The Long Patrol

Mar 20, 2025 12:10 AM

Author:Roy Bainton

The Long Patrol

When the Allies occupied Germany at the end of the Second World War, there were two million men present to witness the devastating end of the Third Reich. Few of them could have imagined just how long this occupation was going to last - right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and well into its aftermath. Today some 17,000 British troops remain in Germany. But over the past four and a half decades, tens of thousands of British men and women have alived and worked in British Zone as members of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) some for relatively short periods, many for much longer. Long enough, though, for the experience to have a profound effect on their lives and on their attitudes.THE LONG PATROL reveals what life has been like in the British Zone for those men and women and their families. As the post war worlds of Britain and Germany had little in common, they had to find their own identity, often suspended between the two. And what did the Germans make of the British? How did they react when whole streets, sometimes whole districts, were requisitioned and occupied? What were the psychological effects of a foreign army taking over the barracks of what had been, until so recently, the homes of the warriors of the 1,000 Year Reich? Eventually the British became more and more insulated against the culture around them, building their own camps, their own cinemas. In major centres like Berlin they lived a seperate life whilst all around them Germany got on with the massive task of reconstruction. In the background there lurked the ever-present spectre of a possible Third World War. Based largely on interviews and information culled from personal diaries and letters. THE LONG PATROL is primarily an oral history of the British in Germany. It also analyses and interprets experiences in an attempt to begin to make sense of an unusual, and still significant, part of British history in the twentieth century. Funny, tragic, bizarre and poignant in equal parts, THE LONG PATROL is an important contribution to the social history of post-war Britain and Germ

Reviews

A compendious and thought-provoking study

—— Boris Johnson , The Mail on Sunday

McLynn has written a huge, erudite survey of the social, cultural, economic and political world of the second century AD rather than a mere biography of Marcus Aurelius...there is much to enjoy here and even more to be learned

—— Literary Review

By exposing the real Marcus Aurelius, this biography illuminates an important era of transition...it was under Marcus that the delicate balance was disturbed and this, too, is his legacy.

—— Martin Empson , TLS

Plain, polished, panoramic biography.

—— Iain Finlayson , Times

If you like your history feisty, opinionated and judgemental McLynn is the man for you... it certainly makes for a terrific read.

—— Peter Jones , BBC History Magazine

Highly recommended

—— Nicolas Vincent , The Tablet

Ian Mortimer's decision to tell this story in diary format, giving us an almost day-by-day account, would not have suited every historical study, but in this instance was a stroke of genius. The danger would have been excess of extraneous detail, but Mortimer's instinct is superb and what we get instead is the mythical hero-king- immortalised by the Lawrence Olivier film- rendered suddenly human and close.
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The immediacy of the format makes Henry real and flawed; a disturbing and compelling individual.

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent of Sunday

Mortimer creates a convincing new likeness

—— Nick Rennison , Sunday Times

a three dimensional portrait

—— Telegraph

immerses the reader in the heady drama and the dull routine of a 15th century king's life

—— Ian Pindar , Guardian

What makes his memoir so absorbing as it swings from clever phrase-making and thoughtful contemporary history to wince-inducing self-analysis, is that he is the first of a generation of politicians to conduct their craft as if observing themselves from an amused an admiring distance - and then to write about it. No recent politician has examines his own motives and psychology quite so candidly

—— John Rentoul , The Independent

It is the small revelations about the character of Blair that make this book worthwhile

—— Ross Clark , The Express

It's a gripping insight into the ex-PM's ten years of power . . . It will take a lot for many people to read his own take on the rise and fall of New Labour, but those that do might be reminded of the charm and vision that swept him to power

—— News of the World

I have read many a prime ministerial memoir and none of the other authors has been as self-deprecating, as willing to admit mistakes and to tell jokes against themselves

—— Mary Ann Sieghart , The Independent

Paints a candid picture of his friend and rival, Gordon Brown, and of their relationship

—— Patrick Hennessy , The Sunday Telegraph

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