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British Butchers and Bunglers of World War I

By: John Laffin
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Bramley Books
ISBN: 1841000124
ISBN-13: 9781841000121
Released: 13 Jul 1998
RRP: £4.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

You're having a Laffin! - By: Mr Aaron Bourne, 01 Apr 2006
Is this book a sound & well-supported argument, making an informed, intelligent comment about the leadership of the Great War? In a word: no.
However, if like me you are a history student writing an extended argument & are in need of many historians' views, you need this book! While the actual content is questionable, this is gold dust to anyone who requires an extreme & biased view. This is a source which is easily criticised, for those arguing in Haig's favour, & one which can easily be used to criticise Haig.
To any informed historian some of Laffin's claims are laughable. He is very pro-German & even has a chapter entitled "German Breakthroughs: A better way to attack," but he fails to acknowledge the fundamental truth: the Allies won, & the British arguably played the leading role in this.
In conclusion, while this book is not an informed masterpiece, it can still be very useful to any student who requires a biased source.
Well made argument? No not really! - By: , 05 Mar 2006
John Laffin makes me laugh in rib splitting pain. His unforgivably one sided book seems to make the Generals, especiallly the Australians for some reason, out to be some kind of goats or something for alll the intelligence they have. He doesnt even acknowledge any counter arguments or the fact that he may be wrong, heaven forbid. Instead, he is content to reel out statistics without any actual understanding of warfare. Rather, he has just garbled out every biased source he has ever read.

His poorly concealed bias makes me chuckle every time i see the book. He rants & raves & whines about the Generals & yet doesnt source correctly when he argues against them. He seems content to sit at his desk while writing & think 'ah that makes them sound bad i'll put that in. dunno where it came from but it's still good!!'

I may consider reading his books again when he shows any ability to come up with a well rounded argument but until then, i think use as a firelighter is the best way forward for this book. Unless the fire wont accept it either of course...

Not for anyone with even a passing interest in history as it may corrupt you irreperably.

A fascinating read - By: J. Mann, 24 May 2003
I found this book quite enjoyable. Basicallly the author takes the reader through various WW1 battles & explains how basic mistakes were made & major opportunities were missed. A common theme is that it seemed no matter how bad a general was, he didn't get dismissed. Stories such as generals forbidding men to wear their helmets or light fires to keep warm because it might demoralise them seem par for the course. Similarly assumptions that because the soldiers were inexperienced they had to advance at a walk & not run & dodge towards the enemy gives an indication of the mentality at work.

The most obvious aspect of the book that niggles is the huge pro-Australian sentiments of the author. Whenever Australians are involved they are brave, resourceful, wise etc etc!

I also liked the final chapter which just has lots of quotes from different authors about the WW1 generals.

Deeply suspect and subjective thesis - By: Tony C (english_tony_uk@yahoo.co.uk), 16 Aug 2001
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 & 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 & contextualise the actions of First World War generals & 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 alll (I know I wouldn't!) & anyway I don't think amazon will alllow 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 & riddled with unsourced assertions. The author seems to have an ill concealed bias towards Australian troops & 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 & trainer of men, he was less capable in a strategic role & posessed nowhere near the seniority to assume command of the BEF in France. Even if he did, as a strategist 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 & a number of social historians while conveiently ignoring military historians who have looked at the conflice 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 & reallly 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 especiallly long, coupled with the very dubious sourcing makes it hard to pass over these mistakes & helps to undermine the author's central argument.

On a final note, the author devotes a chapter of the book to quotes from soldiers condemning British generalship. Again, this is highly selective. I have spoken to vetrans who feel that the generals are a much maligned group as a whole & resent academics such as the author rubbishing men whom they never met, who had to command in conditions they have no experience of. Such quotes, while emotional, do not constitute a satisfactory closing argument.

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 & handle it with very great care indeed.

An Interesting Idea, let down by the author�s lack of object - By: , 23 Jul 2001
Writing an objective book about the incompetence of the leaders of the British Military in WW1 is a great idea. However, this one sided account fails to satisfy. The author continuallly throws out figures of casualties without conveying the true horror to the reader.

I admit to having very little knowledge of WW1 beforehand, & after reading this book I still very little. The chapter on Galllipoli is 14 pages long & the Somme 17 pages, with little info on these infamous battles.