Johnny: The Legend and Tragedy of General Sir Ian Hamilton

by John Philip Jones, Sir Roger Wheeler (Editor)

Overview

The Gallipoli campaign was launched in April 1915 in an effort to knock Turkey out of the war but the force that was deployed was too small to achieve its aim. Moreover, the commander, General Sir Ian Hamilton was at fault in the way he conducted his campaign. Never happier than when he was in the thick of action, Hamilton was an excellent tactician but, by 1915, and in a situation like Gallipoli, his style of leadership was outdated. This book examines why Hamilton failed at Gallipoli and shows how, in spite of that failure and it being his last command, he became a well-respected military prophet who many several perceptive predictions about the future of warfare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783408924
Publisher:	Praetorian Press
Publication date:	01/24/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

John Phillip Jones is an American professor emeritus who was born and educated in Britain and served in the Army as a National Serviceman. An applied economist, he has written fifteen books on the measurement of marketing effects, which have been translated into ten languages. With a lifelong interest in military history, he has visited most of the world's major battlefields and, in 2009, published The Successes and Sacrifices of the British Army in 1914.

Table of Contents

Maps viii

Foreword xvii

Prologue xx

1 Military Reputations 1

The Tragic Hero

The Forbidding Peninsula

2 Apprenticeship 18

'Gone for a Soldier'

The Gay Gordons

'The Land of Regrets'

3 Beau Sabreur 33

The Military Pyramid

Bobs Bahadur

The 'Sharp End'

4 'No End of a Lesson' 48

Army Reforms at Last

Worthy Foes

Disaster on the 'Hill of Doves'

Fred Roberts Remembers

5 Emerging from the Chrysalis 65

'The Refreshment of Adventure'

The 'Roberts Ring'

6 'The Last of the Gentlemen's Wars' and How it Degenerated 86

Two Encounters and Three Lessons

'Fortified Towns are now Liable to Destruction'

7 Learning from their own Mistakes 105

Across the Veldt with the Mounted Infantry

The Second Phase of the War: a Double Degeneration

8 Observer of a Distant War 129

The First Large Twentieth Century War

General Kuroki Carries the Honour of Japan

General Oyama in Command

The Russo-Japanese War as a Precursor

What Hamilton Learned

Forgotten Lessons from a Distant War

9 An Abortive War of Words 157

Roberts versus Haldane

The Ticking of the Clock

10 'Corpses Lined up Like Rows of Broad Beans' 175

Germany's Eyes turn South-East

'The Attack on Turkey holds the Field'

'You are to Have Command'

Hamilton's Choice of the Least Bad Alternative

Five Beaches and Fifteen Victoria Crosses

Enemy Trenches Twenty Away

The Last Roll of the Dice

Three Questions Revisited

11 Military Philosopher 222

The Crystal Ball

Organisation, Discipline, Training

Command

The Legacy

12 Index 252