Keegan's book was published in 1998.

"Keegan maintains a fine line between condemning general staffs for circumstances beyond their control and excusing them for their failure to understand and adapt to a new sort of war."

Current historians would point out that the British adapted far better than anyone else did.
The innovative use of artillery, and of air power and tanks was decisive.

"Erich von Falkenhayn at Verdun and Douglas Haig at Ypres had no strategy beyond bleeding the enemy to death."

Verdun was a desperate defence that almost failed to stop the Germans breaking through.
Haig had to keep fighting alongside Verdun on the Somme or all would have been lost

"On the subject of Haig, commander of the British armies at the Somme and Passchendaele and an object of execration for two generations of British survivors and commentators, Keegan is unambiguous: in his ''public manner and private diaries no concern for human suffering was or is discernible.''"

Since then many historians have found plenty of evidence for such concern.

So, Keegan is the last of the old school whose work has now been superceded and discredited.