The First World War

[Ayahuasca]

With the centenary of its start fast approaching I thought it would be good to have a thread dedicated to the bloodiest chapter in British history (apols it has been done already).

My great grandfather died of his wounds during the war. I don't know when or where, except that it was near to the end. If a soldier was killed outright there seem to be a number of ways of tracking information down; if he died a bit later it seems to be harder to find anything out.

His family received a bronze plaque, stamped with his name, explaining that he died 'for freedom and honour'. It had a huge impact on his family; his young sons (one was my granddad)grew up fatherless and when it was their turn to answer the call a few years later they did so knowing what the outcome might be. The older brother volunteered for tanks and was at El Alamein; the younger brother (my granddad) tried to volunteer to be an RAF rear gunner but was told off for being bloody stupid by his elder brother who said in a letter 'don't you thing our family gave enough in the last lot?' They both survived WWII.

So, please post your family's WWI stories, and anything else Great War related.

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The utter carnage and sacrifice are hard to understand these days. There was not even a proper reason for the war in the first place, certainly nothing that justified the resources wasted. Yet at the time, in the early stages, there was no lack of volunteers to join up.

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From the link posted by Baldy1926 above:


The British reasons for going to war:

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-p...

I wonder how many of the dead ever knew why they were fighting?

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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.

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dcb said:

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.

Nothing new. In the early 1920s it was apparently very hard to find accomodation in Ypres, due to the then recent advent of package tours. As it says in 'They called it Passchendaele' by Lyn Macdonald, the 'tourists' back then were nearly all women. Their husbands, fathers and sons were already there.

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dcb said:

Ayahuasca said:

In the early 1920s it was apparently very hard to find accomodation in Ypres, due to the then recent advent of package tours.

Presumably, the fact that the Germans had flattened it to ruins a few years
earlier has nothing to do with it ?

The Cloth Hall wasn't finished until 1967, for instance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloth_Hall,_Ypres

Try finding any building in Ypres earlier than 1920 isn't easy.

True enough but the locals, the YMCA and the Church Army which had made temporary wartime buidlings as canteens for the troops had turned them into cheap accomodation for the visiting post-war relatives. A quarter of the British (and commonwealth) war dead was killed within a few miles of Ypres so it became a focal point for families.

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That line of small lakes at Messines looks so peaceful.

Iirc at least one mine didn't go off and is still down there somewhere...

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Digga said:

Talking of Messines, this is just up the road from the village:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffor...

Rugeley, Rugeley
We're all enjoying it hugely
To and fro we gaily go
We're always on the tramp
But if you think that Cannock Chase
Is a lively and attractive place
You'll be hugely awakened
When you come to Rugeley Camp!

Unofficial WWI marching song of the 11th Battalion, the Prince of Wales Own West Yorkshire Regiment

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What would have happened if the armistice had not been agreed? I guess one scenario is that the Allies, bolstered by US troops, push the Germans all the way to Berlin and essentially do what they did after WWII, maybe thus avoiding the rise of Hitler, etc..

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And here it is in the WW1 equivalent of Google Earth

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Vocal Minority said:

A British soldier came face to face with Hitler during a battle in WWI, had the opportunity to shoot him, but decided not to. He went on to win the VC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tandey

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Eric Mc said:

Perhaps it was because the men didn't spend weeks and months in those conditions but rotated from rear trenches which weren't as bad as the front line trenches.

In fact, many men were killed and injured transiting along the communication trenches.

Obviously, it was no bed of roses but I sometimes think that there is a willingness to wallow in the awfulness of the Western Front in WW1 and almost by default to ignore some equally awful campaigns in other wars.

Understandable, really, as nothing else equalled the slaughter of the Western Front, for the British.

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Derek Smith said:

A general's job is to win battles. Haig wasn't all that good at a fundamental bit of his job description. The reasons are, to a great extent, immaterial.

What would you have done differently?

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V8 Fettler said:

QuantumTokoloshi said:

V8 Fettler said:

Competence of British military in WW2?? Battle of Britain, Battle of the Atlantic, bombing campaign over Europe, D-Day assault, defeat of Axis seapower in the Med, El Alamein, advance through Italy, the list is long.

German army not defeated in WW1, hence Armistice not surrender. Is this not taught in schools these days?

The only battle that Britain stood by itself successfully (including Commonwealth forces) was the Battle of Britain, all the others included the USA, and once the USA came into the war, Britain became a junior partner.

You could argue the far East campaign, with Field Marshall Bill Slim, which is often forgotten, was the most effective British and commonwealth, more or less standalone campaign of the WW11.

The one thing being forgotten about WW1, was that large parts of the western front were very quiet, no artillery, no trench raiding, in fact, there was often a detente, you shell us, we shell you, then leave it at that.

There is a fascinating book, which I cannot remember the name of, which detailed how quiet some areas of the front were, the French, German and English, developed a "battle routine". Do just enough to keep the officers happy, but no actually hardcore "fighting".

The German would shell at 8 in the morning, The opposing troops and artillery would return fire at 9, and then a repeat in the evening. A impromptu agreement between the combatants resulted, keeping casualties down. If one side or the other "broke" the agreement, with a trench raid or using trench mortars (which by all accounts were hated by both sides) or gas, then fighting would flare up for a week or two, but subside again into the routine within a few weeks.

Edited by QuantumTokoloshi on Saturday 19th October 12:47

Battle of the River Plate
Battle of the Denmark Strait
East African Campaign
First and Second Battles of Narvik
Battle of Cape Matapan
First Battle of Tobruk
Battle of Beda Fomm
Sundry other battles in the Western Desert that I can't recall
And so on

I wish this rain would stop.

El Alamein was a pivotal battle and all UK and Commonwealth iirc.

[Ayahuasca]

dereksmith said:

[i]And yet despite all that the Army of 1915 was turned into the Army of 1918 under his command. Honed tactics, improved training and new technologies that redefined modern warfare and still survive today.

Just took him three years, the arrival of masses of USA soldiers and, more importantly I think, the threat of even more, the collapse of the German supply system, and a lack of replacements for their losses and all of a sudden, the British army were able to use different tactics.

It took Haig just three years to completely re-engineer everything about the British Army, its tactics and methods and lead it to victory.

Remind me, how long have we been fighting in Afghanistan?

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Eric Mc said:

Sorry Derek - but short answers are better on forums. I don't always have the time to trawl through your essays in their entirety.

Left or right wing views will always colour an opinion.

People suffer in wars.
Poets are people.
Some poets suffered in war so they have a right to express what they saw, heard and feel through their poetry.

I'm not denying any of that.

But at the risk of repeating myself, what poets say about war should NOT be the prime resource of factual history education.

Explain to me, as succinctly as you can please, why WW2, or Vietnam, or even the Falklands aren't taught through the writings of dead poets?
There have been poets in all these wars - but their writings are essentially ignored.

There is something very odd about what happened with the telling of WW1 in British schools - and to me it smacks of left wing propaganda.

Each war took place in a different context of art and storytelling.

WWI - static trench warfare, with very few contemporary films or photographers in situ, probably lent itself to introspective art forms like poetry. Difficult to make a film about the daily meat-grinder of the trenches. Interesting that most WW1 films are based on the air war - where there was more colour and movement. Some famous WW1 land warfare clips were in fact re-enacted after the event.


WWII, Vietnam and all later conflicts - wars of movement, lots of contemporary film footage, thus not such a need for introspective 'this is how it felt' poetry. We could see what was going on, so we didn't need some Oxbridge educated poet to write it out for us.

[Ayahuasca]

Short but interesting article in which History Today demolishes some of the WWI myths pictured in the film War Horse.

http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2012/02/war-horse...

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I am re-reading 'They Called it Passchendaele' by Lyn MacDonald. It is full of first hand accounts. An interesting one is by Corporal AE Lee MM of the Tank Corps who was in his tank 'Revenge' along with another tank called 'Iron Rations'. In the battle of Messines at the beginning of 3 Ypres, they achieved their objectives, got bored and decided to push on into German territory. They went FIVE MILES into enemy territory, unsupported except by each other, shooting at anything that moved, killing (their words) hundreds of German troops, until they ran low on fuel and ammo, when they turned back for the British lines. Five miles! I don't know if Corporal Lee is well known or not, but he seems to have invented what became the future doctrine of tank warfare by himself!

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All kicked off 100 years ago today then.

If the politicians could have foreseen the carnage that would follow they probably would not have taken the decisions they did - but was there an alternative to going to war, if Britain did nothing where would the Germans have stopped?

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If the Germans rolled over the Low countries and N France it doesn't follow that they would control the sea - we could have engaged in a naval tussle without necessarily committing land forces to Europe. In fact we could have devoted massive resources to the navy as we would not be spending them on the army. Thus the Empire would be safe. No?