Fighting the People's War
The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War

Analyses why the great battles were won and lost, and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

Jonathan Fennell (Author)

9781107030954, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 January 2019

966 pages, 42 b/w illus. 38 maps 21 tables
23.5 x 16 x 4.5 cm, 1.65 kg

'Fighting the People's War will serve for years to come as the standard work on the British and Commonwealth forces in the Second World War. It deserves the widest possible audience.' Mark Klobas, Michigan War Studies Review

Fighting the People's War is an unprecedented, panoramic history of the 'citizen armies' of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, the core of the British and Commonwealth armies in the Second World War. Drawing on new sources to reveal the true wartime experience of the ordinary rank and file, Jonathan Fennell fundamentally challenges our understanding of the War and of the relationship between conflict and socio-political change. He uncovers how fractures on the home front had profound implications for the performance of the British and Commonwealth armies and he traces how soldiers' political beliefs, many of which emerged as a consequence of their combat experience, proved instrumental to the socio-political changes of the postwar era. Fighting the People's War transforms our understanding of how the great battles were won and lost as well as how the postwar societies were forged.

List of illustrations
List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Overview of maps
Introduction
Part I. The Military and Political Context
1. Interwar: 1.1 Materiel and manpower
1.2 Doctrine
1.3 Training and organisation
1.4 Politics and public morale
1.5 Structure and contingency
2. Mobilisation: 2.1 The political context
2.2 Mobilisation
2.3 Equality of sacrifice?
2.4 The social contract
2.5 Rhetoric and reality
Part II. The Great Crisis of Empire
3. Defeat in the West: 3.1 The 'Phoney War'
3.2 The Norwegian campaign
3.3 The Battle of France
3.4 Assessments and recriminations
3.5 Preparing for invasion
4. The Middle East: 4.1 Operation 'Compass'
4.2 From East Africa to the Balkans
4.3 The Battle for Crete
4.4 Strategic overstretch
4.5 Operation 'Crusader'
4.6 Spring 1942
4.7 Gazala
4.8 The July battles
5. The Far East: 5.1 The strategic context
5.2 Preparations
5.3 The Malaya campaign
5.4 The invasion of Burma
5.5 The fall of Singapore
5.6 Retreat to India
5.7 The cost of failure
6. The great imperial morale crisis: 6.1 The anatomy of defeat
6.2 Morale crisis
6.3 The ideological deficit
6.4 The soldier and the state
Part III. Transformation
7. Victory in North Africa: 7.1 No retreat
7.2 Alam Halfa
7.3 Colossal cracks
7.4 War Office initiatives
7.5 El Alamein
7.6 The Tunisian campaign
8. New Guinea and Burma: 8.1 The 'Battle for Australia'
8.2 Kokoda
8.3 Wau
8.4 Quit India
8.5 The Arakan
Part IV. The Limits of Attrition
9. The Mediterranean: 9.1 Strategy and preparation
9.2 The Sicilian campaign
9.3 Opportunity lost
9.4 The invasion of Italy
9.5 Advance to the 'Gustav Line'
9.6 Winter in Italy
10. Remobilisation?: 10.1 The British Army and the Beveridge Report
10.2 The New Zealand Furlough mutiny
10.3 The UDF and the 'Blue Oath'
10.4 Procedural justice
11. Cassino: 11.1 Anzio and the First Battle of Cassino
11.2 The Second Battle of Cassino
11.3 The Third Battle of Cassino
11.4 The Fourth Battle of Cassino (Operation 'Diadem')
12. Transformation in the jungle: 12.1 Training and doctrine
12.2 Institutional reform
12.3 The South-West Pacific area
12.4 Operation 'Postern'
12.5 Burma
12.6 Second Arakan
12.7 Imphal and Kohima
12.8 Turn around
Part V. Redemption
13. D-Day: 13.1 Training and doctrine
13.2 Selection and morale
13.3 The assault
13.4 Controversy
14. Normandy: 14.1 The battle for Caen
14.2 Operation 'Goodwood'
14.3 Breakout
14.4 Encirclement
14.5 The trap
15. The victory campaigns: 15.1 Operation 'Market Garden'
15.2 Operation 'Olive'
15.3 Manpower crisis
15.4 The Scheldt and the 'Siegfried Line'
15.5 Operational and tactical transformations
15.6 Victory in Italy
15.7 The surrender of Germany
15.8 The South-West Pacific area
15.9 Burma
15.10 Operations 'Capital' and 'Extended Capital'
Part VI. The Post-War World
16. Soldiers and social change: 16.1 From combat cohesion to social cohesion
16.2 The forces vote and the 1945 British General Election
16.3 The forces vote and New Zealand's great experiment in social citizenship
16.4 The forces vote and the formalisation of apartheid in South Africa
16.5 Soldiers, veterans and the partition of India
16.6 Soldiers, veterans and social change
Conclusion: C.1 A deficit of political legitimacy
C.2 Military performance
C.3 Consequences
C.4 Fighting the people's war
Appendix 1. The censorship summaries
Appendix 2. The morale reports
Appendix 3. Quantitative indicators of morale
Appendix 4. Defining morale
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Second World War [HBWQ], Military history [HBW], British & Irish history [HBJD1], History [HB]