I managed to listen to the last of the current series of Military History Plus podcasts yesterday … and it was yet another excellent one!
Professor Gary Sheffield and Dr Spencer Jones are both well-known for their research and writings about this conflict, and I cannot think of any other historians who are better placed to discuss its historiography.
In my opinion they pretty well demolish the emotive (and inaccurate) idea that the British Army were ‘lions led by donkeys’. I first came across this interpretation of history when I read Alan Clarke’s THE DONKEYS back in the mid-1960s, and at the time it was the popular view of how warfare was conducted on the Western Front. It’s probably true to say that Clarke’s book, when coupled with the study of the ‘war poets’ as part of the secondary school curriculum and Joan Littlewood’s 1963 stage musical of ‘Oh, What a Lovely War! (and Richard Attenborough’s 1969 film version) embedded this in popular culture. Add ‘Blackadder goes forth’ into the mixture, and I suspect that this point-of-view still predominates.
However, certainly since the centenary of the outbreak of the war, this has begun to change … thanks to the work done by Messrs Sheffield and Jones amongst others. Far more people now accept that the British Army and its commanders learned the hard lessons meted out to them, and by the time of the Hundred Days campaign in 1918, they were more than capable of defeating the Germans. It has even been written that the British Army of 1918 was probably the best army that the country has ever sent into battle.
I thoroughly recommend that anyone with even the vaguest interest in the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 should listen to this podcast.
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Bob -
ReplyDeleteTell you what: Arthur Conan Doyle would probably have felt his own account of the British campaign in France 1914-1918 vindicated by such a conclusion. It is certain there were some historiographers, notably John Terraine, who were staunch in defence of the British command.
Personally, I don't buy it. I guess I'll have to listen to the podcast, but it will be hard, I think, to get past the studies of John Laffin ('Butchers and Bunglers) and Norman Dixon (Psychology of military incompetence); and the critiques of some military writers after the war. Mind you, the British (Commonwealth) did have some fine commanders (e.g. Plumer), but one gathers they were rather a rare breed.
Although the thing is fiction, I have always been rather impressed by C.S. Forrester's literary portrait of a British General of the Western Front.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteThe one thing that comes out in the discussion is the influence of Lloyd George’s book about the war on contemporary and subsequent historys of the war. He blamed the huge losses on the incompetence of his generals … whilst forgetting to mention his own political interference in the conduct of the war. It was Lloyd George who kept soldiers in the UK in 1917 and early 1918 on the pretext that the Germans might try to invade and only released half a million of them for service in France when the German offensive nearly broke through the Allied lines.
I cannot find the exact figures, but I remember reading that the average age of a British general during the Great War was less than it was during World War II, which rather dismisses the ‘bunch of old buffers’ view of them. Also, more World War I British generals were killed and wounded than were lost during World War II, which counters the idea that they were all ‘chateau generals’.
There were some brilliant British and Empire generals. In my opinion there was none better than Sir John Monash, who went out of his way to recruit suitably qualified people to be on his staff … rather like the general in CS Forester’s book.
I would strongly suggest that you listen to the podcast. Professor Sheffield (who is my regular online wargame opponent) and Dr Jones have asked listeners to pose any questions for them to discuss in future podcasts.
All the best,
Bob
Thanks to your posts on the subject, I listened to one of the earlier episodes of the podcast, and devoured the rest! Eagerly awaiting the next series.
ReplyDeleteWWI is not really one of my things, but I watched a documentary fronted by Gary Sheffield (whose dad drank in a pub not a million miles from here) a decade ago, and he convincingly demolished the myth of Lions led by Donkeys. Also read an article that pointed out that it wasn't until the late 1920s that the view began to take hold that it was all a futile tragedy.
Nundanket,
DeleteCheers! I’m glad that you enjoyed this series of podcasts … and I know that Gary Sheffield appreciated you comments and the mention of his dad drinking in a nearby pub!
All the best,
Bob