Talk:B. H. Liddell Hart

message: I think we need to add a bias disclaimer to this page. It seems biased, and cited attacks on Hart and his attempt to brand blitzk. as his own without citation. Funny, as when I google search John Keegan, I find a website with a few opening paragraphs trashing Hart, in a writing style similar to this article.
:He arrived at his conclusions after studying the great strategists of history (especially Sun Tzu, Napoleon, and Belisarius) and their victories. 
Did Sun Tzu *have* any victories? --Andersonblog 00:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Legendarily yes; but of course if you accept more modern theories that Sun Tzu is a fiction under which a school of strategists compiled their theories... yes and no (being a fiction, he could not have done anything; on the other hand, some of those strategists must have had some victories, so does that count?). More grammatically, the crucial bit here is the use of "and"; it's not being used in the logic sense but rather more as an "or": Hart studied the strategists or their victoriesn (and possibly both). --maru   (talk)  contribs 03:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Older comments

message: The anecdote about Hart, Eden, the inkstand and the wastepaper basket makes a lovely story, but it should really be deleted. According to Lord Owen’s article on “The effect of Prime Minister Anthony Eden's illness on his decision-making during the Suez crisis” (QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, Volume 98 (2005), No. 6, pp. 387-402 – available at http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/98/6/387#BIB30), the “story is pure fiction, as Liddell Hart’s wife and son confirm, since the men never actually met during the Suez Crisis.” (Tyler's Boy (talk) 11:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree and I'm pulling it. Obvious anecdote.Strausszek (talk) 03:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liddell Hart and Eden 

message: Professor Bond was encouraged to study military history by Liddell Hart himself, so had to avoid writing a hagiography.
* On Grant & Sherman - Liddell Hart had suffered in the trenches, saw Grant as a trench general, and so appreciated Sherman's indirect approach
* On the Germans - teases out the influences and avoids Liddell Hart's conclusions. His infantry tactics were as influential as his armoured warfare theories.
* On British WW2 strategy - by 1939 Liddell Hart considered that the defence had all the advantages, and opposed the Strategic bombing policy
* On the Israeli army - said by Bond to be a pro-Zionist, Liddell Hart admired Wingate's views in the late 1930s, was asked for advice in 1948 before that war, and some chiefs of staff in the 1948-1956-1967-1973 wars acknowledged his influence.
* On atomic warfare - in the 1950s supported NATO armies in Europe so as to create a tripwire; disliked Mutual assured destruction as the main policy.
A lot more could be added to the article from this book. Liddell Hart did not win any bravery awards in WW1, according to BB.86.42.196.3 (talk) 07:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If this stuff is all sourceable, you should go ahead and add it to the article, with specific citations from the book.  Just be careful to keep WP:WEIGHT in mind.  We don't want a hagiography, but we don't want muck-raking either. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Bond's book 1977

message: Havent read all Captain Hart's work, but the quote added seemned to me entirely representative of his attitude towards the Germans. Is there a counter quote we're missing that shows Hart was really ambivelent to them? He even speaks admiringly about  their WWI performane in his introduction of his book on the Roman general Scipio. Quite common for British officers and enlisted men to feel like that. Especially in WWI, but even in WW2  (my Grandfather was the same). The stories one hears about footy matches at Christmas are not made up. British soldiers knew that Germans were our ancient allies, and didnt blame the German army for the insanity of their national leaders. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:19, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is not that whether the quote is representative of his attitude toward Germany, but rather, why are we highlighting his attitude towards Germany at the expense of everything else he wrote and spoke about?  That's the WP:WEIGHT issue, and also why we don't usually have quote sections - because there's too much danger of plucking out a single comment and having it stand (because it's the only quote) for the subject's entire life and work.  I suggest the quote should go to wikiquote, where that is not an issue. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted quote 

message: This article has multiple issues.  Here is what I have time to write about right now.
The section on Liddell-Hart's theories of warfare is poorly structured.  Only one theory is described, and its development, tenets, and principles are neither referenced (through a Main Article link) nor described.  How does research into high casualty rates become a radical reimagining of mechanised units?  Most wikipedia biographical sketches on theorists have, under the heading of Theory, subheadings such as each theory by name, influenced by, influnced, practical importance of theory, and criticism of theory. eg Theories, Indirect Approach, Development, Principles, Application to Mechanised Warfare, Influence on WWII, Blitzkreig, Criticisms.  As the article currently stands, his personal history and politics are muddled into the section on theory, and there is much ambiguity in sequence of events.  The contexts keep shifting, and so I cannot extract any meaningful information on his theories of warfare, their development, their importance, or their roles in his life.
The section regarding Naveh is deeply problematic.  First, it is muddled: the development and claim of application have nothing to do with a Naveh Controversy, whatever that is.  Second, usually criticisms on a theory are presented under a subheading of something like "Criticism" with each opponent's arguments in separate paragraphs.  Third, from what was presented in this article, there was no criticism of the theory of indirect approach; he was questioning Liddell-Hart's claim that Blitzkreig was a direct application of his thoeries.  Perhaps most importantly, the motivation and character of the crtiic are not relevant to the criticism.  There is almost no information presented on Naveh's criticism.  There are a plethora of policy violations, to wit:
"(Despite ample access and evidence to the facts, (bias, NPOV violation) Shimon Naveh, an Israeli military theorist, (sought to undermine Liddell Hart in Israeli military circles (bias, assumption of motivation)) by claiming that after the war Liddell Hart "created" the idea that Blitzkrieg was a military doctrine.  Said Naveh, "It was the opposite of a doctrine. Blitzkrieg consisted of an avalanche of actions that were sorted out less by design and more by success."[31] (Naveh advanced this argument as a means to attack the credibility of Liddell Hart, who had become highly influential among the Israeli military.[32] (bias, assumption of motivation AND unreliable source for refutation)
(Naveh claimed that by "manipulation and contrivance, Liddell Hart distorted the actual circumstances of the Blitzkrieg formation and obscured its origins. Through his indoctrinated idealization of an ostentatious concept he reinforced the myth of Blitzkrieg. By imposing, retrospectively, his own perceptions of mobile warfare upon the shallow concept of Blitzkrieg, he created a theoretical imbroglio that has taken 40 years to unravel".[33] Naveh claimed that in his letters to German generals Erich von Manstein and Guderian, as well as relatives and associates of Rommel, Liddell Hart "imposed his own fabricated version of Blitzkrieg on the latter and compelled him to proclaim it as original formula".[34] (construction manipulations: quote started in middle of sentence to distort meaning and combination of unrelated subjects))
(Naveh has a long history of attacking the intelligence and character of people he is in intellectual conflict with, including the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Of these men he claimed in an interview: "They are on the brink of illiteracy. The army's tragedy is that it is managed by battalion commanders who were good and generals who did not receive the tools to cope with their challenges. Halutz is not stupid, even Dudu Ben Bashat is not stupid, even though he is an idiot, and his successor, Major General Uri Marom (sic), is a total bastard."[35] (ad hominem as well as non sequitur.  equivalent to claiming that my peer-reviewed journal article is invalid because a political editorial poorly translated and quoted a rant about my boss from my facebook page.))
(To buttress his attack upon Liddell Hart (bias semantics)), Naveh sought to highlight the fact that the edition of Guderian's memoirs published in Germany differed from the one published in the United Kingdom in that Guderian neglected to mention the influence of the English theorists such as Fuller and Liddell Hart in the German-language versions. (One example of the influence of these men on Guderian was the report on the Battle of Cambrai published by Fuller in 1920, who at the time was a staff officer at the Royal Tank Corps. His findings and theories on armoured warfare were alleged by Liddell Hart to have been read and later taken up by 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.[36] (incorrect placement of entire section.  this is not relevant to Naveh.  this is Liddell-Hart's claim.)
Though the German version of Guderian's memoirs mentions Liddell Hart, it did not ascribe to him his role in developing the theories behind armoured warfare. (An explanation for the difference between the two translations can be found in the correspondence between the two men. (confirmation bias)) In one letter to Guderian, Liddell Hart reminded the German general that he should provide him the credit he was due, offering "You might care to insert a remark that I emphasized the use of armoured forces for long-range operations against the opposing Army's communications, and also the proposed type of armoured division combining Panzer and Panzer-infantry units – and that these points particularly impressed you."[37] In his early writings on mechanized warfare Liddell Hart proposed that infantry be carried along with the fast moving armoured formations. He described them as "tank marines" like the soldiers the Royal Navy carried with their ships. He proposed they be carried along in their own tracked vehicles and dismount to help take better defended positions that otherwise would hold up the armoured units. This contrasted with Fuller's ideas of a tank army, which put heavy emphasis on massed armoured formations. Liddell Hart foresaw the need for a combined arms force with mobile infantry and artillery, which was similar but not identical to the make up of the panzer divisions that Guderian created in Germany.[38] (again, wrong place: this should go in influence, or application.  this is the basis for the Liddell-Hart's claim.  Naveh's claim has nothing to do with the makeup or creation of the units.  He claims that Blitzkreig was not a tactical doctrinal application of maneuver warfare.)
Guderian corrected the oversight, and did as Liddell Hart requested.[39] When Liddell Hart was questioned in 1968 about the oversight and difference between the English and German editions of Guderian's memoirs, he graciously replied merely: "There is nothing about the matter in my file of correspondence with Guderian himself except...that I thanked him...for what he said in that additional paragraph."[40] (biased wording.  the evidence given here partially substantiates Naveh's claim that Liddell-Hart was writing to the generals to impose his views.)"
I have not made all of the edits because the article as a whole needs to be reworked with proper conceptual divisions.  I have added a cleanup-rewrite tag. 
Elfwiki (talk) 12:22, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It certainly could use a rewrite, with expansion on the extensive work he did both before and after the Second World War.  Naveh is a poor critic, due both to the fact that his writing is designed primarily to advance his own theory, and due to the lack of a disppasionate voice in his writing.  Removing the section on Nevah and his views on Blitzkrieg warfare and Liddell Hart seems appropriate to me.  It would be best to actually join wikipedia prior to embarking on an extensive rewrite.Gunbirddriver (talk) 00:51, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Article issues

message: The text introduced “General Sir Tim Pile”. If this is supposed to refer to General Sir Frederick Alfred Pile, why is there a wrong name and no link?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.155.130.134 (talk) 18:38, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The article cited referred to Sir Alfred by the name he was commonly referred to.  I have corrected it and made the link. Gunbirddriver (talk) 01:18, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Sir Tim Pile 

message: Why is so much space given to the views of Shimon Naveh? He is of little importance, and clearly a controversial if not totally unreliable source.Royalcourtier (talk) 04:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Material from Shimon Naveh's book "In Pursuit of Military Excellence; The Evolution of Operational Theory" was added here. The editor adding the material used Naveh to call into question Liddell-Hart's character. In my view, though Liddell-Hart may have attributed a greater influence to himself than was due, he actually believed what he was saying and had good cause to do so. In any case Naveh was not writing against Liddell-Hart so much as he was attempting to undermine the Israeli Defense Force senior leadership and advance his own theories on modern warfare. I did not believe Naveh's material and his rather inflammatory writing style were helpful to the article, but attempts to remove it were repeatedly reverted under the guise that it was all properly referenced. The only alternative was to add to the article to place the additions in context. As I stated above under the section "Blitzkrieg", I support the sections on Naveh being removed. I do not believe his criticisms of Liddell Hart and Guderian add substantively to the article.Gunbirddriver (talk) 05:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shimon Naveh  

message: Claim is made in the article that purpose of imperial army was "to come to aid of Norway". That is simply false. The purpose of landing in Norway was to interrupt iron ore supply to Germany(and thereby violate neutrality of Norway), which lead to the preemptive strike by the German armed forces in Denmark and Norway. War Cabinet records demonstrate this conclusive. --41.151.210.114 (talk) 21:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norway 

message: In Hart`s history of WWII which is generally politically neutral he clearly argues against the need to have dropped the bomb..according to his sources which were extensive..some people believe he was the foremost historian regarding this war..the Japanese civilian population were not the fanatics the allies had been led to believe..the factory workers were fleeing to the countryside to avoid US bombing attacks..the ultra right wing military faction in the government had been dismissed..that Japan was within days of surrendering and were only holding out to try to negotiate procession of some of the outer islands after the end of the war which they knew was coming.
I am pointing this out because today`s feature story   Air_raids_on_Japan  is related...someone could expand on this. 24.177.239.72 (talk) 18:22, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atomic Bomb 

message: Hi, I plan to add the below content under the section name shown above. Since it will be a big addition, I'm posting here first to see if there are any questions of comments. Content follows:
Liddel Hart was instrumental in the creation of the "Rommel myth", the post-war assessment of Rommel as a "noble" man and a "military genius who, but for bad fortune and the faults of others, might have changed the course of World War II". The myth came about as "the necessary image manufactured to serve the German rearmament", as, after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, it became clear to the Americans and the British that a German army would have to be revived to help face off against the Soviet Union. Many former German officers were convinced, however, that no future German army would be possible without the rehabilitation of the Wehrmacht. To this end, in October 1950, a group of former senior officers produced a document, the Himmerod memorandum, for West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Intended as both a planning and a negotiating document, the memorandum included a key demand for "measures to transform domestic and foreign public opinion" with regards to the German military. 
Thus, in the atmosphere of the Cold War, Rommel's former enemies, especially the British, played a key role in the manufacture and propagation of the myth. The German rearmament was highly dependent on the image boosting that the Wehrmacht needed. Liddell Hart, an early proponent of these two interconnected initiatives, provided the first widely available source on Rommel in his 1948 book on Hitler's generals. He devoted a chapter to Rommel, portraying him as an outsider to the Nazi regime. Additions to the chapter published in 1951 concluded with laudatory comments about Rommel's "gifts and performance" that "qualified him for a place in the role of the 'Great Captains' of history".
Liddell Hart then edited Rommel's writings of the war period, which were published in 1953 as The Rommel Papers. Romme's widow and son, and the former Wehrmacht officer Fritz Bayerlein first published them in German in 1950 under a "revealing title" War Without Hate. With a glowing introduction by Liddel Hart, The Rommel Papers was one of the two "crucial texts" that lead to the "Anglophone rehabilitation" and a "Rommel renaissance", the other being the 1950 "influential, laudatory" biography Rommel: The Desert Fox by Brigadier Desmond Young.
Liddel Hart had a personal interest in the work: he had coaxed Rommel's widow into admitting that his theories on mechanised warfare had influenced Rommel. Thus, Rommel emerged as his "pupil", giving Liddel Hart credit for Rommel's dramatic successes in 1940. (The controversy around Liddell Hart's actions is covered by the political scientist John Mearsheimer in Liddell Hart and the Weight of History. A review of Mearsheimer's work, published by Strategic Studies Institute, points out that Mearsheimer "correctly takes 'The Captain' [Liddel Hart] to task for [...] manipulating history".)
Young and Liddell Hart "set the stage for all post-war interpretations of Rommel", which consisted of three themes: Rommel's ambivalence towards Nazism; his military genius; and the chivalrous nature of the fighting in North Africa. Their works lent support to the image of the "clean" Wehrmacht and were generally not questioned, since they came from British authors, rather than German revisionists. 
Recent historiography called for a reevaluation of the Rommel myth. In a 2012 interview with Reuters, the German historian Sönke Neitzel summed it up Rommel as: "On the one hand he didn't commit war crimes that we know of and ordered a retreat at El Alamein despite Hitler's order. But he took huge German casualties elsewhere and he was a servant of the regime. He was not exactly a shining liberal or Social Democrat. Mostly, he was interested in his career".
K.e.coffman (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Role in "Rommel myth" 

message: This passage has given me pause:
*That Fuller and Liddell Hart played a role is supported by multiple sources, including Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, one of the early developers of armoured warfare in Germany, who said: "The German tank officers closely followed the British ideas on armoured warfare, particularly those of Liddell Hart, also General Fuller's."Liddell Hart The Other Side of the Hill p. 91 
This is cited LH's own book, for which he interviewed the former Wehrmacht general. Thoma was a POW (?) at that time; of course he would have said pretty much anything. 
These two passages appear to be be WP:OR:
*Guderian reviewed and expanded upon these ideas. In discussing the developments in armoured warfare in the European nations and Soviet Russia in his book Achtung – Panzer!, Guderian underscored the conflicts between the British military command and the British protagonists for mechanization, specifically naming General Fuller, Martel and Liddell-Hart.Guderian, 1937, p. 141
*This is further illustrated by Major General F. W. von Mellenthin, who in contrasting the development of German armoured warfare techniques with British developments at the same time, commented "In spite of warnings by Liddell Hart on the need for co-operation between tanks and guns, British theories of armoured warfare tended to swing in favor of the 'all-tank' concept."Mellenthin, p. xvi
This appears to be more WP:OR, with extensive quoting from WP:Primary sources:
*In "Achtung – Panzer!", written in 1937, Guderian mentioned Liddell Hart as a proponent of mechanization:
In order to overcome the first of these disadvantages, the one related to unsupported armour, the protagonists of mechanization - General Fuller, Martel, Liddell Hart and others - advocated reinforcing the all tank units by infantry and artillery mounted on permanently assigned armoured vehicles, together with mechanized engineers, and signals, support and supply elements.
*Notes Guderian brought to his first meeting with Hitler as the Inspector General of Armoured Troops (1943) indicate he intended to read out a paper by Liddell Hart on "the organization of armoured forces, past and future".Guderian, 1953, p. 295
I plan to remove the first statement as dubious and biased towards LH, reported by LH. The last four as WP:OR. 
I also adjusted the POV language around Naveh: "claimed"; "buttress his attack"; etc. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been a few days without feedback, so I will go ahead and remove. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:41, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Guderian and Mellenthin sources cannot be considered primary as they discuss Liddel's ideas in context of military science, which they were obviously experts. --Nug (talk) 19:29, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problematic content 

message: This passage is cited to LH:
*Liddell Hart, with Hore-Belisha, drafted a paper on 'The Role of the Army' in November 1937 in which they argued that home defence and empire defence were the primary responsibilities of the army, and that the defence of other people's territory was a secondary role.Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol II, p. 50. On 15 November Hore-Belisha wrote to Liddell Hart that "the Cabinet was moving towards the discontinuance of an Expeditionary Force for the Continent"Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol II, p. 55. and the next day wrote again to Liddell Hart, claiming Chamberlain was pleased by their paper on the role of the British Army and had requested from Liddell Hart a paper on 'The Reorientation of the Regular Army for Imperial Defence".Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol II, pp. 56-57.
The para covers supposed request from Chamberlain and analysis of LH's paper, cited to himself. 
If better sources cannot be found, I plan to remove it. Under the heading of "Influence on Chamberlain" this passage sounds like wp:peacock, cited to a self-serving source. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:06, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problematic content, pt 2 

message: Moving uncited WP:OR content here in case someone may want to use it in the future:
Liddell Hart set out following World War I  to address the causes of the war's high casualty rate.  He arrived at a set of principles that he considered the basis of all good strategy. Liddell Hart believed the failure to act upon these principles which was the case for nearly all commanders in World War I led to the high casualty rate.
He reduced this set of principles to a single phrase: the indirect approach.  The indirect approach had two fundamental principles:
* direct attacks against an enemy firmly in position almost never work and should never be attempted
* to defeat the enemy one must first upset his equilibrium, which is not accomplished by the main attack, but must be done before the main attack can succeed.
In Liddell Hart's words,
In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there; a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance.
As a corollary he explained
The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.
Liddell Hart argued that success can be gained by keeping one's enemy uncertain about the situation and one's intentions.  By delivering what he does not expect and has therefore not prepared for, he will be mentally defeated.
Liddell Hart explained that one should not employ a rigid strategy revolving around powerful direct attacks nor fixed defensive positions. Instead, he preferred a more fluid elastic defence, where a mobile contingent can move as necessary in order to satisfy the conditions for the indirect approach. He later offered Erwin Rommel's Northern Africa campaign as a classic example of this theory. Liddell Hart's theory closely matches what is currently referred to as Manoeuvre warfare, and has been advanced by John Boyd and his OODA loop Theory of combat and maneuver.
He arrived at his conclusions following his own experience of heavy losses suffered by Britain in the static warfare of the First World War. In developing his theory about indirect approach he looked back through history for those commanders whose careers supported his theories: men such as Sun Tzu, Napoleon, and Belisarius. Perhaps the best example was the career of William Tecumseh Sherman. In discussing these commanders Liddell Hart sought to illustrate and promote his idea of the indirect approach. He also advocated the indirect approach as a valid strategy in other fields of endeavour, such as business.
K.e.coffman (talk) 17:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theory of indirect approach (storage) 

message: Moving here for storage:
*Liddell Hart, with Hore-Belisha, drafted a paper on 'The Role of the Army' in November 1937 in which they argued that home defence and empire defence were the primary responsibilities of the army, and that the defence of other people's territory was a secondary role.Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol II, p. 50. On 15 November Hore-Belisha wrote to Liddell Hart that "the Cabinet was moving towards the discontinuance of an Expeditionary Force for the Continent"Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol II, p. 55. and the next day wrote again to Liddell Hart, claiming Chamberlain was pleased by their paper on the role of the British Army and had requested from Liddell Hart a paper on 'The Reorientation of the Regular Army for Imperial Defence".Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol II, pp. 56-57.
Also moving here as coat rack & cited to BLH's protege:
*In "Achtung – Panzer!", written in 1937, Guderian refers to Liddell Hart as one of "the protagonists of mechanization, among - General Fuller, Martel, Liddell Hart and others", who "advocated reinforcing the all tank units by infantry and artillery mounted on permanently assigned armoured vehicles, together with mechanized engineers, and signals, support and supply elements".Guderian, 1937, p. 141 According to a biography of Liddell Hart by Brian Bond, two high-ranking German officers, Werner von Blomberg and Walther von Reichenau, read Liddell Hart's work, translated his "The British Way in Warfare" into German, and circulated his ideas on mechanization throughout the Reichswehr.Bond p. 218
K.e.coffman (talk) 02:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-citations & coat-rack

message: No attempt to explain Liddell-Hart's contribution to strategic thinking in the 20th century. Doesn't explain why he's important at all. I grew up in a military household, and his book "Strategy" was in the US 2nd AF HQ library for a reason. It wasn't because he sucked up to every German general in creation. I'll note that someone reading "Strategy" could fairly easily reinsert most of the 'indirect approach' language as that was his guiding principle throughout the narrative of that book. I suspect, as others do, that we have an editor who has a LH hate-on and is actively keeping this article as a diatribe against the man. Dwmyers (talk) 22:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is just a horrible article 

message: * What are Liddell Harts signature ideas as a strategist?
* Was he influential? How influential was he? Who did he influence? If he was nothing more than the plagiarist and self aggrandizer that some editors make him out to be, he doesn't deserve a Wikipedia article.
* His ideas needs to be left in these articles and not removed with cheap excuses. Add refs if needed.
* The extent of his influence needs to be left in the darned article and those references should not be removed.
* Why do obscure critics that no one knows have more space in Liddell Hart's article than LH does?
Dwmyers (talk) 01:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Things that must be done before the POV flag can be removed, IMO 

message: This little phrase caught my eye: "For balance, it should be noted that Brian Bond had a friendship and close personal links with Basil Liddell Hart, and so his work should be read with that information in mind."
This whole article is shot through with the notion that anyone that knew Liddell Hart or was close to Liddell Hart and actually had real first person knowledge of the man are people not to be trusted, as if Liddell Hart were the spawn of Sauron. It's a very crippling notion to take hold in a biography. I can see if this were the Weekly World News or the Nation Enquirer or some offspring of tabloid journalism, but this is not. It is biographical and by the nature of biographies, you need to actually rely on people who knew the man, and at some level TRUST THEM. 
IT IS NOT BALANCED TO INHERENTLY DISTRUST ANY SOURCE ON B.H. LIDDELL HART'S LIFE WHO ACTUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAN. THIS PHRASE DOES NOT HELP THIS ARTICLE. Dwmyers (talk) 04:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  More POV issues with this article 

message: I'm not going to pursue this deeply, but as Liddell Hart was known to write and rewrite books, this should be touched on. 'Strategy has two editions, and they are copyright 1954 and 1967. Strategy: The Indirect Approach has four editions and the third was copyright 1954 and the fourth copyright 1967. I don't have the latter. I do own the former, so for quotes I'll be using the former when I write in this article. But if someone with knowledge of both wants to pipe in, feel free. Dwmyers (talk) 16:48, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Strategy'' versus ''Strategy: The Indirect Approach'' 

message: This is more a personal comment, hard to place in the document itself, so I'm just going to say it here, and maybe a better writer than me can work it into the text later. Liddell Hart in his most important work not only covered great generals, but also more obscure generals to the common public, folks like Epaminondas and Belisarius. And in doing so, he fills in gaps that exist in high school and freshmen level surveys of Western Civilization. It's not hard to read about the Peloponnesian War and get an idea of how Sparta ascended to dominance in Greece. But LH's coverage of Epaminondas then explains how the Spartans lost, which for me was always the question Greek history left me with. Where were the Spartans when the narrative in classical history jumps from Peloponnesian war to Philip of Macedonia? And Strategy answers that question. Belisarius, though Byzantine and thus coming from a culture derived from the Roman, had armies based on heavy cavalry more so than heavy infantry. How did he differ in tactics from his Roman predecessors? Because LH gives you these kinds of insights, folks reading him for the first time, and perhaps no other military historian because in the 1970s, he was so well thought of, all I can say it makes a rather profound and deep impression. And I say this as I read Strategy in high school in the early 1970s, and not having any Internet or Wikipedia to track down information on my own. Dwmyers (talk) 16:48, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Strategy'' and its function as complementary historical narrative