Description
Book SynopsisThe book John Kelly reads every time he gets a promotion to remind him of the perils of hubris, the pitfalls of patriotism and duty unaccompanied by critical thinking'The most vivid, moving and devastating word-portrait of a World War One British commander ever written, here re-introduced by Max Hastings.C.S. Forester's 1936 masterpiece follows Lt General Herbert Curzon, who fumbled a fortuitous early step on the path to glory in the Boer War. 1914 finds him an honourable, decent, brave and wholly unimaginative colonel. Survival through the early slaughters in which so many fellow-officers perished then brings him rapid promotion. By 1916, he is a general in command of 100,000 British soldiers, whom he leads through the horrors of the Somme and Passchendaele, a position for which he is entirely unsuited and intellectually unprepared.Wonderfully human with Forester's droll relish for human folly on full display, this is the story of a man of his time who is anything but wicked, yet pr
Trade Review‘A superb novel. It blends Forester's preference for military subjects and solid unreflective characters, his irony, his grasp of history and his gift for lean, hypnotic narrative’ New York Times
‘Confirms Forester’s rightful place as one of the finest novelists of his generation’ Max Hastings
‘The most penetrating and subtle study of a Regular army officer that I have ever read’ Observer
‘A portrait for all time of an individual in his period’ H.G. Wells
