Defending Albion is the first published study of Britain's response to the threat of invasion from across the North Sea in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It examines the emergency schemes designed to confront an enemy landing and the problems associated with raising and maintaining the often derided Territorial Force. It also explores the long-neglected military and political difficulties posed by the spontaneous and largely unwanted appearance of the "Dad's Army" of the Great War, the Volunteer Force.

England's Last Hope studies how the part-time auxiliary Territorial Force was raised, clothed, trained, housed and administered during the crucial years of its development in the years before the Great War. As such, it fills a fundamental gap in the understanding of how the force's units were able to take the field as part of the BEF in 1914.

This is the final volume in a trilogy which examines the invaluable contribution of auxiliary volunteer forces to the defence of Great Britain before and during the First World War. Bill Mitchinson explores the tumultuous relationship between the territorials and the War Office, the prioritizing of Kitchener's New Army's mobilization training over the Territorial Forces' and the early experiences of units sent to France and elsewhere in 1914 and 1915. Although providing crucial support to the regular divisions during the battles of 1915, the Regular Army's traditional bias against the...