Reports of British Officers Attached to Japanese / Russian Armies

[MartH]

Please find below a link to this very interesting article on the Reports of British Officers attached to the Japanese and Russian Armies during the Russo Japanese War . It is written as an introduction for the reprint of the confidential reports, and the article is excellent particularly at the end about the lessons learnt and there subsequent employment by the British, with quotes from Snow, French etc. If you get bored with the Russo Jap war bit, skip to the end and GW bit "Disenchantment: The View from the Western Front" , very, very good.

Any comments?

Regards

Mart

Link to Article

[Steven Broomfield]

Mart, thanks for this. I must confess it will take me a few days to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest all this, but as a first note, I was impressed to see the names of British officers who 'attended' the affair: quite a "Who's Who" of great War generalship.

Did we learn anything? I hope the article will explain somewhat.

Look forward to getting back to you.

[truthergw]

The innate conservatism of the British Army was never going to allow reports which contradicted their ideas to have much affect. As the report says, the army might allow itself to be influenced by bullets but that is all. So it proved, Senior officers after the Great War were still insisting that the role of cavalry was undiminished. This sort of mind set was not about to be changed by reports from a foreign war half way around the world. There were many observers present at the main battles and they drew the conclusions which best fitted their own preconceptions. The French were convinced that what they saw proved their theory that guts and the will to win could conquer any material inferiority. Thus the ghastly losses ay the Battles of the Frontiers. Each army had to learn anew for itself, the lessons of the modern battlefield. In the same way, Pershing refused to listen to his allies and reprised the errors of the preceding 3 years in his first few engagements. The British army went to France thoroughly trained and well equipped to fight the Boer War. The last war of which they had any personal knowledge.

[MartH]

Pershing was an observer for the US too, so he was guilty of relearning twice!

Interesting that Jarding learnt some lessons for the Somme.

Regards

Mart

[centurion]

I have a book published in WW2 by a former instructor at Hythe. In it he details the lessons learnt from the Russo japanese war (by observers of a number of countries) re the use of machine guns. He includes quotes from them. I'll read the enclosed sometime (tomorrow) and see how the two stack up

[Justin Moretti]

The link appears broken July 20 2008, FYI