1. Creeping barrage of artillery shells to protect advancing troops.

2. Better shells to cut barbed wire.

3. More flexible battle tactics based on platoons of 30 to 40 men armed with rifles, machine guns and grenade throwers.

4. Allowing junior officers to make decisions on the spot during a battle.

5. More troops in reserve to hold onto captured German trenches and fight off a counterattack.

The casualties during the First World War were indeed appalling... but to let these statistics blind us to any view other than that the fighting was a pointless waste, is to do an injustice to the soldiers. The learning curve experienced by the British Army as a whole proved a significant reason for the success of the Allies.

Andrew Syk, History Today magazine, Nov,2004.

British Generals on the Western Front

In the last decade, historians have attempted to overturn the widely held belief that British Soldiers on the Western Front were "lions led by donkeys". This image has been fostered by the intense debate surrounding the high casualties and Haig's leadership.

Television comedies such as "Blackadder" have portrayed the generals as inept and their tactics as suicidal. In contrast, recent academic research suggests that the British Army, after passing through the horrors of the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917), emerged as a war-winning weapon which was crucial in defeating the German army in 1918.

Andrew Syk, History Today Magazine, Nov.2004.