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Too Important for the Generals

Too Important for the Generals

Losing and Winning the First World War

by Allan Mallinson
Paperback
Publication Date: 01/06/2017

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  $36.90

One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about World War I is why winning took so long and exacted so appalling a human cost. In this major new history, Allan Mallinson provides answers that are disturbing as well as controversial, and have a contemporary resonance. He disputes the growing consensus among historians that British generals were not to blame for the losses--that, given the magnitude of their task, they did as well anyone could have. He takes issue with the popular view that the "amateur" opinions on strategy of politicians such as Lloyd George and, especially, Winston Churchill, prolonged the war and increased the death toll. On the contrary, he argues, even before the war began Churchill had a far more realistic, intelligent, and humane grasp of strategy than any of the admirals or generals, while very few senior officers were up to the intellectual challenge of waging war on this scale. Mallinson argues that from day one of the war Britain was wrong-footed by absurdly faulty French military doctrine and paid, as a result, an unnecessarily high price in casualties. He shows that Lloyd George understood only too well the catastrophically dysfunctional condition of military policy-making and struggled against the weight of military opposition to fix it. And he asserts that both the British and the French failed to appreciate what the Americans' contribution to victory could be and, after the war, to acknowledge fully what it had actually been.

ISBN:
9780553818666
9780553818666
Category:
First World War
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
01-06-2017
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Dimensions (mm):
195x128x27mm
Weight:
0.34kg
Allan Mallinson

Allan Mallinson was a soldier for thirty-five years, serving first with the infantry and then the cavalry. He began writing while still serving. His first book was a history of four regiments of British light dragoons, one of whose descendant regiments he commanded.

It was followed by A Close Run Thing, the first novel in the acclaimed and bestselling series chronicling the life of a fictitious cavalry officer, Matthew Hervey, before and after Waterloo. His The Making of the British Army was shortlisted for several prizes, while his centenary history, 1914: Fight the Good Fight - Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War won the British Army's Book of the Year Award.

Its sequel, Too Important for the Generals, is a provocative look at leadership during the Great War. Allan Mallinson also writes for The Times, is history editor for Unherd.com and reviews for the TLS and the Spectator. He lives on Salisbury Plain.

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