H. Essame for Combined Publishing (reprint of Batsford) Over on Consimworld there has been an outburst of American Monty-sneers and Patton-cheers. Reading this it occurred to me how little I knew about Big George. The problem is the two books on the topic about which I know (Weighly and d'Este) come from authors whose military judgement is difficult to rate. Weighly also wrote a quite awful book on decisive battles in which he claimed generals fought battles in order to end wars (for which there is not the slightest evidence), and then demonstrated (unsurprisingly) that not many battles were decisive. So it was good news to stumble on this book in Motor Books. Essame (of Essame & Belfield "Battles in Normandy" fame) was a British brigade commander in Normandy so his judgement as to what was good and bad, right and wrong is worthy of respect. His conclusion is that Patton was one of the finest battlefield commanders of the war. He demonstrates this by discussing his methods (the dodgy uniforms and high standards required in training), his results (10:1 kill ratios) and by his reaction to changed circumstances. He does not dwell on Monty vs Patton, considering them similar, although Monty was clearly the more cunning operator. He does however point out five occasions on which Eisenhower or Bradley stopped Patton almost because they could not believe he could do what the evidence showed he could. In some ways he was a hobbled by the very qualities that made him great. Anyone who has worked for a global firm of accountants will recognise the syndrome. At times charmingly archaic, the original was written in 1973, Essame is clear, concise and deliberately non-partisan. An excellent book. More Old Duffer's Book Corner (book reviews) Exercise of Arms: Warfare in the Netherlands 1568-1648 The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-1550 Seapower and Naval Warfare 1650-1830 The Making of A World Power The Punic Wars The Roman Army At War 100BC – AD200 The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire The Victory of Seapower: Winning the Napoleonic War 1806-1814 Vittoria 1813 The Battle of Koniggratz 1866 and The History of K.u.K Infantry Regiment Graf Khevenhuller-Metsch Nr 35 Patton The Navy At War 1939-1945 Medieval Warfare From Louis XIV to Napoleon: The Fall of A Great Power The Army of Francis Joseph Back to Perfidious Albion #100 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com