Slim, Master of War

by Robert Lyman

General W. J. Slim achieved something no one believed possible. Appointed to lead what was soon to become the famous 'forgotten' 14th Army in 1943, at a time when British units in the Far East were defeated and demoralised, within six months he had dealt the first death blow to the Japanese Army. This - the battle of Kohima and Imphal - was the largest single defeat of the Japanese on land in the Second World War and led to their complete destruction in Burma by August 1945. So, how did he do it? And why is he not better known? Slim did not fit the British military mould. Like Patton he was a manoeuvrist: he fought differently, seeking victory by cunning and guile, starkly different from how the British Army fought its wars at the time. Like the legendary soldier T. E. Lawrence, Slim was an exponent - long before it became fashionable - of mission command, giving his subordinates their head and encouraging initiative and imagination at the lowest levels of command. But above all Slim was a soldier's general - it wasn't just his men who revered him, but his equals too: Mountbatten, with whom he bonded in a way unparalleled in South East Asia Command, and Stilwell, another maverick, who would serve under no other British commander but him. They were not wrong; he was a singular man, a supreme commander, who remains worthy of our respect.

Genres: History, Military History, World War II, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

By birth a New Zealander, I was educated in Australia and at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. After a 20-year career in the British Army I turned my hand to writing, my PhD being published in 2004 as 'Slim, Master of War, a military biography of arguably Britain's greatest field commander of WW2.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

I am a trustee of the Kohima Educational Trust, which seeks to provide educational opportunities for young learners in Nagaland.

Reviews

[Frances · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lyman tried his best, Montbatten was still the hero of this book, not Slim. Absolutely no personal stories, it was all India Army some number, or British Army some number. never a word about what that army was composed of or any individual effort lower in rank than General. This book is only for those who care about technical issues rather than individual efforts. No attempt was made to develop the generals on any personal level. After the last great book I read by Lyman, this was an utter disappointment.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lyman’s Slim: Master of War certainly presents as an interesting proposition. Moving away from the well documented fighting in Europe and North Africa which tends to define accounts of Britain’s involvement in the Second World War, Lyman presents an interesting thesis as the justification for his work; namely, that William ‘Bill’ Slim, the commander of the Burma Corps, was not only one of the most successful commanders of the war, but also invented much of what we now perceive as warfare.

Lyman has, evidently, done his research. The book is meticulously noted and footnoted, and Lyman includes a huge amount of detail to give an overview of what is going on. He also doesn’t focus solely on troop movements, but also includes a welcome grasp of the political realities of both Slim’s own relationship with other members of British staff, most notably some of his superior officers and the maverick founder of the Chindits, Orde Wingate, and with the other members of the allies, including the Americans and the Chinese forces who also fought in the campaign.

In addition, Lyman marshals his facts well in support of his thesis. The prose flows best when he engages in analysis rather than factual detail, and he puts forward his points well and with convincing arguments, while never overplaying his hand or turning the work into a hagiography. Slim is, in his eyes, not without flaws, but generally comes out well through his determination, open-mindedness, trust in his subordinates and understanding of the nature of the conflict.

That being said, the work, like its subject, is not without a few flaws, the greatest of which is its accessibility, or lack thereof. To be fair, Lyman doesn’t assume that his audience is an expert in the Burma campaign, but in the same breath, there’s little past the introductory pages to help anyone who’s not intimately familiar with either Burma or the minutiae of the British and Japanese Armies to follow what’s going on. Equally, the lack of maps is a huge omission, especially when the geography of Burma played such a huge part in the manoeuvring of both sides.

At the same time, Lyman’s work spends far too much time bogged down in a rather detailed, if occasionally turgid narrative, with little variation from the formula of ‘what x battalion did’ followed by ‘what Slim thought about it/reacted to it’, and while I accept that much of the work needs to focus on the specifics, the prose is too dense and refers to too many units to make anything really stand out as important. This also rather dehumanises a lot of the conflict as well, and for all that the thesis is supposed to resolve around Slim, the work would have benefited from taking a bit more time and space to flesh out the world around him rather than sticking limpet-like to the central argument. Given it’s less than 300 pages all told, even a small amount of time spent on context and engagement would have been welcome.

All in all, Slim: Master of War is a good book for anyone who has some experience of Second World War campaigning, and who is looking for a strong, detailed account of the specifics of the Burma conflict and Slim’s role within it. That being said, it is quite hard-going for the less expert reader, and I feel that even a little bit of work on the accessibility and the narrative of the piece would have made it much more engaging without detracting from the central argument.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent companion to Slim's Defeat Into Victory. It is an analysis of Slim's handling of the Burma campaign rather than a biography. Lyman is a former army officer and his knowledge of tactics is evident in his analysis. His assessment is honest and well researched and more than just a Slim fan piece. He does an excellent job of reviewing the decisions and actions of many commanders in the campaign; this is extremely valuable because of Slim's tendency to be overly critical of himself and avoiding slinging mud in his own writings. In particular Lyman gives Leese both credit and criticism where it is due. Overall, if you haven't yet read Defeat Into Victory this book will give you an excellent view of Slim's masterful handing of the whole Burma campaign. If you have it provides excellent additional context.

[Mark Davidson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A throughly disappointing read. Having read snippets about Slim and the Burma campaign in other histories I was looking forward to a deeper dive on this important historical figure. Instead I found a history which lands the reader into the middle of a war and a life story with previous little context. It’s more often than not a tiresome series of paragraphs outlining how this numbered British or Indian unit fought with that numbered Japanese unit all painfully footnoted with the name of the unit commander. The maps - many of which are undated - were impossible to follow. The narrative is equally missing at the end. After suffering through an overly detailed and nearly unreadable account of the war in Manipur and the 14th Army’s return to Burma the reconquest is rushed.

Still looking for a good overview of the Burma campaign and Slim.

[Richard Sisson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, which I enjoyed reading, but not without its issues. It was engaging - it had me looking up biographies of the generals mentioned and histories of the units involved as I read it - but the author tended to labour and repeat many of his points and themes. The author also had some tendency to bias - Slim was undoubtedly a brave and brilliant commander, well-loved by his men, but the book tends to gloss over the detail of difficult relationships with superiors. The editing was a bit sloppy too. Nevertheless an important contribution to writing on Slim’s role in the war in Burma. I’ll be reading further on the man and the campaigns.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book.

This was only my second book on the war in Burma. My first book only covered the Admin Box battle. Consequently most of what i was reading was all fairly new information. I found it all very gripping and very enjoyable.

Please do read this book. Its very informative about the Burma campaign and will take you from defeat to victory.

[Chris Royals · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyman is the best historian of the Burma campaign and a Slim aficionado. He is certainly over the top to describe anything in the Far Eastern campaign as a turning point equal to Stalingrad, and this is a technical military history. A well researched and written book nonetheless

[Lyle Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good story about and extraordinary man!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good concise account of Britain's best general of WW2 and probably of the 20th century. A leader who cared for his men, lead and thought, with no bs, no legend in his own mind and is now seen as one of the pioneers of the modern war of maneuver. And he fought in bloody awful jungle conditions with few resources and little public attention: the forgotten Burma Army.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good account of Slim's service between 1941 and 1945.