A Forgotten British Military Thinker

British military historian Whittingham makes an excellent case that Major-General Sir Charles E. Callwell (1859–1928) was one of the most important military thinkers of the era from late Victorian times through the early twentieth century. Callwell is best remembered today for his Small Wars, effectively a “how to” book on colonial warfare, which remains in print well over a century after its original publication in 1896.

Callwell was a long serving professional officer, a staff college graduate, with experience on staffs and with the troops on campaign in several colonial dust ups, as well as the Boer War, and the Great War. He wrote about all of these in a number of insightful works. Callwell even produced a book on sea power and military operations similar to the work of Julian Corbett, and produced an insightful analysis of the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign.

While Whittingham notes that Callwell was not as influential as several other authors of his time, his work is useful reading for those with an interest in the development of modern military thinking, and especially the British way of war.

Although marred by an absence of maps that might help illustrate Callwell’s thinking, Charles E. Callwell and the British Way in Warfare, a volume in the series “Cambridge Military Histories”, is an excellent read for anyone interested in how the man shaped British military thought.

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Note: Charles E. Callwell and the British Way in Warfare is also available in several e-editions.

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