Military History Club Podcast · Saul David

Robert Lyman on 'Slim: Master of War'

·55 min·3 clips

Slim built a nine-month jungle-war training system for Indian soldiers before Burma fighting in 1944.

Saul David opens by welcoming Rob Lyman back to discuss Slim: Master of War. They mark 20 years since publication, and Lyman explains that the book grew out of his PhD, then spent years making its way through a tiny publisher before it received much notice. That long route to print gives the episode much of its texture. It also helps explain why the conversation feels less like promotion and more like a retrospective on how historical reputation lasts, especially when a book outlives the moment that first greeted it. The discussion then turns to Slim himself. Lyman and David work through his early wartime command, with special attention to a difficult action in which Slim came close to being sacked, was wounded, and carried away lessons that later mattered. The Essex Regiment's resentment lingered. That lingering memory gives the story an institutional edge, because the consequences of command mistakes can outlast the battle by years. Lyman is not interested in simple condemnation. He argues instead that senior officers should be judged with room for learning, since the Second World War forced many commanders into forms of combat they were not yet ready to handle. The point is not that mistakes vanished. The point is that many officers improved after them, and the discussion makes space for that uncomfortable fact. From there the episode widens into a broader reflection on military leadership. Monty and Slim come up as the obvious examples of men who stayed in the system, learned, and kept going, while others fell by the wayside. That comparison is useful without becoming reverential. It keeps the listener focused on process, institutional memory, and the slow building of judgment under pressure. Near the end, the conversation looks toward Kohima and the prospect of writing with more archival material than was available when Slim: Master of War first appeared. Lyman suggests that a later book could revisit Slim with more distance and, perhaps, more nuance. The closing note is sober. However flawed the commanders were at the start, the battle was won through the tenacity and courage of Indian and British soldiers despite the mistakes above them.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed look at Slim's reputation, early command setbacks, and the slow making of a military legend.

Rob Lyman returns to Slim: Master of War, and the episode does well to linger on the book's unusual path to publication. Saul David says it was first written as a PhD around 2002 and published in 2004, which gives the whole thing a slightly scrappy, long-haul feel.

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Why you'd press play

You want a measured look at Slim's wartime command career, not a polished tribute or a slogan.

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