Is only 1 view of the War now permissible?

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Am alone in feeling increasingly annoyed by the attitude of so-called 'Revisionist' historians towards the expression of any other view of the War other than as a triumph of arms. Woe betide any TV or Film producer who dares to show cursing Tommies floundering in the mud of the Somme. They'll be subjected to the most vile outpourings of bile for being out-moded 'Disillusionists'. The War after all was a great British success and any suggestion otherwise tantamount to treason. The great majority of War memoirs are routinely dismissed as the ravings of over-sensitive officers & the usual suspects - Carrington, Pollard, Junger, Grenfell, Crozier etc are trotted out to show that the War was a 'Good Thing'. Meanwhile increasingly desperate efforts are underway to promote many of the War-time Generals to the status of Marlborough & Wellington. We seem to have come full circle - the views being expressed now are much the same as those of the Government immediately following the War. They'd probably prefer it if the first 4 years could be air-brushed out of history. And if I hear another person telling me that as Tommy was only under fire for a few days a month it really wasn't so bad after all, I shall scream. The thought of being in a front-line trench under shell fire for only 1 day a year would have most of us quaking in terror.

I shall now go into a very deep bunker to await the barrage!!

[stiletto_33853]

You are most certainly not alone

Andy

[Stoppage Drill]

Am alone in feeling increasingly annoyed by the attitude of so-called 'Revisionist' historians towards the expression of any other view of the War other than as a triumph of arms. Woe betide any TV or Film producer who dares to show cursing Tommies floundering in the mud of the Somme. They'll be subjected to the most vile outpourings of bile for being out-moded 'Disillusionists'. The War after all was a great British success and any suggestion otherwise tantamount to treason. The great majority of War memoirs are routinely dismissed as the ravings of over-sensitive officers & the usual suspects - Carrington, Pollard, Junger, Grenfell, Crozier etc are trotted out to show that the War was a 'Good Thing'. Meanwhile increasingly desperate efforts are underway to promote many of the War-time Generals to the status of Marlborough & Wellington. We seem to have come full circle - the views being expressed now are much the same as those of the Government immediately following the War. They'd probably prefer it if the first 4 years could be air-brushed out of history. And if I hear another person telling me that as Tommy was only under fire for a few days a month it really wasn't so bad after all, I shall scream. The thought of being in a front-line trench under shell fire for only 1 day a year would have most of us quaking in terror.

I shall now go into a very deep bunker to await the barrage!!

Well, I avoid watching film and TV depictions, so I can't really say whether I think you are right or wrong. However, what you say sounds so counter-intuitive that I would be very interested if you would please develop your point with examples.

[auchonvillerssomme]

Can you be a bit more specific with your references for the first line of that statement, I certainly haven't noticed it. I think that the reason that we aren't being bombarded with WW1 is that it is actually not relevant to society today.

[David Filsell]

I totally fail to recognise any of the revisionist historians that I have read or met as being as you suggest. All I know recognise the many failures before the 100 days - when the British army took more ground, more prisoners and more guns than the French, US and Belgian armies combined.

The reality is that disillusionment followed initial post war huge pride in victory and sacrifice. It also helped sell books about the war when the public had tired of the flow of wartime and post war 'herostory' works. Done properly revisionism takes both immediate post war and later thinking into account, as well as new research, is above all a corrective, and recognises the often slow advances in military improvement across the board which by 1918 ensured highly effective commandandcontry of an equally effective all arms force.

That all seems fine to me

[Dawley Jockey]

I tend to agree with Dust Jacket collector, whilst understanding the amazing feat of arms that the British army performed during the last 100 days, I am getting a bit tired of the claims that everything up to it was a learning curve, maybe it was and had to be because no-one had fought a war like it up to that point with the numbers of men involved or the type of weapons available But,

If we learnt a lesson on the Somme why did the same lesson have to be repeated at Arras and then Third Ypres ?, Good points came from each Yes, but as a overall picture they still ended in the same old story.. men wasted for a few extra yards of ground or straightening the line, why couldn't we have straightend the line as such say 100yds back but no, not Army policy giving up a bit of ground to gain a better postion for our troops.

Yes history will show that some men actually enjoyed the war, but who are we to rewrite history as compared against so called disillusioned writers who actually fought in the war.

I for one am more determined to keep the history of the lads that fought and died alive more than any interest in whether this General or that Field Marshall knew what he was actually doing. Before I duck for cover remember we all have our own points of view exactly the same as the lads that fought, so there will never be agreement to who is right and who is wrong.

Dave

[hazelclark]

I understand perfectly why Dust Jacket is saying this, but agree with what David has said. Many of the books written at the time did not have the benefit of data that have become available since but have much more immediacy and consequently are more interesting to read. Their's is the view of the men at the time and is not "sanitized" by a hundred years distance. For scholars of the subject, the "revisionists" are likely very important but their books are less appealing to the general or casual reader. Two books I can think of are Martin Gilbert's First World War book and Leon Wolfe's book on Passchendaele. Both these books, but particularly Gilbert's, are responsible for generating a keen interest in the subject in MANY members of this Forum who had no previous interest or knowledge.

Both types have their place, but some people with an intimate knowledge of the subject are not very tolerant of other's views, and get quite rickety - even here!!

Hazel C

[Guest exuser1]

I tend to now agree with Dust Jacket Collector , being of an age when as a young lad we were subjected to Oh What a Lovely War , Lions and all the normal 1960s was it not a waste and awful ,incompetent and insensitive generals , then the change set in and over the years and the scales changed completely in the other direction ,and woe betide any one critiquing Haigh and co , but now with more time on my hands and living in the areas fought over by the various armies I do begin to question the revisionist historians , and yes the 100 Days was a superb achievement by any ones standards , but the German Army of that time was not the force it had been before .

[Chris_Baker]

Over the last 30 years there has been a pronounced swing to a more objective, records-based narrative that supports the idea of learning, of development and that the BEF was by 1918 a pretty good weapon of war. And from what I read I think you can say that most of not all of today's historians agree in general with that picture.

But is this now the single truth that cannot be opposed, as DJC (first poster) suggests? I am not sure you can characterise today's revisionist historians (who really ought to be called post-revisionists) into one single, narrow school of thought and certainly I know of not one who would admit to anything other than the fact that the war was horrific and many mistakes were made along the way.

So let's get specific: who are we talking about, DJC?

[keithmroberts]

I'm not sure that any historians, of the sixties or the more modern school see the Great War as anything other than a disaster for most of the old world, and much of the new. Add to that the stitch up of parts of the world at Versailles and its hard to say anything was good about a war that cost so many lives.

The politicians and the generals on both sides were men of their times. Some of them saw war as an opportunity to develop their careers, others simply to serve their countries. What has been demonstrated over recent times is that the military developed new tactics and approaches, sometimes as much by trial and error as by design, but learn they did.

I agree that some few might think that a general or generals on the victorious side were above criticism but I really don't believe that its a view held by most., They were human, not superhuman, they carried immense responsibilities to their governments as well as to their commands,

The war saw, in the case of the UK, a nation organised for war, with conscription, controls on domestic manufacture, and a massive economic and industrial re-organisation, that also opened up the lives of many women who had previously been confined to a very limited range of employment. The generals were only a small part of the whole; sure there were some donkeys, but as the war developed there were fewer of them, replaced by commanders who had been learning fast, although at a terrible price and who were aware of the price being paid in blood.

It would be a brave person to say the generals who led the allied armies to victory in 1918 were perfect - manifestly they were not, but I would also suggest that it is only fair to judge that they were better and more effective generals than we started out with, just as their armies in 1918 were better balanced equipped and resourced. Those were achievements of the governments and people as much as of the generals.

Keith

[Bernard_Lewis]

I think the story runs in shades of grey rather than pure black and white (i.e. black and white means the generals were all useless/the generals were all brilliant). Just a thought:

?

When did we ever have fault-free generals?

The First Afghan War? Isandlwhana? Majuba? Spion Kop? (insert here Great War disasters of your own choosing); France 1940? Singapore? Crete? Dieppe? (what did that tell us about the possible outcome of D-Day? But on we went...) Arnhem?

Its a multi-layered picture of good, bad and (often painful) learning from mistakes.

Bernard

[SteveMarsdin]

And never forget: Generals and armies fought or fight wars but it is the politicians who sent or send them to fight.

[charlesmessenger]

I largely agree with what Keith Roberts has written. Part of the problem is that 1914-18 did not throw up any Great Captains of War (Julius Caesar, Napoleon, etc). Hence many have concluded that the generals were dolts. Some were, but the majority struggled manfully to cope with the new conditions of warfare in which rapid fire weapons favoured the defence and eventually came up with workable solutions. No one is claiming that they walked on water, but the Oh What Lovely War school took matters too far the other way.

It is also worth pointing out that periods of WW2 were just as bad for those on the ground as in WW1 - Normandy, Kohima, Cassino to quote just a few examples. The remarkable thing about both world wars was the ability of those on both sides who did the fighting to endure the conditions.

Finally, history is seldom black or white, but varying shades of grey.

Charles M

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I feel a bit like the poor devil who took the 3rd light for his ciggie! I may have to retire to a base hospital!

I'm concerned that the views of the individual soldier are forgotten amidst the great debates on strategy. As I write this I'm surrounded by some 1,000 volumes of personal memoirs. None of these men knew much about their objectives or knew their leaders, but they knew fear & bewilderment. They'd been plucked from their homes & plunged into what was probably the worst kind of hell most of us could conceive of. I've read articles decrying the fact that the coming centenaries will concentrate on the mud of the Somme & Passchendaele rather than the 100 days of 1918. The victories of 1918 do nothing to justify what happened in 1916 & 1917. Hopefully the Generals had learned some lessons, but the German Army had overstretched itself earlier in the year & the Americans were pouring in in ever greater numbers. Without these two things would 1918 really have been any different.

I suppose one of the things that started me off was the editorial in 'Stand To' in January this year which suggested that the objections to the War as voiced in the 1960s was down to the Counter-Cultural Anti-Government movement! Just a load of peace loving hippies then! Also a post elsewhere that dismissed a report that one of the Generals cried on seeing the mud of Passchendaele as 'pure fiction'. All I can say is if he didn't cry, he d### well should have done.

[keithmroberts]

No need to retire. The only ones who are wrong are those who know that they have a simple answer, and that they are right.

Most of us have made some mistakes, even stupid ones in our lives, the problem with both politics and warfare is that mistakes at senior levels can be very costly, and that it is often others who pay.

As to, would 1918 have been any different, that is a subject on its own.

Keith

[Roxy]

DJC,

Hopefully you are not falling into the same bracket as those you make comment on: " The victories of 1918 do nothing to justify what happened in 1916 & 1917". What about 1914 and 1915? Or were not enough Donkeys sacrificed by Lions during that period?

I don't think that people 'forget' the memoirs of those that fought during the Great War, but the view of one man in a trench doesn't necessarily give the view of the war; although, it certainly give his view though and should be given some credence. I was under the impression that the oft quoted General simpering to his Adjutant, through his tears 'Did we really send men to fight in that?' as he looked over the mud of Passchendaele, was believed to be fabricated; however, I suspect that you are right that if he didn't cry, perhaps he should have!

I'm inclined to agree with Chris, the British Army improved during the war - although it is valid to ask at what cost - and that, possible due to the passage of time, review of the Great War has become more objective.

But there's nothing like a good debate!

Roxy

[Old Tom]

Many of the view expressed seem to be reasonable but painted with a very broad brush. The range of information available about the war, from the hardship and peril of an infantry man, through the many technological advances of equipment to the 'learning curve' of officers in command of formations of much greater size than had existed in the British army before 1914, is vast. The more one knows of these interlocking topics, the more, I think, one is able to appreciate the short comings of the gereralisations.

Old Tom

[Black Maria]

Being a reader of soldier's memoirs rather than books on tactics and strategy i find my views on the war are rather similar to DJC.We may well have learned

by our mistakes by the Autumn of 1918 but what a terrible price had to be paid by those at the sharp end for those mistakes.

[squirrel]

FWIW I agree with Chris, David, Keith and Charles. Perhaps a look back at the pre War Army and the Senior Officers who went to War in 1914 might be in order.

None of them had experience of commanding anything larger than a Division and that in peacetime, and on the practical side, annual manouvres. There was only a very small trained Staff as such in 1914. Communications as we know them did not exist.

Those Officers that survived the battles of 1914 and early 1915 found themselves commanding Brigades, Divisions, Corps and Armies, far larger than any formation they had dealt with before, were fighting battles that they had probably never imagined or even dreamt they would have to fight against the massed industrial might of arguably the finest trained and equipped Army in the world at the time . What was the alternative to learning as they went along while coping with equipment and ammunition shortages and little chance of finding out accurately beforehand what was on the other side of the wire but with no means of knowing how accurate that information was?

Yes, the lot of the Front Line soldier was horrific some of the time and their fortitude, sheer cussedness and obstinancy is at times beyond my understanding even as I read their own accounts of it. Those qualities were also to be found in most of the Senior Officers who commanded the British and Commonwealth Armies and experience taught them, admittedly slowly in some instances, how to fight the War succesfully.

As one private soldier wrote in his memoirs, "the only way to learn battle is to experience battle". IMHO this goes for all ranks from top to bottom and back again.

[Hedley Malloch]

Some thoughts:

Most organisations succeed despite senior management, rather than because of them. We know this from our own day-to-day experience working for a living. Was the British army in 1914-18 any different? I was always impressed with Paddy Griffiths book which traced several war-winning innovations, not to senior management, but to ordinary blokes in the front-line doing their job.

The 'learning organisation'. This term has been borrowed from business management theory/MBA courses and applied willy-nilly to the British army in WW1. Now there is a vast literature on what 'the learning organisation' means ie flat, decentralised structures, egalitarian rather than hierarchial, the systematic management of the symbols and language of change, visionary senior management, an ability to innovate drawing on the talents of a diverse workforce, tolerance of failure ... . I could go on, but you get the picture - a 'learning organisation' is all the things the British army was not. So however else it succeeded it was not because it was a 'learning organisation' at least not in the sense that the term is more widely used.

Strategic success is sometimes the product of superior planning, analysis and control. But as Rommel once remarked 'no plan survives the first contact with the enemy'. But often it is the result of chance, luck, serendipity. Napoleon knew this when he expressed a preference for Generals who were lucky.

Maybe we won in 1918, not because we were smarter, or had learned more. Perhaps we won because we had more of everything - and the Germans had had enough?

[Iain]

Dust Jacket appears to be firmly in the "lions led by Donkeys" camp of the peacnik sixties, bearing in mind that the sixties fed us lots of war films ( zulu, waterloo, etc) and numerous enlightened historical authors peddling their view that the proletariat was betrayed by the establishment..................awaiting Jack Johnsons and whizz bangs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

Dust Jacket appears to be firmly in the "lions led by Donkeys" camp of the peacnik sixties, bearing in mind that the sixties fed us lots of war films ( zulu, waterloo, etc) and numerous enlightened historical authors peddling their view that the proletariat was betrayed by the establishment..................awaiting Jack Johnsons and whizz bangs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gender:Male Location:Scotland Interests:Gunner 40303 Murphy RGA.YPRES BELGIUM, 1st Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders

Iain - I shall happily oblige in sending some Jack Johnsons and whizz bangs in your direction. You declare your interests to be Gunner Murphy, Ypres, and the 1st Battalion of the 91st Regiment of foot.

You could perhaps do the regiment the courtesy of spelling their name correctly Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders - Consider yourself whizz banged.

Tom

[hazelclark]

None of us have any right to "second guess" any of the participants in the war, from the generals, to the deserters who were shot at dawn.. None of us have walked in their shoes nor are likely to. The further we get from the first war, the more objective will become any further written work on the subject. The people who lived through it, both in terms of military and civilian personnel are gone, and we are left to pick over the bones of what they have left us. The man in the front trench had a vastly different war from either his generals or his non military contemporaries. Each saw the war from his own perspective. Their experiences were as diverse as the opinions expressed at the time and are still being expressed. That is all they are though - opinions. As Charles said earlier, "history is seldom black and white".

This discussion is good, but I am reminded of the fact that I loved Shakespeare until I did a course on the subject at University. How on earth can anyone know "for sure" what he meant when he wrote whatever, in a play written hundreds of years ago.

Hazel

[Ian Riley]

Dust Jacket appears to be firmly in the "lions led by Donkeys" camp of the peacnik sixties, bearing in mind that the sixties fed us lots of war films ( zulu, waterloo, etc) and numerous enlightened historical authors peddling their view that the proletariat was betrayed by the establishment..................awaiting Jack Johnsons and whizz bangs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rather too harsh on DFC, I think, but no whizzbangs. Oh! What a Lovely War was brilliant cinema, good theatre and entertainment but a travesty,. Littlewood (and presumably Attenborough) seemed to have missed the irony with which many of the songs(especially the later ones) were written and in passing reduce the sacrifice of the Belgian Army to comedy (as just one example). It is interesting that our experience of the Boer War and possibly India together with the influence of men such as Roberts and Haig in developing the British cavalry's role as mobile firepower (aside of the preservation of the doctrine of the Arme Blanche )that meant that the cavalry division of the BEF was not dressed as tin cans. Pity about Allenby, though, in August 1914! Luckily, I had read John Terraine's Mons: Retreat to Victory (thanks to an excellent school library lest anyone think I am 99) before this all came to the stage and screen and realised that commanding real armies, corps and divisions was not like playing with toy soldiers or a game for simpletons on the level of square-bashing, although there were some not up to the job of command or as senior staff officers.

I think that DJC's point is that there are those making strident post-revisionist statements decrying donkey-ists, we-spent-the-whole-in-the-same-same-trench-ists, (enough hyphens) those who believe that Tommy went over the top every day (about 98% of the population are in these or similar classes as far as I can see) with counter-statements that can be themselves rather 'over the top' in tone (presumably through frustration) so I see where DJC comes from if the authors of such statements treat the man on the Clapham omnibus or even those starting to study the Great War as ill-informed or blithering idiots for not having read Paddy Griffith, John Terraine (revisionists), Gary Sheffield, John Bourne, Peter Simkins and a host of other academic authors as well as the numerous training documents charting the development of training from 1914 and particularly during 1916/1917 (SS 35, SS 143, SS 152 and the 700 or 800 other training publications published in France). He perhaps have missed the meat of these more thoughtful contributions made over the last fifty years.

Looking at the broader picture, if somebody writes material (in whatever medium) that make me sound as though I am an ill-educated idiot, I might feel as DJC. The way forward needs to be by persuasion through fact and argument and not through declamation and, further, by pointing out appropriate sources. There are plenty of academic authors doing that (see above, also from King's College London, Salford, Wolverhampton, Oxford, the Defence Academy and others from Birmingham and even some of the Australians and Canadians seem to be taking a more balanced view as contributions on this Forum demonstrate). Much of this work is very balanced; Sheffield's biography of Haig is at pains to point out the faults of Haig as Commander-in-Chief and before. The readership may be broader than the stuff from the publishing house of Frank Cass and other academic presses.

Perhaps we need a racy popular book on the Great War with not a reference in sight (working title "Fifty Shades of Khaki") in which William Bragg develops sound-ranging with the help of a refugee Belgian lady of sound proportions, who then forsakes Bragg for Alan Brooke and offers vital assistance to his work on the creeping barrage (to be portrayed as 'the French contribution' to British artillery fire planning), gets bored with fire plans and in turn deserts Brooke for Solly Flood to offer truly down-to-earth advice in the development of infantry tactics and possibly hand-to-hand combat. She gets nowhere with JFC Fuller but influences Field-Marshal H... I better not spoil the ending.

A few years ago I was challenged, face to face, by a rather senior Scottish lawyer who asked me "How do you defend Haig?". The reply was "What's the charge?". Slight puzzled pause then the reply was "Well, the man was stupid". The defence was along the lines that Haig worked alongside Richard Haldane, one of the leading legal intellects of his time and War Minister in the pre-war Liberal government. If Haig had not been up to the job, I doubt that he would have lasted five minutes. Tongue-tied maybe, stupid not. As it is, the very important Haldane reforms went through (in the main) and we ended up with Field Service Regulations under Haig's direction (I think) in two handy volumes, a first shot at a British Army doctrine statement. Of all this and much more, my legal friend (for such he was and so remains) was unaware.

I see DFC's point but there is a mountain of evidence out there, sadly in dusty archives, to counter in part the memoirs of individuals. Of the diaries I see, many of the junior officers and men thought it was a pretty horrid business but seem to implicitly take considerable pride in their part in the Kaiser's downfall. My grandfather and his friends did not talk much, unless asked when they were sentient and I was curious in the 1960s, but were clearly glad to have survived, saddened still then to have lost friends and rather proud of having taken part, even in in the face of the gathering storm of WW1 reaction

Ian

PS I am sure that I have a pipe tune book available belonging to a piper of the 4th (Volunteer)Battalion of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders in manuscript within and print outside. I shall have a search

Edited 26 April , 2013 by Ian Riley

[Ian Riley]

This discussion is good, but I am reminded of the fact that I loved Shakespeare until I did a course on the subject at University. How on earth can anyone know "for sure" what he meant when he wrote whatever, in a play written hundreds of years ago.

Hazel

Hazel,

Good point about second guessing! Regarding Shakespeare...

Therein lies the rub: this allows the director to place her or his own interpretation on the play. I doubt that Shakespeare himself intended all of his work to be unambiguous, writing in Tudor times with an a monarch hardly shackled by Parliament and Stuarts trying to make their mark south of the border.

Ian

PS

Apologies for the partial quote; I will reinstate it all if you wish and perhaps I should tomorrow morning since I have just made reference to second guessing