Herbert Curzon is a former cavalry officer who earned fortuitous distinction in the Boer War. He knew little then; he learned nothing since. But the army, desperate for officers in the opening months of WW I, hands Curzon, a new division to train.

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)