The Worst Military Leaders in History
The Worst Military Leaders in History

Author: John M. Jennings

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2023-06-24

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1789145848

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Spanning countries and centuries, a “how-not-to” guide to leadership that reveals the most maladroit military commanders in history—now in paperback. For this book, fifteen distinguished historians were given a deceptively simple task: identify their choice for the worst military leader in history and then explain why theirs is the worst. From the clueless Conrad von Hötzendorf and George A. Custer to the criminal Baron Roman F. von Ungern-Sternberg and the bungling Garnet Wolseley, this book presents a rogues’ gallery of military incompetents. Rather than merely rehashing biographical details, the contributors take an original and unconventional look at military leadership in a way that appeals to both specialists and general readers alike. While there are plenty of books that analyze the keys to success, The Worst Military Leaders in History offers lessons of failure to avoid. In other words, this book is a “how-not-to” guide to leadership.

Beyond the Reach of Empire
Beyond the Reach of Empire

Author: Mike Snook

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2013-12-09

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 1473831733

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In the early 1880s the Mahdi unleashed a spectacularly successful jihadist uprising against Egyptian colonial rule in the Sudan. Early in1884 Cairo bowed to British pressure to withdraw. Beyond the Reach of Empire describes how Major General Charles Gordon was despatched to evacuate Khartoum and turn the Sudan over to self-rule. It goes on to explain how and why the mission backfired, and then homes in on Sir Garnet Wolseley's planning and execution of the long-delayed Gordon Relief Expedition which arrived, according to popular myth, only two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed. Colonel Mike Snook's narrative is characterized by scrupulous attention to detail, an instinctive grasp of the period, and an intimate understanding of its setting. The author argues compellingly that the Khartoum campaign was mismanaged from the outset. The outcome is the exoneration of Colonel Sir Charles Wilson, the man cast in the role of scapegoat, and an indictment of Wolseley's generalship over the course of the last and most deeply flawed campaign of his career. Full review available at http://www.warhistoryonline.com/reviews/beyond-reach-empire-wolseleys-failed-campaign-save-gordon-khartoum-review-mark-barnes.html (please copy and paste into your browser) As featured in Wye Local Magazine.

Hell Before Breakfast
Hell Before Breakfast

Author: Robert H. Patton

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2015-06-09

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1101910496

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From acclaimed historian Robert H. Patton, author of The Pattons and Patriot Pirates, a rediscovery and celebration of America’s first chroniclers of foreign war. The first war correspondent, William H. Russell of The Times of London, described himself and his profession as “the miserable parent of a luckless tribe.” But it wasn’t long before others saw it differently. Hell Before Breakfast is the spectacular tale of larger-than-life Americans who made it their business to bring back news from the front; from Bull Run to the Paris Commune, from Africa to the Ottoman Empire, through decades of lightning-fast technological progress and high adventure. As America matured into a great power and the monarchies of Europe battled for dominance through a series of brief, bloody imperial wars, with the storm clouds of World War I drawing rapidly closer, these men and their newspapers were at center stage—the vanguard of a golden age of war correspondence.

Into the Jaws of Death
Into the Jaws of Death

Author: Mike Snook

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2008-02-28

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1783469846

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A study of British military defeats and disasters in the late nineteenth century: “An enthralling look at the Victorian army in adversity.” —BBC History Magazine Between the Crimean War and the dawn of the twentieth century, the British Army was almost continuously engaged in one corner of the globe or another, in military operations famously characterized by Kipling as the “savage wars of peace.” In his new work on the most dramatic Victorian campaigns, Mike Snook brings the most dramatic clashes of the age of empire back to life. Here he focuses closely on defeat and disaster—the occasions when things went badly awry for the British. The names of these great battles—Isandlwana, Maiwand, Majuba Hill, Khartoum, Colenso, Spion Kop, and Magersfontein—still resonate down through the ages. In a meticulously researched military history, the author exposes the true and sometimes embarrassing causes of defeat. Overstretch, political meddling, military incompetence, and petty jealousy all played their part. Above all else, however, these are dramatic and perceptive accounts of mere mortal men struggling to deal with the often-overpowering dynamics and horrors of nineteenth-century warfare on the fringes of Empire.