Allan Mallinson

Why was the British army so ill-prepared to fight the second world war?

After 1918, the general staff ceased to focus on who they might have to fight next and how, leading to the abysmal performance of the army in Norway and France in 1940

A detachment of a Highland Regiment digging trenches in France in the second world war. [Getty Images]
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  • Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine

    David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts

    William Collins, pp. 540, £26

  • Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-1940

    Richard Dannatt and Robert Lyman

    Osprey, pp. 350, £25

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