Too Important for the Generals
  • Published: 31 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9780553818666
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $39.99
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Too Important for the Generals

Losing and Winning the First World War

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Published as the world marks the centenary of one of the most infamous battles of the First World War, the Somme, this powerfully-argued and polemical new history of the war by one of Britain's most respected military historians explores how the war was fought, how near we came to losing it - and why winning proved so costly and why the Allied generals and politicians failed to find a less bloody strategy for victory.

‘War is too important to be left to the generals’ snapped future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau on learning of yet another bloody and futile offensive on the Western Front.
One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about the First World War is why did winning take so long and exact so appalling a human cost? After all this was a fight that, we were told, would be over by Christmas.
Now, in his major new history, Allan Mallinson, former professional soldier and author of the acclaimed 1914: Fight the Good Fight, 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 and setbacks in the ‘war to end all wars’ – 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 – including Sir Douglas Haig – were up to the intellectual challenge of waging war on this scale. And he repudiates the received notion that Churchill’s stature as a wartime prime minister after 1940 owes much to the lessons he learned from his First World War ‘mistakes’ – notably the Dardanelles campaign – maintaining that in fact Churchill’s achievement in the Second World War owes much to the thwarting of his better strategic judgement by the ‘professionals’ in the First – and his determination that this would not be repeated.

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.
  • Published: 31 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9780553818666
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $39.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Allan Mallinson

A professional solder for thirty-five years, Allan Mallinson began writing while still serving.
His first book was a history of four regiments of British light dragoons, one of which he commanded. His debut novel was the bestselling A Close Run Thing, the first in an acclaimed series chronicling the life of a fictitious cavalry officer before and after Waterloo (The Tigress of Mysore is the fourteenth in the series). His The Making of the British Army was shortlisted for a number of prizes, while 1914: Fight the Good Fight 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, while Fight to the Finish is a comprehensive history of the First World War, month by month.
Allan Mallinson reviews for the Spectator and the TLS and also writes for The Times. He lives on Salisbury Plain.

portrait photo of Allan Mallinson

Also by Allan Mallinson

The Shape of Battle
The Tigress of Mysore
Fight to the Finish
The Passage to India
Words of Command
1914: Fight the Good Fight
On His Majesty's Service
See all

Praise for Too Important for the Generals

Allan Mallinson puts his case compellingly in a stimulating overview of the war. He combines the authority of a soldier-turned-military historian with the imaginative touch of the historical novelist.

Lawrence James, THE TIMES

Mallinson . . . argues persuasively that those charged with sending men into battle should have given a better account of themselves. As the nation commemorates one of the darkest chapters in British Army history, it is hard to disagree.

SOLDIER magazine

Engaging writing and excellent presentation . . . a tricky yet well-crafted analysis, which adds to the revisionist school of thought with some edgy arguments, this is sure to get you thinking.

BRITAIN AT WAR magazine

Very readable . . . excellently researched . . .a must for anyone interested in military history and the interface of political and military power; the fact that, 100 years on, historians are still in such disagreement demonstrates just how important and absorbing the debate remains.

COUNTRY LIFE

Provocative . . . succinctly summarises the big battles of the conflict, before discussing the commanders' shortcomings, which is his theme.'

Max Hastings, SUNDAY TIMES

His bracing polemic . . . vivid, concise . . . he has a keen eye for telling statistics . . . he also sprinkles his grim narrative with colourful eye-witness accounts . . . among the glut of books published to mark the Great War's centenary, this deserves high marks for passion and clarity.

Andrew Lynch, SUNDAY BUSINESS POST

Refreshingly clear . . . this is a well-written, at times provocative, and concise overview of why the war was conducted as it was, and why it probably was too important to be left to the generals.

Simon Heffer, NEW STATESMAN

An insightful study of generalship on both sides.

DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Books of the Year'