The winner of the Corvisier Prize Edition 2024

The President, Prof. Dr Massimo de Leonardis, announced that the Jury, after a careful process of selection, decided to award the 2024 Corvisier Prize to Dr. Dermot Rooney for his PhD dissertation on Operation Veritable (8th February to 10th March 1945) conducted by the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group in Northern Germany.

Dr Dermot Rooney’ dissertation presents a thorough assessment of Operation Veritable (8th February to 10th March 1945) conducted by the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group in Northern Germany. He employs a nearly-bottom-up approach based on cross referencing unit war diaries and communication logs to map the flow of battles and then applies a version of root cause analysis to identify the factors that had the greatest impact on tactical success and failure. By linking the most important factors in tactical level battles the thesis uncovers limitations in the core narrative of Operation Veritable and in the British Army effectiveness debate. The thesis identifies weaknesses in British planning, use of artillery, tactical logistics, command systems, and inter-arm cooperation that undermined the ability to conduct manoeuvre warfare. Rather than a problem based in culture, morale, or competence, this is presented as a more tangible, and correctable, matter of force design. British formations were too centralized and too heavy to transition between operational phases smoothly and this placed unnecessarily heavy demands on soldiers.

The dissertation is based on a very wide literature and sources: books and published pamphlets, theses, chapters, articles, and unpublished reports, war diaries and communication logs, unpublished post-operation reports and operational research, as well as videos and online sources.