brother in fighting on the Western Front in early 1915 may well have exacerbated Gough's latter personality traits during the conflict. Modern historians Gough's admiring biographer Anthony Farrar-Hockley pointed out that during the Battle of the Somme Gough had captured more difficult ground than Rawlinson, had taken more prisoners (17,723 as opposed to 15,630) but had suffered only half as many casualties (125,531 as opposed to 227,194). Farrar-Hockley also pointed out that not only did Gough not have enough artillery to succeed at Ypres in August 1917, but also argues that the limited advances advocated by "Tavish" Davidson were no cheaper in lives and did not stand any chance of achieving breakthrough or capturing German guns. Simkins argues that Gough might have been more successful in the semi-open warfare of the Hundred Days. Gough was, in Philpott's view "probably the most discussed and vilified British Western Front general (after Haig at least) ... intelligent, quick witted and charming, a popular man in the army, both confident and courageous" although not popular with subordinates, and was "still learning his trade" in July 1916. However, Philpott concedes that he "interfered far too much" with his subordinates. Prior & Wilson write of his command record on the Somme: "His grasp of the tactical situation ... seemed always limited, his dithering over the best way to capture Thiepval was disastrous for his troops, and his 'victory' at Beaumont Hamel much over-rated. His performance at the Somme should have seen him sink into a well-deserved obscurity. Perversely, in 1917, the opposite was to happen." Historians tend to take an equally dim view of Gough's record at Third Ypres. Simpson writes that after the "more or less unsuccessful" operations on 10 and 16 August, Gough "in the end ... decided upon a more or less staggered approach, first one corps attacking and then another, which invited the sort of treatment the Germans had meted out to Fourth Army's piecemeal attacks the previous year. Throughout, though admittedly crippled by the weather, he failed to stick to the principles of careful preparation he had defined at the start of the planning for the offensive. While corps orders were as careful as before, the operations were doomed to fail". John Lee writes that "despite the atrocious rainfall Gough persisted in attacking through August in conditions that led to inevitable defeat and a severe loss of morale among the usually