The First World War
Discussion
Kermit power said:
I suspect that would probably be the case for the many.
At least if you lost a father, a brother or a son in WW2, you could to some extent console yourself with the fact that they gave their lives to help rid the world of a great evil.
The deaths in WW1 just all seem so dreadfully pointless and futile. Millions dead and maimed just for politicians to play stupid power games.
That has been the common assumption for quite a long time, especially since the 1960s. In the 1920s and 30s I don't think the attitude was quite so strong that "The Great War" was pointless in the way the attitude became later. At least if you lost a father, a brother or a son in WW2, you could to some extent console yourself with the fact that they gave their lives to help rid the world of a great evil.
The deaths in WW1 just all seem so dreadfully pointless and futile. Millions dead and maimed just for politicians to play stupid power games.
I think the rise of socialist ideas in the post World War 2 era fed into this notion and the discovery of the WW1 poets - especially their emphasis in the school curricula of the 60s and 70s - helped feed this view of the war.
I often think it is strange that WW1 is a war taught to children through poetry. There were plenty of WW2 poets as well, but they hardly ever get a mention.
Also, popular culture such as TV documentaries, theatre and films ("Oh What a Lovely War" being a good example) depicted WW1 as a class war and portrayed the ruling upper classes as idiots and uncaring whilst the "honest working classes" died at their beck and call - which is a gross simplification of reality.
In more recent years, some of these attitudes have been questioned by more modern historians.
I would highly recommend the following two books -
"Tommy" by Richard Holmes
"Mud Blood and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan
From August to November 1918 the British Army (indeed the British people) won the greatest and possibly the most skillful victories in their history, but these victories (and the epic defensive battles of earlier that year) are largely forgotten.
Strangely, the "Oh What a Lovely War" / "lions led by donkeys" / "The Yanks are Coming" narrative almost echoes the Nazi blame-the-Jews "stab in the back" fiction - both ignore the history that the German army was defeated in the field.
History matters, but since we are surrounded by myths on events that happened two thousand years ago, yesterday, and everything in between (see thread on the McCanns!), heaven knows where to start with some of the stuff that really does matter . . .
Strangely, the "Oh What a Lovely War" / "lions led by donkeys" / "The Yanks are Coming" narrative almost echoes the Nazi blame-the-Jews "stab in the back" fiction - both ignore the history that the German army was defeated in the field.
History matters, but since we are surrounded by myths on events that happened two thousand years ago, yesterday, and everything in between (see thread on the McCanns!), heaven knows where to start with some of the stuff that really does matter . . .
I've had a vague look for my grandfather's records and not found them so this is what I've been told as he died in '73 when I was 3.
He signed up age 18 rather than go to university and got a commission. By the end of the war he was addicted to painkillers as he'd been gassed and had filled dead men's shoes to become a colonel.
He signed up age 18 rather than go to university and got a commission. By the end of the war he was addicted to painkillers as he'd been gassed and had filled dead men's shoes to become a colonel.
A couple of posters have mentioned orders to walk, rather than run, towards the German lines.
If you look at the link above to the Western Front stuff there are some excellent in depth technical articles including one on WWI barbed wire. The feeling was that walking over the wire would be safer than running through It and tripping. The wire wasn't cut as intended because the artillery was short of HE shells and used mainly shrapnel ones instead which were not as effective. The British Commanders were not stupid, but did make some tragic miscalculations.
If you look at the link above to the Western Front stuff there are some excellent in depth technical articles including one on WWI barbed wire. The feeling was that walking over the wire would be safer than running through It and tripping. The wire wasn't cut as intended because the artillery was short of HE shells and used mainly shrapnel ones instead which were not as effective. The British Commanders were not stupid, but did make some tragic miscalculations.
My father was born in 1946, with his parents living through WWII in Amsterdam. However, he has never spoken of anything his parents told him of that period (they would have had a small baby at the time - my uncle), nor has he ever mentioned his grandparents.
I think I'll need to ask him what he knows of his family's involvement in the war.
I think I'll need to ask him what he knows of his family's involvement in the war.
Bill said:
He signed up age 18 rather than go to university and got a commission. By the end of the war he was addicted to painkillers as he'd been gassed and had filled dead men's shoes to become a colonel.
ok, got somewhere....Looks like he became a temporary 2nd Lt in June 1916 (age 18/19) in the Machine Gun Corps, temp Lt in April 1917. In July 1918 the London Gazette has his citation for the Military Medal and he was still a temporary Lt. I've also found his record from WW2 where he was Major, then temp Lt Colonel, in the Home Guard. Presumably that's where the Colonel part of the family myth comes from.
The citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in skilfully handling his machine guns. For 48 hours he was in a heavily shelled position which was attacked four times. Throughout he never left his guns and that the attacks were successfully beaten off was largely due to the splendid example he set.
Ayahuasca said:
If you look at the link above to the Western Front stuff there are some excellent in depth technical articles including one on WWI barbed wire. The feeling was that walking over the wire would be safer than running through It and tripping. The wire wasn't cut as intended because the artillery was short of HE shells and used mainly shrapnel ones instead which were not as effective. The British Commanders were not stupid, but did make some tragic miscalculations.
Many factors came together - there weren't sensitive enough fuzes until late in the war, so even HE wouldn't reliably cut wire. The British Army had expanded from a superbly trained and led 200,000 regulars (many spread in penny packets across the Empire) to 4 million. There was the feeling that the Kitchener armies couldn't be trained to the same peak as the pre-war Regulars (fire-and-movement, combined arms, use of ground - all learned in the Boer War), so new, simpler to implement, tactics were needed. (I'd argue that conclusion was wrong - the British Army of 1918, from the automatic weapon / grenade / sniper organisation of the infantry platoon through to air / armour / infantry cooperation that would have been impressive by the standards of 1940 showed what could be done). There weren't the Generals or the Staff Officers to fight that kind of war - they also had to be trained.
Octoposse said:
Ayahuasca said:
If you look at the link above to the Western Front stuff there are some excellent in depth technical articles including one on WWI barbed wire. The feeling was that walking over the wire would be safer than running through It and tripping. The wire wasn't cut as intended because the artillery was short of HE shells and used mainly shrapnel ones instead which were not as effective. The British Commanders were not stupid, but did make some tragic miscalculations.
Many factors came together - there weren't sensitive enough fuzes until late in the war, so even HE wouldn't reliably cut wire. The British Army had expanded from a superbly trained and led 200,000 regulars (many spread in penny packets across the Empire) to 4 million. There was the feeling that the Kitchener armies couldn't be trained to the same peak as the pre-war Regulars (fire-and-movement, combined arms, use of ground - all learned in the Boer War), so new, simpler to implement, tactics were needed. (I'd argue that conclusion was wrong - the British Army of 1918, from the automatic weapon / grenade / sniper organisation of the infantry platoon through to air / armour / infantry cooperation that would have been impressive by the standards of 1940 showed what could be done). There weren't the Generals or the Staff Officers to fight that kind of war - they also had to be trained.
Eric Mc said:
I would highly recommend the following two books -
"Tommy" by Richard Holmes
"Mud Blood and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan
"Tommy" by Richard Holmes
"Mud Blood and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan
Richard Holmes was my academic supervisor.Also, an older one is John Terraine's "The Fire And The Smoke". In it he makes the point that it also took the Germans three years to come up with tactics that could break the stalemate. When they did they were astoundingly successful, but were then roundly defeated - in the main by the British who adopted similar tactics.
An interesting side note he mentions is that, even in The last 100 days, the one thing the retreating German infantry feared most was the sight of cavalry coming over the horizon.
Terraine doesn't attempt to whitewash British mistakes but states that the German army of WW1 - like the Japanese army of WW2 - couldn't just be out-manoeuvred but had to be destroyed in battle. He then asks, given the technical and tactical limitations they faced in the period of 1915 - 1917, what else could the generals have done to achieve this? Very few of their critics can provide a cogent answer.
Ayahuasca said:
A couple of posters have mentioned orders to walk, rather than run, towards the German lines.
If you look at the link above to the Western Front stuff there are some excellent in depth technical articles including one on WWI barbed wire. The feeling was that walking over the wire would be safer than running through It and tripping. The wire wasn't cut as intended because the artillery was short of HE shells and used mainly shrapnel ones instead which were not as effective. The British Commanders were not stupid, but did make some tragic miscalculations.
The other main reason was the development of creeping barrages.If you look at the link above to the Western Front stuff there are some excellent in depth technical articles including one on WWI barbed wire. The feeling was that walking over the wire would be safer than running through It and tripping. The wire wasn't cut as intended because the artillery was short of HE shells and used mainly shrapnel ones instead which were not as effective. The British Commanders were not stupid, but did make some tragic miscalculations.
During 1916 the standard tactic was to bombard the enemy for weeks on end. Just before the attack went in, the barrage would be lifted lest your own men run in to it. Far from causing massive destruction and destroying morale, the barrages gave the well-sheltered defenders notice of an attack. Once the barrage ceased, they would come out and kill the exposed attackers with machine guns while the latter were still advancing across No Man's Land.
This led to the development of shorter, creeping barrages, designed only to suppress the enemy. Creeping barrages were carefully timed, lifting in small increments every couple minutes - creeping across No Man's Land. The key was for the infantry to be close enough behind the barrage to leave the defenders no time to recover - if the barrage outpaced the infantry, they would be left terribly exposed as they were on the first day of the Somme. The French had a rule that if you weren't losing 10% of your men to your own barrage, you weren't close enough. To be most effective, the infantry had to follow the artillery schedule, moving at a specific pace on the shoulder of the barrage as they were trained to do. By late 1917 the technique was perfected to the point that complex patterns could be laid and barrages quickly called down to support individual units.
DBSV8 said:
Last year I cycled from London to Paris and stopped overnight in Arras , the following day we made a trip to the cemetery's, I stopped at this very same cemetery
while walking amongst the headstones i discovered
Private JL DEWART
he was only 16 years old
RIP to all those brave men who gave their lives
From memory, on a battlefields trip from school, we saw a grave of a 14 year old I think and at the time we were about that agewhile walking amongst the headstones i discovered
Private JL DEWART
he was only 16 years old
RIP to all those brave men who gave their lives
Great thread. My grandfather was too young to join up by a year but managed to do so. He became a runner and although he never talked about the fighting he did tell me about the camaraderie and the daily acts of bravery by ordinary men sent to what must have been an utterly alien and hellish experience. A few years back an old soldier from WW2 took my son and I around the Imperial war museum. It was an extraordinary event.He explained to my son how to take out a Panzar ( they have massive armour at the front but much thinner on the floor so you wait until it rises out of a ditch or over a hump), how to throw a grenade, how to forage. Then when we got the the WW1 section we had to take a break as he could not go on. I took my lad to another part of the exhibition to let Arthur recover. All he could say was that trench warfare was far worse than anything he had been through.
Great grandfather was a private and IIRC did the whole duration and survived, after the war he worked on the railways for the rest of his life. I never met him as he died well before I was born.
I did a tour of the northern French battlefield sites a couple of years ago. Visited the South African cemetery, Theipval and many others. I am so glad I did it too, I found it immensely moving and thought provoking. The hours just disappeared reading names and trying to get my head round it all. Theipval is also the most moving place I've been to so far, it had a far more profound effect on me then Auschwitz did when I went there while at University.
I did a tour of the northern French battlefield sites a couple of years ago. Visited the South African cemetery, Theipval and many others. I am so glad I did it too, I found it immensely moving and thought provoking. The hours just disappeared reading names and trying to get my head round it all. Theipval is also the most moving place I've been to so far, it had a far more profound effect on me then Auschwitz did when I went there while at University.
I've been to the Tyne Cot cemetery near Ypres a few times.
It is the biggest Allied WW1 cemetery and there are about
12,000 in there. Very moving.
A very few miles up the road at Langemark is the corresponding
German facility. There are *44,000* in there.
It seems that the Germans used to have many scattered small
cemeteries, but during the 1950s and 1960s, just to remind
the German youngsters about the horrors of that war, all the
little cemeteries were consolidated into one at Langemark,
by various youth groups.
BTW, lots of B&B in Ypres & around are already fully booked throughout
2014, so if you want to be there for the centenary, you've missed your chance
already.
It is the biggest Allied WW1 cemetery and there are about
12,000 in there. Very moving.
A very few miles up the road at Langemark is the corresponding
German facility. There are *44,000* in there.
It seems that the Germans used to have many scattered small
cemeteries, but during the 1950s and 1960s, just to remind
the German youngsters about the horrors of that war, all the
little cemeteries were consolidated into one at Langemark,
by various youth groups.
BTW, lots of B&B in Ypres & around are already fully booked throughout
2014, so if you want to be there for the centenary, you've missed your chance
already.
Some of my relatives emigrated from Edinburgh to Canada just before the war. That didn't stop the boys from joining up over there and coming back in the Canadian Army as soon as they were old enough.
I found their attestation & medical papers online, which describes their appearance, height, address, profession etc. When I was in Ottawa a couple of years ago I looked them up in the records office. They all survived I'm glad to say, but one was in hospital in Liverpool when the war ended with a broken leg.
My grandfathers were too young, but a great uncle was in the artillery. He'd been the sole survivor on more than one occasion, presumably from counter-battery fire. I met him when I was a kid and he had a silver plate in his skull. He lived to be 93 remarkably.
I found their attestation & medical papers online, which describes their appearance, height, address, profession etc. When I was in Ottawa a couple of years ago I looked them up in the records office. They all survived I'm glad to say, but one was in hospital in Liverpool when the war ended with a broken leg.
My grandfathers were too young, but a great uncle was in the artillery. He'd been the sole survivor on more than one occasion, presumably from counter-battery fire. I met him when I was a kid and he had a silver plate in his skull. He lived to be 93 remarkably.
A chap my father knew, and we kids all liked, was a machine-gunner during WWI. He died from a painful illness and was on strongish drugs for a while. My father visited him in hospital and said that he was talking about his wartime experiences. At one time, he reckoned, he opened fire on a group of soldiers who had arrow-heads on their helmets, thinking they were Germans. They were in fact allies. So with all his long life, he was about 85, behind him, the one thing which stuck in his mind was a bit of WWI.
My f-i-l was a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese, building a road in Malaya. He had Korean guards, which were, if anything, worse than the Japanese. When he was in hospital with cancer, he believed he was back in the prison camp and was a real problem for the nurses. Nearly 55 years after his release.
I think my generation, the baby boomers, were a little aware of what our fathers and grandfathers went through but even so, as I've read more and more, I see I wasn't told the real story. I think the younger generations, fed by films glorifying war to as extent, are less aware. The first 'war' film I saw 'The Cruel Sea' which highlighted, for me with most of the males members of my family being in the two navies, the full horror story.
WWI, or at least those who took part, should be commemorated and it should be acknowledged that all sides lost: men, potential, fathers, husbands, sons, mothers, wives, daughters, and all for nothing. Further, it cost so much money. Only the really rich got richer.
The original Poppy Day was not pro establishment, just the reverse in fact. It was to say 'never again', a hope destroyed just 20 years later. But the establishment saw the danger of the plebs not wanting to waste their lives and made it into a celebration of the war and soldiers.
My f-i-l was a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese, building a road in Malaya. He had Korean guards, which were, if anything, worse than the Japanese. When he was in hospital with cancer, he believed he was back in the prison camp and was a real problem for the nurses. Nearly 55 years after his release.
I think my generation, the baby boomers, were a little aware of what our fathers and grandfathers went through but even so, as I've read more and more, I see I wasn't told the real story. I think the younger generations, fed by films glorifying war to as extent, are less aware. The first 'war' film I saw 'The Cruel Sea' which highlighted, for me with most of the males members of my family being in the two navies, the full horror story.
WWI, or at least those who took part, should be commemorated and it should be acknowledged that all sides lost: men, potential, fathers, husbands, sons, mothers, wives, daughters, and all for nothing. Further, it cost so much money. Only the really rich got richer.
The original Poppy Day was not pro establishment, just the reverse in fact. It was to say 'never again', a hope destroyed just 20 years later. But the establishment saw the danger of the plebs not wanting to waste their lives and made it into a celebration of the war and soldiers.
The "WW1 as a "Class War" theory raises its head again.
Was it really?
Or were there real issues at stake for Britain?
Could Britain have stood by and watch the Germans build up a large navy and threaten British territories around the world?
Were there good reasons to stand up to Germany in 1914?
Was it really?
Or were there real issues at stake for Britain?
Could Britain have stood by and watch the Germans build up a large navy and threaten British territories around the world?
Were there good reasons to stand up to Germany in 1914?
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