Ineptitude and cruelty of ww1 generals and officiers (1 Viewer)

[Poppo]

Guys, I know there are some on here who don't like the Brits because of all the history/ empire/American War of independence, but I'm sorry but if it were a choice between the loathsome, hideous Nazi regime and our Empire I'd be sticking the Union Jack right up Adolf's arse. I detest everything they stood for. Yes I know this country was involved in the slave trade and did terrible things in some parts of the world, but I still think this world would be darker without the Brits and under the pleasure of Adolf and co. There are few days that go by when I don't silently thank those men of the RAF (From Britain and around the world) who climbed into those Spitfires and Hurricanes and stopped them putting one single hate filled jackboot on this green and pleasant land:salute::

Rob

We are speaking now about WW1 time......Not about WW2 ^&confuse

 

[Rob]

We are speaking now about WW1 time......Not about WW2 ^&confuse

Yes I know, I followed on from your remark about Hitler and Stalin.

Back to WW1

Rob

 

[waynepoo]

Leaving aside the fact that war itself is the ultimate ineptitude and cruelty the Great War was the first of it's kind hence the term 'Great War', there was no rule book, every thing they tried right from the start didn't conform to what had been done before. The learning curve was so steep that many didn't ever get there at the cost of millions of lives, sure there was incompetence and incompetents and many cases of sheer stupidity as there is in all things human. It was the first Greatest tragedy followed closely by Second. We were not there none of us and all we know is from what history tells us so we must always bear this in mind... Lest we Forget.
Wayne.

 

[Scott]

Scott...

At that time we can say that also Britain, France, and in some measure also the US were not the democracies we know today: even if they had the free vote, the leaders of those democracies were not very democratic! They had several colonies, had no respect at all for the self-determination of countries outside Europe nor the US, racism and so on. They were ready to jump on each other for any economical interest, their armies marched in Africa, Asia and so on. So the attitude of France or Britain was not so far from the attitude of Germany or Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. And let' s remember that France started the previous war against Prussia in 1870 for very futile diplomatic reasons.

And well, considered that after the Kaiser came Hitler and after The zar came Stalin, well, I miss the empires {sm4}

Even with the messy-ness of the European democracies and the United States, they were more accountable to their people than the empires. That being said, both kinds of powers managed to convince their populations to fight with patriotic and religious appeals. Communism and Fascism may have replaced the more tribal "God and Country" appeals that appeared as failures in WW One.

 

[Scott]

WW I reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit, :What if Napoleon had a B-52 at Waterloo and What if Spartacus had a Piper Cup airplane. (Kirk Douglas was the guest)

The old urges to kill the enemy happened to come together with the new technologies of trains, aircraft, rapid firing weapons etc. , therefore it wasn't a case of modern wars being more destructive because of less humanity in humans. It was the case that Napoleon and Attila did not have the power to fight much beyond the reach of a spear or cannon shot.

Another case is that it's "easier" to drop a bomb, shoot at long range, or cut off a food supply with technology and you don't endanger yourself.

 

[Poppo]

Leaving aside the fact that war itself is the ultimate ineptitude and cruelty the Great War was the first of it's kind hence the term 'Great War', there was no rule book, every thing they tried right from the start didn't conform to what had been done before. The learning curve was so steep that many didn't ever get there at the cost of millions of lives, sure there was incompetence and incompetents and many cases of sheer stupidity as there is in all things human. It was the first Greatest tragedy followed closely by Second. We were not there none of us and all we know is from what history tells us so we must always bear this in mind... Lest we Forget.
Wayne.

I find your point of view ( and the those of other posters) rather generic and "romantic".....Here the point of view of one of the best historians:

About the needless loss of 60 000 british soldiers in the Ypres battle, 1915, LIDDELL HART writes:

" Losing more money to recover what is lost already is silly. But throwing away lives when there is no reasonable chance of success is absolutely CRIMINAL. In the fire of battle is inevitable, and largely excusable that commanders commit errors. But when ordering attacks doomed from the start to failure because just in the case they succeed, they woud be useful, the work of leaders is unquestionably condemnable.About such mass 'manslaughter', whether due to ignorance, poor conception of war or lack of moral courage, commanders should be held to answer in front of the nation."

 

[jazzeum]

Over the years the assessment of generals has changed and Liddell Hart's view is a view but not the only view. I also believe it is not the current view.

 

[Rob]

People need to differentiate a little I believe. There is a huge difference between following a plan of action laid out by military doctrine at a given moment in time and ' cruelty' (??) labelling people as murderers (gross injustice in many cases and an absurd dumbing down of what really went on) signals a lack of understanding of how the battles panned out (especially on the Western Front). The First World was a war unlike any other, it sent men into battle against modern machine guns and quick firing artillery . These weapons were still relatively new and trench warfare on this scale had not been experienced before. On top of the fact that armies still used outdated tactics, modern weapons and all had aged leaders, the fact is that massive international pressures were heaped on the shoulders of these military leaders that NONE of us (not even the armchair generals ) can begin to fathom.

Fortunately the (although funny) absurd Blackadder type General is not a true representation of .....well pretty much any army really. This stereotyping only began to grow in the sixties fueled by now discredited books and war poetry. (it is a little known fact that poetry saw it's first spike in the early 1920's and then returned big in the 60's- (I wonder why?!!:rolleyes2it is for this reason the newly opened IWM galleries do not heavily feature this poetry, despite what we may think it was not popular during the War as we are lead to believe)

Finally two of the biggest myths of WW1 are also gradually being thrown out with other garbage written about WW1. Firstly not all the generals were hated by the men, far from it. When General Haig died thousands of his men attended his funeral , men Haig had spent the last years of his life working hard to improve the lives of. Also the idea the men thought of themselves as cannon fodder is not only a joke but a great insult to their bravery and loyalty to their country. The acclaimed author Lyn Mcdonald told me once that all the men she interviewed over the years believed in what they were doing and even if the enthusiasm had died by 1917 they were still fighting for their mates and their 'Mob'.

Rob

 

[Jack]

People need to differentiate a little I believe. There is a huge difference between following a plan of action laid out by military doctrine at a given moment in time and ' cruelty' (??) labelling people as murderers (gross injustice in many cases and an absurd dumbing down of what really went on) signals a lack of understanding of how the battles panned out (especially on the Western Front). The First World was a war unlike any other, it sent men into battle against modern machine guns and quick firing artillery . These weapons were still relatively new and trench warfare on this scale had not been experienced before. On top of the fact that armies still used outdated tactics, modern weapons and all had aged leaders, the fact is that massive international pressures were heaped on the shoulders of these military leaders that NONE of us (not even the armchair generals ) can begin to fathom.

Fortunately the (although funny) absurd Blackadder type General is not a true representation of .....well pretty much any army really. This stereotyping only began to grow in the sixties fueled by now discredited books and war poetry. (it is a little known fact that poetry saw it's first spike in the early 1920's and then returned big in the 60's- (I wonder why?!!:rolleyes2it is for this reason the newly opened IWM galleries do not heavily feature this poetry, despite what we may think it was not popular during the War as we are lead to believe)

Finally two of the biggest myths of WW1 are also gradually being thrown out with other garbage written about WW1. Firstly not all the generals were hated by the men, far from it. When General Haig died thousands of his men attended his funeral , men Haig had spent the last years of his life working hard to improve the lives of. Also the idea the men thought of themselves as cannon fodder is not only a joke but a great insult to their bravery and loyalty to their country. The acclaimed author Lyn Mcdonald told me once that all the men she interviewed over the years believed in what they were doing and even if the enthusiasm had died by 1917 they were still fighting for their mates and their 'Mob'.

Rob

Rob

Great post. The influence of the war poets has always been grossly exaggerated. The 'soldiers' rhetoric' was a later construct that emerged in the immediate post war years. Many of the great 'anti war' novels did not start emerging until the late twenties. It was a movement that involved people like Philip Gibbs, perhaps the most famous of the Brit correspondents. The Blackadder view was actually, in some respects, an update of this changing view. Sassoon and Graves only spoke for a small portion of society. Their views were not even universally accepted within their own group.

As for the generals being murderers, I think that this is an appealing view in a world where conspiracy theorists can offer any kind of explanation for any event. A suspicion of your own government's actions seems almost a badge of honour - UFOs, Moon Landing, was it really the Titanic, JFK assasination, 9/11. WW1 will become increasingly the tool of people trying to make a point in a modern context using only a very impressionistic knowledge of events. You may need to toughen up Rob - I have yet to see a modern textbook dealing with WW1 that does not include a poetry section^&grin

There are still those in Australia who mention the slaughter of Australians by the English and Americans. Foolish me - I tend to blame the Germans and Japanese et al. Its all about impressions!

Jack

 

[waynepoo]

I find your point of view ( and the those of other posters) rather generic and "romantic".....Here the point of view of one of the best historians:

About the needless loss of 60 000 british soldiers in the Ypres battle, 1915, LIDDELL HART writes:

" Losing more money to recover what is lost already is silly. But throwing away lives when there is no reasonable chance of success is absolutely CRIMINAL. In the fire of battle is inevitable, and largely excusable that commanders commit errors. But when ordering attacks doomed from the start to failure because just in the case they succeed, they woud be useful, the work of leaders is unquestionably condemnable.About such mass 'manslaughter', whether due to ignorance, poor conception of war or lack of moral courage, commanders should be held to answer in front of the nation."

I might be 'generic' but alas no woman has ever called me 'romantic'.......{sm2}. By the way all wars are criminal and all that occurs during them is a crime!
Wayne.

 

[Poppo]

Liddell Hart' s view is old fashioned? really? What is today' s view? That ww1 generals never wasted their men' s life in many unuseful attacks? And if they did it, they re justified because that was a new war with new strong defensive weapons? Don t make me laugh..... Do you also appreciate gen Joffre silly optimism, maybe?

Many of you love politically correctness and a kind of melancholic, ridiculous nationalism; you pretend to mourn those deads, but you don' t care of Liddell Hart' s or Remarque' s point of view....They are not novelists, they were in those trenches!!! Sure, even the french state defends his generals honour, but that' s politics only.

It s not me the armchair general, I just read history books.....

 

[jazzeum]

I'm not sure I subscribe to the views expressed in the last couple of posts as some of the poetry was written during the War. With respect to the poetry and the literature being written after the conclusion of the war (or any war for that matter), my riposte would be "so?" as time brings distance. My answer would be the same to the statement that some of the poets were not popular in their group; going against the grain seldom is. That they were written years after the events ended does not make the conclusions any less apt; needless slaughter and a revulsion for war.

 

[Jack]

I might be 'generic' but alas no woman has ever called me 'romantic'.......{sm2}. By the way all wars are criminal and all that occurs during them is a crime!
Wayne.

This is part of what we discussed yesterday about history being more than facts. it is about the way often random facts are grouped together and explained. Poppo describes something as romantic because writers, historians, poets, TV hosts etc have created a construct of what 'romantic' is and he can then apply it to ideas or circumstances to help explain them and make meaning of them. Nothing is romantic of itself. There are things that happen that we call 'romantic'. History is all about what we call things. Your flirtation with rivet counting is just you choosing one emphasis over another. Rob has disputed the view of the war poets and preferenced a different view. Your description of a crime is you looking at otherwise random acts and using what you have read and learnt over a lifetime to categorise them. You have grouped certain acts together under the heading 'crimes' even though they were not in any legal sense crimes when they were 'committed'. As an atheist, do not think for a minute that your opinions have not been shaped by two thousand years of Christian history which was itself shaped by even earlier ideas. How is something a crime when you do not recognise a larger morality outlined by a religion unless someone categorised them as such. That is why the name of Guy Gibson's dog is actually more important than the colour scheme on his Lancaster. One is minutia and the other is what we have 'called' something. One hints at a belief system. The other is an historical footnote.

History is a collection of random, though loosely interconnected incidents. You are the author who gives them a title and then groups them together under chapter headings in order that they appear to be so closely linked that every event appears foreseeable and inevitable.

Do not argue with me ... I have been published!

 

[Jack]

Liddell Hart' s view is old fashioned? really? What is today' s view? That ww1 generals never wasted their men' s life in many unuseful attacks? And if they did it, they re justified because that was a new war with new strong defensive weapons? Don t make me laugh..... Do you also appreciate gen Joffre silly optimism, maybe?

Many of you love politically correctness and a kind of melancholic, ridiculous nationalism; you pretend to mourn those deads, but you don' t care of Liddell Hart' s or Remarque' s point of view....They are not novelists, they were in those trenches!!! Sure, even the french state defends his generals honour, but that' s politics only.

It s not me the armchair general, I just read history books.....

The two aothors you mention are people like you and me. They are one just two takes on an issue. Liddell Hart did not have years of experience in the trenches and Remarque was a novelist who did. Their views are no more, or less, appropriate than anyone else. You are a harsh judge of people called upon to act in events beyond an historian's ability to comprehend in full even at a distance of one hundred years. Liddell Hart - who I have also studied in depth - had a reasonable grasp of part of the truth. Remarque was not even conscious that he was writing a book that would be categorised as 'anti war'. Today's view often says more about today than it does about the past. We understand issues based on who we are now. Historical events are reinterpreted by each generation. If they weren't, why would museums have information panels. The 'objects' should speak for themselves.

 

[Jack]

I'm not sure I subscribe to the views expressed in the last couple of posts as some of the poetry was written during the War. With respect to the poetry and the literature being written after the conclusion of the war (or any war for that matter), my riposte would be "so?" as time brings distance. My answer would be the same to the statement that some of the poets were not popular in their group; going against the grain seldom is. That they were written years after the events ended does not make the conclusions any less apt; needless slaughter and a revulsion for war.

Or any more apt!

About time we discussed some literature. As a thread hijacking, Brad, what author/poet in your view got the best 'handle' on war?

 

[waynepoo]

This is part of what we discussed yesterday about history being more than facts. it is about the way often random facts are grouped together and explained. Poppo describes something as romantic because writers, historians, poets, TV hosts etc have created a construct of what 'romantic' is and he can then apply it to ideas or circumstances to help explain them and make meaning of them. Nothing is romantic of itself. There are things that happen that we call 'romantic'. History is all about what we call things. Your flirtation with rivet counting is just you choosing one emphasis over another. Rob has disputed the view of the war poets and preferenced a different view. Your description of a crime is you looking at otherwise random acts and using what you have read and learnt over a lifetime to categorise them. You have grouped certain acts together under the heading 'crimes' even though they were not in any legal sense crimes when they were 'committed'. As an atheist, do not think for a minute that your opinions have not been shaped by two thousand years of Christian history which was itself shaped by even earlier ideas. How is something a crime when you do not recognise a larger morality outlined by a religion unless someone categorised them as such. That is why the name of Guy Gibson's dog is actually more important than the colour scheme on his Lancaster. One is minutia and the other is what we have 'called' something. One hints at a belief system. The other is an historical footnote.

History is a collection of random, though loosely interconnected incidents. You are the author who gives them a title and then groups them together under chapter headings in order that they appear to be so closely linked that every event appears foreseeable and inevitable.

Do not argue with me ... I have been published!

Argue with you......never! :rolleyes2: I can't even spell half the words you use {sm2}
Wayne.

 

[jazzeum]

Or any more apt!

About time we discussed some literature. As a thread hijacking, Brad, what author/poet in your view got the best 'handle' on war?

Jack,

I am not that accomplished when it comes to poetry but I think Wilfred Owen has two that are classic, Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthum for Doomed Youth. I came across one by Yeats recently that was moving, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.

As far as literature Parade's End is a great book and a favorite. Who cannot sympathize with Teitjens?

As poetry is a subjective thing, I think what you like or find moving is influenced by your experiences; I came of age during the late 60s.

Brad

 

[jazzeum]

This is a rather interesting article about Seamus Heaney's last poem In a Field, in response to Edward Thomas' As the Team's Head Brass; Thomas died in 1917.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/25/seamus-heaney-last-poem-published

 

[lancer]

Just sticking my nose in, but I am also partial to Owen. Also like Isaac Rosenberg. He seems to have a feel for the common man's concerns. His poem 'The Immortals' is the type of thing any soldier would be concerned with, not causes or effects, or politics, just concerns on an everyday level. "Dead Man's Dump' is another one that is good but is entirely more depressing. Generally I am not a fan of poetry and it has been years since I really have read this stuff but those two men's work just kind of stuck with me because they were there, in it, not writing after the fact, and because they both died there. -- Al

 

[Rob]

Rob

Great post. The influence of the war poets has always been grossly exaggerated. The 'soldiers' rhetoric' was a later construct that emerged in the immediate post war years. Many of the great 'anti war' novels did not start emerging until the late twenties. It was a movement that involved people like Philip Gibbs, perhaps the most famous of the Brit correspondents. The Blackadder view was actually, in some respects, an update of this changing view. Sassoon and Graves only spoke for a small portion of society. Their views were not even universally accepted within their own group.

As for the generals being murderers, I think that this is an appealing view in a world where conspiracy theorists can offer any kind of explanation for any event. A suspicion of your own government's actions seems almost a badge of honour - UFOs, Moon Landing, was it really the Titanic, JFK assasination, 9/11. WW1 will become increasingly the tool of people trying to make a point in a modern context using only a very impressionistic knowledge of events. You may need to toughen up Rob - I have yet to see a modern textbook dealing with WW1 that does not include a poetry section^&grin

There are still those in Australia who mention the slaughter of Australians by the English and Americans. Foolish me - I tend to blame the Germans and Japanese et al. Its all about impressions!

Jack

Excellent post my friend:salute:: I once sat on a flight back from Florida next to a conspiracy theorist, did you know Jesus did not die but played for Led Zepp at Live Aid?!If I'd let him he'd have me believe I'd never been to Disneyland at all but it was all a hoax by the Russian's!

There are some superb WW1 poems no doubt about it, but it's wrong to think they had universal appeal at the time and were the voice of all the PBI's.

As always good to chat with you mate
Rob