August 10, 2015
That day – 1 July 1916
The best example of this sort of understanding of the First World War is probably the disastrous first day of the Battle of the Somme, when everything went horribly wrong and the cheerful, optimistic and eager young British recruits were mown down by German machine guns. That day – 1 July 1916 – is still regarded as the worst single day in British military history.
The debate on the generals of the First World War tends to focus heavily on the British generals, even though other countries certainly produced some spectacularly unsuccessful leaders, such as the Italian General Cadorna, the French General Nivelle, much of the Russian high command and, at least at the very end of the war, Germany’s General Ludendorff. Although the public debate centres on British commanders, don’t forget these non-British examples of military ineptitudereenex.
The first people to expose the British generals to angry ridicule were the war poets, who blamed them for sending men into the appalling conditions of the Western Front. Later on, in the 1960s, many people looked back and saw parallels between the generals of the Western Front and the controversial tactics being used by American generals in the Vietnam Warreenex.
Historians said that leaders such as Sir Douglas Haig or Sir John French – the British commanders on the Western Front – were foolish, stuck in their ways and uncaring about their men. Books started appearing with titles like The Donkeys or British Butchers and Bunglers of the Great War: it wasn’t difficult to work out what the authors of these books thought about the generals of the First World War!
More recently, historians have looked in much greater detail at the problems the British generals faced. They’ve discovered that some of the accusations aimed at the generals aren’t really true: far from being stuck in their ways, they actually tried all sorts of new techniques and new technology to break through the deadlock of the trenches. They were facing a type of warfare that had simply never existed before, with completely new weapons like tanks, poison gas and aircrafreenext.
The debate on the generals of the First World War tends to focus heavily on the British generals, even though other countries certainly produced some spectacularly unsuccessful leaders, such as the Italian General Cadorna, the French General Nivelle, much of the Russian high command and, at least at the very end of the war, Germany’s General Ludendorff. Although the public debate centres on British commanders, don’t forget these non-British examples of military ineptitudereenex.
The first people to expose the British generals to angry ridicule were the war poets, who blamed them for sending men into the appalling conditions of the Western Front. Later on, in the 1960s, many people looked back and saw parallels between the generals of the Western Front and the controversial tactics being used by American generals in the Vietnam Warreenex.
Historians said that leaders such as Sir Douglas Haig or Sir John French – the British commanders on the Western Front – were foolish, stuck in their ways and uncaring about their men. Books started appearing with titles like The Donkeys or British Butchers and Bunglers of the Great War: it wasn’t difficult to work out what the authors of these books thought about the generals of the First World War!
More recently, historians have looked in much greater detail at the problems the British generals faced. They’ve discovered that some of the accusations aimed at the generals aren’t really true: far from being stuck in their ways, they actually tried all sorts of new techniques and new technology to break through the deadlock of the trenches. They were facing a type of warfare that had simply never existed before, with completely new weapons like tanks, poison gas and aircrafreenext.
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