Is only 1 view of the War now permissible?

[phil andrade]

Suffice it to say that the actual combat record of British generals in the Great War was of a high standard ; if I'm right about seventy of them died on active service....don't have sources to hand right now.

Moving their drink cabinets a few feet closer to Berlin was, evidently, a rather dangerous occupation.

Phil (PJA )

[John_Hartley]

Does that sound like fighting to you?

It does. But it also sounds like Wood wasn't doing the actual job he was supposed to be doing - directing his Brigade. It is not his job to put himself at that sort of risk of being killed or wounded and having to pass command to a junior officer.

[nigelcave]

Suffice it to say that the actual combat record of British generals in the Great War was of a high standard ; if I'm right about seventy of them died on active service....don't have sources to hand right now.

Moving their drink cabinets a few feet closer to Berlin was, evidently, a rather dangerous occupation.

Phil (PJA )

Except in the cases that I cited they were trying to stop the German generals moving their drinks cabinets closer to the Channel coast.

[sjustice]

It does. But it also sounds like Wood wasn't doing the actual job he was supposed to be doing - directing his Brigade. It is not his job to put himself at that sort of risk of being killed or wounded and having to pass command to a junior officer.

John, we are talking about September 1918 here; different circumstances and different levels of risk deemed acceptable. Wood was doing precisely what he should have been doing; he was forward, directing the brigade from a position of personal knowledge of the situation. In fluid offensive and defensive engagements the brigadier was really helpless once his formation was engaged - planned or not - unless he was on the spot and acting swiftly.

Cheers,

Simon

[sjustice]

Except in the cases that I cited they were trying to stop the German generals moving their drinks cabinets closer to the Channel coast.

...or making sure they spilled the drinks during the move, to be more precise.

Cheers,

Simon

[hazelclark]

John, we are talking about September 1918 here; different circumstances and different levels of risk deemed acceptable. Wood was doing precisely what he should have been doing; he was forward, directing the brigade from a position of personal knowledge of the situation. In fluid offensive and defensive engagements the brigadier was really helpless once his formation was engaged - planned or not - unless he was on the spot and acting swiftly.

Cheers,

Simon

This discussion demonstrates quite nicely that they were "damned if they did and damned if they didn't"! 'Twere ever thus!

hazel

[Dawley Jockey]

Sorry all, still not convinced about Generals being in the 'thick' of it , personally still would rather have been serving as a General in the war rather than a private, has anyone got percentage casualty rates for the different ranks, had always believed that the highest rate for numbers served was 2nd Lieut's ?

[Guest]

It's not a General's job to be " in the thick of it " I think a Lt-Col is the highest rank to be near the front line, anything higher than that further back, ( happy to be corrected on that) .As someone pointed out eariler, most of the Generals had " been in the thick of it " many times in their career?

Mike

[Dawley Jockey]

(Smith-Dorrien, for example, was at Ishlandawala),

Cheers-salesie.

Well they always say the best Generals are the lucky ones and Smith-Dorrien to survive Ishlandawala was certainly lucky

[phil andrade]

It's not a General's job to be " in the thick of it " I think a Lt-Col is the highest rank to be near the front line, anything higher than that further back, ( happy to be corrected on that) .As someone pointed out eariler, most of the Generals had " been in the thick of it " many times in their career?

Mike

" There are times when a corps commander's life does not count."

So said Winfield Scott Hancock as he rode the line under fire at the crisis of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Fifty one years later, the commander of the 1st Corps, BEF, rode forward into the maelstrom of the crisis of First Ypres.

If the situation requires, the officers of very high rank will throw caution to the winds.

Churchill made an interesting analysis of casualties in his chapter in the World Crisis on the fighting of March to April 1918...a crisis if ever there was one. In this case he comments on German casualties, noting not only how many there were, but who they were. In the forty days of intense Anglo- German battle between March 21st and the end of April, 1918, Churchill draws to our attention the outrageously high proportion of German officers who were killed. In the defensive battles of 1916 and 1917, the German officers had been husbanded, and their casualties - in relation to those of their men - had been conspicuously low compared with those of the British attackers. In the Kaiserslacht the ratio underwent a dramatic change, and the proportion of German officers killed was vastly higher than it had been in the previous three years.

Of course, we're talking about officers here, not generals, but I daresay there is a theme....when armies go all out for victory, and sense that the climax is at hand, the leaders will bleed and die more prodigally.

Peter Simkins, in his studies of one or two of the most successful British divisions in the Hundred Days, reveals that the officers in those units suffered a death rate that was disproportionately high.

Phil ( PJA )

[Guest]

" There are times when a corps commander's life does not count."

Phil ( PJA )

I suppose that is true. Like Haig at Gheluvelt? in October 1914?

Mike

[Roxy]

I'm sure that I've probably missed some out - and I've only gone through the officer ranks - but CWGC gives (for UK Army personnel) the following deaths:

Field Marshal - 3

General - 2

Lieutenant General - 6

Major General - 18

Brigadier General - 101

Colonel - 109 (inc Bt Col)

Lieutenant Colonel - 867

Major - 1886 (inc Bt Maj and Bde Maj)

Captain - 8082 (inc Capt(A))

Lieutenant - 9367 (inc A/Lt)

Second Lieutenant - 18457

Make of that, what you will.

Roxy

[IRC Kevin]

Sorry all, still not convinced about Generals being in the 'thick' of it , personally still would rather have been serving as a General in the war rather than a private, has anyone got percentage casualty rates for the different ranks, had always believed that the highest rate for numbers served was 2nd Lieut's ?

Richard Holmes, in his book ‘Tommy’ gave a total of 58 general officers killed on the Western Front and suggests the figure for wounded was probably greater than 300. Just under 30% of fatalities amongst ordinary soldiers were caused by small arms fire, whilst for generals, of the 58 dead, 22 were killed by small arms fire, meaning that statistically, the generals were more likely to be killed by rifle and machine gun fire than the men under their command! )Holmes R. Tommy. (2005) London: Harper Perennial. P 213) You can make statistics do just about anything if you're selective enough, but if you look at the previous as a percentage rather than as total numbers...

[hazelclark]

Roxy and Kevin,

Thanks for those numbers. They don't seem to jive though. Maybe Holmes did not include some of the people who were not "full" generals. I did know that 2nd Lts. had the highest mortality rate but did not realise the number of senior officers was so high.

Hazel

[Roxy]

'My' numbers from CWGC included all theatres of war. That might explain the differences with Richard Holmes.

Roxy

[IRC Kevin]

Roxy and Kevin,

Thanks for those numbers. They don't seem to jive though. Maybe Holmes did not include some of the people who were not "full" generals. I did know that 2nd Lts. had the highest mortality rate but did not realise the number of senior officers was so high.

Hazel

Holmes' figures are only for Western Front. Neither does death from disease or accident figure.

[salesie]

Well they always say the best Generals are the lucky ones and Smith-Dorrien to survive Ishlandawala was certainly lucky

Well, Smith-Dorrien was one of fifty British survivors that day, and nominated for a VC for helping to save others with Zulus in hot pursuit. As for the old chestnut about "lucky generals being the best" (anecdotally attributed to Napoleon), I would say that men like Smith-Dorrien make their own luck - he did at Ishlandwala, and he certainly did some 35 years later at Le Cateau when turning his II Corps to fight a successful delaying action. Cheers-salesie.

[hazelclark]

Well, Smith-Dorrien was one of fifty British survivors that day, and nominated for a VC for helping to save others with Zulus in hot pursuit. As for the old chestnut about "lucky generals being the best" (anecdotally attributed to Napoleon), I would say that men like Smith-Dorrien make their own luck - he did at Ishlandwala, and he certainly did some 35 years later at Le Cateau when turning his II Corps to fight a successful delaying action. Cheers-salesie.

From my limited perspective, Smith-Dorian has always seemed one of the better generals, although French did eventually get rid of him for reasons that were a bit suspect.

Hazel

[bill24chev]

Field Martial looks according to the figures a dangerous rank to hold in WW1 there were probably less than ten (including the Kaiser)and only four or five active and they lost two that's 40% of active FM's. Of course only one ,Kitchener,actualy died as a result of enemy action and at sea rather tthan defending his drinks cabinet :hypocrite: .

[SiegeGunner]

So were the three FMs who died during the war Roberts, Kitchener and Nicholson?

[Steven Broomfield]

I haven't noticed a reference to the book yet (I might have missed it), but Bloody Red Tabs by Graham Maddocks (and someone else whose name escpaes me, I'm afraid) has details of all General-rank casualties in the British Army in the GW.

Roberts died while visiting the Indian Corps in France in late '14. It could be argued this visit hastened his death - he died of pneumonia - an 82 year-old can't have been pottering round northern France in mid-winter for the benefit of his health. I'd be quite happy to include him as "Died on Active Service".

[phil andrade]

Lions led by Donkeys ?

No, lions led by lions. And, as Crunchy has written in his book, the Germans fought like tigers.

Lions fighting tigers.

No wonder it was a bloody nightmare.

Perhaps the monstrous casualties incurred by both sides suggest - not incompetence - but extraordinary determination and skills displayed in largely equal measure by the opponents.

Phil ( PJA )

[sjustice]

My t-shirt.

Made for the GWF 2013 Conference.

[sjustice]

...and to lighten the mood.

Here's a hoodie I had made for a mate in Oz

[phil andrade]

Lovely logo, Simon !

And - as salesie emphasises - the martial skills of the British Empire went far beyond he confines of the battlefield.

Therein lies a very promising line of approach if we seek to view the Great War more positively.

Phil ( PJA )