The General (Great War Stories)

About this book

Herbert Curzon is a former cavalry officer who earned fortuitous distinction in the Boer War. He knew little then; he learned nothing since. But the army desperate for officers in the opening months of WW I hands Curzon a new division to train. A few months later his formations dissolve at the Somme hosed down by German machine guns. Uninstructed Curzon still thinks himself a leader. When a German offensive threatens his remaining troops he gallops suicidally into the fighting. He prefers death to self-knowledge. "THE GENERAL is a superb novel. It blends Foresters preference for military subjects and solid unreflective characters his irony his grasp of history and his gift for lean hypnotic narrative." (The New York Times)