Class distinction among officers

[PhilB]

In Ian Hislop`s very watchable programme, the story was told of a man, commissioned from, I believe, a commercial background, who suffered considerably from the condescension and hauteur of upper class officers. This is not something I`ve seen a lot of in the literature. Maybe because most writers tend to have been "real" officers as opposed to "temporary gentlemen"? Has any of the latter written a good account of officers` mess doings? Phil B

[De Petrowski Alexander]

There has always been a dividing line between the Regular Officers and the temporary Ones, even in peace-time, for instance, some armies of this world have social promotion programs for their NCO's who with a good service record can become Officers, but almost always find themselves "tolerated" rather than accepted. Wartime does not really change Officer Class social attitudes.

[toofatfortakeoff]

There were probably a number of regional Territorial Officers who though the same way.

I expect that coming up through the ranks like Corporal Leadbeater of the 1st 5th Lincolns (ret as Lt Colonel) could be smoothed by the winning of bravery medals.

As officers life expectancies were about a fortnight on the Somme from arrival as JIOs (3 days for a fighter pilot) I'd expect good replacements were more than tolerated. Most of the 1914 class of officer had if they survived been booted upstairs to red tab status or sent home to train the New Armys.

Many middle class chaps joined up as privates intially to get to the front but made their way rapidly through the ranks or got sent back to OTC when it was realised they were old school tie brigade.

Captain C M Slack on being ordered to and not finding men of suitable calibre to be Officers recommended two latrine attendants who were Boer War Vets.

[gporta]

In Charles Messenger's "Call To Arms" I found mention that R.C. Sherriff, who had been in a Grammar School's OTC, tried for a commission on the early days of war, and was refused.

I therefore find ironic that in his play "Journey's End" the three main characters are all Public School types* and the only officer in the mess coming from the ranks is there -or I have this feeling- for comic relief.

*The action is set in March 1918, just before the German Spring attack... I wonder how many battalions had this quota of Public School junior officers per Company.

Gloria

[squirrel]

There is a reference to "ranker" officers in I think The War The Infantry Knew by Captain Dunn of a RSM who was commissioned. It goes something like this........

Last week I had the ear of the Colonel and the respect of every officer and man in the regiment.

Now I sit at the end of the table with schoolboys and am told to watch my conversation and table manners.

Somewhere else I have read of a "ranker" officer being described as coarse in speech and habit and will keep saying "pardon?" instead of "excuse me".

[PhilB]

Somewhere else I have read of a "ranker" officer being described as coarse in speech and habit and will keep saying "pardon?" instead of "excuse me".

Eh? Phil B

[bob lembke]

Guys;

An interesting set of questions revolve about the twin advantages of higher class origin and comfortable private income, the pressures that the lack of these two advantages created for the officer of less fortunate background, and the mechanisms that the army did or did not develop to allow the less advantaged officer to fully contribute to the army despite his class/income disadvantages.

There was an interesting thread some months ago on the command structure and theory of the British and German armies, which also dwelt on the question of how these allowed or hindered the less advantaged officer to contribute to the war effort. (I hope that this discussion was here; I also am active on another forum. I think it was here.) My opinion, and I think it was the prevalent opinion, was that the German Army was, if anything, somewhat more rigid socially, but that on the other hand it had developed a number of features and adaptations to allow the gifted but disadvantaged officer to contribute more fully, while preserving the status and certain privileges of the higher-born.

I frequently tend to butt into a quiet discussion and steer it off in a somewhat different direction, also often adding my particular Hunnish spin to the discussion. I will sit back and see if the above questions are picked up by the discussants before thundering off in this direction within the general topic of "class distinction among officers".

Bob Lembke

[Borden Battery]

Here is an excerpt from a letter from a cousin of my late Grandfather. The family would have been from a strong middle class background with an uncle who was a retired Master Colour Sergeant. The older brother [1915] was a private, whereas, the younger brother [late 1917], with a 'fairly good recommendation from a local gentleman', was able to become a 2/Lt.

Borden Battery

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

France

6/4/17

My dear Auntie,

Have received you nice letter of March 1st and must apologize for not having written you before, but have had some very stressful times recently one way and another.

Thanks for your good wishes, wish I could meet you to thank you personally. Have heard quite a lot from home of Rich and his visit to "115" and believe he got on very well with Denis. One could not help but do so though; he is fine kid. Wonder if you have heard that he will soon be in the Army. In fact he went up to interview a C.O. on Tuesday last, but have not yet heard the result. He is trying hard for the cavalry and I hope he gets it. He has a fairly good recommendation from a local gentleman I believe. Don't think Mother thinks much of it, but what Mother could? Rich is still in England I understand. In case you did not get my letter, I will again thank you for the photo in the Xmas card you sent, they are great absolutely.

[Gibbo]

Click here for the other thread referred to by Bob.

[bob lembke]

Click here for the other thread referred to by Bob.

Gibbo,

Thanks for the lead. I am lucky that my head is firmly screwed on my shoulders, or I would loose track of it. Some of the discussion in that thread, I think, touches on social class and military careers. Some of the unusual features of the different types of German officers seemed to allow the aristocracy their perks and prestige, while allowing the commoner to also have a career allowing him to reach his potential.

Remember, Ludendorff, not only the deputy head of the German Army, but also the "deputy dictator" of Germany, was not even a "von". He rose along the General Staff career track, I believe.

Bob Lembke

[Robert Dunlop]

You are right about Ludendorff, Bob.

In the thread mentioned above, I quoted an interesting piece on this. It comes from Sir Frank Fox, who was on the Staff at GHQ:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...ndpost&p=296861

Robert

[Dolphin]

This is off on a slight tangent from the main thrust of this thread, but it's perhaps worth remembering that the British Army wasn't the most class-bound organisation of the Great War. In Holger Herwig's 'Luxury' Fleet, he states that not a single former rating or NCO was commissioned in the Imperial German Navy throughout the War.

Clearly, pre-War class distinctions were more rigid than, perhaps, we can imagine.

Gareth

Edited 1 December , 2005 by Dolphin

[PhilB]

Well, I think it was shameful how George Peppard was treated by Jeremy Kemp and his friends in the Blue Max. Though Ursula Andress couldn`t be faulted. Phil B

[bob lembke]

Gareth,

I am sure that the Imperial Navy was quite class-rigid. (However, the story of how Filix von Luchner became an officer is interesting; he was a ship's cabin-boy and an ordinary seaman on foreign sailing ships, was a "von" but was estrainged from his family, and the Kaiser intervened to get him made an officer.) However, you raise a slightly different but closely related question, the ability of a ER or "other ranks" man to be commissioned. Others know this stuff better, but the Imperial Army, for example, became much more accepting to the "non-vons", but, I think, generally did not promote rankers to commissioned officer. Instead, they created some curious ranks, like one that I might translate as "sergeant-major lieutenant", or simply put a sergeant-major in command of a company, rather than lower their standards for commissioned officer; those standards could be based on class/respectability, as well as formal training.

My grand-father was of Prussian peasant class, the males always did their service as troopers in 3. Ulan=Regiment, but he went into the artillery, and after inventing technical advances as a NCO, was made a Feuerwerk=Offizier, an "Explosives Officer", a technical rank generally filled with former NCOs, even in the 19th century. Even though he had to lose his coveted active line officer status when his wife poisoned him with Deadly Nightshade (a small matter of maintaining two families in different towns), he became a reserve officer, and when the war came was made the "Id" of the III. Reservekorps, the head of one of the four sections of the operations general staff section of the army corps' Generalkommando, a staff officer position that should be, if possible, filled by a general staff officer. So, the technical officer career route allowed him to rise socially from horse-poop pitching peasant to to artillery recruit to staff officer, manager of the Berlin stockyards, member of Berlin stock market, gentleman farmer, and "Herr Major". After the war he sued a fellow reserve officer, the patriarch of the Werthheimer family, immensly wealthy, over something related to the war, won the one Phennig he sued for (a fraction of a cent or pence), and then challanged the other officer to a duel with automatic pistols; when Wirthheimer wisely refused (grand-father was a crack shot and, as my father put it, "fully intended to kill the son-of-a-bitch"), and Wirthheimer was tossed out of the Reserve Officers' Association, a grave social stain. This technical officer career route was one of several mechanisms in the Imperial Army which allowed able men of lower classes to have important careers as officers and advance significantly in the social and economic ranks, despite the advantages of the aristocrats in some matters, such as possibly quicker promotion and access to elite old units, plus the usual bowing and scraping.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

Less you guys think that dueling was something reserved for guys in tight britches with monocles screwed into their eye-sockets, my wife's grand-uncle engaged in an axe-duel in Vermont, probably in the 1930's, but broke the rules and was convicted of murder and spent, I believe, 18 years in prison. (The other guy dropped his axe, and grand-uncle proceeded to chop him up, a faux pas.) My wife's family are very English, New England farmers for 371 years, but have records back to 1540 in England. So the lower classes and even Yanks can engage in dueling, as well.

Bob Lembke

[Gilgamesh of Uruk]

If my understanding is correct, there was a distinct difference between the most fashionable British Army regiments, less fashionable ones, and "Colonial" regiments which exacerbated the divide. To be in the most fashionable regiments, an officer needed a considerable private income, in less fashionable ones, it was helpful to have some money, whereas in the Indian Army, Royal African Rifles etc. it was possible to live on one's pay. I suspect that this financial seive tended to affect the social mix of officers. Oddly enough, the only man to hold every rank from private to Field-Marshal (or am I misinformed here?) reached the height of his career in WWI - F/M Robertson.

[truthergw]

Less you guys think that dueling was something reserved for guys in tight britches with monocles screwed into their eye-sockets, my wife's grand-uncle engaged in an axe-duel in Vermont, probably in the 1930's, but broke the rules and was convicted of murder and spent, I believe, 18 years in prison. (The other guy dropped his axe, and grand-uncle proceeded to chop him up, a faux pas.) My wife's family are very English, New England farmers for 371 years, but have records back to 1540 in England. So the lower classes and even Yanks can engage in dueling, as well.

Bob Lembke

Hats off to your ancestors on both sides of the family. Tough nuts all of them. I see that fighting over women is duelling. Lots of duelling among the working class in Scotland then, and slipping out the back window was, in fact, declining a duel. I feel better now.

[bob lembke]

Hats off to your ancestors on both sides of the family. Tough nuts all of them. I see that fighting over women is duelling. Lots of duelling among the working class in Scotland then, and slipping out the back window was, in fact, declining a duel. I feel better now.

"truthergw",

In regard to "slipping out the back window", if that is what I think it is; an amusing but wildly OT anecdote. A US ambassador somewhere was in flagrent delecto (sp? - my Latin is a train-wreck) with some married woman in the capital of the country to which he was accredited, and the husband came home unexpectedly in the afternoon; our ambassador had to pop out of the residence and run for it buck-naked.

J. Edgar Hoover (who seemed to favor black evening dresses at social engagements on his time off) heard of this and sent a letter detailing this unofficial attempt at "reaching out" to President Kennedy. He got no response. I think he wrote a second letter, also not responded to, and finally wrote a third letter and had a top FBI aide hand-carry it to the White House, and hopefully attempt to hand it to the President. He got no further than a senior appointments aide, who read it and told the FBI officer: "Oh, the President has already seen this." The FBI-man said: "And what was the President's response?" The White House aide responded: "The President wishes that the Ambassador were a better runner."

Kennedy, of course, was a true Olympic-class womanizer.

I love the "slipping out the back window" appellation.

Bob Lembke

[ian turner]

Bob

''horse-poop pitching peasant''

Bravo, Bob - alliteration worthy of Shakespeare!

Ian

[truthergw]

"truthergw",

In regard to "slipping out the back window", if that is what I think it is; an amusing but wildly OT anecdote. A US ambassador somewhere was in flagrent delecto (sp? - my Latin is a train-wreck) with some married woman in the capital of the country to which he was accredited, and the husband came home unexpectedly in the afternoon; our ambassador had to pop out of the residence and run for it buck-naked.

...................

I love the "slipping out the back window" appellation.

Bob Lembke

Hi Bob and wintry greetings from Aberdeen. Since my Latin is of the " Nil Carborundum " variety, I make no comment on the spelling but I get the picture. And a fairly gruesome one it is too. I hasten to add that my post was based on hearsay and third hand information. In the local dialect, " It wisnae me! ".

[Bruce Dennis]

Gareth,

I am sure that the Imperial Navy was quite class-rigid...

Bob Lembke

Bob, I thought so to but it seems not. Navies of the pre-war arms race era needed a new breed of officer, proficient in technical matters that the previous generation never had to consider, and the German navy dealt with this by recruiting actively from the middle-class and 'tradesmen'. The expansion of the navy (I think around 1898 onwards, but I will have to check) was given a personnel budget larger than strictly required for the planned expansion, and I believe this was acknowledged to be to ensure a strong core of officers for the next expansion, ie when war came. The plan to deliberately recruit officers from less genteel sections of society proved to be a good one.

All the best,

Bruce

[Gibbo]

I've got a vague memory of reading that the German Navy had two types of officer; technical specialists who were recruited from wide sections of society & executive officers, who were almost all upper class. Only the latter could command ships. The RN had, I think, a division between deck, supply & engineer officers, with only the deck officers being allowed to command ships. My recollection is that the Germans had a greater division of types of officer, including technical specialities that in the RN would be done by deck officers. I must reiterate that this is based on a vague memory of something read in a general history 10-15 years ago.

[Gibbo]

In Ian Hislop`s very watchable programme, the story was told of a man, commissioned from, I believe, a commercial background, who suffered considerably from the condescension and hauteur of upper class officers. This is not something I`ve seen a lot of in the literature. Maybe because most writers tend to have been "real" officers as opposed to "temporary gentlemen"? Has any of the latter written a good account of officers` mess doings? Phil B

Do we know if the man in question was in a Regular, Territorial or New Army battalion? The programme didn't say but it did mention that he was in the same battalion as Bill Slim so somebody might know which unit. The reason for my question is that it strikes me that there might well have been snobbery towards temporary officers in Regular units but in a New Army one most of the officers would have been temporary. Perhaps only the CO & adjutant would have been Regulars. According to Jack Alexander's book, McCrae's Battalion (16th Royal Scots) had no regular officers, although Sir Geroge McCrae himself & a couple of others had been in the Volunteers or Territorials.

I thought that his name was Eric Newton Marston but I may have got it wrong as I can't find him in either the National Archives medal records or the CWGC website.

[healdav]

I've got a vague memory of reading that the German Navy had two types of officer; technical specialists who were recruited from wide sections of society & executive officers, who were almost all upper class. Only the latter could command ships. The RN had, I think, a division between deck, supply & engineer officers, with only the deck officers being allowed to command ships. My recollection is that the Germans had a greater division of types of officer, including technical specialities that in the RN would be done by deck officers. I must reiterate that this is based on a vague memory of something read in a general history 10-15 years ago.

In the RN you do indeed have a distinction between the Seaman Branch that commands the ships and the more technical branches. The reason is strictly practical. You may have a degree in marine engineering, but do you know how to manoeuvre and navigate a ship?

I don't know about now or in WW1 times, but in my time with the RN there was a scheme for CPOs to move to Lt. The men who found it most difficult were the engineering branch. The reason for this seemed to be that they were simply given a uniform and told to go off to officer training. There was very little preparation of them for the change in status. The other branches were very careful to give them a good grounding in being an officer before they went for further training.

That may seem like a contradiction in terms, but, for example, without exception engineering CPOs had to be encouraged to use first names in the wardroom rather than Sir, not having been told or encouraged to do so. Other branches had got their men to that state before they went to training school (I hope that's a bit clearer).

[Gilgamesh of Uruk]

Fairly sure Bill Slim started as a private in the Royal Warwicks if that's any help.