Great Military Blunders

by Geoffrey Regan

Book Overview

From ancient times to the Bay of Pigs and the Falklands War, military history has been marked by misjudgments and incompetence. Some blunders have ended in tragedy, some in farce, and some in a mixture of both. The stories in this instructive collection capture those moments of staggering battlefield ineptitude, human folly, and sheer bad luck, and they will appeal to both military buffs and general readers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0233003517
• ISBN13: 9780233003511
• Release Date: August 2012
• Publisher: Andre Deutsch
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Madness

A fine, sardonic compilation of some of the more regrettable military decisions (or lack thereof) of the last two thousand years, this book is well-researched, sharp as a button, and has a nice line in understated mockery. Regan's style combines amusement (the endless pompous Napoleonic-era dukes and their rampant egos) and horror (the first ten minutes of the Somme, during which one hundred allied soliders were killed every second) at the same time, and doesn't restrict itself to the obvious examples - the American Civil War seems to have been packed full of idiotic decision-making, and the crusades were arguably one long blunder. That said, there is copious material on the insane, otherworldly killing grounds of World War One, a war that deserves somebody like Anthony Beever to write a big book about.