Alfred Burne

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Alfred Burne is a British military historian who specialised in mediaeval warfare. He invented the concept of Inherent Military Probability; ie in battles and campaigns where there is some doubt over what action was taken, Burne believes that the action taken would be one which a trained staff officer of the twentieth century would take.

The obvious flaw with IMP is that he puts modern military thinking and doctrine into the minds of mediaeval monarchs, who did not have the benefit of going to Camberley Staff College. However, it does treat war leaders as intelligent, thinking creatures, and veteran mediaeval leaders were often likely to come to the same conclusion as British staff officers, albeit by different thought processes.

He lived between 1886-1959. He wrote many important books on the Hundred Years War, included The Crecy War.