There’s been an awful lot of this Brexit thing recently so – in the way of light relief – I’m going to talk about the First World War.
I think just about everyone has heard of Passchendaele which was fought in 1917. The better informed will know that its official title was the Third Battle of Ypres. Which makes this headline (from 12 June 1916) somewhat premature:
The Times 12 June 1916 p5
What they are referring to is what we now know – or more accurately: don’t know – as the Battle of Mount Sorrel. There are eerie parallels with the Somme. The attacker unleashed a huge artillery bombardment:
Artillery fire is not now used merely to demoralize the enemy or break up formations. It is used to annihilate, to obliterate every form of defensive work, and make life itself impossible on every yard of the ground attacked. I will not labour the point for the benefit of the makers of munitions at home.
He exploded mines. He came on in waves. He was mown down in his thousands:
When the infantry advanced they came, not charging, but with full kit and in regular formation, as if to occupy untenanted ground. They paid for it.
Only one difference: the attacker was German.
And how did the defender (mainly Canadian) respond to this? By organising immediate counter-attacks just as the Germans would on the Somme. At first they didn’t work. However, when they decided to sit down and do some planning – Arthur Currie take a bow – they succeeded.
Did I say one difference? Actually there were two. The Germans achieved surprise, to the extent that at the very moment they attacked there were two Canadian generals in the front line, there because “Oh it’s a quiet sector and we’re not expecting anything to happen.” One was killed, the other captured.
There’s also this:
Long after the issues of minor engagements in this war are forgotten, and when everybody has ceased to care whether at any moment we gained or lost a hundred yards or ground or a mile of trench, the memory of how the Canadians fought against hopeless odds near Hooge will be remembered, and Canada and the Empire will be proud, for generations to come, of the men whose deeds I have mentioned and of their no less gallant comrades.
Alas no. The war was too big for that.
Alas no. The war was too big for that.
Same as the battle of Hurtgen Forest in WWII, which was totally forgotten when the Battle of the Bulge kicked off a few days later. The Americans took 33,000 casualties.
There was a good film from 1998 made about this action, When Trumpets Fade. It is one of the better less-known war films.
I have recently watched the film “Oh What a Lovely War” and was moved to tears at this reminder of the carnage and stupidity of those four years.
Henry Kaye, though it movingly presented I am not an admirer of “Oh What a Lovely War.” In particular its portrayal of the war as simply being simply an outbreak of stupidity is breathtakingly crass. There’s plenty of room for debate about whether the decision to go to war was proved wrong or right by events, or whether it was understandable given that those making it did not know how grim an industrial world war would be. Also plenty of debate about the tactics and strategy of the generals and the politicians. But a bunch of upper class twits playing leapfrog? No. Read John Terraine’s The Smoke and the Fire for a wider view.
Sorry about the duplication of “simply” in the above comment.
Thanks Natalie. Coincidentally, I have just finished The Smoke and the Fire. There’s lots that’s good about it but occasionally he goes a bit too far the other way. This is perhaps because he was such a voice in the wilderness.
“Oh, What a Lovely War” maybe a beautifully made movie but (or should that be “and”?) it is propaganda. It glosses over why Britain went to war and ignores 1918 and the huge celebrations when victory was achieved.
The politicians were reluctant to go to war in 1914. But they had to look at the other side of the coin: what would happen if they didn’t. They didn’t like what they saw. Something like Mr Ed’s posting on Guernsey I shouldn’t wonder.
I have recently watched the film “Oh What a Lovely War” and was moved to tears at this reminder of the carnage and stupidity of those four years.
I’m afraid I only watched it for the clip of them singing Pack Up Your Troubles: that too is blatant propaganda, but it’s a fun song to sing nonetheless.
After he learnt what he was doing (which took time – it always does) Arthur Currie was one of the best commanders of the Western Front.
Lloyd-George claimed that he wanted to make Currie overall commander of the Western Front – but I doubt that is true.
The invisible sword always hanging over Currie was the money he had “borrowed” from his regiment before the war (although he eventually repaid it – had been desperate because of a banker boom-bust in British Columbia that hit the real estate market). He also made powerful enemies by refusing to promote people on the basis of “pull” (the normal thing in these days) and insisting on actual ability.
As for the Passchendaele Offensive in general……..
Of course General Plumer is famous for doing well in various battles (Messines, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde) in the Passchendaele offensive, but this does not alter the fact that the offensive was a bad idea.
Haig was repeatedly warned that this area of Flanders depended on a drainage system that would be destroyed by large battles – that the area would turn into a bog.
Sadly (as normal) Haig ignored the warnings and went on with his (hopeless) plan for the great breakthrough.
Although, to be fair to Haig, he was not helped by the usual “Yes Persons” (General Gough and others) who kept telling him that he was right.
Gough promised the Moon and Stars – and delivered a total mess (as he always did) the “Great Breakthrough” (Plumer just tried to kill more Germans soldiers than he lost of his own soldiers).
The following year (1918) even Haig got sick of Gough and sacked him after his (Gough’s) failure to deal with the German Operation Michael offensive.
“A scapegoat is needed Hubert – it can be you or me, and it is not going to be me”.
“Oh what a lovely war” and “The Smoke and the Fire” (indeed all J.T. works) are both rubbish – just opposite sorts of rubbish.
Of the two I hate “Oh what a lovely war” more – because it was written by Reds (I detest Reds on principle – and as a I have no sense of humour they “comedy” side does not interest me).
Two rules-of-thumb about war books.
Had the author ever commanded men in battle?
And.
Does the author have real critical points to make? Real “we did this – we should have not have done, we should have done…….”
If the author has never been in battle it is unlikely they really grasp what is going on.
And if the author has no real critical points to make they are writing an apologia – not a useful work.
Colonel Barker (the expert on British operations against the Ottomans in the First World War) fits the bill for a good military historian – at least in the area he specialised in.
What General Slim says about his operations against the Japanese in the Second World War and what Admiral Sharpe says about the Vietnam War (and Colonel Conway about Vietnam also) is worth thinking about.
“Unlikely” – it is not impossible. Although someone who has not commanded (and I have not commanded) is likely to fall into the trap of thinking it is less difficult to command than it actually is.
Grant’s (the General who became President) writings are supposed to be good (supposedly he treats himself quite harshly at some points – for example when he made military decisions whilst drunk or hungover), but I have not read them.
Grant was a good General – as long as he was sober.
Was Haig warned about the conditions at Passchendaele? Was he warned repeatedly? I doubt it. There had already been three enormous battles fought around Ypres and none of them had resulted in a collapse of the drainage system. Many years ago, I forget where, I read that the weather in August 1917 was unusually wet. No general could have known that.
There were sound strategic reason for fighting at Ypres. Any advance would threaten German-held Channel ports while taking the pressure off Allied-held Channel ports. This was a lot more than could be said about the Somme as the Germans found out in 1918. More importantly, by summer 1917, with the First Russian Revolution and the French Mutinies, Britain was the only major ally (pace Italy) in a position to go on the offensive. It was vital that Britain demonstrated that she was faithful to the allied cause.
John Terraine believed that giving command of Third Ypres to Gough was the worst decision he ever made. But Terraine writes rubbish so who knows what the truth is.
I know that Ultra was so secret in WW2 that ACM Sir Arthur Harris was not told about it, but was the weather a well-kept secret in WW1?
They couldn’t have known beforehand.
Sorry Patrick, I was rather puzzled by the phrase, it is a fair point that the atate of knowledge of variables in those days was very much limited compared to now, even during the Falklands War the weather over the Islands was effectively unknown to the Fleet Air Arm on the carriers, and we should remember that everything was much slower in those days, apart from the bullets etc. I suppose.
Talking of German attacks and OT, overnight is the 75th anniversary of Barbarossa. Just imagine what that would have looked like had satellite photography of events been available.
Harris wsa not cleared for ULTRA? I never knew that. Granted that Bomber Command’s missions mostly would not make use of ULTRA-type intelligence, it still seems remarkable.
Amen to that. “Right of the Line” what riddled with errors and simply ignores entire aspects of the night air war. WTF?
Grant was a brilliant writer – clean, clear, direct – just like his generalship. His memoirs are totally worth the time. Yes he drank (Lincoln is said to have said he wished his other generals would drink what Grant drank) to the point that he was occasionally incapable; so what? So did Churchill, so did Stalin. Grant was a brilliant, ruthless strategist and could pick brilliant, equally ruthless, totally loyal, highly competent subordinates; in fact, W.T. Sherman (who suffered all his life from paralyzing fits of depression) owed a lot to Grant, who unstintingly supported Sherman in the darkest days of Sherman’s life and career. Once, when asked about Grant’s fondness for the bottle, Sherman replied, “He stood by me when I was crazy and I stood by him when he was drunk”. Now, Grant was to become a lousy president, but given the task the Union faced in 1863, of crushing the Confederacy, Lincoln cold not have done better than with Grant. The North knew that, the South came to know that, and historians of all stripes have since conceded that.
It’s amazing how The Great War faded so quickly from the American national memory. Most people don’t realize that the biggest battle in the history of the U. S. Army was not Shiloh or Antietam or The Bulge, but the Meuse-Argonne offensive of September 1918. And the cemetery there, not at Normandy, is the biggest U. S. military cemetery in Europe.
“Was Haig warned about conditions at Passchendaele – I doubt it”.
Yes he was warned Patrick – he was told that the area depended on artificial drainage and would turn into a massive bog if it was shelled and so on.
Patrick the fact that you do not know this (do not know the first thing about the offensive – the fact that Haig was warned against it) is yet another indication that you should not be writing about the First World War.
To be fair to Patrick he is probably honestly getting his (mis) information from scumbags such as the late J.T.
I first encountered the writings of J.T. (and other scumbags) when I was an undergraduate (in a different geological age) and I was appalled by their dishonesty. The British establishment is not content with getting vast numbers of men killed – it insists on urinating on the dead, by refusing to accept any responsibility for their criminal negligence and, instead, just tries to deceive future generations. For example a decent human being would have shot himself after the first of July 1916 (the massacre of the British army – the direct result of Haig’s command choices) – General Haig did not even resign, he had (in spite of his professed Christianity) no moral core.
But most people do not have my family background and childhood (every summer talking with combat veterans of the First World War)- so would have no idea about the truth.
I still can not over that response “I doubt it” about Haig being warned the area was likely to turn into a swamp.
“I doubt it” – about the first thing that someone who chooses to write about this subject should know.
The British establishment are cunning – they have an astonishing ability to fill the minds of good men (and Patrick is a good man) with a mass of irrelevant details, vast amounts of totally useless information.
Whilst making sure that good people (good people like Patrick) do not know the basic facts.