****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This relatively short but thoughtful book examines the question of why the British Army never quite seemed to live up to expectations during the Second World War. Author David French has done his very excellent research and avoids the easy clichés in favor of a systematic examination of the interwar British Army and how it had to adapt to the combat conditions of the Second World War, particularly after having lost most of its equipment at Dunkirk in 1940.The author takes the time to examine, and often rebut, the standard explanations. Instead, the reader will find an army struggling to prepare for the next war in the face of shortages of trained soldiers, modern equipment, functional doctrine, and leaders prepared for the modern battlefield, a situation achingly familiar to any former member of a peacetime army. The heart of the argument may be Montgomery's leadership first of Eighth Army and then of 21st Army Group and what he insisted on as a leader. Very highly recommended to students of the British Army.
