We’ve barely got into the Centenary year and the political spats have started. I can’t say that I look upon either party with any great deal of respect, but instinctively, I’m with the “left-wing academics” on this one – which is unusual, but on this point, they are right and Gove is wrong.
Responding to an article in which the education secretary attacked what he sees as an unpatriotic, leftwing version of history that portrays 1914-18 as “a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite”,
That is precisely what it was. Who, in their right mind would authorise Napoleonic charges against the hail of machine-gun fire? This was the first mechanised war and with it came industrial scale slaughter – but the shadows were portended in the American Civil War, so they could and should have learned from that. The slaughter of tens of thousands for the gains of a few feet of no man’s land was not worth the sacrifice. It was an appalling waste of life and should be remembered as such. Indeed, the French do. If you spend time on the battlefields you won’t find many French people and if you try to engage them, they aren’t over keen to discuss it. As far as they are concerned it was a horror – a blight on their history, not something to look back upon with anything other than sadness and disgust. It was the classic example of an out of touch elite who willingly threw other people to their deaths; the last fling of the ruling houses of Europe before they fell.
In his article, Gove said dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War and satirical programmes such as Blackadder, combined with leftwing interpretations of the war, had allowed deeply unpatriotic myths to take hold, and had led some to denigrate the “patriotism, honour and courage” of those who served and died.
No one that I am aware of denigrates the sacrifice of those who fought and died – but we do look unkindly on the bastards who sent them to that death. Patriotism is being used here as Johnson so rightly and scathingly referred to, as the last refuge of the scoundrel. Gove is being disingenuous here – there is a clear difference between those who made the ultimate sacrifice and the cowardly scoundrels who sat safe at home letting others do the dying for them.
Even the Battle of the Somme, in which 20,000 British soldiers died on the first day in 1916, Gove said, had been reassessed by good historians and “recast as a precursor of allied victory”, challenging the traditional views that it was one of the biggest military catastrophes of modern times.
20,000 lives lost was a catastrophe and anyone who suggests that it wasn’t is particularly cold-blooded. The Somme was a dreadful waste of life, irrespective of whether it was a precursor to allied victory. Ultimately that victory was the result of two armies in stalemate – one eventually ran out of stamina. Or, to put it crudely, they ran out of young lives to throw at the enemy’s machine guns.
The Great War was a terrible waste of life. It was badly managed by an elite who were slow to respond to the changing times and the poor sods up to their necks in mud, blood and guts had to pick up the mess – as usual. There is nothing noble or patriotic about being up to your ankles in mud, suffering trench foot and the stench of your comrades’ rotting bodies filling your nostrils, constantly in fear of sudden death from the shells pounding your position and the withering machine guns when you go over the top in another useless and costly push – but the out of touch elite didn’t have to worry about such things. So Gove can take his patriotism and stick it where the sun don’t shine. I am not a patriot and never will be. I certainly would never lay down my life for Queen and country as neither deserves the sacrifice.
Fuck Gove and fuck his call to patriotism.
Good article and spot on. WWI was an utter catastrophe as it was avoidable. Avoidable if the tiny elite of Francophile politicians had been taught realpolitik by the rest. They were all naive and as usual, technologically ignorant. Charging machine guns with significant crossfire…………what utter lunacy on the part of our generals. Who were miles away back at HQ.
My maternal grandfather and his four brothers, orphans, were shipped off to Canada. The older four joined up with the Canadian army and told Leo, the youngest, to feign flat feet to get out of service, just in case. They all were killed. He survived and came (sadly) to the UK, married etc etc. My paternal grandad joined up, fought in mesopotamia and France. Was wounded by a Turk and yet survived the war. Occasionally he told me stories of his adventures. He met TE Lawrence for example. The officer called him forward when these Arabs rode up as grandad spoke Arabic but Lawrence introduced himself in RP. God knows how many enemy grandad killed. Anyways, it was a great waste of life. Grandad was a sergeant, sometimes, as he kept getting busted for fighting (army boxer). His medals we still have, sadly with an envelope marked as private (rank) when he was demobbed. Obviously a busting yet again. He was contemptuous of his officers. Yet my old maths master at grammar school was a colonel in the British army in WWI. He was a fine man with a keen mind and very good at maths. Artillery of course! BTW, Gove is being an idiot over this.
I regret that I must disagree, the 1916 Battle of the Somme took place against the wishes of Haig per Lloyd Georges instructions he had sent 5 divisions of his trained troops away to a sideshow., by 1918 the BEF was very probably the most effective fighting force on earth and capable of advancing faster than after the breakout after Normandy. The BEF was perhaps the most effective and most capable army the British ever let loose upon an enemy. Take a walk through the late Paddy Griffith’s masterpiece on the development of the BEF and I assure you will treat “Blackadder” with the contempt it deserves as a historical “document”. Much of “modern” thinking post dates the 1960’s but the testament of the veterans tells a different story to the currently accepted tale, of course the words of those who were there are ignored or dismissed as “wrong”.
I’m not criticising the effectiveness of the forces, I am criticising the tactics whoever approved them. Mass marches across no man’s land in the face of machine gun fire was madness and wasteful whatever the objective and outcome. it was slaughter – nothing more, nothing less.
I always loved reading Paddy’s work, but he was a bit of a war gamer and (whisper it) a bit of a fantasist.
It’s useless having all-arms tactics right if “conditions” mean they don’t work. There’s a good phrase for “tactics that don’t work in the prevailing conditions” – and that’s “bad tactics.”
Putting that aside, even Paddy doesn’t think the BEF was doing much more than wasting lives before mid-1917 or so.
That’s 3 whole years of wasted lives…
“…but the shadows were portended in the American Civil War, so they could and should have learned from that.”
I’ve been bleating that refrain since the mid-seventies, but one besetting British sin is to never see it coming. Major Kenneth Macksey wrote extensively after WW1 on the topic of the development of armour on the battlefield (he was ignored), heavily plagiarised by Guderian in ‘Achtung! Panzer!’. Net result? We got to counter Blitzkrieg with junk that was obsolete before it’s first coat of paint dried.
WW1 is characterised not only by an endemic failure to understand the foreshadowed implications of barbed-wire, automatic weapons and mass production, but by an horrific paralysis of imagination and creative thought in how these developments might be countered and exploited. When this was finally overcome, the solutions tended to be technological and correspondingly more complex; taking longer to translate to the battlefields – the tank being one example.
WW1 was a terrible slaughter, not least for the reasons scratched upon above; but at what point was Prussian militarism to be countered, and was there realistically any alternative to confrontation? It came upon a world philosophically, governmentally and socially unprepared. That, and it came early and by accident, but I would argue that it’s coming was inevitable…
A swift German victory without our involvement might have been the best thing all round. It would have helped if the generals in the south actually stuck to Von Schlieffen’s plan, though. Yes, there may have been more confrontation later on, but we will never know, will we?
A fair remark, I am indulging in my favourite luxury; that of retrospective speculation. A swift German victory would have saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. However, I suspect the Prussian élite had their tails up after 1871 and our travails in the First Zulu War and Boer Wars would have encouraged them enormously; not to mention providing ample study material for the war college at Potsdam.
No, you’re right LR. I’ll never know, but I can take a bloody good guess…
XX but at what point was Prussian militarism….XX
http://www.humanosphere.org/2013/08/map-of-the-day-where-the-brits-never-invaded/
http://antikrieg.com/aktuell/2013_12_08_landkarte.htm
In der Zeit von 1480 bis 1940 waren die europäischen Mächte an 278 Kriegen beteiligt – aber deutsche Lande, Preußen und später Gesamtdeutschland bloß an acht Prozent davon; England dagegen an 28 Prozent, Frankreich an 26, Spanien an 23, Rußland an 22 und Polen an elf Prozent (nach Quincy Wright: „A Study of War“, Band I).
In the time 1480 until 1940,the European powers were involved in 278 wars, but German lands, Prussia and later Germany, were involved in a meer 8%.
England, however in 28%, France in 26%, Spain 23%, Russia in 22% and Poland in 11%.
(Quincy Wright: „A Study of War“, Band I).
Now, what was the total load of bollox you were spouting about “Prussian militarism” again?
It wasn’t any different to any of the other major powers of the time – except that the others had empires and the Kaiser wanted some of that, thankyou very much.
Prussia got what it wanted when it provoked France into war in 1870 – unification and 1914 was very much unfinished business from that conflict. The problem for the new Germany was a lack of channel ports – Belgium and France had some, though. Had we stayed out of the 1914 conflict – and I still think we should have, those ports would have been useful should Germany have decided to impose a blockade.
XX those ports would have been useful should Germany have decided to impose a blockade.XX
We DID. (Or at least, tried to. We did not do to bad) Read up on the U-Boot war of WWI. (The only usefull ships we ever had. Althoug a few caused a rumpous.)
But it was much a “tit for tat”, The British blockaded the Baltic approaches.
Well, by then, we were at war. Prior to that, Germany had a pretty impressive Navy and was expanding – needing ports with access to the Atlantic. Had they had a quick victory in France, I expect there would have been tensions once they started berthing in the French and Belgian ports.
It is very easy to deplore tactics – but what would you have done instead? Really done – not invoking some political gabfest.
Staying out of it would have worked. However, that said – sending men into machine gun fire was not a suitable tactic. Given that going forwards became a problem with entrenchment, they could always have withdrawn and drawn the enemy into the open. To point out that 20,000 lives thrown away is a political gabfest is bollocks, frankly. Those lives were thrown away, wasted and the people responsible were charlatans.
Gove has a point. Whilst the war was a disaster, the left is attempting to belittle the efforts of those involved because it doesn’t suit their aims where they have to disagree with all wars because they don’t like wars against Muslims, and that is what Gove is railing against.
Blackadder is a good comedy, but using it in a history class does not work.
Actually, I don’t want a wart against Muslims either. Wars should be defensive only. if there is an army massed on the channel to invade – fine, mobilise and engage. Otherwise, none of our business. So, on this one, I am in accord with the left – even if I don’t go along with the white poppy nonsense.
XX Actually, I don’t want a wart against Muslims either. Wars should be defensive only. XX
A war against the rag-heads WOULD be defensive.
Tried buying anything from an English corner shop lately?
You are already nearly too late. The enemy are in the camp, and you will only have the choice of fighting on the streets of your home town or bending down and accepting the bastards.
Had we done something 30 years back, then at least your home town would have stayed tidy by the end of it.
Pre-emptive strike is a legitimat form of war, and IS defence. (See Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, Mao Tse Tzung, among many others.)
Slapping wee Tyson-Mandela Mc Chavish in the mouth BEFORE he throws the stone through your window is DEFENCE!
Why do these blasted politicians insist on trying to warp history to make WWI (or WWII, for that matter) suit their own idealistic views? We have Gove here criticising Blackadder for pointing out in a very accessible way just how easy it was for the top brass, safe back in good ol’ Blighty, to cavalierly send thousands of soldiers to hideous deaths for essentially no good reason at all, i.e. trying to show that the leaders (no doubt, jolly good old-fashioned ex-public schoolboys to a man) weren’t as callous and misguided as has been insinuated in the past; and then we get the lefties whinging on about Remembrance Day every year and wearing white poppies as a protest against “glorifying war,” when in fact deliberately remembering the individuals who lost their young and precious lives in the various wars must surely be a much more sobering way of recognising what a tragedy all wars are – to real people doing real fighting – than allowing their individual stories to fade away as just another set of chapters in a history book.
Why can’t they (both sides – damn the lot of them) just let well alone? Gove can no more change people’s minds about the attitudes of the upper crust towards the lower ranks on the battlefields by moaning every time some programme/article/historian points it out, than the lefties can make the world into a peace-loving, happy-clappy, rose-tinted world of tree-hugging hippies by insisting that we forget all about our armed forces’ sacrifices completely.
” …than the lefties can make the world into a peace-loving, happy-clappy, rose-tinted world of tree-hugging hippies…”
A rather strange view of lefties/marxists/communists, an ideology that is more than prepared to exterminate millions of innocents in pursuit of the almighty state.
Give me happy-clappy, tree hugging hippies any day over lefties with their murderous intent of domination.