General The Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL is one of the UK's most respected military commentators, frequently appearing on television and radio and in newsprint, most recently on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As Chief of the General Staff his leadership and example were critical in shaping the debate about the role of the professional army in modern warfare.

Robert Lyman is one of Britain's top military historians. He spent 20 years in the British Army and he is currently a Research Fellow at the Changing Face of War Centre, Pembroke College, University of Oxford. Together they co-authored the critically acclaimed Viictory to Defeat: The British Army 1939-40 (Osprey Publishing, 2023).

List of Illustrations and maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction: La Forêt de Compiègne
Prologue: Calais, 1940

PART ONE: THE GREAT WAR
Chapter 1: The Kaiserschlacht and its consequences
Chapter 2: Confronting the enormity of the Great War on the front line
Chapter 3: Finding a way through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond
Chapter 4: Masters of the battlefield, 1918

PART TWO: POST WAR AND INTER WAR
Chapter 5: Peace, and derangement
Chapter 6: Old and new post-bellum responsibilities - and the Irish Question
Chapter 7: Imperial policeman versus continental commitment
Chapter 8: The modern major general: more categorical or allegorical?
Chapter 9: What is the army for, and how should it fight?
Chapter 10: The battle of the tank
Chapter 11: Britain faces a rapidly changing world

PART THREE: NEW THREATS AND NEW REALITIES
Chapter 12: Boiling the frog: the rise of the Nazi threat
Chapter 13: The slow rush to rearm
Chapter 14: Feeding the crocodile

PART FOUR: THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Chapter 15: The empire declares war
Chapter 16: The chickens come home to roost
Chapter 17: Sichelschnitt: the anatomy of disaster

Epilogue: El Alamein and beyond
Appendix: Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff 1915-46
Notes
Suggestions for further reading
Index