Educated for a military career in the British Army, Major Hargreaves served in France, Gallipoli, and again in France during World War I. Severely wounded in May, 1917, while serving as a Divisional Staff Officer, he was retired after the war and has devoted himself to the serious study of history, interrupted by a return to uniform in 1939-45. He has written many articles and a number of books, of which the latest, The Enemy At The Gate, is a study of twelve famous sieges.

Articles by Reginald Hargreaves

Balance Sheet

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M. C.
May 1958
In politico-military matters it is not always easy to see the wood for the trees. Looming close, one particular aspect of the international scene, like an individual tree trunk in ...

The Flaw In The Jewel

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
January 1957
“Democracy is the best system of government yet devised, but it suffers from one grave defect—it does not encourage those military virtues upon which, in an envious world, it must ...

The Final Hazard

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
November 1956
It was Henry Middleton, President of the General Congress of Philadelphia, who once remarked, “Military men belong to a profession which may be useful, but is often dangerous.” As a ...

A Question Of Arteries

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
May 1956
“Age is a quality of mind; If you have left your dreams behind, If Hope is cold, If you no longer look ahead, If your ambition’s fires are dead, Then ...

The Reverse Of The Medal

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
October 1955
That war has come to owe an enormous debt to industry is so obvious a truism that it has found universal and unqualified acceptance. Nowadays strife between nations in many ...

Age of Unease

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
April 1955
Since the days of purely dynastic conflicts, war’s primary aim has been to bring about a better condition of peace than that which prevailed prior to the outbreak of hostilities ...

The Measure of Security

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
September 1954
“Force and fraud,” wrote Thomas M Hobbes in 1651, “are in war the two cardinal virtues.” If fraud be accepted as including those measures of deception taken by Security to ...

Means To An End

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
June 1954
The fighting-man, at sea or on the land, is entitled not only to a worthwhile cause, but to an intelligent plan. Brains behind the brawn constitute a sine qua non ...

Spoil of War

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
December 1953
With the end of the war in 1945, men of all ranks who had fought in the Royal Navy indulged the comforting reflection that their innumerable perils and privations would ...

The Haunted Quest

By Major Reginald Hargreaves, M.C.
March 1953
“The pleasing way is not the right, He who would keep the peace must fight.” Francis Quarles (1592-1644)