Easterners vs Westerners; who was right?

[Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth]

Just read the great Peter Hart's excellent book 1918; A very British victory. In it he divides the strategists of the Great War into 2 competing camps. Firstly the Westerners personified by Haig who argued that the war would be won or lost on the Western Front in the battles of France and Belgium and everthing else is a wasteful sideshow. Secondly the Easterners such as Lloyd George and Churchill who argued that there had to be a better way than confronting the Germans directly in a bloody war of attrition on a narrow front and that they should attempt to find an easier way by targeting Germany's allies elsewhere where they were weaker.

Who was right? Hart seems to think it was the Westerners as in 1918 troops were withdrawn from other fronts to counter the German's last ditch offensive. Alternatively the collapse of Germany's allies in 1918 played a major role in their eventual surrender?

[aiwac]

Is it really that simple? Surely even those who argue for the Western Front would acknowledge the importance of the Eastern Front - especially the Russian Eastern Front but also the Italian - in tying down crucial German and AH forces. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Besides, didn't Strachan say that the real "East VS West" debate was among the Germans?

[keithmroberts]

Its easy to be simplistic. Germany was defeated by a combination of military and economic factors. I don't know how to compare say the effect of the blockade, with the military victory on the western front. What can be stated with surely some confidence however, is that the campaigns away from Europe proper would Never have reduced the German army and government to the state where they sued for peace. The Russian front could surely have been the only other point where the war could have been decided against Germany, and with the collapse of the Russian state, that ceased to be relevant.

Having recently returned from Gallipoli (yes with that same chap), it was clear that our massive investment in that campaign in 1915 could never have been productive. That immense resource might have made some difference in France or Flanders. It is equally hard to see how a success in the Salonika campaigns could have speeded the end of the war to any great degree.

Germany had to be beaten where it counted. Italy had to be supported, but to have even contemplated moving sufficient resources to achieve ultimate victory on that front would surely have been to create a logistical nightmare that would have extended the war very considerably.

For the key allies, especially once Russia collapsed, Britain and France, the war was primarily about driving back the invaders of France and Belgium. Note easy to do anywhere but on the western front. Germany could be damaged or pressured elsewhere, but had to be defeated on the primary battleground.

Churchill was just wrong, and Lloyd George was as devious as he could be effective.

Keith

Keith

[aiwac]

To play Devil's advocate - what about the Macedonian Front breakout? Granted, it didn't "win the war", but IIRC the fall of Bulgaria helped soften Luddendorf up.

[Guest]

It depends on how one defines 'winning'. No-one 'won' anything in my view.

Those who served in Salonika believe their campaign won the war. I am not convinced. No-one can give a definitive answer as it is all subjective. Take Gallipoli as another example - there are those who believe that it was lost before the first shot was fired and others who believe it was a close run thing. No-one really knows what the impact would have been had it succeeded. It is pure guesswork given the complexities but it diverted resources on both sides. In is an interesting philosophical debate and (sadly) I fear it is one primed for a typical GWF punch-up. I am an 'Easterner' by interest but, if pressed, I think the War was 'won' - for want of a better word - on the Western Front. I would argue that any major victory in Gallipoli may well have shortened the War, but not 'won' it.

'Winning" was ultimately a function of economic might in the end - regardless of which front. The full price if measured in economic terms could not be measured until long after WWII in my view, and certainly Britain was not the 'winner' as anyone with a any understanding of economics will know. Some would argue that the settlements post WWI triggered WWII which in turn triggered the Cold War. What are the dates for the measurement of 'winning' or 'losing'? I assume Aug 1914-Nov 1918. On that assumption everyone lost.

MG

[Alan Tucker]

Keith is spot on. Westerners v Easterners is nothing to do with the Eastern front but is all about a debate on British military strategy between those who believed that Germany could only be defeated on the Western Front and those who believed that side shows could work.

Bulgaria is pretty irrelevant to the final denoument. Bulgaria gave up on September 30 1918. The day before the Allied advance in the West restarted which by October 2 had achieved a 17 km breach in the Hindenburg Line.

[charlesmessenger]

It boils down to large extent to lines of communication. They are either across the English Channel and within France or they run the length of the Mediterranean. The Channel could be made relativelly secure against U-boats, but the Mediterranean was considerably more difficult. Besides which, the bulk of the German Army was always in the W est and until this had been defeated the war could not be won. Also, would the French have accepted the main effort being made up through the Balkans while the Germans were still occupying a sighificant amount of their territory?

Charles M

[Robert Dunlop]

I don't know who was 'right'. The reality was that multiple fronts existed and that there was no easy way to overcome defenders on any of these fronts. Even the dramatic early success against Romania did not result in complete victory at the time, which resulted in some German and A-H forces being tied up there.

Just to complicate the discussion though, the concept of 'Easterners' is more complex. Broadly speaking, there were attempts to break down the back door into Germany with active involvement of British forces - Gallipoli being the most well-known example. Lloyd George's approach was somewhat different. On at least one occasion he was looking to supplement someone else's forces (Italian) so that the British played a supporting role. The underlying goal was to let someone else's infantry be killed while still being seen to participate albeit in a supporting role. The approach to the American contribution was similar. Pétain was also keen to minimise French losses until such time as the Americans could take up the fighting and thereby suffer the bulk of the casualties. While this approach is understandable, particularly from a political perspective, it was not primarily about winning the war more quickly or without any form of attrition. The approach was focused on minimising 'my' casualties (explicitly) at the expense of 'your' casualties (implicitly).

Robert

[phil andrade]

Most of us agree that Haig was right to seek conclusions where the main enemy deployed the bulk of his strength.

Churchill made valid criticism in his August 1916 Memorandum when he suggested that the claims made by the British High Command about the German manpower losses on the Somme were very flawed and produced an excessively optimistic account of the effect of attritional fighting. That he produced this at the time makes his assessment all the more compelling : his subsequent analysis in the tables of THE WORLD CRISIS were deployed as a means of justifying his arguments. Read THE BLOOD TEST, the chapter which Churchill used to demolish the argument that the Germans were defeated by the cumulative effects of the attritional fighting of 1915, 16 and 17. It is a controversial assessment, and attempts to discuss it on the Forum tend to generate more heat than light, but, right or wrong, it is worth reading and demands reflection.

Phil (PJA)

[George Armstrong Custer]

Read THE BLOOD TEST, the chapter which Churchill used to demolish the argument that the Germans were defeated by the cumulative effects of the attritional fighting of 1915, 16 and 17.

There is no need to generate 'heat' - a moment's reflection ought to refute the above contention. Does anyone here seriously think that, had the German army on the Western Front not been subjected to the attritional phase, particularly in 1916 and 17, that they would have been defeated as they were in 1918 when augmented by forces released from the Eastern Front? The failure of the German offensives and the Allied victory of 1918 was largely made possible as a consequence of the attritional phase of 1916 and 17, not despite it.

[aiwac]

I think it would be useful to split the issue in two:

1) The relative contributions and subsequent benefit of the entente forces on the Eastern and Western front - including Russia, Roumania, Italy and Serbia.

2) Whether or not the BRITISH (or even the French for that matter) should have committed any of their forces to SE Europe or the Middle East rather than focusing exclusively on the Western Front.

[Crunchy]

Read THE BLOOD TEST, the chapter which Churchill used to demolish the argument that the Germans were defeated by the cumulative effects of the attritional fighting of 1915, 16 and 17.

I would have to agree with George on this. There is no doubt in my mind that the Western Front was where the war was to be won. As long as the German Army remained an effective fighting force, no amount of sideshows were going to win the war at a lower cost. I have always been amused by Churchill's 'soft underbelly' argument in World War II, given the terrain the troops had to fight over and the distance from Germany involved. Then there is the sheer logistic effort, with long lines of communication to sustain the effort, which invariably tie down additional resources and wasted effort. Does anyone really believe Salonkia contributed much to the Allied victory? The only sideshow I think had some merit was Palestine, and that only to ensure the security of the Suez canal. Whether we needed to go all the way to Aleppo is a moot point.

The attritional efforts of 1916 and 1917 in particular significantly weakened the German Army, and no amount of Churchill's beguiling figures or argument can refute that. IMO, despite his other great attributes during World War II, he was an impulsive, and appalling strategist. The World Crisis is very much a self serving attempt to salvage his reputation.

All this hand wringing over the dreadful and appalling casualties that occurred, as if somehow victory could have come at a far lesser cost, is just head in the sand stuff, and ignores the realities of industrial wars and very real difficulties facing both sides in achieving victory. Large wars are very bloody affairs, and unfortunately victory comes at a very high cost. That's the lesson we need to learn from them, not some fanciful ideas that they can be won cheaply.

Regards

Chris

[aiwac]

"Whether we needed to go all the way to Aleppo is a moot point"

Only if you forget that all the entente powers (Britain and France) had post-war goals beyond simply winning the war.

[squirrel]

All this hand wringing over the dreadful and appalling casualties that occurred, as if somehow victory could have come at a far lesser cost, is just head in the sand stuff, and ignores the realities of industrial wars and very real difficulties facing both sides in achieving victory. Large wars are very bloody affairs, and unfortunately victory comes at a very high cost. That's the lesson we need to learn from them, not some fanciful ideas that they can be won cheaply.

Regards

Chris

Spot on Chris.

[bushfighter]

But in my humble wider-approach opinion we did not win a war - we only contained Germany for the next 20 years.

If that containment could have been achieved by opening other fronts and and avoiding the carnage on our very short strip of trenchline in France & Flanders, then we had every right to pursue other fronts.

Gallipoli was a risk worth taking, even if the implementation can, with hindsight, be criticised.

Harry

[Alan Tucker]

But in my humble wider-approach opinion we did not win a war - we only contained Germany for the next 20 years.

If that containment could have been achieved by opening other fronts and and avoiding the carnage on our very short strip of trenchline in France & Flanders, then we had every right to pursue other fronts.

Gallipoli was a risk worth taking, even if the implementation can, with hindsight, be criticised.

Harry

This itself is a flawed argument because it sees the Second World War as an inevitable consequence of the First and also hints at old A.J.P Taylor stuff i.e. bad Germans had to be contained. By 1928 the prospects for a longer peace were very good with reparations scaled down to Germany's capacity to pay, Stresemann's 'fulfilment policy, American investment in Germany post-Dawes bringing prosperity, German entry into the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the League of Nations not yet seriously tested. Only 12 Nazis in the Reichstag. German democracy 9-10 years old etc etc. What did for it was the impact of the World Economic Depression giving Hitler his opportunity. Yes he went on to overturn parts of the Versailles settlement but only because the appeasers let him get away with it before he could be stopped short of a general European War. There are obviously seeds of the Second in the First World War but to argue that one was bound to lead to the other is too deterministic.

[George Armstrong Custer]

But in my humble wider-approach opinion we did not win a war - we only contained Germany for the next 20 years.

If that containment could have been achieved by opening other fronts and and avoiding the carnage on our very short strip of trenchline in France & Flanders, then we had every right to pursue other fronts.

This is entirely hindsight, and specious hindsight at that. Even if the British government had had the gift of seeing the future, are you suggesting that they would have set out to simply 'contain' Germany in '14 - '18 in preparation for round two in 1939? Policy and implementation was to beat Germany in '14 - '18, and that meant on the Western Front. And the German army was beaten on the Western Front, at great cost. Whether the constraints put on Germany in 1919 after she was beaten were too harsh, or not stringent enough, is neither here nor there as far as the questions of why, how, and where the Great War had to be fought and won.

Gallipoli was a risk worth taking, even if the implementation can, with hindsight, be criticised.

This statement simply beggars belief. Gallipoli was a completely daft strategic diversion, exacerbated by an inadequately resourced and badly implemented execution against a tenacious enemy who was aided by incredibly harsh terrain favourable to defence.

[Jim_Grundy]

I see the 'props' argument rears its ugly head once more; the slight of hand with a wall map that Lloyd George was so good at.

Defeating the Ottoman Empire before its eventual defeat would have done very little to win the war against Germany in France & Flanders. Ah, but we could've armed Russia...., how? In 1915 we did not have enough arms & munitions to arm the BEF, let alone Russia.

It is a seductive image, circumventing the trench stalemate of the Western Front by opening a new front elsewhere. But wherever this was done, trench conditions simply reasserted themselves, because geographical location made precious little difference to the realities of military technology of the day. Artillery, trenches, machine guns & barbed wire with a large, profession force behind them all are no easier to defeat in a warmer climate than they are in a Belgian field.

I think there is an easterner/westerner debate to be had but that is a question to be put from a German perspective. In 1915 did Germany have the opportunity to defeat the western allies but didn't because it pursued its own mistaken eastern policy? Was Russia the bigger threat or the French and the rapidly arming British Empire & Commonwealth? Yes, Russia was knocked out of the war but not focusing on the West ultimately allowed Britain's army to grow and inevitably drew in the United States too.

Did German miscalculation help lead them to their own defeat because they were guilty of not focusing their main energies on the principal enemy in the main theatre of action? I think there's a lot to be said for that argument. And for not suggesting that adopting the same approach helped the allied war effort either.

[phil andrade]

. The World Crisis is very much a self serving attempt to salvage his reputation.

Regards

Chris

Agreed : didn't Asquith make a rather scathing comment to that effect ?

There still remains that August Memorandum of 1916. That makes rather uncomfortable reading for those who seek to discredit Churchill's argument. There was, apparently, a good deal of wishful thinking in the calculations presented regarding the committment of German manpower on the Somme in July 1916. Churchill questioned them at the time, and made suggestions which subsequent data from German archives bore out.

I recently encountered a newly published book on the shelves of Blackwells which deals with the Hundred Days. I think it's called WINNING AND LOSING ON THE WESTERN FRONT. I forget the author's name. It's a very expensive book. One thing in particular caught my eye.

Research into the ages of the British soldiers who died in that campaign revealed that the proportion of very young men was higher in the British army than it was in the German. This does not sit well with the view tha the German manpower reserves had been exhausted. Churchill was adamant that the exchange rate of the attritional battles had not worked in the Entente favour. I reckon we should think twice before repudiating the WSC take on the effect of the BLOOD TEST.

Phil (PJA)

[David Filsell]

Put simply Westeners are those who thought the war would/could be won on the Western Front, the Easteners are those who thought fighting else where would bring/aid victory.

Looked at like that it's hard to have much sympathy for the Eastteners views - clearly no operation outside the Western Front genuinely had a major influence on the final victory

It is also foolish to ignore the massive effects of a naval blockade - largely British - which had a major influence on bringing the German state, population and the army to its final collapse and thus defeat on the Western Front..

[bushfighter]

Lads, thank you, but if it is humanly possible for your professorial minds to accomodate, please just try thinking as a soldier in 1914 or 1915 thought.

I try to do that when I'm writing about how men closed upon each other with the rifles and bayonets of the time - and it is a humbling experience.

Enough brave men got off the boats at Gallipoli to show that they thought it a risk worth taking.

I will withdraw to my world of rifles & bayonets and the men who wielded them - thank you for your tolerance.

Harry

[phil andrade]

Put simply Westeners are those who thought the war would/could be won on the Western Front, the Easteners are those who thought fighting else where would bring/aid victory.

Looked at like that it's hard to have much sympathy for the Eastteners views

There is some scope for sympathy, at least for the British participants, who cherished a " British way of war". This entailed a traditional reliance on maritime supremacy combined with financial adroitness, that could bring great dividends by warfare on the periphery. Both the Pitts had demonstrated this, in the Seven Years' and Napoleonic Wars respectively. I wonder if Churchill was consciously following this tradition. He certainly liked to glorify the achievement of his ancestor, Marlborough, who achieved so much by shifting the axis of conflict away from Flanders by going into the Danube basin and thrashing the Franco Bavarians at Blenheim. It might be fanciful of me to suggest that, by advocating the " Back door into Germany" strategy, he was seeking to emulate John Churchill, but the thought won't go away.

If there were soldiers and statesmen who genunely believed that great results could be achieved at lower cost by such strategies, it is easy to summon up sympathy for them. The committment of massive British armies to sustained Continental warfare against the main enemy was certainly an abberation, and it's easy to understand why some recoiled from it.

This was all the more compelling in the light of what Churchill discerned - at the time - about the actual attritional exchange on the Somme fighting in July 1916.

Phil (PJA)

[Crunchy]

Enough brave men got off the boats at Gallipoli to show that they thought it a risk worth taking.

Harry,

In the all the research I have done on the Anzac portion of the Gallipoli campaign, they simply saw it as getting into action at last, and having a go at the Turks. I very much doubt many of those who got off the boats had a sound appreciation of the whether the campaign was worth the risk or not. From my own experience, no junior soldiers or officers make an assessment of whether a campaign is worth the risk or not, they are not thinking at that level - they are focussed on the part they will play in it which is very much at the minor tactics level.

There were certainly some senior officers who had grave doubts about it. Kitchener was against committing troops to it, and was only dragged in when the purely naval operation stalled. Brigadier - General "Hooky" Walker, Birdwood's Chief of Staff on ANZAC opposed it and didn't believe the operation had any chance of success, and Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan, a British regular commanding the 3rd Australian Brigade had grave doubts about it.

Looking at the genesis of the campaign it was conceived through muddled strategic thinking at the political level and a fanciful goal that somehow Turkey would surrender simply because some battleships would hove off Constantinople. As Peter Hart writes: "it was a lunacy that never could have succeeded" and certainly not with the limited resources committed to the campaign. It was utter folly, and at the political level a failure of strategic direction of the first order.

Regards

Chris

[Crunchy]

I wonder if Churchill was consciously following this tradition. He certainly liked to glorify the achievement of his ancestor, Marlborough, who achieved so much by shifting the axis of conflict away from Flanders by going into the Danube basin and thrashing the Franco Bavarians at Blenheim. It might be fanciful of me to suggest that, by advocating the " Back door into Germany" strategy, he was seeking to emulate John Churchill, but the thought won't go away.

Hi Phil,

An interesting comment. The only flaw in it is that Marlborough fought in the main theatre of war against against the French. The Blenheim Campaign was hardly a sideshow - it was on the immediate flank of the main theatre and a combined Bavarian - French threat from that quarter was a very serious threat indeed.

Regards

Chris

[George Armstrong Custer]

John Terraine, in his Introduction to the 1990 edition of his 1963 book Douglas Haig, The Educated Soldier, amplifies the point made by Chris in his last post and places Marlborough in a proper context if he is to be introduced into a discussion of the '14 - '18 war, whilst also giving the answer to the question posed by the title of this thread:

"The toughest assignment in modern British military history (ie since the creation of our first real Regular Army, the New Model) has been high command in war against the main body of a main continental enemy. Three British officers have undertaken such a task and brought it to a successful conclusion: the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal Lord Haig. The fact seems to me to place Haig appropriately in his category.

What about the victories? In my youth, 'every schoolboy knew' the names of the great successes of the Dukes of Marlborough and Wellington. Marlborough, facing the 'main body' - the chief armies of the 'main enemy', the France of Louis XIV - left us the renown of Blenheim (1704), Ramilles (1706), Oudenarde (1708) and Malplaquet (1709 - a very bloody encounter). 'Every schoolboy' had heard of these, and equally Wellington's even larger cluster against the new 'main enemy', Napoleon: Talvera (1809), Busaco (1810), Fuentes d'Onoro and Albuera (1811), Salamanca (1812), Vittoria (1813), Toulouse (1814) and the crowning triumph of Waterloo (1815). It is generally conceded, even by his sharpest critics, that Haig 'did well' in the later part of 1918, but who can name even one of his victories - even though every one of them was on a scale which defies comparison with those of the great Dukes? This would seem to be the time to do so. In August [1918] Haig himself passed to the offensive, beginning a series of great victories whose names should be household words as Wellington's and Marlborough's had once been. Here they are:

The Battle of Amiens, beginning on 8 August (called by Ludendorff 'the black day of the German Army in the history of the war') in which the Fourth Army took 22,000 prisoners and 400 guns;

The Battle of Albert (or Bapaume) beginning on 21 August, in which the Third and Fourth Armies took 34,000 prisoners and 270 guns;

The Battle of the Scarpe, 26 August, in which the First Army took 16,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

The Battle of Havrincourt and Epehy (approaches to the Hindenburg Line); Fourth and Third Armies, 12,000 prisoners and 100 guns;

The Battle of Cambrai and the storming of the Hindenburg Line (the greatest feat in the history of the British Army), beginning on 27 September; Fourth, Third and First Armies, 35,000 prisoners, 280 guns;

The Battle of Le Cateau, 6 October, Fourth, Third and First Armies, 'several thousand prisoners and many guns' (Haig);

The Battle of the Selle, 17 October, Fourth and Third Armies; 20,000 prisoners, 475 guns;

The Battle of the Sambre, 1 - 11 November, Fourth, Third and First Armies; 19,000 prisoners, 450 guns.

That is the roll-call according to Marshal Foch, who had become Allied Generalissimo in March, at Haig's instigation; Foch adds:

'Never at any time in history has the British Army achieved greater results in attack than in this unbroken offensive.....the victory was indeed complete, thanks to the Commanders of Armies, Corps and Divisions, thanks above all to the unselfishness, to the wise, loyal and energetic policy of their Commander-in-Chief, who made easy a great combination and sanctioned a prolonged gigantic effort.'

Haig himself added, characteristically, this tribute to his Army:

'It would be impossible to devise a more eloquent testimony to the unequalled spirit and determination of the British soldier of all ranks and Service.'

That is the simple truth. In this final offensive Haig's Armies had again engaged the 'main body of the main enemy': 99 German divisions, many of them twice, a substantial number three times, some even four times. In the process, the British had taken just under 50% of all the prisoners captured by the Allies, and just over 40% of all the guns. If, as I believe, Sir Winston Churchill was correct in calling 1940 'the finest hour' of the British people, objective assessment must equally describe 1918 as 'the finest hour' of the British Army, under the leadership of Haig. It is strange indeed that such 'enterprises of great pith and moment' can be so disregarded and misrepresented, when they should be matters of deep and endless pride. It is my hope that the reissue of this book may help put this record straight at last."

It's the record of an achievement the scale and necessity of which renders ludicrous any talk of 'risks worth taking' at under resourced, tactically impossible, and strategically pointless follies such as Gallipoli.