The General (Great War Stories)

A few months later his formations dissolve at the Somme, hosed down by German machine guns. Uninstructed, Curzon still thinks himself a leader. When a German offensive threatens his remaining troops, he gallops suicidally into the fighting. He prefers death to self-knowledge.

"THE GENERAL is a superb novel. It blends Forester's preference for military subjects and solid unreflective characters, his irony, his grasp of history and his gift for lean, hypnotic narrative." (The New York Times)