{
  "type": "edition",
  "site": {
    "name": "The Book Quiver",
    "language": "en-US",
    "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com"
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  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "title": "Military Blunders",
  "subtitle": null,
  "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david/military-blunders/9781854879189",
  "publisher": "robinson",
  "translators": [],
  "medium": "paper",
  "duration_seconds": null,
  "narrators": [],
  "illustrators": [],
  "cover_artists": [],
  "isbn": "978-18-5487-918-9",
  "pages": null,
  "published": "1997-10-30",
  "language": "en_GB",
  "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/robinson/saul-david/military-blunders_978-18-5487-918-9.jpg?v=2026-05-18%2009%3A21%3A16",
  "json": "https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david/military-blunders/9781854879189.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david/military-blunders/9781854879189.md",
  "binding": "Softcover",
  "description": "A professional military historian analyzes the most spectacular cock-ups in military history caused by everything from incompetent generals to interfering politicians, hopeless planning and misplaced confidence. This graphic account has a great deal to say about the psychology of military incompetence and the reasons even the most well-oiled military machines inflict disaster upon themselves. It covers more than 30 engagements, beginning in AD9 with the massacre of Varus and his legions in the Black Forest; including nightmares of the Victorian Age such as the Retreat from Kabul; crushing reverses of two World Wars such as the Siege of Kut, Mussolini's invasion of Egypt and the fall of Singapore; many fiascos such as the Second Crusade, Colenso and the Yalu River; and continuing right up to the present with Goose Green in the Falklands and the Bravo Two Zero SAS patrol in the Gulf War. Contents: Unfit to command - aged, ill, inexperienced, indecisive or plain incompetent generals; meddling ministers - fiascos caused by politicians interfering with or overriding their generals; planning for trouble - military operations that were doomed to fail because of flaws in the planning stage; misplaced confidence - catastrophes brought about by a fatal underestimation of the enemy; a failure to perform - battles and campaigns lost because of the poor performance of the ordinary soldier.",
  "book": {
    "title": "Military Blunders",
    "slug": "military-blunders",
    "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david/military-blunders"
  },
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Saul David",
      "slug": "saul-david",
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david"
    }
  ]
}