The Art of Command

The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War, by Correlli Barnett. Morrow, $7.50

In The Desert Generals, Correlli Barnett used the key figures of the British World War II campaigns in Libya as central pieces for some fine narrative and perceptive criticism of the desert war. In The Swordbearers, he applies the same craftsmanship to the analysis of supreme command in World War I. The figures and key events of this history are von Moltke at the First Marne, Jellicoe at Jutland, Pétain in the French Army mutinies of 1917 and Ludendorff in the campaigns of 1918 on the western front. They are the hubs from which a wide-ranging appraisal of persons, events, doctrines and command decisions radiates.

The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War, by Correlli Barnett. Morrow, $7.50

In The Desert Generals, Correlli Barnett used the key figures of the British World War II campaigns in Libya as central pieces for some fine narrative and perceptive criticism of the desert war. In The Swordbearers, he applies the same craftsmanship to the analysis of supreme command in World War I. The figures and key events of this history are von Moltke at the First Marne, Jellicoe at Jutland, Pétain in the French Army mutinies of 1917 and Ludendorff in the campaigns of 1918 on the western front. They are the hubs from which a wide-ranging appraisal of persons, events, doctrines and command decisions radiates.