Their early critics, during and just after the war, were mostly well informed and made some valid points, but their successors in the 1960s and after were more polemical; determined to find scapegoats and express class prejudices. In some cases lack of knowledge was no barrier to splenetic criticisms and mockery because the writers believed their opinions were now common knowledge. Had these authors been required to name, say, a dozen generals and the battles in which they had sent thousands of soldiers to pointless deaths then at least some research would have been necessary. The grounds for angry denunciation were the unprecedented scale of British casualties: nearly three-quarters of a million dead and perhaps three times as many seriously wounded. Someone or some clearly identified groups must be held responsible. Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief from December 1915, bore – and continues to bear – the brunt of criticism but ‘the generals’, as a privileged and mostly upper-class body are also deemed fair game.

The purpose of this chapter is not so much to provide a blanket defence of the high command, but rather to expose some of the main sources of the characteristics summarised above and then to demonstrate the complex problems that all the warring nations’ military leaders had to confront. Furthermore, drawing mainly on the research of John Bourne and his colleagues at Birmingham University, it is now becoming possible to discuss the career patterns, qualities and characters of the large numbers (at least 1,255) who attained the rank of brigadier general and above on the Western Front.