General The Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL is one of the UK's most respected military commentators and the former Chief of the General Staff. His autobiography, Leading From The Front (Bantam Press), was published in 2010. Robert Lyman is a military historian. He spent 20 years in the British Army and is now a Research Fellow at the Changing Face of War Centre, University of Oxford. His acclaimed book, A War of Empires (Osprey, 2021), was shortlisted for the RUSI Medal for Military History 2022.
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
