Book
Great Military Disasters
Julian Spilsbury surveys a succession of military catastrophes from the ancient world to the twentieth century, asking why armies that appeared capable of victory instead suffered defeat. The chapters range from the Sicilian Expedition, Cannae and the Teutoburg Forest through Bannockburn, Crécy and Saratoga to the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War, the Anglo-Zulu War and the industrial battlefields of the world wars.
Rather than treating disaster as simple bad luck, Spilsbury looks at failures of command, intelligence, logistics, technology, morale and judgement, while also showing how an opponent exploited those weaknesses. Eyewitness testimony and concise battle narratives make the book a comparative study of recurring military mistakes across very different armies, cultures and periods.