"The damning public opinion that the British generals -- most notably Haig, French, Plumer, Gough and Byng -- sent hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths in the trenches of the Western front, is one that hasn? t changes in over sixty years? Robin Neillands challenges the popular myth about the incompetence and callousness of the Great War generals and examines the events that took place on the Western front through the eyes of these same officers to explain the circumstances that led them to plan and fight as they did"--Jacket.