Amateur Armies: Militias and Volunteers in War and Peace, 1797–1961

Stephen M. Cullen

nën 2020 · Pen and Sword Military

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A history of volunteer armies spanning from the French Revolutionary Wars and the War of 1812 to pre-1914 Ireland and the Bay of Pigs.

Amateur Armies examines the military and social history of volunteer armies around the western world from the failed French invasion of South Wales in 1797 to the disastrous anti-Communist invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961.

It brings together some fascinating military actions across more than a century and a half of history and explores the social and political context in the countries involved. Stephen Cullen’s absorbing and original book is the first general survey of the role of amateur armies during the period.

Included are chapters on a series of wars in which militias played critical parts. In each case, their actions and effectiveness are described as is the background from which they came, and the social and political circumstances in which they operated. This pioneering study offers a valuable insight into each of the amateur armies covered and opens up an important and hitherto neglected aspect of military history.

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After studying at the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford, Dr Stephen M. Cullen taught economics, history and politics at independent schools. He has published many papers and articles on twentieth-century history, in particular on the world wars, fascism, Jewish political activism, and the Home Guard. He is the author of In Search of the Real Dad’s Army: The Home Guard and the Defence of the United Kingdom 1940-1944 and World War II Vichy French Security Troops, and is a senior research fellow at the University of Warwick.