The Liddell Hart Memoirs Vol I

About this book

Basil Liddell Hart is regarded as one of the greatest military thinker of the last century.In this extraordinary autobiography, he tells the story of his intellectual development.Prophetically, in the light of the years that followed, the draft of the official Infantry Training manual of 1921 was criticized in some military quarters as being too revolutionary, too sweeping, too different from established ideas and methods.Equally prophetic was that the younger and progressive elements in the British Army welcomed it as one of the most exciting, instructive and thought-provoking documents ever to come out as an official publication. Its author, a twenty-four year old Regular officer, a survivor of the Big Push on the Somme in July 1916, was Basil Liddell Hart.This first volume of his memoirs takes the reader to 1937. For Captain Liddell Hart these years were packed with incident. From infantry tactics his dynamic, questing mind led him to study the whole field of military affairs and defence strategy.Invalided to the half-pay list of the Army in 1924, he became military correspondent of first the Morning Post, then the Daily Telegraph and finally The Times, as well as military editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In a brilliant stream of articles, books, lectures he led that small group of enthusiasts who between the two world wars sought to lift the British Services from reactionary mediocrity to the state of powerful modern efficiency which they believed, all too correctly, to be essential for the future peace of the world.Liddell Hart’s name is synonymous with the Blitzkrieg concept of armoured warfare — indeed its most successful exponents say that he originated it — and in this book he details in full his struggle against ignorance and apathy to provide his country with an effective armoured force. But that is only one aspect of the book. His personal collection of papers and documents covering this period, and his correspondence and records of conversations with such figures as Churchill, Lawrence, Lloyd George, and the leading statesmen, soldiers and politicians of the last fifty years, is acknowledged to be one of the finest in the world.From these and from the uninhibited richness of his private notes and diaries, he has produced this unique contribution to history, as provocative and perhaps as controversial as anything he has written in his distinguished career.In the summer of 1938, believing that Britain was grossly unprepared for an imminent war and that he could help far more from the public platform than through the private ear, Liddell Hart gave up his advisory role.“The greatest military thinker of the 20th Century whose ideas have revolutionised the art of war” — GENERAL CHASSIN“Nearly all German tank strategy was based on Liddell Hart’s teachings” — GENERAL VON MELLENTHIN“The theoretical originator of mechanised warfare. I was one of his disciples” — GENERAL GUDERIAN“No expert on military affairs has better earned the right to respectful attention than Liddell Hart” — PRESIDENT KENNEDY“He still remains the foremost exponent of military matters in this country” — F.M. SIR CLAUDE AUCHINLECK“Britain’s greatest military historian of our times” — F.M. VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEINCaptain B.H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was an historian who made military history and theory interesting and understandable to the general reader. He was military writer for several London newspapers, as well as Military Editor of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’. He was knighted in 1966.Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.