Loos 1915 The Corrigan Book

[n cherry]

Loos 1915: The Unwanted Battle ISBN 1-86227-239-5 174 pages, 5 maps, 16 photographs £18.99.

At the risk of putting my head above the parapet and getting it shot off, I've now read the Corrigan book twice and would like to put forward a few observations for comment. Can I add that if anyone has found observations like mine about the Corrigan book in MuG I'm quite happy to take them on board and correct them in the reprint......

I found this book to be a general broad brush account of the battle with little in depth detail and nothing much to get me excited about, but then some people may like this type of book.

From my personal anorak view of Loos I found his book passably readable but in my humble opinion several unfortunate errors have crept into the text some of which are as follows:

page ix Loos being on the Franco-Belgian border

page 7 mention of a place on the Belgium coast called Newport, should this be Nieuport?

page 63 the 7th Division being in both I and IV Corps

page 97 quote for 26th September actions 'Le Rutoir.....on what had been no-man's-land.' If he means Le Rutoire on page 63 it is shown as being behind the original 25th September 1915 Britsh front line. It is Le Rutoire in the Official history.

page 104 mention on several occasions of a 4th Guards Brigade at Loos. This was news to me, has anyone else heard of this formation at Loos?

page 105 Sitzpunkt 69- all other references I've seen are to Stutzpunkt 69.

page 127 12 December when it should be 12 October.

page 154 1/12 London (Woolwich Blackheath). A new unit to me unless he meant it to be the 20th Londons.

The photographs which to me are an important part of any book are lumped together in one section and there are only 16 of them and some of these are not of much use. My main gripe apart form a lack of imagination in the photos eg Sir John French, Douglas Haig, a Maxim machine gun, the King inspecting Scots Guards in London and a French Liaison Officer using up 30% of the allotted pages, is that on 10 of the 16 pages only about 1/3rd of the page is used for the photo, the rest being text and blank spaces. It is important to use photos of some of the main players like we did in MuG but they only form a small percentage of the total number of photos used (around 80).

The maps are of use but again too few in number and many places mentioned in the text are not to be found on a map eg Gun Trench, Dynamitiere, Pope's Nose Reboubt and Sitpunkt or Stutzpunkt 69......

Something I also strive for and try to pick up on in the 20 or so books I have been involved with is consistency. Regretfully the Corrigan book had me in despair. There is use of the Double Crassier, double Crassier and double crassier. lorry-borne and lorry borne, 4th Guards Brigade and 4 Guards Brigade (on the same page), 9th Scottish Division and 15 Scottish Division- and these are just a few.....

When writing MuG I took the decision with my publisher as it was early in the war and only the 'first line Territorials' were involved we would not try and confuse the already confused reader with 1st/5th South Staffords or indeed 1/5 South Staffords or 1/5th South Staffords. Corrigan makes in certain places effort to explain about the unit being a Territorial one but not explaining them being First Line which explains the 1/, then he ruins his efforts by not being consistent. Page 65 4 Camerons but not 1/4 Camerons, page 73 18th Battalion the London Regiment not 1/18th, then on the following page 19 London.

I feel it would be inappropriate for me to give this book a rating such as good, bad or indifferent but hope this review can give people some food for thought.

As I said before I'm happy to receive any corrections for MuG so they can be corrected in the reprint.

[armourersergeant]

I am not surprised that you find fault with this book. I picked up a copy and saw how l;ittle the page amount was and automatically that put me off!

I am not a fan of Corrigan in general, not for his stance but the way he generalises and loses the point he is making for being to vague. His ideas have some merit IMO, yet he fails to deliver the eveidence that stands up.

As regards the book, have not read it, was not inclined to unfortunately once I had flicked through it and realised that the battle and contreversay could not possibly have been covered in any real detail.

I am sure errors do occur, but you do seem to have spotted a fair few!

regards

Arm

[Barnsey]

Gents,

Thank you for your comments. As many on this forum have waited & questioned the arrival of this book, I'll take your informed views and NOT buy this book.

[squirrel]

Looks like I shall not be adding this book to my newly reorganised "library" then.

[Michael]

Were the Buffs at Loos Barnsey? They don't get much of a mention despite losing hundreds of brave men

[Rockdoc]

It's not a book I enjoyed reading, being just too much hard work. I found the writing style veered from the academically formal to the thoroughly informal and neither is correct for a book of this type. I also found that the sheer volume of statistics made it hard to draw any conclusion, with little evaluation in the text.

I had wondered whether I was biased in my dislike because the book completely ignores the contribution of the Artillery (which is my main interest) but it seems not. I'd say it is not useful on its own and needs to be read in conjunction with others covering the same topic.

Keith