Mud, Blood and Poppycock challenges First World War myths

Gordon Corrigan had served as a regular officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles before retiring in 1998 and becoming a military historian. His book put into print arguments that military historians had discussed but that remained absent from much popular understanding. Its central case is that evidence does not support treating Britain's war as uniquely unnecessary or ineptly conducted. The quoted description compares British casualty rates with those of France and Germany and rejects the idea that Britain lost an entire generation. The argument does not settle the controversy. It gives readers a specific historiographical claim to test against familiar war myths and other scholarship.