Trevor Royle

On the brink of the First World War, Scotland was regarded throughout the British Isles as 'the workshop of the Empire'. Not only were Clyde-built ships known the world over, Scotland produced half of Britain's total production of railway equipment, and the cotton and jute industries flourished in Paisley and Dundee. In addition, Scots were a hugely important source of manpower for the colonies. Yet after the war, Scotland became an industrial and financial backwater. Emigration increased as morale slumped in the face of economic stagnation and decline. The country had paid a disproportionately high price in casualties, a result of huge numbers of volunteers and the use of Scottish battalions as shock troops in the fighting on the Western Front and Gallipoli - young men whom the novelist Ian Hay called 'the vanished generation'. In this book, Trevor Royle provides the first full account of how the war changed Scotland irrevocably by exploring a wide range of themes - the overwhelming response to the call for volunteers; the performance of Scottish military formations in 1915 and 1916; the militarization of the Scottish homeland; the resistance to war in Glasgow and the west of Scotland; and the boom in the heavy industries and the strengthening of women's role in society following on from wartime employment.

Trevor Royle does for Culloden what Juliet Barker did for Agincourt, bringing us the definitive account of the battle and its wider role in the creation of the British Empire.

In this critically acclaimed biography, now fully updated, Royle revises Kitchener’s latter-day image as a stern taskmaster, the ultimate war lord, to reveal a caring man capable of displaying great loyalty and love to those close to him. New light is thrown on his Irish childhood, his years in the Middle East as a biblical archaeologist, his attachment to the Arab cause and on the infamous struggle with Lord Curzon over control of the army in India. In particular, Royle reassesses Kitchener’s role in the Great War, presenting his phenomenally successful recruitment campaign – ‘Your Country Needs You’ – as a major contribution to the Allied victory and rehabilitating him as a brilliant strategist who understood the importance of fighting the war on multiple fronts.

The Battle of Culloden has gone down in history as the last major battle fought on British soil: a vicious confrontation between Scottish forces supporting the Stuart claim to the throne and the English Royal Army. But this wasn't just a conflict between the Scots and the English, the battle was also part of a much larger campaign to protect the British Isles from the growing threat of a French invasion. In Trevor Royle's vivid and evocative narrative, we are drawn into the ranks, on both sides, alongside doomed Jacobites fighting fellow Scots dressed in the red coats of the Duke of Cumberland's Royal Army. And we meet the Duke himself, a skilled warrior who would gain notoriety due to the reprisals on Highland clans in the battle's aftermath. Royle also takes us beyond the battle as the men of the Royal Army, galvanized by its success at Culloden, expand dramatically and start to fight campaigns overseas in America and India in order to secure British interests; we see the revolutionary use of fighting techniques first implemented at Culloden; and the creation of professional fighting forces. Culloden changed the course of British history by ending all hope of the Stuarts reclaiming the throne, cementing Hanoverian rule and forming the bedrock for the creation of the British Empire. Royle's lively and provocative history looks afresh at the period and unveils its true significance, not only as the end of a struggle for the throne but the beginning of a new global power.

In 1854, Dr David Greig, a newly qualified doctor from Dundee, volunteered and set sail on the Vectis to serve as an army surgeon in the Crimean War. He was only 22 years old at the time. His collection of letters a single, leather-bound volume discovered by chance during a house clearance in Dundee tells of his medical and personal experiences in a savage war zone. Much has been written about Florence Nightingale s role with both extremely negative and overwhelmingly positive accounts of her actions in Scutari being depicted in books, film and documentaries alike. Dr Greig details his own, very interesting impressions of the lady with the lamp in several letters. Letters from the Crimea is a unique, first-hand insight of one man s life during an important Victorian war, documenting Dr Greig s progress from a callow youth to respected surgeon, culminating in his career as a leading doctor in his home city of Dundee. On his return from the war he became a leading doctor at Dundee Royal Infirmary with his offspring following in his medical footsteps:

Winston Churchill described Wingate as a 'man of genius who might well have become a man of destiny'. Tragically, he died in an jungle aircraft crash in 1944. Like his famous kinsman Lawrence of Arabia, Wingate was renowned for being an unorthodox soldier, inclined to reject received patterns of military thought. He was a fundamentalist Christian with a biblical certainty in himself and his mission. He is best-remembered as the charismatic and abrasive leader of the Chindits. With the support of Wavell, he was responsible for a strategy of using independent groups deep behind enemy limes, supported only by air drops. Wingate was responsible for leading the charge of 2,000 Ethiopians and the Sudan Defence Force into Italian-occupied Abyssinia. Remarkably, he defeated a 40,000 strong enemy that was supported by aircraft and artillery, which Wingate did not possess. Despite his achievements, Wingate suffered from illness and depression and in Cairo attempted suicide. He was not universally liked: his romantic Zionism contrasted with the traditional British Arabist notions. He did, however, lead from the front and marched, ate and slept with his men. In this authoritative biography, Royle expertly brings to life a ruthless, complex, arrogant - but ultimately admirable - general. Trevor Royle is an author and broadcaster specialising in the history of war and empire, with more than 30 books to his credit. His latest book is The Road to Bosworth, a study of the War of the Roses. He is a columnist for the Sunday Herald and is an Honorary Fellow at Edinburgh University's School of History. He was born in India in 1945.

* The first major single history of the Wars of the Roses for decades, written by renowned popular and military historian, Trevor Royle, out now in paperback

One late summer's day in 1642 two rival armies faced each other across the rolling Warwickshire countryside at Edgehill. There, Royalists faithful to King Charles I engaged in a battle with the supporters of the Parliament. Ahead lay even more desperate battles like Marston Moor and Naseby. The fighting was also to rage through Scotland and Ireland, notably at the siege of Drogheda and the decisive battle of Dunbar. Few periods in English history are more significant than that to which acclaimed author Trevor Royle turns his attention in CIVIL WAR. From his shrewd analyses of the characters who played their parts in the wars to his brilliantly concise descriptions of battles, Trevor Royle has produced a vivid and dramatic narrative of those turbulent years. His book also reveals how the new ideas and dispensations that followed from the wars - Cromwell's Protectorate, the Restoration of Charles II and the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1689 - made it possible for England, Ireland and Scotland to progress towards their own more distant future as democratic societies.

The Crimean War is one of the most compelling subjects in British history. Everyone knows about the Charge of the Light Brigade and men like Raglan and Cardigan, have become household names. The story of Florence Nightingale, 'the Lady with the Lamp', and the heroic reporting of William Russell, THE TIMES' intrepid correspondent, and the sonorous names of the battles, are ingrained deep within the British military consciousness - Sebastopol, Inkerman, Balaclava and the Alma. Trevor Royle demonstrates how the Crimean War was a watershed in world history: coming between the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the opening shots of the First World War in 1914 it pointed the way to what mass warfare would be like for soldiers in the twentieth century.