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?