Victory to Defeat

A compelling history of the decline of an army from the triumph of victory in 1918 to defeat in 1940 and why this happened. A salutary warning for modern Britain. The British Army won a convincing series of victories between 1916 and 1918. But by 1939 the British Army was an entirely different animal. The hard-won knowledge, experience and strategic vision that delivered victory after victory in the closing stages of the First World War had been lost. In the inter-war years there was plenty of talking, but very little focus on who Britain might have to fight, and how. Victory to Defeat clearly illustrates how the British Army wasn't prepared to fight a first-class European Army in 1939 for the simple reason that as a country Britain hadn't prepared itself to do so. The failure of the army's leadership led directly to its abysmal performance in Norway and France in 1940. Victory to Defeat is a captivating history of the mismanagement of a war-winning army. It is also a stark warning that we neglect to understand who our enemy might be, and how to defeat him, at the peril of our country. The British Army is now to be cut to its smallest size since 1714. Are we, this book asks, repeating the same mistakes again?

Richard Dannatt and Robert Lyman

List of Illustrations and maps Acknowledgements Introduction: La Forêt de Compiègne Prologue: Calais, 1940 PART ONE: THE GREAT WAR Chapter 1: The Kaiserschlacht and its consequences Chapter 2: Confronting the enormity of the Great War on the front line Chapter 3: Finding a way through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond Chapter 4: Masters of the battlefield, 1918 PART TWO: POST WAR AND INTER WAR Chapter 5: Peace, and derangement Chapter 6: Old and new post-bellum responsibilities - and the Irish Question Chapter 7: Imperial policeman versus continental commitment Chapter 8: The modern major general: more categorical or allegorical? Chapter 9: What is the army for, and how should it fight? Chapter 10: The battle of the tank Chapter 11: Britain faces a rapidly changing world PART THREE: NEW THREATS AND NEW REALITIES Chapter 12: Boiling the frog: the rise of the Nazi threat Chapter 13: The slow rush to rearm Chapter 14: Feeding the crocodile PART FOUR: THE END OF THE BEGINNING Chapter 15: The empire declares war Chapter 16: The chickens come home to roost Chapter 17: Sichelschnitt: the anatomy of disaster Epilogue: El Alamein and beyond Appendix: Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff 1915-46 Notes Suggestions for further reading Index