This is Jockel Podcast number 304 with Echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening, I go. Good evening. Also, Jonas tonight, Dave Burke, good evening, Dave. Good evening.

We're going to continue our review of the book on the psychology of military and competence. We started that on the last last podcast, 303.

Believe it or not, we only got through the forward and the preface and two chapters. So this one could take a while, but there's a reason.

There's a reason I've been sitting on this book for a while. There's a reason I'm doing this podcast right now. And so today we're going to get through some of the first part of the meat of the book, which is the historical examples.

And these historical examples are what get referred back to throughout this entire book. So each one of these, each one of these situations that we're going to talk about, they're broken into chapters in most cases, not 100%.

But these are disastrous military engagements, engagements or battles or campaigns or wars and each one, each one of these events could be an entire book.

And that means they could be each event could be a podcast or two or three. And some of them have been, you'll notice some of them that we that we'll talk about, we have done podcasts on because they're significant military events.

Some of them, I'm sure we'll come back and visit in the future. And I'm going to move.

I'm trying to give enough information in from each one of these events so that when he refers back to these events later, you get it because if you don't have the context, then you won't understand the references that he's making.

So I'll try and condense the historical examples a little bit, but it's rough. And some of them are really obvious. For instance, the section on like World War I, considering what World War I is, it's relatively short.

Why? Because most of us know the basic history of World War I, same thing with World War II. But then he gives more specific examples inside of each of those and outside of those wars that are definitely more detailed.

And this section of the book starts with an epic example of incompetence and tragedy. It is about the Crimean War, including the famous or infamous, depending on who read you the story, charge of the Light Brigade.

So this war was fought between October 1853 and February 1856 between Russia on one side, who eventually lost to an alliance of France, the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, and Sardinia.

And so we're going to get into it in the book.

The Crimean War certainly marked an exceedingly low point in British military history. The poor quality of the officers, most of whom had bought their commissions and for whom no standard of education was required, stood in marked contrast to the excellence of the men, described by one observer as the finest soldiers I ever saw in stature, physique, and appearance.

So right out of the gate, we don't like this scenario. How do you get to be in a leadership position? You pay money. That's how you get to be in a leadership position.

Your dad is a rich whatever. And so you're a spoiled punk ass kid, and your dad wants you to have some clout in the world. So he says, oh, I'm going to buy you a commission. And by the way, the more money he has, the more rank you get.

It's savage amongst, but yeah, he's also saying that the men were squared away amongst the officers. There seem to be an inverse relationship between rank and efficiency.

The more senior they were, the less competent they appeared at the apex of this pyramid of mediocrity stood or rather sat for he was always on his horse or in his quarters and being inordinately shy, rarely walked amongst his men, Lord Raglan.

His qualifications for leading a British expeditionary force appear to have been his age. 67. His lineage, he was the youngest of Duke of Beaufort's 11 sons and his experience 25 years as military secretary to the Duke of Wellington.

And then master general of ordinance, no one would accuse him of having a mind cluttered by any previous experience of command for he had none, not even of a company. So this guy, Raglan, which is a bummer because

Raglan is a name of an awesome surf spot in New Zealand. It's also a name of one of my favorite restaurants in San Diego, which is named after the surf spot, not after, not after Lord, not after the Lord.

...