tony perrett
Gold Level Sponsor
"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time". British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey 3 August 1914.
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Enjoy.
Ww1.
- Thread starter tony perrett
- Start date
And thus began 4 years of horrific, senseless death.
If you don't already have it, go to your favorite song download/streaming service and listen to "The Green Fields of France" by the Dropkick Murphys. Wonderful, sad song.
God rest their souls.
If you don't already have it, go to your favorite song download/streaming service and listen to "The Green Fields of France" by the Dropkick Murphys. Wonderful, sad song.
God rest their souls.
buckalpine3
Donation Time
ww1
Or if you want to read about the comedy of errors that started WW 1, try "The World Undone" by G.J. Meyer.
Or if you want to read about the comedy of errors that started WW 1, try "The World Undone" by G.J. Meyer.
jumpinjan
Bronze Level Sponsor
Here's a video that the Museum made recently
Jan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usY6qpcaoAc&feature=youtu.be
Jan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usY6qpcaoAc&feature=youtu.be
My favorite is "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman.
Nickodell
Donation Time
There have probably been more myths about WWI than any other world event. The usual story is of enthusiastic boys being sent into pointless attacks against machine guns and artillery, by incompetent generals barking orders down telephones while staying well away from any danger and living like royalty. The chances of surviving the war as a front-line soldier were close to zero, while the generals were only interested in glory and political ambition. Books, and movies like All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory, have driven home that idea.
In the British army alone, 97 generals died: 34 by shellfire, 22 by rifle or machinegun, 2 in flying and 15 by unknown causes (usually this category means blown to bits; they didn't wear dog tags and the remains would be unidentifiable.) The remainder died from illness or accident. Among the dead were two field marshals (equivalent to a US 5-star general) - Lord Kitchener, and the oldest holder of the Victoria Cross, Lord Roberts.
A BBC program put to rest many more WWI myths:
The First World War was a conflict of gangrene, gas and ghastliness, a futile massacre that achieved nothing in which a whole generation of deluded teenagers were sent to their deaths by senile generals interested only in glory. In the run-up to commemorations of the outbreak of the 1914-18 War that entrenched view is at last under the attack it richly deserves.
One thing everyone can agree on: The war was a national tragedy. Almost 750,000 Britons died and twice as many more came home with terrible wounds or shell shock.
The view of the war of "lions led by donkeys" - brave Tommies led by asinine generals - is largely the product of a 50-year-old play and film Oh! What A Lovely War, a huge hit that taught Britain to hate the generals. It was based on a highly tendentious book The Donkeys by the late Tory MP Alan Clark who wrote it for quick cash. The mud of that mythmaking has stuck ever since recycled to comic effect by Blackadder Goes Forth and almost every dramatic depiction of the Great War you ever see.
Far from seeing it as a futile war, the majority opinion at the time was that it was a just fight. Everyone agreed that the invading Germans - an exceptionally brutal regime - had to be kicked out of France and Belgium. This was done largely by a British citizen army in four years and they did this with the lowest casualty, mutiny and desertion rates of any the major allies. The men that fought were hugely proud of their achievement.
When Field Marshal Douglas Haig - the most vilified of all the commanders in the popular opinion today - died in 1928 he was mourned by a crowd bigger than the one at Princess Diana's funeral, including tens of thousands of soldiers who had fought under his command. Haig was then "the man who won the war." (A few years ago there were calls for his statue in London to be pulled down.)
What of the generals under him? Senile idiots and cowards? Far from it. Most were in their 40s or early 50s and on the ball. According to historian Brigadier General Professor Richard Holmes they were "honest, brave, hard-working soldiers" fully aware of the terrible consequences of any mistakes. Moreover being a general was a dangerous rank to hold. Along with the 97 who died during the war 146 were taken prisoner. In the Battle of Loos in 1915 more British generals were killed than in the entire Second World War.
The vision we have inherited is that the men in the trenches were sacrificed by a ruling class that stayed at home in their castles and let their gamekeepers and villagers do the dying. In fact the war was the greatest holocaust of the male British aristocracy since the Wars of the Roses four centuries earlier.
What about the junior officers, the boys from elite schools who went from the rugby pitch almost straight to the front? For young newly commissioned officer, six weeks was the average life-span at the front. Their casualty rate was atrocious compared with the private soldiers. That educational cradle of prime ministers down the centuries, Eton College, saw 5,660 boys go to war, 1,157 of them - more than 20 per cent - were killed. Other elite schools had even worse losses. The reason? They led from the front, carrying only a swagger-stick. My uncle Lancelot Nicholson was one of them. Commissioned in May 1916, sent to the Front. Dead in July.
Far from being practitioners of rigid stupidity, the overwhelming majority of officers were utterly devoted to the men's welfare, something drummed into them in training. They rubbed ointment on their men's feet, doled out cigarettes and wrote letters home for the ones who couldn't write. Yes, their code was highly paternalistic and class-based, but it worked. It is thought to be the single key reason why British morale never broke.
The food was generally good, medical services excellent and the pay better than in the French army, whose officers came closest to the couldn't-care- less belief about their men, and their army was consequently riven with mutiny and desertion. One of the goals of the hugely costly British Somme and Passchendaele offensives was to distract the Germans away from the French, whose army was often a disorganized shambles.
Mutiny was virtually unheard of in the British infantry. One minor instance at a training camp in France was dramatized by Left-wing writer Alan Bleasdale in the series The Monocled Mutineer, a BBC drama that gleefully recycled every negative Great War cliché in the book. The real story was how rare rebellion was, given the squalor of trench life.
The vision we have inherited is that all the men in the trenches were waist-deep in mud and rats before going over the top to certain death in a cloud of mustard gas and bullets. This hides a bigger truth: Roughly four out of five troops came home. For many the front was nothing worse than boring. Compare this with, for instance, the loss rate for RAF bomber crews in WWII; close to 50%. The greatest killer in all armies, and civilians, was the 1918 "Spanish 'Flu."
Grievous though British losses were, the so-called lost generation seems to have been something of a myth too. The birth rate after the war dipped only a little and life went on. Writers such as JB Priestley believed the war and 'flu epidemic had killed off an entire generation of talent. However, many of the survivors were exceptionally gifted in all walks of life. They included writers, historians, scientists and engineers, future generals and three great mid-century prime ministers: Churchill, Attlee and Macmillan.
In the British army alone, 97 generals died: 34 by shellfire, 22 by rifle or machinegun, 2 in flying and 15 by unknown causes (usually this category means blown to bits; they didn't wear dog tags and the remains would be unidentifiable.) The remainder died from illness or accident. Among the dead were two field marshals (equivalent to a US 5-star general) - Lord Kitchener, and the oldest holder of the Victoria Cross, Lord Roberts.
A BBC program put to rest many more WWI myths:
The First World War was a conflict of gangrene, gas and ghastliness, a futile massacre that achieved nothing in which a whole generation of deluded teenagers were sent to their deaths by senile generals interested only in glory. In the run-up to commemorations of the outbreak of the 1914-18 War that entrenched view is at last under the attack it richly deserves.
One thing everyone can agree on: The war was a national tragedy. Almost 750,000 Britons died and twice as many more came home with terrible wounds or shell shock.
The view of the war of "lions led by donkeys" - brave Tommies led by asinine generals - is largely the product of a 50-year-old play and film Oh! What A Lovely War, a huge hit that taught Britain to hate the generals. It was based on a highly tendentious book The Donkeys by the late Tory MP Alan Clark who wrote it for quick cash. The mud of that mythmaking has stuck ever since recycled to comic effect by Blackadder Goes Forth and almost every dramatic depiction of the Great War you ever see.
Far from seeing it as a futile war, the majority opinion at the time was that it was a just fight. Everyone agreed that the invading Germans - an exceptionally brutal regime - had to be kicked out of France and Belgium. This was done largely by a British citizen army in four years and they did this with the lowest casualty, mutiny and desertion rates of any the major allies. The men that fought were hugely proud of their achievement.
When Field Marshal Douglas Haig - the most vilified of all the commanders in the popular opinion today - died in 1928 he was mourned by a crowd bigger than the one at Princess Diana's funeral, including tens of thousands of soldiers who had fought under his command. Haig was then "the man who won the war." (A few years ago there were calls for his statue in London to be pulled down.)
What of the generals under him? Senile idiots and cowards? Far from it. Most were in their 40s or early 50s and on the ball. According to historian Brigadier General Professor Richard Holmes they were "honest, brave, hard-working soldiers" fully aware of the terrible consequences of any mistakes. Moreover being a general was a dangerous rank to hold. Along with the 97 who died during the war 146 were taken prisoner. In the Battle of Loos in 1915 more British generals were killed than in the entire Second World War.
The vision we have inherited is that the men in the trenches were sacrificed by a ruling class that stayed at home in their castles and let their gamekeepers and villagers do the dying. In fact the war was the greatest holocaust of the male British aristocracy since the Wars of the Roses four centuries earlier.
What about the junior officers, the boys from elite schools who went from the rugby pitch almost straight to the front? For young newly commissioned officer, six weeks was the average life-span at the front. Their casualty rate was atrocious compared with the private soldiers. That educational cradle of prime ministers down the centuries, Eton College, saw 5,660 boys go to war, 1,157 of them - more than 20 per cent - were killed. Other elite schools had even worse losses. The reason? They led from the front, carrying only a swagger-stick. My uncle Lancelot Nicholson was one of them. Commissioned in May 1916, sent to the Front. Dead in July.
Far from being practitioners of rigid stupidity, the overwhelming majority of officers were utterly devoted to the men's welfare, something drummed into them in training. They rubbed ointment on their men's feet, doled out cigarettes and wrote letters home for the ones who couldn't write. Yes, their code was highly paternalistic and class-based, but it worked. It is thought to be the single key reason why British morale never broke.
The food was generally good, medical services excellent and the pay better than in the French army, whose officers came closest to the couldn't-care- less belief about their men, and their army was consequently riven with mutiny and desertion. One of the goals of the hugely costly British Somme and Passchendaele offensives was to distract the Germans away from the French, whose army was often a disorganized shambles.
Mutiny was virtually unheard of in the British infantry. One minor instance at a training camp in France was dramatized by Left-wing writer Alan Bleasdale in the series The Monocled Mutineer, a BBC drama that gleefully recycled every negative Great War cliché in the book. The real story was how rare rebellion was, given the squalor of trench life.
The vision we have inherited is that all the men in the trenches were waist-deep in mud and rats before going over the top to certain death in a cloud of mustard gas and bullets. This hides a bigger truth: Roughly four out of five troops came home. For many the front was nothing worse than boring. Compare this with, for instance, the loss rate for RAF bomber crews in WWII; close to 50%. The greatest killer in all armies, and civilians, was the 1918 "Spanish 'Flu."
Grievous though British losses were, the so-called lost generation seems to have been something of a myth too. The birth rate after the war dipped only a little and life went on. Writers such as JB Priestley believed the war and 'flu epidemic had killed off an entire generation of talent. However, many of the survivors were exceptionally gifted in all walks of life. They included writers, historians, scientists and engineers, future generals and three great mid-century prime ministers: Churchill, Attlee and Macmillan.
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tony perrett
Gold Level Sponsor
Excellent, Nick. Another very good book is "Six weeks - the Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War" by John Lewis-Stempel.
George Coleman
Gold Level Sponsor
Good read, my grandfather was in WWI an infantry man, I do remember that he had hearing problems and always had a hearing aid. He loved to set out on the front porch of the old farmhouse during a thunderstorm, he would turn off his hearing aid and watch the lightning, I guess he was remembering that time in his life.
Nickodell
Donation Time
WWI was replete with poets, several of which lost their lives. One short poem sticks in my mind as typifying the ordinary grunt's opinion of those senior officers who didn't lead and risk their lives, but had staff jobs planning useless attacks and only appeared to see the men off to battle.
"God morning! Good morning!" The general said,
As we passed him by on our way to the line,
Now those who he greeted are most of them dead,
And we're cursing his staff as incompetent swine,
"He's a cheery old chap," said Harry to Jack,
As they passed him by with rifle and pack ...
But he did for them both with his plan of attack.
"God morning! Good morning!" The general said,
As we passed him by on our way to the line,
Now those who he greeted are most of them dead,
And we're cursing his staff as incompetent swine,
"He's a cheery old chap," said Harry to Jack,
As they passed him by with rifle and pack ...
But he did for them both with his plan of attack.
Mike Armstrong
Bronze Level Sponsor
I've been watching a new series about WW1 on my local American Heroes Channel called 'Apocalypse: WW1'. Seems to be very good. Accurate? I don't know enough about WW1 to verify that. Have you seen this series Nick?
mikephillips
Donation Time
I have on DVD at home a series on WW1 produced and aired on CBS back in the mid 60s. Interesting to watch, about 30 half hour episodes but I wish they'd kept the original TV opening credits with them. Covers about every aspect and major campaign of the period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_One_(TV_series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_One_(TV_series)
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Nickodell
Donation Time
Saw it recently. Unbelievably, after a century and many, many documentaries, there was a heap of new bits I'd never seen before. They did dwell a lot on the conditions in the trenches etc., but that was to be expected. Notice the mutinies in the French, Italian and even Austrian armies, with thousands being shot as a result. The French shot hundreds, and top command had a phrase Pour encourager les autres (To encourage the others.)
The Allies were scornful of the American contribution, noting that they didn't launch an attack until five months before the war ended, and only then because they'd been attacked first by the Germans. Pershing wouldn't allow any of his troops to fight alongside the British or French, and had intended to wait, unbelievably, until 1919 because he said his army wouldn't be ready before then. He also said "we will fill the skies with aircraft," but in fact no US-made planes saw any action.
The other side of this coin is that this was yet another bloody European conflict, as had been going on for millennia, which wasn't really anything to concern the USA, which could have concentrated instead on attacking U-boats that were sinking American ships. And the American soldiers and marines involved in the few firefights near the end fought heroically. It has been argued that the appearance of fresh American troops was the final factor, along with starvation and unrest at home, that persuaded the German/Austrian leaders to surrender. Calling it an "armistice" was a face-saving gesture.