British Butchers and Bunglers of World War One Hardcover – July 6, 1998

I was familiar with World War I and knew it was a bloody war and in some ways worse than the Second World War. But I had no idea the astounding incompetence on the part of the British military command ! Just astounding and incredible! Jaw-dropping.

The History Creeps are attempting to rehabilitate Douglas Haig and the other butchers of WW1,and as a result they're weeding books like this from the libraries. Get you a copy of this classic history book today.

Laffin describes how first French and then Haig wasted the lives of their men in fruitless efforts at dislodging the Germans from their strongest defenses on the Western Front. Laffin also indicts the commanders in Gallipoli (Turkey) and Kut (Iraq) in their foolish attempts and the wastage of their human resources in these campaigns. Not only were these commanders stupid, but many were criminally negligent in the use of their men. Most of these commanders never saw the front and experienced the conditions of the trenches to know what they put their men through. Laffin singles out Haig as the worst offender. The flower of British youth was thrown away on the Western Front. As an American, I now know why Wilson decided to put Pershing and the American Expeditionary Force under separate command. If he had entrusted these men to Foch and Haig, the war cemetaries in France would be filled with much more American dead.

There seem to be commentators who will go to great lengths to prove that Haig and those staff around him were really not bad generals: we wern't there, we don't have enough information, we're colonials who couldn't possibly understand and anyway, their actions saved us from an evil fate so all is forgiven.Haig's people-grinder can be masked by sophistry and the belittling of arguments through the many stings of petty facts; however, I'm sorry to say but the book was a superb contribution to righting the many wrongs of a myopic and severly parochial cadre of historians that simply can't see, refuse to see or prefer to maintain the myth that these fools knew their job.How can any person with a modicum of intelligence accept casualty figures of 250,000 for a five mile dent in German lines at Passchendaele and this was only one example of Haig's military "brilliance"-Laffin has an entire book full of facts like these.Again, I am sorry for writing such a bad comment-I'm sure I'd get the cuts for composing such a sorry couple of paragraphs. The point however is salient because that was, perhaps still is, the soft under belly of the British military-its refusal to accept criticism and that refusal leading to the covering up of unbelievable military horrors committed by its military elite. They seemed to be awash in "form"-function be damned-the soldiers attacking the ineffectual, in Haig's view, machine guns will get through if they walk and not run in clean uniforms.

I wanted to like this book, for the simple reason that in reading it, it is abundantly clear that the thesis is one the author feels passionately about. However, that does not necessarily make for good history and in this case it makes for a deeply flawed book. Great War buffs seem to be divided into two camps in recent times - those who seek to defend, or at least understand and contextualise the actions of First World War generals and those who believe that there can be no justification for the casualty numbers of the conflict. It takes no more than a glance at the title of this book for it to be abundantly clear that Dr Laffin belongs to the latter camp.I could write a very lengthy critique of the book in minute detail but you wouldn't read it all (I know I wouldn't!) and anyway I don't think amazon will allow me enough words so I'll try to sum up the book's more glaring flaws in a concise form...- The book is incredibly badly sourced. In some chapters it borders on shameful. I have read hastily cobbled together undergraduate essays that have more comprehensive footnotes. A student submitting chapter 3 in essay form would almost certainly have had his wrists slapped.- The entire text is incredibly subjective and riddled with unsourced assertions. The author shows an ill concealed bias in favour of Australian troops and staff officers. If taken at face value, a newcomer to WW1 history who had only read this book would be forgiven for thinking that the ANZACS won the war while Tommy Atkins put the kettle on. Dr Laffin also wheels out that hoary old chestnut about Sir John Monash being the greatest leader the BEF never had. Outside Australian military history circles it is now widely accepted that while Monash was a brilliant tactician and trainer of men, he was less capable in an operational role and posessed nowhere near the seniority to assume command of the BEF in France. Even if he did, as at that level of planning he was an unknown quantity. The idea that he should have got the post is ludicrous.- The author is deeply selective when choosing which historians to quote. Most of the most highly regarded of Great War historians are significant in their abscence. He instead quotes historians, often Antipodean historians, who have trodden similar ground before him and a number of social historians while conveiently ignoring military historians and members of the war studies/strategic studies community who have looked at the conflict in the MILITARY context of the time.- The book is littered with factual inaccuracies. Some of these are obvious only to the First World War junkie (eg. Sir Ian Hamilton sailed for the Dardanelles with a copy of the 1912 handbook on the Turkish Army, not a 1905 edition) but some of them are glaring and really should not have been made in the first place. An example of this is that General Rawlinson is stated to have attained the rank of Field Marshal, which he never did - in a book on British generals it would be assumed that the author had looked more closely into his subjects' biographical details than this. The fact that the book is not especially long, coupled with the very dubious sourcing makes it hard to pass over these mistakes and helps to undermine the author's central argument.On a final note, the author devotes a chapter of the book to quotes from soldiers (overwhelmingly Australian) condemning British generalship. Again, this is highly selective and for every quote Laffin uses to "prove" his argument I could provide two that undermines it. Such quotes, while emotional, do not constitute a satisfactory closing argument. I have spoken to veterans who feel that the generals are a much maligned group as a whole and resent academics such as the author rubbishing men whom they never met, who had to command in conditions they have no experience of.Frankly I find the positive reception with which it has been received by many of the other reviewers alarming. On every measure of historical rigour, thorough research and academic objectivity this book fails miserably. If readers can't accept the idea that the great war generals (oh, sorry, only the British Great War Generals...) weren't just a bunch of "Butchers and Bunglers" I would suggest I would suggest they read the books of Tim Travers (a Canadian historian) and Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson (Australians) who, while critical of the performance of Haig and his ilk, at least source their works, spend some time in the archives and don't write books simply to indulge in character assassination and cheerleading.This book does have it's place, but I'm afraid that, for me at least, it's place is as an example of how studies of the Great War should not be written. If you only ever read one study of Great War generalship, don't make it this one. If you do wish to read it, try to put the work in some sort of context within the historiography of the war and handle it with very great care indeed.

Bought this to replace a lost (lent and not returned) copy. It's a good read and lambasts the British Military Generals for their cavalier attitude towards the lives of the men they led.

Not a great history

Bought used, good as new.

Received as described,good packaging

My husband was very pleased with the book and is looking forward to reading it.