"Interesting" Article in the Times

[jim_davies]

Came across this article

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5127281.ece

It's been a long day, but it seemed a rather strange, implausible, disjointed effort at "what if" history.

And looking deeper, appears to be related to a publication of a book, which garners the headline "Field Marshal Douglas Haig would have let Germany win, biography says".

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...?Submitted=true

Jim

Jim

[Will O'Brien]

To my mind pure fantasy. I'll admit that I don't know what the reputation of this Dr J.P Harris is, however I don't agree with his opinion. I am however interested as to how he reached his conclusions as I have not previously seen any source material which supports them & unfortunately there appear to be no references for the material within the article.

[Chris_Baker]

You'll note that it is entertainment.timesonline.co.uk rather than history.timesonline.co.uk

[Ron Clifton]

It is a case, as is so often true, of the review picking up "juicy" quotes and mis-interpreting them.

Few of us would deny that Haig made mistakes, but so did every othe Great War general, on all sides.

Haig's arguments in favour of moderate peace terms were that, if the terms were too harsh, Germany would not accept them and would fight on, causing even more loss of life. Only if Germany was so defeated that she could not put up any further resistance would she agree to very harsh terms. This was the case in 1945 but not in 1918, at least if you ignore the benefits of hindsight.

Ron

[jim_davies]

Chris,

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk is merely The Times' arts/literature etc supplement. Both articles can be accessed through the Times homepage.

Jim

[Chris_Baker]

I know. I was having a poke at the article/book, which can only have been written with entertainment, rather than history, in mind. .

[jim_davies]

Chris,

Thanks for the clarification. Pity that "entertainment" has to mean shody.

Jim

[Pete1052]

Sir Martin Gilbert's "what if" speculation in The Times on how the Great War might have turned out only made sense if one had also read the newpaper's review of the book Douglas Haig and the First World War, by Dr. J. P. Harris, senior lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Unfortunately the online Times did not run the two articles side by side, so Sir Martin's article came across as a puzzling non sequitur. In any event, below are two letters on the subject that The Times has published, including one from Haig's grandson.

From The Times

November 15, 2008

Haig's role in negotiating the armistice of 1918

Revisionist history: understanding the terms of armistice from all sides

Sir, The armistice terms proposed by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig in October 1918 would not have come anywhere near leaving Germany “victorious” (In Memoriam supplement, Nov 11). They would have left her exhausted, bankrupt, half starved and demoralised — which was why she had sought an armistice in the first place.

As for the Kaiser reasserting his power with troops from the Western Front, those troops hadn’t won a battle since May 1918, and from mid-July had been doing nothing but retreat, with steadily mounting losses and against ever-higher odds. Whatever Pershing may have thought, they knew well enough that they were defeated.

With regard to “betraying new nations before they even came into being”, this is precisely what the Allies did in the peace with Turkey. They tried to support an independent Armenia in eastern Turkey, and to unite the Greeks of Asia Minor with the Greek Kingdom, yet when the Turks proved more stubborn than the Germans, the victors soon abandoned both these aims, making a peace at Lausanne not unlike what Germany might have got had Haig’s view prevailed. Far from “costing Britain its moral standing in the world”, this “shameful act” worked perfectly, establishing a strong and stable Turkey that a generation later was the only one of the former Central Powers to stay out of the Second World War.

Lausanne was the only one of the First World War peace treaties to be negotiated on equal terms, rather than dictated, and also the only one to survive, essentially intact, to the present day. Not a coincidence, I suspect.

Michael W. Stone

Peterborough

Sir, Sir Martin Gilbert poses an interesting “what if?”. It joins a list of many 20th-century “what ifs”. Taking only a few from the immediate aftermath of the First World War: what if the statesmen at Versailles had accepted Marshal Foch’s security demands? What if the US had not abandoned the League of Nations? What if the Anglo-Japanese alliance had been renewed? What if Trotsky had won the power struggle in the Soviet Union and killed Stalin? And later, what if the assassination attempt on Franklin Roosevelt had succeeded in 1933? And what if Churchill had supported Neville Chamberlain over the German menace in the 1930s?

The problem with Sir Martin’s “what if?” about the peace offer of my grandfather, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, is that he never made one. He was consulted by the Cabinet on October 19 and gave his views as far as the Western Front was concerned, having talked to Foch on October 10. This was the limit of Haig’s involvement in the Armistice and peace negotiations. He gave no advice as regards the Navy or military operations other than in France and Belgium. He was present when Balfour came in and “spoke about deserting the Poles and the people of Eastern Europe”, but did not comment. Lloyd George “gave the opinion that we cannot expect the British to go on sacrificing their lives for the Poles”. Douglas Haig did not take part in the Versailles Conference.

Douglas Scott

Melrose, Borders

[cahoehler]

. . . . seemed a rather strange, implausible, disjointed effort at "what if" history.

Jim

Yet more outpourings from the Churchill industry.

Carl

[jim_davies]

Pete,

Thanks for the follow up letters.

Carl,

Forgive my ignorance but what is the "Churchill industry"?

Jim

[cahoehler]

. . . what is the "Churchill industry"?

Jim

Winston Churchill was famed for the vast output of literature during his lifetime. There has been criticism that he employed a large team of researchers and secretaries and this was in response to his periodic periods of financial embarrasment.

Since Churchill's death Sir Martin Gilbert has turned this into a virtual industry.

I have admiration for Churchill but there was often bad judgements in his life (he suffered from very bad depression) and he was not above seizing the glory due to others when it suited BUT he was very effective in WW2. Not a tank expert but I feel that W S-C took the idea of the tank from what came to be called the Boxing Day Memorandum written by one Maurice Hankey - Swinton was one of his office staff - and pushed the idea and maybe even gave them the name that we know and love.

BTW my cousin owns the farm where he was captured by the Boers in 1899.

Carl

[jim_davies]

Thanks for the clarification Carl,

Only read a couple of Gilbert's book, not overly impressed with them...

Jim

[Mark Hone]

I was at a talk a year or so ago by one of Britain's most eminent Historians (He's a Professor and a Sir). When a member of the audience asked him about one of Sir Martin Gilbert's books he cleared his throat and politely moved on to the next question.