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Remembered Today:

Analysing the Battle of Le Cateau.


dansparky

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Phil,

 

In relation to one of my earlier posts about morale and discipline, I found this in the Warwicks diary (National Archives, WO95/1484):

43849_1484_0-00019.jpg

Edited by lostinspace
added war diary reference
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Dave,

 

That’s eye catching stuff, thanks.

 

Priceless allusion to “ socialistic ideas imbibed by reservists” !

 

German officers were worried about that, too.

 

Phil

 

Edited by phil andrade
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Phil,


I thought "Discipline: Noticeably worse than South Africa..." was pretty eye catching too. Obviously Major Poole yearned for the good old days.

 

Dave

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Dave,

 

And there we were thinking that South Africa had been a most unedifying chapter for the British Army, and that the men of 1914 made a redemptive impact in their epic fight !

 

To my regret, Zuber is relentlessly wearing me down.....he’s beginning to convince me.

 

I note that he mentions a single German Regiment ( IR66) taking 1,100 British prisoners during the night of 26-27 August.

 

The preponderance of prisoners among the 7,800 British casualties of Le Cateau is made very apparent in this and other accounts.

 

Phil

 

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  • 2 months later...

The latest episode of Peter Harts podcast is on Le Cateau.

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Perth Digger said:

This is perhaps of only tangential relevance but this gives some idea of the system of casualty reporting in 1914 and the initial confusion in August 1914.

 

http://firstworldwarbritishofficers.com/index_htm_files/Casualty Preparation 1914 Article.pdf

 

MIke

 

That was an interesting read Mike, thanks.

 

Derek.

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Thanks to both of you, great stuff. Peter Hart is wrong about one thing, at least four copies of "Fire and Movement" were sold. I bought one.

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So did I!

 

Thanks for the podcast, Derek, an interesting knockabout.

 

Mike

Edited by Perth Digger
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Thanks for both links, very interesting.

 

Cheers, Pat

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Peter Hart’s podcast has won me over.

 

Good raconteur : some cutting remarks delivered with the leavening of humour.  Loved his caricatured accents : scoucer, cockney or whatever.

 

Pleased that he now countenances the reduction of the official 7,812 British casualty return to something more like 5,000, paying tribute to the works of Nigel Cave and Jack Sheldon....all the more so in that he attributes half of these to POWs. Pity he alluded to two thousand German casualties, when even Zuber, proponent of German tactical superiority , cites a total of about three thousand.

 

So let me reiterate those thanks to you both, Mike and Derek.

 

Informative and entertaining threads have been pitched here : first rate !

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 10/03/2020 at 22:54, phil andrade said:

Dave,

 

And there we were thinking that South Africa had been a most unedifying chapter for the British Army, and that the men of 1914 made a redemptive impact in their epic fight !

 

To my regret, Zuber is relentlessly wearing me down.....he’s beginning to convince me.

 

I note that he mentions a single German Regiment ( IR66) taking 1,100 British prisoners during the night of 26-27 August.

 

The preponderance of prisoners among the 7,800 British casualties of Le Cateau is made very apparent in this and other accounts.

 

Phil

 

For what it is worth, that is no big surprise, given the wanderings of various battalions on the left of the British line (4th Division). I think at least 800 of these would have been the mixed bag of Gordons and ??? (sorry, well away from my books; now into week fifteen of my lockdown induced stay in France and Flanders) that the Germans nabbed in the early hours of the 27th.

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Nigel,

Week fifteen? Are you not being allowed to return to the U.K.? I guess there are worse places to be stuck but that's a long time, hopefully you're able to do lots of research while waiting out the virus!

Dave

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2 hours ago, nigelcave said:

For what it is worth, that is no big surprise, given the wanderings of various battalions on the left of the British line (4th Division). I think at least 800 of these would have been the mixed bag of Gordons and ??? (sorry, well away from my books; now into week fifteen of my lockdown induced stay in France and Flanders) that the Germans nabbed in the early hours of the 27th.

 

 

That is worth a lot, Nigel, thanks.

 

Phil

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On 09/03/2020 at 15:45, phil andrade said:

.

The sacrificial conduct  of the British field gunners at Le Cateau , moving their pieces up to fight near the infantry, suggests that they might have been aware of faltering morale among the battalions, and were determined  to bolster up resolve thereby.

 

 

 

That may have been the thinking of Brigadier Headlam commanding 5th Division Artillery who was a gunner of the old school.  I think I read somewhere that Le Cateau was the last occasion on which artillery was used in the direct fire role.  I suspect the infantry would have regarded the artillery drawn up close behind them not as a morale booster but more a threat as a result of attracting enemy fire.

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7 minutes ago, Bordercollie said:

 

That may have been the thinking of Brigadier Headlam commanding 5th Division Artillery who was a gunner of the old school.  I think I read somewhere that Le Cateau was the last occasion on which artillery was used in the direct fire role.  I suspect the infantry would have regarded the artillery drawn up close behind them not as a morale booster but more a threat as a result of attracting enemy fire.


Gilbert covers this in his book, it was indeed Headlam who ordered the battery commanders to move their guns already in concealed positions to open ground directly behind the infantry, much to their protestations.

 

Derek.

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Happy to be corrected, but I think you will find direct fire was also used at 1st Ypres  on occasions.

Regards

David

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Thank you @David Filsell your comment prompted me to search for the passage I recalled.  It was Richard Holmes in Tommy who wrote "Le Cateau was the last time that guns were deployed forward on this scale, though there were times later in the war - and, indeed, in the Second World War - when artillery employed direct fire on a smaller scale." 1st Ypres may well have been one of those occasions. Richard gives the example of Bois des Buttes in May 1918 when the battery supporting 2/Devons remained with them and at the end of the action had only three unwounded men left.  The real point so far as Le Cateau is concerned is that the deployment of the guns in 5th Division was a tactical error based upon an outmoded appreciation of how best to deploy artillery in defence. However the error does not seem to have stood in the way of Headlam. In February 1915 he was promoted to become Major General Royal Artillery in 2nd Army.  That in itself provides an illuminating insight into the level of professionalism of the BEF ... at least among senior officers.

Edited by Bordercollie
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Mr BC,

I  would say Headlam was on the start of the learning curve. Errors were endemic in 1914, didn't necessarily mean incompetence, but rather inexperience do a new kind of War. The BEF was professional yo its boot tops, just not inthe what then modern war was, but by god they learned, to slowly, but they learned. Have  you studied Headlam's later career?

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Hadn’t the Boer War imparted lessons about imprudent deployment of artillery ?  Where was it - Colenso, or Magerfonstein -where British guns had been brought under small arms fire and the guns lost ?  Was it Lord Roberts’ son who had been killed trying to serve, or rescue , the field pieces ?  You can tell that I’ve got a vague grasp of the narrative ....but, good grief, doesn’t Bordercollie’s  suggestion hit home hard ?  The standard of professionalism begins to look a bit compromised.  Monty was there, and said, more or less, that Le Cateau was a “ dog’s breakfast “ !

 

The loss of guns was extreme : one gun lost for every two hundred casualties ?  A disproportionate figure, I would have thought.

 

On the other hand, Smith Dorrien’s  Isandlwhana  luck seems to have served him well : the Second Corps of the BEF , with all its faults, survived a frightening ordeal and lived to fight another day.  An achievement, of sorts.

 

Phil

 

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I know very little of Headlam's subsequent career.  I think he wrote a history of the Royal Artillery after the war.  It appears to me very generous to characterise his error of ordering his batteries to leave prepared camouflaged positions to take up positions close to the infantry as the start of a learning curve. I think it was again Richard Holmes who observed that the deployment of guns at Le Cateau was an arrangement that would not have looked out of place at Waterloo.  Surely it is not unreasonable to suppose that some learning might have been done in the intervening 100 years. 

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On 17/06/2020 at 14:26, lostinspace said:

Nigel,

Week fifteen? Are you not being allowed to return to the U.K.? I guess there are worse places to be stuck but that's a long time, hopefully you're able to do lots of research while waiting out the virus!

Dave

I could have come back to the UK at any stage, but that would have involved a fortnight quarantine at the UK end and then another fortnight at this end. Since I had enough to keep me busy and as it was no more expensive to stay in France than in the UK, thanks to my hosts; and given the rural location, I considered it just as safe, if not safer, to have lockdown there. In any case, I had not been able to do what I originally came down to the Meuse area to do, which i did after the one km restriction was eventually lifted.

 

Now on the Somme with no one around, at least as regards battlefield tourism. I think Thiepval and possibly the Historiale are closed until late August? Vimy and B-H centres are currently closed - maybe open sometime in mid July plus? Wellington 'Cave' is open, but very restricted - and pre-booked - access. So battlefield visiting will, to my mind, be one where the 'car load' will be the best option.

 

Schengen borders are, more or less, open; and so I can now do what I needed to do between the Somme and the North Sea, so to speak; hence another four weeks here, so that there should be no need to come back this year, a necessary precaution should there be some form of restriction reimposed in the light of a second wave or local 'hotspots' of this wretched virus.

 

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Nigel,


Thanks for the reply. Glad to hear you are safe and sound, busily preparing more top notch reading material for us. I think tourism in any country will be on hold until there is an effective vaccine, which will likely take a year or so to develop. Here (in the U.S) the virus attacked the "low hanging fruit" first, but is now sweeping into less populated areas. Although, to be sure, there are other factors involved in the spread that I won't get into.

Here's hoping that the virus will be behind us by this time next year.
 

Take care,

Dave 

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  • 1 year later...

Obviously, my hope (above) seems to be just as far away now as it was then, despite having vaccines available. But I wanted to share a bit of good news about the author of this thread. Over several years, Daniel (dansparky) originated many informative discussions on the forum while working on his dissertation for an advanced degree. I'm happy to report that he has successfully completed his work, and is now employed as a Study Skills Tutor & Assistive Technology Tutor at several universities. I'm sure the forum will join me in congratulating Daniel on a job well done.

Dave 

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