Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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'.

The title and premise caught my eye, but having read it I agree with the previous review that suggests that the author check his facts. He has a French King John fighting at Agincourt and being held captive afterward. The French king was Charles who was not present at the battle. This is one of dozens of easily checked factual errors that completely undermine the credibility of the author. Who edited this book, and how did it get published in this form? His other titles also look interesting. I hope they are more workmanlike in their execution.

The battles are chronologically ordered in the book starting from the Battle of Arbela (331BC) to Dien Pien Phu a few decades ago.
The first battles described in the book are very exiting for the reader. The authors make it perfectly clear what went wrong during the battle and how the commanders could have avoided the disaster.
However the book to gives to much focus on the American Civil War. But that is still understandable and the Civil War is a great war for identifying mistakes from commanders.
After the Civil War the book does not live up to the expectation. In fact, the book is not even worth reading anymore. Most of the battles are written in a biased way and the authors don't focus anymore on the errors made but only on telling the story. Important battles are explained in 2 pages while some less important take more space.

The high point of biasness is described in the Six Days War between Israel and the Arab state. The chapter starts with a quote from Mark Twain's The innoncents abroad basically saying that the land of Israel was rich in resources but the people living there didn't care about it. The chapter does not focus on why 45million arabs failed to oppose a very small Israeli force. e.g. How come the planes bombarded in Egypt where still on the ground. Where they taken by total surprise? Was there not enough communication. Those are the question readers want answered. Not how Israel won the war in six days. The book is about "How to lose a battle", remember.

The chapter is full of quotation from the Old testament and end with this phrase:"
It may also be worthwhile to note that Israel, deed to the Jewish people in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is itself a prophetic name-translated to English as "he who will fight the mighty".

Attention authors. I want historical facts, not mumbo jumbo with religious background. Also the author claims that the Arab should have invaded Israel by sea because the Philistines did it more that 2000 years ago. That really a stupid thing to say as a conclusion to a chapter.

To summarize, the book starts good but end up in non-sense sentences and conclusion. People interested in historical battles should avoid this book.

The book is a collection of essays, written rather light-heartedly, analyzing some select colossal military blunders. In spite of the unfair advantage of full hindsight, some of these battles described were indeed complete disasters where the side with a clear adavantage, somehow manages to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. The authors sound a little too judgemental still. Selection of historical battlefield disasters is rather wide but still uneven. Why skip over Gallipoli or Manzikert? It is not a bad read for a history or military buff.

I dont like this book. It judges success and mistakes of battles by outcome and result of the battle, and not hte porcesses that took place in a dynamic of fog of war.

The things that took place, had a history of their dynamic and how things went, and how htey expected things to go.

They couldnt see 3 feet ahead therefore, but this book judges them by 3 miles backward.

Its too undeep, too much on the surface and wheres the fun in it?

in short and simple - THE ARROGANCE of knowing better afterwards multiplied wiht an undeep and short scratch on the topic of the battle.

If you want warstories pick "the Lanzer" or so.

This is a badly written book, out of a position of arrogant review in the mild light of knowing better.. a f t e r w a r d s.

It lacks completely of understanding the fog of war, the dynamic of multilayer events that influence each other and the decisions made out of culture of armies or recent memories for them.

Shallow and a complete waste of time. The understanding of battles requires the insight into the full depth and context of the situation, past, ressouces and information (famed fog of war), and should not allow the know better afterwards, neither the downvalue of a decision as a mistake in a fairly arrogant way.

not too good in my opinion

Reading this book was like reading a history text, which I guess is what it is, but it kinda lacked excitement. And every synopsis seemed to be "so and so was overconfident, and that's why he lost."

Bought it for a plane ride, but didn't finish it. Just didn't capture me.

This book has 37 chapters written by 5 different authors. Despite this, the authors' writing styles are quite similar, i.e., simple and friendly prose that is generally engaging. However, as a result of this multi authorship, some chapters are short and concise such that a given event is recounted in 5 to 8 pages, while others are rather long-winded and occupy over 20 pages. Several of the events in this book have been recounted elsewhere by other authors in an equally short, concise but frequently in a pleasant tongue-in-cheek style - something which is not as pronounced in this case. I have given this book 4 stars simply because, although it is a good read, to me, it seems to lack that tiny spark that would make it a 5 star work. The several editorial mistakes that it contains may have contributed to that less than perfect score. This book could be of interest to anyone, although some detailed analyses may be of particular interest to military history buffs.