Victory to Defeat

The British Army 1918–40

By: Richard Dannatt, Robert Lyman

Narrated by: Richard Dannatt

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

A compelling history of the decline of an army from the triumph of victory in 1918 to defeat in 1940 and why this happened. A salutary warning for modern Britain.

The British Army won a convincing series of victories between 1916 and 1918. But by 1939 the British Army was an entirely different animal. The hard-won knowledge, experience and strategic vision that delivered victory after victory in the closing stages of the First World War had been lost. In the inter-war years there was plenty of talking, but very little focus on who Britain might have to fight, and how. Victory to Defeat clearly illustrates how the British Army wasn’t prepared to fight a first-class European Army in 1939 for the simple reason that as a country Britain hadn’t prepared itself to do so. The failure of the army’s leadership led directly to its abysmal performance in Norway and France in 1940.

Victory to Defeat is a captivating history of the mismanagement of a war-winning army. It is also a stark warning that we neglect to understand who our enemy might be, and how to defeat him, at the peril of our country. The British Army is now to be cut to its smallest size since 1714. Are we, this book asks, repeating the same mistakes again?

©2023 Richard Dannatt and Robert Lyman (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Fascinating analysis

This is a surprisingly well narrated analysis of how the British Imperial Armies forgot the hard won lessons of the Great War, and allowed what was probably the most effective, and well-led army of the time to descend into confusion and mediocrity. Well worth reading if you want to understand military approaches during the interwar period.
While clearly not the direct topic of the book it would be interesting to learn about the parallel approaches to doctrine in the French army at the time.