Volume 2, Issue 1 - EDITORIAL
Welcome to the first issue of volume 2.
This issue is topped and tailed with discussions of arms and armour: plate armour at Agincourt and tank armour in the First World War! This reflects the fact that in and between the First World War and Waterloo200 commemorations it is also the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. We are very pleased, therefore, that Professor Kelly DeVries kicks off this issue by examining recent attempts to identify why the French lost in 1415.
Following Professor DeVries, this issue contains a diverse range of papers by early career scholars. Each year the British Commission for Military History hosts a New Research in Military History conference. The conference is more informal than most conferences and is designed to bring together cohorts of early career researchers to discuss and share their scholarship. The BJMH has traditionally supported this event by publishing the best of the papers that have come out of it.
By bringing together eminent scholars like Kelly DeVries and Professor Michael Durey with a number of papers by less established authors, this issue reflects the journal’s commitment to early career researchers. Indeed this issue contains papers by Drs Wintjes, Huddie, Smalley and Powell all of whom have presented at the New Research in Military History conference. Between the four of them we cover a whole range of historical periods and questions that range from early European wargaming to Irish recruitment during the Crimean War, interwar Staff training to Second World War army-air cooperation.
Following on from our early career scholars we then briefly turn to the First World War with papers by Professor Michael Durey who writes on the challenges of finding the missing, and our Tank Museum prize winner, Roger Blaber.
The Tank Museum prize was open to undergraduate and postgraduate students who had to write an 8,000 word essay on a subject relating to armoured warfare and the First World War. With a judging panel that included Professor Gary Sheffield, Roger picked up his £1000 prize at a special luncheon held at Bovington Camp, UK during the Tank Fest weekend in June this year.
While Professor Durey considers the challenges of navigating the War Office for official information about the tens of thousands that went missing on the Western Front, Roger takes a look at the technical issues concerned with mounting large-scale tank attacks in the final days of the war. Both papers should whet the appetite for Issue 2 of this volume which considers the first two years of the First World War and is edited by Dr James Kitchen of RMA Sandhurst.
Before signing off we would like to thank all those who have signed up to the BJMH website and shared their contact details with us. As ever we welcome your comments and feedback.
Matthew, Catherine, Aimée, Stuart, Jennifer, George and Alasdair
THE BJMH EDITORIAL TEAM
