armies, each larger than the original BEF that had sailed in August 1914. It curious that the men who led these Armies, and their chiefs of staff, have been rather neglected when it comes to scholarly biographies and analyses. Although several of them wrote autobiographies or memoirs, few have received more than a passing interest. Horne, commander of First Army, had nothing at all about him until quite recently; Byng and Plumer were subjects of single good modern biographies only in the last two decades; Monro and Birdwood get hardly a mention; only Rawlinson and Gough have received significant attention and one suspects that has been more driven by their failures than by their successes.

Rather like "Haig: a reappraisal 80 years on" that I recently reviewed, this is a collection of papers, one covering each General in turn, by leading contemporary historians including Gary Sheffield, Simon Robbins, John Bourne and Peter Simpkins. The various studies examine the background and temperament of the man, his relationships with Haig, his peers, staffs and subordinates.

Some themes will serve to frustrate the "lions led by donkeys" school. These men were experienced soldiers, who rose to their command through demonstration of capability. Their backgrounds and personalities varied greatly, with inevitable consequences for their relationships and actions. Two were sacked (Gough perhaps unfairly in 1918, although there is a case that he should have gone much earlier; Allenby in 1917, sidelined to Palestine where he turned out rather well), one more at least (Plumer) came close to the same fate. Rawlinson's development from a less than wonderful 1915 and a disastrous 1 July 1916 to a capable, flexible, wise, leader in 1918 is covered well: as indeed are all of the stories.

I was intrigued by a surprising weight given to secondary sources in some of the papers, but this may have been due to tight writing timetables or small research budgets. I would not rely on this book as my single source of information about a General, but as a taster and a guide to where to look more deeply, it can not really be faulted. All papers are scrupulous in their citation of sources, as you might expect from professional academic historians.

There is a small collection of photographs, none of which you will not have seen before, and insertion of a few largely irrelevant maps. This book is not about trenches and battle timelines. It is about men and their struggle to overcome the unprecedented challenges of technology, communications and huge organisational scale and in that most stressful and unforgiving period in our history.

Joining the ranks of memoirs that have emerged in recent years, "Shrapnel and whizzbangs" is based on the trench diaries and notes kept by George Oswald Mitchell, who served as a Private with the 1/6th West Yorkshire Regiment before being transferred to the Special (poison gas) Companies of the Royal Engineers.

George's story takes us through his infantry training at home and the early days of the West Yorks war in the sodden trenches of Fleurbaix, before he was selected to join the elite group of men who were Britain's first "chemical soldiers". The passages concerning the first use of gas by the British, at Loos in September 1915, are a valuable addition to our understanding of that action. The detailed diary stops at that point and from there on, son Jeremy Mitchell inevitably has less by way of in-depth commentary.

What I found novel about this book is Jeremy's weaving of his own thoughts and learning experiences when studying the war and trying to understand the context, with his father's own material. The opening chapter describes how the tales were passed down; the last is a descriptive bibliography. In itself this makes the book an interesting commentary on the shaping of modern-day views about the war. Jeremy's approach makes it very accessible for anyone who has not studied in the Great War in any depth, and it is sure to inspire others to look deeper into a subject that is still, after all these years and much modern research and the refuting of myth, seen by some as simply a muddy bloodbath with lions leading donkeys. "Shrapnel and whizzbangs" underscores the complexities of the war and the innovations, many costly in terms of lives, that were required in order for it to be won.

There are a number of photographs from family archives and the Imperial War Museum collection.

Great! A diary of Stanley Spencer, one of the greatest of war artists! Erm, no ... a Sheffield lad whose name was actually Charles William Stanley Spencer, a ranker who rose to a commission and an MC, who has left one of the finest of war diaries, describing his time on the Western Front.

Stanley Spencer served as Private 2682 in the 24th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, with which he saw action in the Loos area, on the Somme, in the pursuit of the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line and at Arras. He was commissioned into the West Yorkshire Regiment in late October 1917 and served with the 10th (Service) Battalion. Stanley's descriptions of many incidents large and small are very fine, but perhaps none more so than his tale of chaotic retreat in March 1918. This part of his story is a genuine addition to our knowledge of that terrible time. He went on to win the Military Cross for his leading part in a raid near Bouzincourt, which he modestly describes in the diary as "a walkover". His MC was gazetted in October 1918, by which time he was back in England having fallen ill. He did not return to France.

The writing is frank and mentions many individuals, not all in glowing terms. Place and battle descriptions are vivid if surprisingly unemotional, particularly as Spencer's friends and comrades fall. He is a keen soldier, selected at times for unusual tasks such as an attachment to Divisional Intelligence, but we get little real insight into his motivations and feelings. As a chronicle of the times, though, it would be hard to better.

There are some weaknesses. The lack of an index is a pity, as is the consistent misspelling of three placenames. For Corbie we have Corbic, Couin becomes Conin and Loupart Wood is Lonpart Wood. It is hard to believe that Stanley spelled them this way.

One of the best Great War books of recent times.

[I note that Amazon calls it Stanley's "Diaries". It isn't. The copy in my hands is "Diary"]

This is a joint review of two very similar works, both published in late 2008 by Pen & Sword Military. "Famous" and "The greater game" both contain a set of mini-biographies of men who served in the British forces in 1914-1918. The first examines the lives of twenty one who went on to win fame after the war (although Winston Churchill is counted among them and had already achieved fame), while "The greater game" looks at eleven sporting individuals in detail and at some units or groups that were initially largely composed of sportsmen. Inevitably, to the modern reader the names of "Famous" will be more familiar and perhaps make this book of wider appeal.

The two sets of authors have taken advantage of the much improved access to information that the release of soldiers documents and the internet have provided in recent years, to compile authoritative, absorbing stories that are full of interest.

"Famous" includes the examination of the military careers of men as diverse as the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, serial murderer John Christie (of 10 Rillington Place) and actor Basil Rathbone. We learn that they were an officer of the Royal Garrison Artillery, a conscript who served with the Sherwood Foresters and battalion Intelligence Officer with the Liverpool Scottish respectively. Von Emden and Piuk prove themselves adept at telling the military stories with clarity and feeling, as well as finding links from the war to the character's later lives and careers. It is an absorbing book; even my wife could not put it down!

To the Great War or sports history buff, the names of Ronald Poulton Palmer (rugby), Edgar Mobbs (rugby) and Colin Blythe (cricket) may be well known. In some cases the stories of these and the other sportsmen covered in "The greater game" have been told (in less detail) elsewhere. Nonetheless, as with the famous their stories are comprehensive and related with an eye for military detail. The chapters on the footballer's and sportsmen's "pals" battalions bring some of Britian's best known clubs into play: West Ham, Charlton, Heart of Midlothian and others were all the basis of significant recruitment in 1914; we also learn of players from other clubs who fought and fell. These are of course stories of men who had a degree of fame by 1914. Who knows what they might have accomplished had they not died in the war? Perhaps some would have had lives that would have quite properly placed them into "Famous".

Personally, while I found both books to be as thorough and as professional as you would expect, I enjoyed "Famous" a little more simply because the war was but a chapter - if an unforgettable one - that influenced these men's lives. Both repay reading and are good value for money.

It is quite extraordinary that no serious study of Evelyn Wood has been made since his own autobiography published over a century ago. As one of the senior military figures of the Victorian age, his story is one of great adventure and derring-do, tremendous personal courage, military and personal controversy. This, all wrapped up in an odd personality, makes for a splendid story and, in the hands of Stephen Manning, a darned good read.

For students of the Great War, it is the latter part of Wood's career that will be of most interest. He was a great trainer of men, and both before and after the war in South Africa (1899-1902) was deeply involved in the reform of the British Army's approach to training and logistics. The performance of the "Old Contemptibles" at Mons and on the retreat has distinct roots in Wood's work. His sponsorship of Douglas Haig, the latter's potential spotted as a young cavalry officer, is also clearly of significance. But for sheer human interest, it is Wood's involvement in the Indian Mutiny, Zulu and Boer wars that grips the reader. Wounded and near to death on numerous occasions, he always pulls through and in so doing, hauls himself up the military ladder despite the undoubted constraint of not been well to do and with personal and family complexities with which to contend. Calamity at Majuba Hill and at Hlobane, enough to consign an ordinary man to the darker pages of history, were almost shrugged off by Wood. He appears to have been something of a politician (with a small p) as well as a fine if rather unpredictable soldier. The author has delved deeply into archival sources to bring alive the story of the man.

Overall, well worth reading and a fine addition to your military library.