Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.
A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used in a non-military sense, for example when driving through remote areas.
Military incompetence refers to incompetencies and failures of military organisations, whether through incompetent individuals or through a flawed institutional culture.
Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, was a senior officer of the British Army. During the First World War he commanded the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front from late 1915 until the end of the war.
The siege of Kut Al Amara, also known as the first battle of Kut, was the besieging of an 8,000-strong British Army garrison in the town of Kut, 160 km (100 mi) south of Baghdad, by the Ottoman Army. In 1915, its population was around 6,500. Following the surrender of the garrison on 29 April 1916, the survivors of the siege were marched to imprisonment at Aleppo, during which many died. Historian Christopher Catherwood has called the siege "the worst defeat of the Allies in World War I". Ten months later, the British Indian Army, consisting almost entirely of newly recruited troops from Western India, conquered Kut, Baghdad and other regions in between in the fall of Baghdad.
Psychobiography aims to understand historically significant individuals, such as artists or political leaders, through the application of psychological theory and research.
The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect or, less commonly, the Barnum–Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, aura reading, and some types of personality tests.
Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival, was a British Army officer. He saw service in the First World War and built a successful military career during the interwar period, but is best known for his defeat in the Second World War, when Percival commanded British Commonwealth forces during the Malayan campaign, which culminated in a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Singapore.
General Sir Redvers Henry Buller, was a British Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He served as Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in South Africa during the early months of the Second Boer War and subsequently commanded the army in Natal until his return to England in November 1900.
The History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence is a series of 109 volumes, concerning the war effort of the British state during the First World War. It was produced by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence from 1915 to 1949; after 1919 Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds was Director. Edmonds wrote many of the army volumes and influenced the choice of historians for the navy, air force, medical and veterinary volumes. Work had begun on the series in 1915 and in 1920, the first volumes of Naval Operations and Seaborne Trade, were published. The first "army" publication, Military Operations: France and Belgium 1914 Part I and a separate map case were published in 1922 and the final volume, The Occupation of Constantinople was published in 2010.
Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend, was a British soldier who during the World War I led an overreaching military campaign in Mesopotamia. His troops were besieged and captured at the Siege of Kut, which was possibly the worst defeat suffered by the Allies.
General Sir Cyril Brudenell Bingham White,, more commonly known as Sir Brudenell White or C. B. B. White, was a senior officer in the Australian Army who served as Chief of the General Staff from 1920 to 1923 and again from March to August 1940, when he was killed in the Canberra air disaster.
Walter Charles Langer studied psychoanalysis at Harvard University, where he worked as a professor upon completion of his education. He was later employed by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where in 1943 he prepared a psychoanalysis profile of Hitler. In this analysis, Langer accurately predicted that Hitler would commit suicide as the "most plausible outcome", and the possibility of a military coup against Hitler well before the assassination attempt of 1944.
The 1889 Apia cyclone was a tropical cyclone in the South Pacific Ocean, which swept across Apia, Samoa on March 15, 1889, during the Samoan crisis. The effect on shipping in the harbour was devastating, largely because of what has been described as "an error of judgement that will forever remain a paradox in human psychology".
General Sir Beauchamp Duff, was a Scottish officer with a distinguished career in the British Indian Army. He served as Commander-in-Chief of India during the First World War. His role in the disastrous expedition to Mesopotamia was criticised, helping to end a long career.
Brian James Bond is a British military historian and professor emeritus of military history at King's College London.
Strange Defeat is a book written in the summer of 1940 by French historian Marc Bloch. The book was published in 1946; in the meanwhile, Bloch had been tortured and executed by the Gestapo in June 1944 for his participation in the French resistance. An English translation was published by Oxford University Press in 1949 and by W. W. Norton in 1968.
Geoffrey Bernard Regan is an English author of popular history, former senior school teacher and broadcaster. He has authored books focused on military failures, and has written for newspapers and periodicals such as USA Today and History Today.
Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig led the British Expeditionary Force during World War I. His reputation is still controversial. Although a popular commander during the immediate post-war years, with his funeral becoming a day of national mourning, Haig also became an object of criticism for his leadership on the Western Front. He was criticised by politicians such as Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, and by influential historians such as Basil Liddell Hart. Some regard him as representing the very concept of class-based incompetent commanders, stating that he was unable to grasp modern tactics and technologies, and criticism of Haig is sometimes hard to disentangle from criticisms of the war itself. However, many veterans praised Haig's leadership and since the 1980s some historians have argued that the public hatred in which Haig's name had come to be held failed to recognise the adoption of new tactics and technologies by forces under his command, or the important role played by the British forces in the Allied victory of 1918, and that the high casualties suffered were a function of the tactical and strategic realities of the time.
Norman Frank Dixon MBE, Fellow of the British Psychological Society (1922–2013) was a British psychologist most noted for his 1976 book On the Psychology of Military Incompetence.
