That's the trouble with the Oh What A Lovely War crowd. The stage and screen play relied heavily on Alan Clark's "The Donkeys" and unfortunately none of the left wing CND anti-war Luvvies realised that Clarks book was all about Sir John French and what happened in 1915 - they mistakenly took it to be relevant and representative of the entire war - which of course it was not.

Bad, poor incompetent British Generals? How about Sir John French? Superb job in keeping the BEF intact in the opening months of the war but far too timid by half thereafter so he had to go. Fortunately he was replaced by Douglas Haig who had been giving the Germans headaches since Neuve-Chapelle. At Gallipoli Ian Hamilton distant and unimaginative aided by Fredrick Stopford (A T.A. General for a T.A. Formation) totally useless and incapable of using any initiative he sat around on his arse and allowed his soldiers to do the same under conditions at Suvla where he could have cut the Turks off in one day. Then there was Nixon, Lake and Townshend out in Mesopotamia (Townshend being the worst of the lot) ALL from 1915 the last year commanders of British formations were selected on the Buggins turn principle - AFTER Haig took over on the Western front and Allenby went to Palestine and Maude took over in Mesopotamia they never looked back. But then if any of you clowns HAD done any reading up on the subject you would have known that.

Townshend is compulsory reading for anybody interested in object lessons of how not to lead.