The poppy thread

[MrGongGong]

Indeed? then no doubt you can explain the logic of them, with examples in illustration. In other words, put up or ....

I'm away for a day or two, so you should have the time.

how generous of you
I guess you are off to do some arms dealing or some other "Christian" activity :whistle:

[Bryn]

Indeed? then no doubt you can explain the logic of them, with examples in illustration. In other words, put up or ....

No, no. What would be the point in trying to educate the ineducable?

[Nick Armstrong]

No, no. What would be the point in trying to educate the ineducable?

Quite.

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...rum/trolls.gif

[Bryn]

I have not actually made my own position re. poppy buying and wearing clear on this thread as yet. The main problem I have long had with the issue is its immediate association with Butcher Haig. My current solution is to donate to the worthy cause of the welfare of ex-service men and women, but not to wear the emblem of the Earl Haig Fund.

[MrGongGong]

This might be of interest

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8106634/Jon-Snow-veteran-Channel-4-News-presenter-in-new-poppy-fascism-row.html

(and its in the Torygraph !!!!)

[David Underdown]

Bryn, the historiographic assessment of Haig is now generally more nuanced, and the whole "Lions led by donkeys" theme rather passé (for good reason)

[Bryn]

David, I am aware of the fairly recent fashion for a more 'nuanced' assessment of Haig's role in the mass slaughter of conscripts. The jury, however, is very much still out as far as I'm concerned.

[amateur51]

Quite.

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...rum/trolls.gif

Ooooh that's a handy little emoticon, Caliban! :ok::laugh:

[amateur51]

Bryn, the historiographic assessment of Haig is now generally more nuanced, and the whole "Lions led by donkeys" theme rather passé (for good reason)

Could you guide me towards the nuances please David - genuine enquiry, a book reference or two would be great :ok:

[Norfolk Born]

Without wishing to get ensnared in this particular argument, I might mention as a starting point Denis Winter's 'Haig's Command: A Reassessment'.
I've recently returned from my second 'Battlefields' tour. The tour leader, published author and ex-journlaist Vic Puik (q.v.), offered the view that the whole 'butcher generals/lions led by donkeys' approach is too simplistic.

[Bryn]

It's something of a hornet's nest. See, for instance:

http://www.johndclare.net/wwi3_winter_thesis.htm

Oh, and I see the book may be had of 1p (plus p&p) from amazon.co.uk. The reviews there are also worth a read.

[Serial_Apologist]

Could you guide me towards the nuances please David - genuine enquiry, a book reference or two would be great :ok:

"Don't be vague, ask for Haig"

Remember that ad?

[Pabmusic]

Could you guide me towards the nuances please David - genuine enquiry, a book reference or two would be great :ok:

I'll have a go. ‘Nuances’ is not really right; it’s more about your viewpoint, and your ability to disregard the 1960s revisionism that colours our view of World War 1. I'm sorry it's long (I sincerely hope this causes no problems). These books are all from the last few years:

The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army; Gary Sheffield
Haig: A Re-appraisal 80 Years On; Brian Bond and Nigel Cave
The Good Soldier: The Biography of Douglas Haig; Gary Mead
Architect of Victory: Douglas Haig; Walter Reid
Douglas Haig and the First World War (Cambridge Military Histories); J. P. Harris

Haig took over command from Sir John French in December 1915. At that time the British Army was in a very poor state. Most of the regular army units (the original BEF) had disappeared as casualties or by being dispersed among other units, and the majority now comprised Territorial battalions, which had been badly mauled recently at Loos. 'Kitchener's Army' of volunteers was still being trained (most would not be ready for several months) although two battalions had been used at Loos and had failed miserably. Conscription had not yet been introduced. Worse still, there was a shortage of equipment and ammunition. Britain's arms industry had been more of a cottage industry, geared to supply only a small standing army. Large factories with reliable production were still very few, and their workforce was inexperienced, being largely composed of women who were often in their first jobs. In many ways, the British Army was an amateur, part-time one.

Over the next two-and-a-half years, Haig supervised the creation of a modern British Army, using modern tactics. The most successful campaign of the whole war was the one that ended it: the Autumn offensive of 1918. This was the British attack at Amiens on 8 August that led to eight major victories in succession, the breaching of the Hindenburg Line and the pushing of the German army from France. This was achieved with careful planning and the effective co-ordination of air power, tanks and ground forces (in 1939 and 1940, this was called ‘blitzkrieg’, but it had to be learned from scratch in the first war). The entire burden was on the British, for the French and Americans were bogged down in the Meuse-Argonne. It vindicated Haig’s strategy of a slow build-up followed by a hard punch, but this is not what we remember him for.

Haig was quite clear that he did not expect to be able to mount a major offensive until well into 1917, and therefore planned a 'holding' role. But the British were very much the junior partners in the coalition, and pressure to do something mounted quickly after von Falkenhayn launched his offensive at Verdun early in 1916. The result was the attack along the Somme, the largest a British Army had ever attempted, but made with large numbers of untested civilian soldiers (hence the disastrous plan to allow them to walk forward – to preserve order – rather than run), poor supplies (it is said that a third of the shells in the 5-day barrage that prepared the assault failed to explode) and in full view of the enemy, who often had the higher positions. Haig had wanted to attack in Flanders, but the French insisted on the Somme as it was in France and much nearer Verdun. The first day, July 1st, is of course notorious for the level of casualties (due to a large extent to a refusal to believe that the unprecedented artillery barrage could fail), but the rest of the battle (it continued till November) was more successful in that it achieved its immediate aim of tying down a large part of the German army who might otherwise break through at Verdun. Indeed, the Germans suffered so badly that they abandoned their front line in Picardy early in 1917 and retreated to the much stronger Hindenburg Line.

The second time Haig’s hands were tied over strategy was in June 1917. The French had been severely repulsed in April along the Chemin des Dames, an attack that General Nivelle had predicted would be easy, and mutiny began to spread, such that two-thirds of French divisions on the Western Front had mutinied by mid-May. Some had even left the line. Unaccountably, the Germans had not learned of this, but it became necessary for the British to mount an offensive in the north to draw German attention away, and to continue it until French order was restored. This was to be the 3rd Battle of Ypres, usually known as Paschendaele. It began on 6^th June after a much more secret build-up than The Somme and was successful at engaging the Germans’ full attention until it ended in November. The problem was that it rained during most of August and October and the low-lying Belgian fenland became a quagmire, giving us our abiding image of Pachendaele (and indeed of the Western Front).

Haig’s reputation was high after the war, and his funeral in 1928 was a national occasion. Dissenters were few. So what happened? The change began in the 1930s, when people started to realise that the terrible loss of life had not in fact brought a new world, nor had it prevented further threats to peace. This was heightened by the experience of a second war and a scapegoat seemed necessary. Haig’s personality did not help. He was a stereotypical ‘dour Scot’ – intensely so, perhaps. A teetotaller (surprisingly, given the family business) who did not enjoy company, and who did not like having to explain himself. He objected to political interference (something Lloyd George was rather good at, as when Haig had to bite his tongue as 70 howitzers were transferred to Italy on the eve of Pachendaele, and again in November when several divisions were sent as well) which could be used against him.

But the turning point seems to have been Alan Clark’s 1961 book ‘The Donkeys’, which caught the anti-authoritarian, cynical, revisionist mood of day. In quick succession came the BBC’s ‘The Great War’ and Joan Littlewood’s ‘O! What a Lovely War!’ and the trend continued until ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’ and Sebastian Faulks’ ‘Birdsong’. They are wonderful things, and it’s not surprising that they underpin our present view of the Great War. It is a pity that they give such a false impression of the leadership of the war, particularly of British Generals miles from the front, out of touch with events (the fact is that some 200 British Generals were killed in action – they needed to be near the front because communications were poor). But ‘Butchers and Bunglers’ sells newspapers; ‘British generals made the best of what they had, and succeeded much of the time, in a war the British had not expected and were not prepared for’ does not grab the attention so well. There were disastrous mistakes, but the worst of them (the landings at Gallipoli and the Mesopotamian campaign) had nothing to do with Haig. But there were disastrous mistakes made by all sides in a war unlike anything that had ever been before.

Alan Clark later admitted that he had invented the “Lions led by donkeys” quote he ascribed to General Hoffman. There is a human need to explain such a tragic loss of life.

[David Underdown]

I typed a long reply that got lost in the ether. Pabmusic has mentioned many of the same titles. For a general overview, it's worth looking at Richard Holmes's, "Tommy". For a corrective to the Lidell Hart school, of Haig being a stick-in-the-mud who wouldn't adopt technology (ie the tank), Christy Campbell's "Band of Brigands: the story of the first men in tanks", and Bryn Hammond's, "Cambrai 1917: the myth of the first great tank battle". For a counter to the well known uselessness of cavalry, and of course Haig was a cavalryman, anything by Stephen Badsey or David Kenyon.

Online resources include the Birmingham Centre for First World War Studies, particularly the brief pen portraits of the "Donkeys", those who held general officer rank in the British Army during the course of the war, http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research...eys/index.aspx. For lively debate, the Great War Forum, http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com, which has much on Haig; the Western Front Association, and the Great War book reviews page on Facebook. And one of the most useful of the lot, http://www.1914-1918.net

[amateur51]

It's something of a hornet's nest. See, for instance:

http://www.johndclare.net/wwi3_winter_thesis.htm

Oh, and I see the book may be had of 1p (plus p&p) from amazon.co.uk. The reviews there are also worth a read.

Cheers, Bryn! :ok:

What have I started?? :yikes: