REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND
Few recent military books can have been quite as timely as this one. For while conceived several years ago, Richard Dannatt and Robert Lyman’s study of the British Army brings us right up to date and represents a powerful argument for change. The authors will be familiar to many and are well qualified to take this subject on: Lord Dannatt was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009 and Dr Lyman is a prolific historian of the Second World War. Between them, they have more than 50 years’ service in the British Army. They contend that the army was a war-winning organisation in 1918, lost its way between the wars, and consequently failed in 1940. Overtly, they argue that Britain in particular should spend much more on defence, especially on its army. And they mean right now.
The book is therefore polemical, but rooted in military history. It is structured chronologically, although not intended as an exhaustive account. Rather, the history is used to develop the argument. Thus the section on the First World War presents detailed analyses of the Somme, the German 1918 offensive, and the Hundred Days Offensive. The tactical and operational evolution that these events triggered are then examined.
The narrative moves on to chart the inter-war period, carefully describing the political, economic, and social trends in Britain and how they interacted with military planning. This is a fresh and intriguing account. There is not that much material available with this kind of focus and, in a sense, this part of the book is its heart. For it endeavours to identify what went wrong. We are reminded of the accompanying military history, too, with useful sections covering the Irish War of Independence and the more distant colonial flashpoints with which the army was involved.
The future of planning