“In the British Army, there are no good battalions and no bad battalions, no good regiments and no bad regiments. There are only good and bad officers.”

Field Marshall Sir William Slim (1891 to 1970) echoing Napoleon.

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim of Yarralumla and Bishopston, was a British Field Marshal and Chief of the Imperial General Staff who turned back an attempted Japanese invasion of India and defeated the Japanese armies in Burma (Myanmar) during World War II.

Joining the British Army as a Private at the outbreak of World War I, Slim soon became an officer and campaigned in the Dardanelles, France, and Iraq. In 1920 he received a regular commission and joined the Indian Army, in which he served throughout the interwar period.