The ‘Wingate Myth’ has it that Orde Wingate was a ‘maverick’ who not only tore up the ‘rules of war’ as understood by the British ‘military establishment’ of his day, but placed himself at odds deliberately with that establishment in several other ways, including politically. This image was first presented in a number of works published in the 1950s and has been repeated, often without question, let alone criticism, in many other works since. Whether Wingate's ‘maverick’ outlook made him a menace or a genius depends on the opinion of whatever author is writing about him, but there is general agreement that his ideas on warfare and those of the rest of the British Army differed radically.

Yet, a study of Wingate's papers, and other documents and testimony of his time, suggests that ideas implicit in this myth need to be nuanced and in some cases, abandoned. To begin with, a number of works claiming to ‘place’ Wingate in particular military schools of thought can now be seen as over-simplified. Indeed, as implied in the introduction, they might be viewed as polemics for their time, using Wingate as ‘case study’ in support of whatever set of currently fashionable ideas the authors have imprinted upon them.