Forgotten War opens strongly with its discussion of the origins and early strategic setting of the conflict. Walter is at his best when outlining the wider geopolitical framework and demonstrating how political hesitation, imperial commitments, and strategic uncertainty shaped the opening stages of the war. These early chapters effectively communicate the atmosphere of confusion and improvisation that surrounded the initial campaigns. However, even here the pattern that defines the rest of the book quickly emerges. Important strategic debates are introduced, sometimes very effectively, but the narrative moves on before those debates are fully explored. Questions surrounding alliance coordination, command priorities, and competing strategic visions are raised but rarely examined in sustained deta.l
The sections dealing with the land campaigns are particularly uneven. Walter often provides a competent operational summary of advances, withdrawals, and major engagements, but there is comparatively little examination of battlefield mechanics or command friction. For example, when discussing major offensives, the book frequently outlines objectives, troop movements, and final outcomes without fully analysing how terrain, supply, morale, communications, or junior leadership affected operations on the ground. Battles can therefore feel strangely detached from the soldiers fighting them. The reader understands broadly what happened, but not always how or why events unfolded in the manner they did.
This becomes especially noticeable in the chapters covering jungle operations and difficult terrain warfare. Walter acknowledges the brutal environmental conditions, logistical fragility, disease, exhaustion, and isolation that shaped combat, yet these factors are often treated descriptively rather than analytically. There are moments where the book hints at deeper operational realities, particularly regarding the inability of commanders to maintain cohesion across difficult terrain, but these observations are rarely developed into sustained arguments. Instead the narrative quickly returns to broader campaign movements.
The naval chapters illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of the book particularly clearly. Walter succeeds in conveying the strategic importance of maritime operations and repeatedly reminds the reader that sea control underpinned the entire conduct of the war. Convoys, fleet movements, amphibious operations, and logistical shipping networks are all integrated into the broader narrative. However, these sections frequently read as compressed summaries of events rather than detailed naval history. Fleet engagements are described efficiently but often without much discussion of doctrine, command philosophy, intelligence assessment, or the practical realities of naval operations. The book identifies naval power as critical while rarely pausing to examine its operational complexity.
The air campaign sections follow a similar pattern. Walter clearly understands that air power shaped both strategic planning and battlefield outcomes, and the book regularly shifts toward discussions of bombing campaigns, reconnaissance, air superiority, and logistical air support. Yet these sections often remain general in tone. Air operations are described more through their strategic consequences than through detailed examination of operational methods, aircraft limitations, pilot experience, or evolving doctrine. There is comparatively little sustained discussion of how air forces adapted tactically over time or how commanders balanced competing operational priorities.
One of the more interesting parts of the book is its discussion of inter service coordination. Walter repeatedly demonstrates how difficult it was to synchronise land, sea, and air operations across vast distances and under conditions of uncertainty. Some of the strongest passages occur when he shows how failures in communication or conflicting operational priorities created friction between commands. These moments provide glimpses of the deeper analytical study the book could perhaps have become had it narrowed its focus. Unfortunately these discussions are usually brief before the narrative moves toward another campaign or theatre.
The treatment of logistics is similarly mixed. Walter deserves credit for consistently reminding the reader that supply shaped operational possibilities. Shipping shortages, inadequate infrastructure, fuel demands, weather, and distance all appear throughout the work as recurring constraints on military action. However, logistics often functions more as narrative background than as a fully developed analytical theme. The reader is frequently told that supply difficulties existed, but there is less examination of precisely how those problems altered operational decisions or battlefield performance.
The book’s treatment of commanders and leadership is also somewhat superficial. Senior commanders appear regularly throughout the narrative, yet Walter seldom spends enough time examining their operational methods, personalities, or decision making processes in depth. Leadership becomes reduced largely to decisions and outcomes rather than being explored as a dynamic process shaped by uncertainty, institutional culture, personality, and incomplete information. As a result many commanders emerge more as names attached to operations than as fully realised historical figures.
Walter is more effective when discussing the broader strategic trajectory of the war. The sections analysing shifting momentum, industrial capacity, and alliance cooperation provide some of the book’s clearest thematic continuity. The reader gains a strong sense of how the conflict evolved from crisis and improvisation toward increasing organisational and material dominance. In these sections the broad survey style actually works to the book’s advantage because Walter can move across multiple theatres to demonstrate wider strategic patterns.
The weakness remains that nearly every topic introduced feels compressed. Intelligence failures, amphibious doctrine, special operations, coalition tensions, training deficiencies, and technological adaptation all appear briefly throughout the text, often interestingly, but rarely receive the space necessary for deep analysis. The cumulative effect is a work that constantly gestures toward complexity without fully unpacking it.
Stylistically, the prose remains accessible and readable throughout. Walter avoids becoming buried beneath technical jargon or excessive detail, which likely explains why the book has appealed to many general readers. The pacing is brisk and the narrative rarely stagnates. Yet this readability also contributes to the sense of historical compression. Campaigns and operations move past quickly, sometimes so quickly that the reader scarcely has time to absorb their significance before the book transitions elsewhere.
Ultimately, the central criticism remains unavoidable. The book tries to cover too much. Walter clearly wanted to produce a comprehensive account encompassing the entire conflict across land, sea, and air domains while also addressing politics, strategy, logistics, and diplomacy. That ambition is admirable, but it produces a study that often sacrifices depth for scope. The reader finishes the book with a broad understanding of the war’s overall shape and progression, yet without the detailed insight that comes from sustained focus on particular campaigns, operational problems, or military institutions.
As a broad introductory synthesis the book has considerable value. As a deeply analytical military history it remains frustratingly thin. It is a work that continually introduces important ideas, compelling operational problems, and fascinating strategic tensions, but too often moves on before those subjects can truly develop.
Not what I was expecting. If you have some knowledge of this theatre of the war don’t buy it. If you want a broad approach it is worthwhile. Not a fan!