How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders [Paperback]

Bill Fawcett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2006

A remarkable compendium of the worst military
decisions and the men who made them

The annals of history are littered with horribly bad military leaders. These combat incompetents found amazing ways to ensure their army's defeat. Whether it was a lack of proper planning, miscalculation, ego, bad luck, or just plain stupidity, certain wartime stratagems should never have left the drawing board. Written with wit, intelligence, and eminent readability, How to Lose a Battle pays dubious homage to these momentous and bloody blunders, including:

• Cannae, 216 B.C.: the bumbling Romans lose 80,000 troops to Hannibal's forces.

• The Second Crusade: an entire Christian army is slaughtered when it stops for a drink of water.

• The Battle of Britain: Hitler's dreaded Luftwaffe blows it big-time.

• Pearl Harbor: more than one warning of the impending attack is there, but nobody listens.

How to Lose a Battle includes more than thirty-five chapters worth of astonishing (and avoidable) disasters, both infamous and obscure -- a treasure trove of trivia, history, and jaw-dropping facts about the most costly military missteps ever taken.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The publisher bills this effort as a "tongue-in-cheek" and "humorous" analysis of the world's worst military disasters. But aside from wry chapter titles (e.g., "Austerlitz: They Fell for It? Austria, 1805"), these are generally straightforward accounts of some of the deadliest carnage in human history. That includes the Civil War's Battle of Antietam—the bloodiest single day in American history, during which some 6,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed and more than 16,000 were wounded—and the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, which resulted in 51,000 casualties on both sides. There's also the WWII Battle of Okinawa, during which more than 12,000 Americans were killed and nearly 32,000 wounded, along with 142,000 estimated Japanese casualties (military and civilian). Fawcett (You Did What? Mad Plans and Great Historical Disasters) gathers 37 concise, analytical, finger-pointing accounts of these and other battles from ancient times to the late 1960s. He and contributors Brian Thomsen, William R. Forstchen, Douglas Niles and Edward E. Kramer readably and insightfully convey a wide knowledge of military history, but more in-depth and well-annotated analyses of these battles are readily available elsewhere. (July 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This surprisingly amusing anthology could be subtitled Monuments to Stupidity. Fawcett is the editor of Hunters and Shooters (1995) and has also written science-fiction and mystery novels. He and several other writers have written a series of essays dissecting some of the greatest military disasters, from antiquity to the twentieth century. Some of these fiascos are probably well known even to laypersons, including Lee's blunders at Gettysburg and Hitler's insistence on fighting to the death at Stalingrad. But some of the more obscure episodes are particularly informative and enjoyable (if one allows the passage of time to soften the horror of human carnage). At Arbela, the Persian emperor Darius allowed his personal cowardice to deliver a victory to the vastly outnumbered forces of Alexander the Great. At San Jacinto, the Mexican Santa Anna (the self-styled Napoleon of the West) saw his sleeping army slaughtered, guaranteeing the loss of Texas. The writers approach their subjects with a healthy dose of sarcasm and even humor. This book will appeal to both general readers and amateur military historians. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (July 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060760249
• ISBN-13: 978-0060760243
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #968,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Get your Facts straight, Bill!, August 7, 2006

By 

Ron Titus (Huntington, WV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders (Paperback)

This is an interesting title that, unfortunately, need to be fact checked. Grevious mistakes in timing and opponents arepresent in several chapters. Examples, page 17, Bill discusses the tactics used at Cannae relating these to those used at Trebia. Unfortunately, the sentence reads as if Cannae took place 2 years before Trebia, rather than the other way around. In the discussion on Horns of Hattin, Bill (p.44) talks as if Richard the Lionhearted's success which took place in 1191-192 had aready happened in 1186. In his discussion of Agincourt (p.50), Bill references the strong spirt of Joan of Arc which would be fine as she was French except that she lived during the time of Henry VI, not Henry V or earlier. Then Bill makes the grevious error of having Santa Anna throw the French out of Mexico (p.82). Bill, the French did not take over Mexico until 1860's during the American Civil War. Santa Anna helped in getting the Spanish out of Mexico. I just wonder what other errors await.

In all this seems a book put together to fill a contract. The battles were chosen and quick summaries provided. Unfortunately, errors have spoiled the experiance for me.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Riddled with factual errors, June 23, 2008

By 

James Hayes (Mt. Vernon, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders (Paperback)

First the good: The Civil War sections, especially that of Gettysburg, are very well written. Some of the other articles are at least enjoyable and factually correct, as far as I could tell.

However, the chapters written by man on the front of the book are rife with errors. The worst is the chapter on Agincourt. In this chapter, the ruler or France is constantly named as King John (it was Charles VI); the stating that Henry V followed the route of the Black Prince 50 years prior (he did not; the Prince fought at Poitiers in south-central France 59 years prior); and the stating that the soldiers of France were inspired by Joan of Arc (untrue, Joan was around 3 years old at the time of Agincourt).

Others errors include called Pompey "Magnus the Great" and calling France and Belgium allies prior to World War I. I also grew tired of the poor writing including repeatedly using phrases like "big-time". I realize this is meant to sound casual, but that concept is not taken by all the authors, making these phrases stand out, especially against the background of numerous factual errors.

As another reviewer mentioned, many of the sections on the American Civil War and World War II are well written and even thought-provoking. Unfortunately, these cannot overcome all the errors littering the book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How to disappoint the reader, February 1, 2008

By 

voraciousreader (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders (Paperback)

The title and subject certainly looked appealing, but the actual book is a major disappointment. While the sections on the civil war and World War II aren't bad, the rest of the chapters are incredibly simplistic and repetitive and offer no insights. Finally, and perhaps most disconcerting, is the fact that the book contains several factual errors, many even laughable. For example, in the section on the 1916 Easter Uprising, the author repeatedly refers to the rebels coming under fire from "Her Majesty's artillery" - when Britain at that time was ruled by a king --George V. Errors like these can't help but make the reader question the rest of the 'facts'.