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Adrian Gregory, British Artillery on the Western Front in the First World War, by Sanders Marble, The English Historical Review, Volume 130, Issue 547, December 2015, Pages 1589–1590, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cev306
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It would be interesting to know how many academics who have taught courses on Britain and the First World War are aware of the following information: that between August 1914 and August 1918 the ration strength of the Royal Artillery rose from 92,920 to 548,780. By the end of 1918 almost a quarter of the British soldiers on the Western Front were gunners. Cultural representations of the war, with a few notable exceptions, have ignored this massive expansion in their constant reiteration of the infantryman’s experience of the trenches. But artillery was absolutely central to the British war effort and the ramifications of this expansion were profound, which is why all historians with an interest in the war should find time to read this book by Sanders Marble.
Marble’s book is based on a mass of primary documentation. Although the most important gunner on the Western Front, Noel Birch (Haig’s chief of artillery), left no papers, many other senior officers in the arm did. This is a study more of tactics than of weapons, and, although it might be seen as a study that fits in with the learning-curve hypothesis, it is far from being a triumphalist account.
