A thoroughly enjoyable book about all the screwups, accidents and misjudgements that have taken place throughout the course of military history. Each 'story' is short enough to be easily read in a convenient amount of time, long enough to inform and entertain but short enough that they are never boring. Very good book whether you want to read for 10 minutes or 2 hours.
The book is organized in sections, such as The Butchers, with subsections such as Bloody Incompetents. It can be read a few entries at a time and then taken up later, making it ideal for the old soldiers and sailors' home bookshelf where I will leave this copy.
Short entries, although there are some three pages long, and thus there is limited space for more than a mention of any exonerating conditions, but Mr. Regan is not purposely mean to the incompetents that got so many of their troops killed. It does help readers to have some background to know who, what, where during various campaigns. For example, Lord Raglan had been on half-pay for decades while rising to seniority and high command during The Crimean War and so his last active duty had been with Wellington.
In the brief introduction Mr. Regan emphasizes there are incompetents in many professions but among military leaders the effects can be disasterous. As his first example, he relates the effort to round up the German army in East Africa but says nothing about the lengthy defense by the Germans under attack and on their own in 1915 and 1916.
The treatment of Germany's war with the Herreros is even handed. The entry on the Vietnam War centers on how My Lai came to happen, but can only go over the problems of the US Army by then, and for example does not mention the retirement of most of the remining skilled NCOs who had stayed in after WWII and also served in Korea.
The British withdrawal from Kabul was in my thoughts in 2001 and I wish Bush and Cheney had kept it in mind. Overflying Pakistan with air power and ordnance from the USN and USAF to bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age would have been effective and cost effective. They do not like foreigners there.
There are very brief entries from time to time. "'You will be able to go over the top with a walking stick, you will not need rifles. When you get to Thievpval you will find the Germans all deadd, not even a rat will have survived.' Brigadier General addressing the Newcastle Commericials 1 July 1916 on the Somme. The Germans were not dead. They had been in deep concrete bunkers throughout the British bombardment and emerged once the firing ceased to man their machine guns and shoot down the advancing British infantry. Some British officers advanced with walking sticks, others with umbrellas, some even kicked footballs. There were shot down just the same. There are no records of casualties to rats, though they were thought to be light."
I have admired General Pershing's decision not to allow American troops to be used as repos for the holes in the Allied armies after they had wasted so many lives since I first learned of it in junior high school.
No bibliography or footnotes.
Index.
Short entries, although there are some three pages long, and thus there is limited space for more than a mention of any exonerating conditions, but Mr. Regan is not purposely mean to the incompetents that got so many of their troops killed. It does help readers to have some background to know who, what, where during various campaigns. For example, Lord Raglan had been on half-pay for decades while rising to seniority and high command during The Crimean War and so his last active duty had been with Wellington.
In the brief introduction Mr. Regan emphasizes there are incompetents in many professions but among military leaders the effects can be disasterous. As his first example, he relates the effort to round up the German army in East Africa but says nothing about the lengthy defense by the Germans under attack and on their own in 1915 and 1916.
The treatment of Germany's war with the Herreros is even handed. The entry on the Vietnam War centers on how My Lai came to happen, but can only go over the problems of the US Army by then, and for example does not mention the retirement of most of the remining skilled NCOs who had stayed in after WWII and also served in Korea.
The British withdrawal from Kabul was in my thoughts in 2001 and I wish Bush and Cheney had kept it in mind. Overflying Pakistan with air power and ordnance from the USN and USAF to bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age would have been effective and cost effective. They do not like foreigners there.
There are very brief entries from time to time. "'You will be able to go over the top with a walking stick, you will not need rifles. When you get to Thievpval you will find the Germans all deadd, not even a rat will have survived.' Brigadier General addressing the Newcastle Commericials 1 July 1916 on the Somme. The Germans were not dead. They had been in deep concrete bunkers throughout the British bombardment and emerged once the firing ceased to man their machine guns and shoot down the advancing British infantry. Some British officers advanced with walking sticks, others with umbrellas, some even kicked footballs. There were shot down just the same. There are no records of casualties to rats, though they were thought to be light."
I have admired General Pershing's decision not to allow American troops to be used as repos for the holes in the Allied armies after they had wasted so many lives since I first learned of it in junior high school.
No bibliography or footnotes.
Index.
