Of course Keith relies on nobody else reading Hastings. I have read quite a bit of his work actually. He writes in an easy style and his attention to detail is remarkable.

His earlier work was highly critical of the commanders and purpose.   Yet in Catastrophe he does an about face.   Why?

He is the same Hastings with the same sources. ... mmmm must be another reason.

On the basis of takes one to know one, he found an account by the eminent (but rather silly) historian Christopher Clarke to be too kind to the dammed bosche! Clarke, (Cambridge Professor as opposed to newspaper hack) reckoned the Serbs got the ball rolling.   To my mind, Hastings couldn't refute this notion without being kinder to the British establishment.

His dismissal of the war poets was appalling. Usually it is those who were at an event who decry the poets of the day. In this case Hastings's Dad wasn't even a sperm when the poets were facing the bullets, mud and fear.

So. .. why the revisionist book that is wonderful to read but shows his bias too much for it to be a reliable source?

Ah... next year we commemorate 100 years since the start. It is easy to mark the end of carnage as we will in 2018, but to get excited about the start, we need to be kinder to the buggers that started it and blundered through it. If course.

Enter Sir Max Hastings. World leading expert on forming people's opinions for them. Ex editor of Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph.




Not very deep, are you Keith?

Dense maybe but definitely shallow.