# Military Blunders

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![Military Blunders](https://quivercdn.com/covers/robinson/saul-david/military-blunders_978-18-5487-918-9.jpg?v=2026-05-18%2009%3A21%3A16)

- Book: [Military Blunders](https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david/military-blunders) ([Military Blunders.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david/military-blunders.md))
- Authors: [Saul David](https://www.bookquiver.com/saul-david)
- Publisher: robinson
- ISBN: 978-18-5487-918-9
- Published: 1997-10-30
- Language: en_GB
- 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.