Fields of Battle

Terrain has a profound effect upon the strategy and tactics of any military engagement and has consequently played an important role in determining history. In addition, the landscapes of battle, and the geology which underlies them, has helped shape the cultural iconography of battle certainly within the 20th century. In the last few years this has become a fertile topic of scientific and historical exploration and has given rise to a number of conferences and books. The current volume stems from the international Terrain in Military History conference held in association with the Imperial War Museum, London and the Royal Engineers Museum, Chatham, at the University of Greenwich in January 2000. This conference brought together historians, geologists, military enthusiasts and terrain analysts from military, academic and amateur backgrounds with the aim of exploring the application of modem tools of landscape visualisation to understanding historical battlefields. This theme was the subject of a Leverhulme Trust grant (F/345/E) awarded to the University of Greenwich and administered by us in 1998, which aimed to use the tools of modem landscape visualisation in understanding the influence of terrain in the First World War. This volume forms part of the output from this grant and is part of our wider exploration of the role of terrain in military history. Many individuals contributed to the organisation of the original conference and to the production of this volume.

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Contributors. Preface. Terrain in Military History: An Introduction; P. Doyle, M.R. Bennett. `Markings on the Land' and Early Medieval Warfare in the British Isles; K. Cathers. Geology and Warfare in England and Wales 1450-1660; T. Halsall. Battles on Chalk: the Geology of Battle in Southern England during the Firs Civil War 1643-1644; T. Halsall. Terrain and Guerrilla Warfare in Navarre, 1808-1814; S. Kimble, P. O'Sullivan. Effective use of Terrain in the American Civil War: The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 1862; J. Ehlen, R. Abrahart. Tullahoma: Terrain and Tactics in the American Civil War; W.E. Pittman. The Mountain is their Monument: An Archaeological Approach to the Landscape of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879; T. Pollard. Maps and Decisions: Buller South and North of the Tugela, 1899-1900; M.M. Evans. The Thirty-Years War, 1914-1945: Mapping the Battlefields of the Past for the Construction of the European Future; E. Castell, S. Roura. Terrain and the Gallipoli Campaign, 1915; P. Doyle, M.R. Bennett. British, French, German Mapping and Survey on the Western Front in the First World War; P. Chasseaud. Terrain and the Messines Ridge, Belgium, 1914-1918; P. Doyle, et al. Zero Hour: Historical Note on the British Undergound War in Flanders, 1915-1917; F. Bostyn. Mud Blood, and Wood: BEF Operational and Combat Logistico-Engineering during the Battle of Third Ypres, 1917; R. Thompson. Across the River: Interpreting the Battle of Ebro or Battlefields as a Didactic Resource; E. Castell, L. Falcó. Fortification of Island Terrain: Second World War German Military Engineering on the Channel Island of Jersey, a Classic Area of British Geology; E.P.F. Rose, et al. Piracy on the High Desert: the Long-Range Desert Group 1940-1943;J. Underwood, Jr., R.F. Giegengack. The Geology of the Battle of Monte Cassino, 1944; J.A. Ciciarelli. Terrain as a Factor in the Battle of Normandy, 1944; S. Badsey. Airfield Country: Terrain, Land-Use and the Air Defence of Britain, 1939-1945; R.N.E. Blake. Subject Index.