The Educated Soldier

[David Filsell]

A slim hope I know, but does anyone using the Forum have a copy of a newspaper/magazine review of John Terraine's Douglas Haig:The Educated Soldier which appeared on the book's first publication in 1963? I have trawled the net and all the obvious sources without any luck.

[Tom Morgan]

This one is from The Times.

[Chris_Baker]

I have a Sunday Times article by Basil Liddell-Hart. Edition of 18 June 1961. Titled "The enigmatic Haig - a centenary study". Original (large) newspaper article, which to my delight was tipped into a copy of Haig's Private Papers, which I bought in the 1980s. Not quite the same but you're welcome to a copy if you would like it.

[PhilB]

Any idea who wrote the Times review?

[Tom Morgan]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Nov 27 2008, 04:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Any idea who wrote the Times review?

Sorry, no. It was on the Book Page on May 2nd., 1963, with no reviewer named.

Tom

[Chris_Baker]

Wouldn't surprise me if it was Liddell-Hart again.

[Rob Connolly]

Good lord!

OT and coincidental, but one of the reasons I took a Psychology degree was a book written by the other named author in that article - Vance Packard - "The Hidden Persuaders".

Back On Topic - I presume the Times for that day would be available on microfiche, which would allow checking who wrote the review?

[Jim Clay]

Rob

The info comes from the Times for May 2 1963. The whole paper is online. No names appear against the reviews.

Jim

[PhilB]

The reviewer didn`t seem wholly convinced by JT`s thesis. How does the book fit into the pantheon of revisionist literature - is it one of the first?

[David Filsell]

Team

Many thanks for your responses - this forum is amazing (I blame Chris Baker). Tom, particular thanks - just what I wanted. Chris, deepest salaams I would greatly welcome a copy of the aricle. Snail mail photocopy would do. I suspect the review was by LH who was a spiteful old b***** to anyone pro Haig (and many others).

The objective is to consider writing an article tracing the 'rehabilitation' and the opposite view of Haig since JTs 1963 book , via Sheffield et al to Mead- praise for which seems to me somewhat overblown - to Harris's new book. I come at it with no particular pro or anti views. I am about halfway through the Harris volume and it is far from favourable in regard to his abilities as a controller and overall director of war fighting; and thus far I am fairly 'with' his conclusions.

So I am having a trawl through all the more recent conclusions about his command - including those in the new re-edited edition of Wynne's "If Germany Attacks" just out from Tom Donovan Editions Ltd. ( A limited edition of 300 copies slip cased at a stonking £70 (Christmas present to me from me -I'm worth it) . On original publication in 1940 Wynn's book was heavily 'expurgated' to avoid criticism of the British Army for reasons fairly obvious).

Not sure if the article will work, and research is always the longest task. So if anyone has any other post 1960 Haig book reviews I would be most grateful to receive them. Thanks again team for the help, as always much appreciated.

[Jim Clay]

David

This brief exchange between Terraine and LH in the Times letter pages in April 1963 may be of passing interest (1 and 2 of 3 letters):

[Jim Clay]

Letter 3 of 3:

[David Filsell]

Thanks Guys - cut and shut works for me!

[Jonathan Saunders]

I am about halfway through the Harris volume and it is far from favourable in regard to his abilities as a controller and overall director of war fighting; and thus far I am fairly 'with' his conclusions.

You are a bit further through Harris than me but I am taking a slow read - read a section of Harris in the morning and peruse the same period in Terraine, Reid, Haig's diary, OH, etc in the evening.

To date I find Harris easy to read, and in contrast to the vague nature of Haig's other biographers Harris is highly detailed. The book is well referenced to sources and most of all - balanced. I have a whole shelf of books on Haig and my feeling with Harris is that I can throw the rest away.

I hope you complete your article - I'll look forward to it.

Regards,

Jonathan S

[Rob Connolly]

I'm damned if I can remember which book I read it in, but An Author* did describe how BLH did a "critique by proxy" on works he disagreed with; he would create an article and then send it to the person he knew was reviewing the work in question, asking them to use his information for background. This being so, the Times critic might not be BLH.

* It may have been John Terraine, who was quoting an un-named third party, to whom BLH had sent the information.

Phil B - other and better-informed may correct me, but I think John Terraine was very much a lone voice at the time and for a couple of decades afterwards, so he isn't really part of any "revisionist" school. More a free-floating independent.

[Chris_Baker]

And under huge batteries of fire. It doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not, we owe John a tremendous debt for beginning the slow journey to a more enlightened debate on the war and on Haig.

[PhilB]

If we take 1970ish as the start of the revision, that`s 50+ years after the event. It`s about the time when the participants are leaving the scene but is there any evidence from previous conflicts that revision tends to happen at that stage? In fact, is revision a normal outcome some years after a war or peculiar to this one?

[Chris_Baker]

I've always found the term "revision" when applied to the modern schools of thought about the war to be quite funny. Surely it was the "disenchantment" school of the 1930's that was revisionist, in that it presented a false or distorted view of things and described a revised view of history? How can subsequent historical research based on primary sources, whether documentary or oral, be revisionist?

Phil, the 50 year gap may have been affected by there being a war in between. But your question is a good one and I'll add to it. Was any event previous to WW1 ever studied so intensively over a period of decades, with conflicting views expounded over time?

[Pete1052]

Was any event previous to WW1 ever studied so intensively over a period of decades, with conflicting views expounded over time?

The American Civil War has certainly had a lot written about it. Starting about 30 years ago one small subset of the writing on the subject has been on the history of the history of the war, not unlike what David is proposing to do on the shifting interpretations of Haig. It has only been during my lifetime that one can say that the war was fought over slavery, when for decades the agreed-upon euphemism was that differences over states' rights were the cause of the war.

[PhilB]

Pete, did attitudes to the USCW change appreciably over time and, if so, to what time scale?

Chris, how does a modern military historian avoid judging the events of WW1 without being accused of judging those events by today`s standards (It was another country then)? Or do historians consider themselves immune to such bias as they are seekers after the truth?

[David Filsell]

Chris baker's point about revisionism is I think correct. But there were two forms I believe - that which was (largely, but not wholely) triggered by All Quiet on the WF (1929) which was a huge international success and without doubt triggered publishers to seek similar anti war books. These were generally about the horrors of war at front line level. The anti general phase really started later and LH, Laffin and the awful Clarke's works, togther with others seem to have triggered the anti-general stuff - Laffin and Clarke et al - in highly readable form, digestable in its appeal. JT certainly triggered the belief that there was another point of view which (even if indirectly) led to more recent studies (post JT) These look at a wide range of issues like command and control, logistics, the staff, and tactics (as well as the release of War Diaries and other papers) which, together with those historians which followed and were often introduced to the war by JT created the learning curve theory. This was not infact a smooth curve - it faltered.

So far, as I have said, I am fairly with the Harris view of Haig - with some reservations - but his research appears to be largely secondary, but based on much of the newer research. This is not necissarily a criticism and I must look at the notes and refs in more detail. But I think with Haig, whatever the conclusion about his exercise of command and management of the war, we are stuck with a partricular problem which has often been discussed. With whom could/would you replace him. Plumer, perhaps the most obvious possibility, made it clear that he would not accept the position. An outside choice would have been Rawlinson, whose effectiveness from 1916 onwards has been examined in a biography and whose actions seem increasingly approved by a number of leading writers.

There have as yet been few, if any reviews of the Harris book (I would welcome copies of any located by Forum users). Whilst reviews rarely put me off a book that I "need". the best of them do give one cause to think and reflect on one's own opinion. Any further contributions will be greatfully recieved.

[George Armstrong Custer]

I've always found the term "revision" when applied to the modern schools of thought about the war to be quite funny. Surely it was the "disenchantment" school of the 1930's that was revisionist, in that it presented a false or distorted view of things and described a revised view of history? How can subsequent historical research based on primary sources, whether documentary or oral, be revisionist?

Spot on, Chris. It's a point I've made elsewhere on this forum at other times and one which Peter Hart makes at the start of his recent excellent 1918 A Very British Victory. Those who persist in perpetuating the label of 'revisionist' to any author who has a kind word to say about Haig tend to be unreconstructed 'Lions led by Donkeys' theorists - in other words they miss the irony that it is the school which they subscribe to which might more accurately be termed 'revisionist.'

Anyone who cares to leaf through Sir Douglas Haig's Command, 1915 - 1919 by Dewar and Boraston and published as early as 1922 will find all the elements which are ascribed to the work of modern so-called 'revisionist' historians such as Sheffield already in place - including the concept of the learning curve which the British Army went through in the crucible of 1916 - 17 to emerge as the best army in the field in 1918. The first revisionists were, as Chris notes, the purveyors of the 'disenchantment' school which appeared by 1929 and which fitted in and grew with the mood of appeasement which prevailed amongst many through the 1930's.

I'm damned if I can remember which book I read it in, but An Author* did describe how BLH did a "critique by proxy" on works he disagreed with; he would create an article and then send it to the person he knew was reviewing the work in question, asking them to use his information for background. This being so, the Times critic might not be BLH.

* It may have been John Terraine, who was quoting an un-named third party, to whom BLH had sent the information.

You are absolutely correct Rob; the information on the lengths which Liddell Hart would go to in order to damage anyone whose views were contrary to his own comes from John Terraine and can be found on pp. 133-134 of his fine exposure of the processes of mythologising in military historiography, The Smoke and the Fire. I quote Terraine below, and it seems implicit that Terraine's source for Liddell Hart's poison pen round-robins was the actor George Sewell, who played Haig in the original 1963 production of Oh! What A Lovely War!:

"When my book, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier, came out in 1963, Sir Basil Liddell Hart took a deep dislike to it (for obvious reasons). As was his custom, he industriously circulated a number of people, prompting them to attack it (though he never did this publicly himself); I know of at least eight whom he approached in this way, or supplied with critical material, including the actor who played the part of Haig in the musical Oh! What a Lovely War! and who was invited to review my book for the Tribune. One of these people was kind enough to send me an extract from the 'brief' that Liddell Hart had given him."[/i]

Liddell Hart was essentially a self-publicising fraud, who built a career as "the captain who taught generals" on the back of denigrating the British high command of the Great War, whilst lauding the achievements of the Imperial German Army (as he was later to fawn over Hitler's commanders as his 'disciples' after the Second World War). This is why Liddell Hart was so keen to promote the German version of their casualty figures whilst simultaneously directly and by proxy attacking those of the British official historian - Liddell Hart's 'bunglers' could not be seen to have infliicted crippling casualties on the enemy and had to be seen to have invariably sustained substantially higher casualty rates themselves. Liddell Hart's 'revolutionary' and 'new' (sic) theories propounded through the 1930's could be made to appear to shine so much brighter if, concurrently, he was contrasting them with the 'bunglers' of the Great War. In this, however, Liddell Hart was a hypocrite of mammoth proportions, to whose door so many of the myths of the Great War commonly accepted as 'fact' can be traced.

[PhilB]

I've always found the term "revision" when applied to the modern schools of thought about the war to be quite funny. Surely it was the "disenchantment" school of the 1930's that was revisionist, in that it presented a false or distorted view of things and described a revised view of history? How can subsequent historical research based on primary sources, whether documentary or oral, be revisionist?

Surely there can be more than one revision? Each significant modification of a generally held view is a revision. So, we should really be referring to 1st & 2nd revisions etc. That is rather cumbersome, however, and it would be better if a particular school penned its own pseudonym. Post-Terrainists?

What exactly was the general attitude before the disentchantmenters arrived in the 30s?

[truthergw]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Nov 28 2008, 10:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If we take 1970ish as the start of the revision, that`s 50+ years after the event. It`s about the time when the participants are leaving the scene but is there any evidence from previous conflicts that revision tends to happen at that stage? In fact, is revision a normal outcome some years after a war or peculiar to this one?

I take 1930 as the start of revisionism when, with the main protagonists dead, Lloyd George published his self serving war memoirs and other military historians seized the chance to inflate their contribution and also capitalise on the mood of pacifism which was prevalent in UK in the 30s.

[David Filsell]

It seems to me that books about the Great War split broadly into a number of categories and periods.

It would take a very lengthy piece to delineate them with accuracy and there were overlaps. But as a broad guide 1914 -1919 largely patriotic and propagandist (including fake German memoirs published in English but written by the Brits and the French. 1919 - 1920 personal memoirs, regimental/divisional histories, novels (which of course contued and still does). by 1920 - 29 a declining market of which J B Priestly said "publishers have become frightened of War books. 1929 -39 the All Quiet perod (also the year of the highly influential Journeys End), personal memoirs with an horror of true war slant (triggered by Remarque and Sherriff according again to Priestly - with I think very considerable juctification) which led to the Sasson, Graves, Blunden (probabably the best in my opinion of the most popular writers books) and many other significant memoirs and novels. 1939 -1950 a very quiet period, there was a new war about which to write, although Wynne's much expurgated When German Attacks remained, despoite cuts, pretty anti high command. 1950 - 1965 the heyday of the donkey brigade. 1966, PTH (Post Terraine Haig) new thinking slowly starts (revisionist if you like) 1990 to date the period of the Sandhurst group of writer/lecturers and then those offering newer views and evaluations based on extensive use of official and unofficial records - learning curve and etc.

Now this is arguable and rough and ready and there are exceptions in every year, as doubtless some of you will point out.

My view leans very stongly towards that of the learning curvists - with judders - and relatively pro Haig for reasons already stated. But like many others I am no longer prepared to butt heads and argue with the donkey protagonists - too much of what they wrote/write seems to me to have been overtaken and disproved by discovery of realities by recent writers, which I can list if there is interest. I am not however interested in entering into any public arguements about Haig!