Tim Cook - The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie

I bought this book shortly after it came out because I had read Cook's previous books (At the Sharp End and Shock Troops) for a First World War history class I took in university a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed them. While I have to say that enjoyed the other two books more, The Madman and the Butcher was certainly an interesting read.


In general, Cook comes across as a strong defender of Sir Arthur Currie (commander of the Canadian Corps) and a fairly harsh critic of Sir Sam Hughes (the Minister of the Militia). Cook does an excellent job of examining the decisions that Currie made and putting them into the context of both the war itself (casualties were obviously to be expected) and Canada's position within it (as a subordinate nation to Great Britain, Canada had limited control over its troops). My one criticism of Cook's focus on Currie is that he generally brushes off both Currie's pre-war embezzlement of militia funds to cover his own debts and his falsification of military records reflecting one of the orders he gave. Both of these were fairly serious errors of judgement, but Cook spends little time on them.

His examination of Hughes was far more nuanced. Rather than simply attack Hughes as many other historians have done, Cook looked at both sides. Certainly he criticizes Hughes' style of personal attacks, patronage appointments, willful ignorance about the realities of war, and his often outright lies, but he also examined Hughes' accomplishments. These include the remarkable feat of recruiting and mobilizing over 400,000 volunteers for military service as well as his relentless efforts to ensure that Canada's war effort would not be subsumed by Britain. Overall, I thought that Cook offered a sympathetic look at Hughes, to the point that I felt some amount of sympathy for him when I read about his deteriorating mental state after being dismissed from Prime Minister Borden's Cabinet.

Overall, The Madman and the Butcher was a very interesting examination of the two biggest names involved with Canada's effort in World War One. I would recommend it highly.