Fresh from the trenches comes young Paddy to address the question of how the Vikings made war. Up to date Paddy has used the contemporary written evidence to illuminate his topics. The ACW, French nineteenth century tactics and World War One, but in tackling the Vikings he has entered The Land Records Forgot and is in danger of consorting with the Unwise Supposition. Still he wisely sticks to his last and gives us what detail he can, but it is much much less effective in terms of his natural style. What appeared as wry analysis in previous works looks ominously like flannel here. Of course since no-one else has done the job properly before the book provides a valuable collection of what evidence there is, and this is worth a lot even if you do not ultimately accept the analysis. Most books on the Vikings have a problem in visualising their subject. The Victorian redefinition of the Saxons as Heroes of Liberty makes the Vikings very naughty people. But as Paddy points out the Saxons were much greater pirates in their time and a good deal of the harumphing sounds like the biter bit. On the whole Paddy concludes the Vikings did not have quite the success rate that many people believe (in terms of victories) it is of course impossible to discover whether when the score-card was produced the Vikings viewed it as a win or a loss - one has the feeling they did not go to war to topple empires, but to pinch anything going. Paddy opens up with definitions of Vikings and examination of their myth as warriors; sadly he includes the ghastly Swedes as Vikings! Really, this does nothing for the tone of the establishment. He describes the post-Imperial situation and the series of Vikings expansions. The first to 911 is probably a net loss but the second to 1066 a rather stronger performance. The problem for this analysis is that the Viking populations vanished into the local masses so quickly that we have a very untypical model of an empire of assimilationists. In considering the strategic mobility Paddy looks at the boats themselves and concludes that most Viking activity was coastal cruising. He analyses the types of campaigning (local feuding up to royal armies) and numbers, and concludes that the true Viking advantage was surprise (they got there fustest with the mostest). Sections on battles, weapons and their application round out the picture. Given the limitations of the material Paddy still wrings value, and as ever gives you a good view of what other historians say. More Book Reviews The Wars of Napoleon The Military Revolution In The Sixteenth Century In Search of The Dark Ages The Viking Art of War The Wars Of Frederick the Great Suleyman The Magnificent And His Age The Hundred Years War For Morocco Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies Russia's Military Way To The West Fisher's Face Stephen And Matilda: The Civil War of 1139-53 The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign Swiss Regiments a L'Étranger The Italian Reverse At Adowa Back to Perfidious Albion #92 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com