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"Young Turks, or Not So Young?": The Frustrated Quest of Major General J. F. C. Fuller and Captain B. H. Liddell Hart
- The Journal of Military History
- Society for Military History
- Volume 73, Number 1, January 2009
- pp. 147-175
- 10.1353/jmh.0.0205
- Article
- Additional Information
This article has as its prime focus not the theories of J. F. C. Fuller and B. H. Liddell Hart, but their zeal to reform the British Army, 1918–39. It explores the strengths and weaknesses they brought to the task, and seeks to relate their aims to broader intellectual currents, especially the notion of a "conflict of generations" that the experience on the Western Front of the First World War heightened. The latter reached a peak of popularity in 1928–33. The article thus seeks to assess Fuller and Liddell Hart's motives and aspirations in the light of a shared passionate desire not to sacrifice their intellectual freedom as critics.