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B.H. Liddell Hart

• Said von Thoma, one of Germany's early tank warfare developers: The German tank officers closely followed the British ideas on armoured warfare, particularlarly those of Liddell Hart; also General Fuller's. Liddell Hart p. 91
• The development of armoured forces met with much resistance from the higher gnerals of the German Army, as it did in England. Liddell Hart p. 92

• Most of the German generals were old students of the military writings of the British armoured proponents, including Liddell Hart, and were quite willing to discuss and exchange views. Liddell Hart p. 113

• Quote from Rommel: In Germany, thanks largely to the efforts of Guderian, the first traces of modern leadership in tank warfare began to crystallise in theory before the war. This resulted in the training and organization of tank units on modern lines. The British Army, however, remained conservative and its responsible authorities rejected the principles of mechanised warfare which had been so eminently devleoped and taught by Englishmen, in particular Fuller and Liddell Hart. Young p.254

• Hobart was one of the pioneers of armoured warfare. He, Liddell Hart, Fuller, Martel and others had evolved during twenties and thirties an ideology and a technique for what the Germans, following their forerunners, called the Blitzkreig. Lewin p. 183

• Quote: "Captain B.H. Liddell Hart is not only a popular writer who has made military history and theory interesting and understandable to the non-professional reader, he is the most stimulating and and thoughtful military writer, be far, that we have." Field Marshal Viscount Wavell

General von Manteuffel, who led in the 5th Panzer Army at the Battle of the Bulge, believed the Panther design was along the right lines.

• Liddell Hart, B.H., The German Generals Talk. New York, NY: Morrow, 1948.
• Corum, James S. The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform. Lawrence, KS: University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-7006-0541-X.

Liddell Hart by Brian Bond

• "Expanding torrent" idea p. 26

• The problem faced in WWI was the immobile slaughterhouse that was created . Both sides attempted to determine how to break the stalemate. The German offensive of March of 1918, followed by Maxse use of similar
• LH began correspondence with Fuller in 1920 p. 27
• Fuller Plan 1919 p. 28
• LH joined Fuller in 1922 Both were proponents of mechanized warfar, with Fuller touting an all tank army and LH promoting a more combined arms theory, with infantry riding along with the armour as a sort of "tank marines" p. 29
• LH wrote key article on mechanization in the military, titled "The Development of a new mobile Army" p. 33

• Prescient: soon after the German failure in Operation Barbarossa 1941 LH predicted Soviet domination of Central Europe. p. 8
• first to realize the need for conventional force might be greater in nuclear age, markedly more insightful then the position of the USAF. p. 8
• LH was knighted in 1966, p. 34 (in a note)

The impact of aircraft at the Battle of Cambrai was significant. British armoured warfare proponent J.F.C. Fuller, who at the time was a staff officer at the Royal Tank Corps, published a report on the battle. His findings and theories on armoured warfare were later taken up by Heinz Guderian, who helped to formulate the basis of operations that was to become known as Blitzkrieg warfare. These tactics involved deep penetration of the armoured formations supported behind enemy lines by bomb carrying aircraft. Dive bombers were the principle agents of delivery of high explosives in support of the forward units.

Life and career

Born in Paris, as the son of an English Methodist minister, Liddell Hart received his formal academic education at St Paul's School in London and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 he became an officer in the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and saw action on the Western Front. Liddell Hart's total time in combat measured some seven weeks over a period of two years before the Army downgraded him to "light duties" in 1916 due to the after-effects of gassing Transferred eventually as Inspector General of Training to the British Armies in France via various appointments in the United Kingdom training volunteer battalion (4th-line units), he contributed to the post-war official manual of Infantry Training published in 1920. After the war he transferred to the Army Educational Corps.

In April 1918 Liddell Hart married Jessie Stone, the daughter of J. J. Stone – who had been his assistant adjutant at Stroud – and their son Adrian was born in 1922.

Liddell Hart retired from the Army as a captain in 1927 (after being placed on half pay from 1923 because of two mild heart attacks in 1921 and 1922, probably the long-term effects of his gassing), and spent the rest of his career as a writer. He worked as the Military Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph from 1925 to 1935, and of The Times from 1935 to 1939. Later he began publishing military histories and biographies of great commanders who, he considered, demonstrated greatness because they illustrated the principles of good military strategy. His subjects included Scipio Africanus Major, William Tecumseh Sherman and T. E. Lawrence.

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