"Blackadder star Sir Tony Robinson criticises Michael Gove" Topic

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Is this politics or just Michael Gove missing a point of histiriography that it was Alan Clark, former Conservative Minister and historian who wrote 'The Donkeys' that arguably kicked off a lot of this. I guess we'll be having a lot more of this this year. The Daily Mail is an odd paper anyway – never seen a right wing paper that is for example so anti-police as it or in its electronic version full of pics of girls who appear to have nearly missed when putting on their underwear/swimsuits – yet then trumpets family values.

ps for those non British readers perhaps the attached WW1 story about one of our best loved TV series (and the relevant episode re the fictional character's – Private Godfrey – heroism – that to an extent mirrors the real Arnold Ridley was on BBC2 last night)shows in the r/h side bar the rather schizo nature of the family values Daily Mail!
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DM is a load of tosh run by a undesirable – but great pics!

One has to be reasonably thick to be either Michael Gove or a Daily Mail Reader.

The criticism of 'Oh! What a Lovely War' misses the point, since the musical's narrative (if you can call it that) is built around songs from the musical halls of the time and the adaptations of the lyrics British Soldiers made to reflect their feelings in the trenches AT THE TIME (i.e. no later Leftie revisionism there).

As for 'Blackadder Goes Forth': it follows in the tradition of The Wipers Times and Bainsfather etc.. Again, contemporary satire reflecting the feelings of the troops at the time.

Both Gove and the Daily Mail seem to be advocating a kind of censorship. Whereas, in another breath, the Daily Mail will squeal for 'freedom of the Press' (ie. its right to churn out its own daily wail).

Robinson is qualified to have an opinion, Gove is a self-serving politician trying to justify his stupidity…

I had no idea he had been knighted…

So when did mere facts or even consistantcy matter to the Press?

Unfortunately many of the points made my Mr Gove are actually quite sensible, despite being presented by the very epitome of a swivel eyed loon. We have indeed moved on somewhat from the 'lions led by donkeys' view of WW1, although to present this is a peculiarly left wing viewpoint is erroneous.

Tony Robinson was knighted last year.

I had no idea he had been knighted…

It was for his services to turnips.

my own WW1 reading puts me in a middle path – its far too simplistic and agitpropist to take a class based view of brave troops vs incompetent top brass (did the Lions V Donkeys pov ever say that the donkeys were cowards btw – given the level of WW1 senior officer casualties and the service record of many generals in earlier campaigns, whatever ones view of their skills only the particularly obtuse would attribute cowardice to those in charge). On the other hand many generals on all sides did demonstrate both an inflexibility and a pretty staggering degree of callousness to losses. The Gove position is false anyway as I don't see that anyone who watched the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth could see denigration of virtues such as honour and courage unless they completely missed the point – when Capt Blackadder goes over the top with the others its surely the very essence of both those – ie not letting your men down etc. Coming from the Education Sec its clear what his agenda is.

Gove has simply said what a number of historians have been saying for a long time. It just takes someone in the public eye to say it to raise the profile. Sir Tony is entitled to his opinion, but in the opinion of others inclusing freinds in both militiary historical organisations and education Blackadder Goes Forth was the latest in a long line of historical myth creations and travesties. I'm hoping that with the anniversary this year and what will undoubtedly be four years of analysis and commentary we'll see a more balanced view of the Great War emerge.

"although to present this is a peculiarly left wing viewpoint is erroneous."

True, although it is a view that I see presented rather more by my left wing friends than others, and it is a particular favourite of the left wing gutter press such as the Grauniad

LOL 'swivel eyed loon' only us English know how to 'insult'. let's be honest do "Johnny public" care for a sober view of any war? I think not, and I think they prefer the hype and good story more than the truth, this is true with most people as they mostly all have and want a 'light' grasp of history overall. The DM and Mr Poo vers Mr Wee is just journalists bringing in the bacon. Anyone with a slight interest in history will find out the facts, remember Sir or no sir, Tony Robinson also has to make a living too "and I admire his intellect BTW at least he trys" as does the other gentleman. So in the end the Good, gives note to the centenary, the Bad, distorts the facts. Let us all get the basic facts right and disseminate it out to the public, that is our bit to do chaps. Cheers.

The last espisode of Blackadder Goes Forth is to, to me, one of the finest war programmes ever. It should be required viewing for anyone that ever sends people into battle.

Gove has simply said what a number of historians have been saying for a long time
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My point is that its a typical Gove (and indeed Govt) approach to label the Lions led by Donkeys view as left wing when it was a Conservative that wrote the book – and also no-one on the left or anywhere else denigrated the courage and honour of the troops in the trenches (perhaps he meant that the Blackadder etc viewpoint denigrates the patriotism, honour and courage of those in the high command)- someone would have to be particularly daft to see Blackadder as doing that in terms of the front line troops at least. Btw on raising the profile – this seems to be excuse trotted out when anybody in public life says something gormless nowadays (like the UKIP MEP etc) – "well I've raised the profile of the debate".

The British blame the generals, the French the politicians and the Germans blame the Kaiser …

True, although it is a view that I see presented rather more by my left wing friends than others, and it is a particular favourite of the left wing gutter press such as the Grauniad
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though probably balances out the rather larger right wing gutter press with all their cowardly French etc nonsense that is trotted out regularly.

"though probably balances out the rather larger right wing gutter press with all their cowardly French etc nonsense that is trotted out regularly."

Indeed it does. I despise them all.

'…and no-one on the Left or anywhere else denigrated the courage and honour of the troops in the trenches…'

There were more card-carrying TU members went over the top on the first day of the Somme Battle than Monday Club members.

Gove is….actually if I complete that sentence I'll end up with a week in the dawghouse.

Let's just say that he spouts a lot of tosh, rarely has any idea what he is talking about, has but a basic grasp of mathematics and science (he has famously said that he believes it is possible for everyone to be above average, and then repeated this when very decently offered the chance to retract).

He did recently find time to add a forward to The Bible (really!), which sums up his opinion of himself.

Perhaps he should read "All Quiet on the Western Front" – the content of which seems very familiar to the English Reader, although of course it was written by a German WW1 veteran, in 1929. Although I suppose this is also open to the "left wing bias" accusation – as it was banned by the Nazis.

>>>>> DM is a load of tosh run by a undesirable – but great pics!

Uhhh, thanks ? : )

DM

To be honest I don't think many historians from 1919 to today believe that competence was a common characteristic of British senior command. Determination, persistence and idealism abounded but comptence wasn't really 'the done thing' in those days. A junior officer's main duty was to 'die well' leading his unit and a general's duty was to give him the opportunity.

If we start getting into which political faction prefers which interpretation of history then we'll end up with hitories that read like those of the French after any war – blame somebody else !!

"Uhhh, thanks ? : )

DM"

Too many DMs around here :)

DM

"The British blame the generals, the French the politicians and the Germans blame the Kaiser …"

I thought both the Germans and the Daily Mail blamed it on a stab in the back by an unholy conspiracy between 'international Jewish financiers' and the Bolsheviks. In all likelihood the Daily Mail came up with the idea first.

Awww sorry Don, the comment re: "great pics" is true about you ;) but you're quite right I should have qualified DM further….DM = Daily Mail or Duplicite Morons. NOT Don Manser!

Gove is a typical politician – self serving and not for a lasting future, each action is short termed and knee jerk in intelligence. He caused no end of disruption to the education system and repercussions will be felt for the next several decades to come…..

Both sides tried with varying success to innovate. From 1915 to 1918any number of changes were tried to break the stalemate. Gas, Stormtroopers, Tanks, artillery barrage (box, moving etc.), and various uses of airpower all had some success but were not enough to establish a breakthrough that could be continued. It was simply too hard to move up the subsequent waves and supplies with the technology on hand.
The denigration of the leadership during WWI was part of the effort by international socialism to delegitimize the surviving governments. There had to be the typical level of bone headedness that accompanies all human endeavors.
The notion of command as unfeeling incompetents seems as flawed as the myth of the American Revolution being won by militias hiding behind trees while redcoats stood in the open.

It's rather pathetic the way some people react to articles in certain papers, i.e. the Daily Mail. "No need to read or think about what was written. It's in The Mail so it must be wrong."

"To be honest I don't think many historians from 1919 to today believe that competence was a common characteristic of British senior command. Determination, persistence and idealism abounded but comptence wasn't really 'the done thing' in those days."

I've always wondered why the Brits and, in this case, their high command, get so much guff about what happened in WWI. From what I've read none of the high commands were able to figure out a way to break the stalemate on the Western Front.

Germany began the war with an advantage – they had a plan.

Competence, or lack of it, was variable in all armies from 1914 onwards but the conversation started with comments about the British high command so that prompted most posters to apply their thoughts to that.

The denigration of the leadership during WWI was part of the effort by international socialism to delegitimize the surviving governments. There had to be the typical level of bone headedness that accompanies all human endeavors.

While that may be true, they certainly had been given plenty of evidence from one end of the conflict to the other. There were large numbers of voters in Britain that wanted change, and most were not socialists – they also wanted to know WHY the debacle had happened and WHO was resposible. Sadly there were no politicians with the guts to find out where the blame really lay and do something about it.

The post-war 'official' histories are riddled with errors and edited to place blame where it would do least harm to the establishment. You can call that a 'Socialist' viewpoint if you like, but it doesn't stop it being the truth.

The notion of command as unfeeling incompetents seems as flawed as the myth ….

Unfeeling, probably not, but blinkered and too rigidly fixed to outmoded concepts of warfare and the purpose and duties of a high command to see that it was THEY and not their subordinates who were causing the problems. Their solution was to blame and dismiss subordinates who disagreed with them and mistrust the courage of their men. If that isn't incompetence, then I think you've changed the definition.

Gove's comments simply reflect the viewpoint of the vast majority of contemporary specialist WWI historians such as Gary Sheffield. Alan Clark was most certainly not a trained historian, he later admitted he made up the lions and donkeys quote.

I should also note that Tony Robinson is an actor and a well known pacifist. It would be remarkable if he was up to speed with current thinking on military history.

Gove is undoubtedly a very odd chap, but in this instance I cannot make him wrong. To be fair to socialists, it was a Liberal, Lloyd George, who was the first real critic of the Generals as it deflected any blame from his amateur meddling a in the conduct of the war which nearly caused disaster in spring 1918.

As to the Generals being rigidly fixed to outmoded concepts of warfare, that is pure nonsense. The four years of the Great War was possibly the most remarkable period of innovation and change that warfare has ever known and that was led from the top.

Oh, not just Lloyd George – there were factions in the army, and jostling for all the top jobs. And fatal hesitation – much better to subordinate your command to a French General for an offensive that one had no faith in – then it wasn't your fault if it went wrong.

And as the historian that was most directly criticised by Gove pointed out – Germany had universal suffrage for men – Britain didn't. Which country was less democratic ? Russia was an ally of Britain – was Russia under the Tsar a democracy ? Hardly. Sadly, the UK still basks in the glow of Empire – but it was hardly a democratic institution.

The problem I have with Gove here is that he doesn't like one history and wants his simplistic history to replace it. All the real historians accept there are nuances to all the interpretations. Life (and history) isn't that simple.

Captain Blackadder: For us, the Great War is finito, a war which would be a damn sight simpler if we just stayed in England and shot fifty thousand of our men a week."
Blackadder Goes Forth – 1989

"[Blackadder is interrogating Captain Darling who is suspected of being a German spy]
Captain Darling: I'm as British as Queen Victoria!
Captain Blackadder: So your father's German, you're half German, and you married a German!"
Blackadder Goes Forth – 1989

Germany may well have had universal suffrage, but she hardly had a parliamentary democracy! Her parliament was a rubber stamp for an autocratic monarchy!

And what on earth has a "who had the prettiest democracy" beauty contest got to do with this debate? There are, of course, nuances, and Gove is pointing out that the highly simplistic lions and donkeys characatures,as perpetuated by Blackadder and Charlie's War, are simply wrong.

Let's get back to the OP:

The Daily Mail is a load of

Written by s

For s

@Tin Soldier Man – the thrust of his argument was that the "popular image" via Blackadder etc is that it was all a waste of time and of hundreds of thousands of lives – whereas Gove argues it was well worth doig as it protected Europe from an expansionist militaristic Germany.

As opposed to the global position of a militistic expansionist Britain….France….Russia….

Gove wants a nice simple story – and a different story from what he says everyone thinks. I think his story is as laughable as the Lions led by Donkeys story. It's a lot more complicated than that. But complicated won't make for a good party to celebrate bashing the Germans – I'd see Gove's approach as a step towards a "bread & circuses" celebration of what was, in fact, a calamity for Europe.

Judging by the soldiers' songs, The Wipers Times etc it does seem that a good many front line troops believed they were being led by a donkey, or some such ass.

David Manley says " it is a particular favourite of the left wing gutter press such as the Grauniad"

How can you describe a serious newspaper such as The Guardian as " left wing gutter press." "gutter Press" refers to the likes of Sun, Sport, Express and the Daily Mail. Just because a newspaper dares to express views which are different to your own does not make it " gutter press". I happen to disagree with many of the views expressed in the likes of the Telegraph and the Times, but no way would I categorise them as"right wing gutter press". They present well written and well researched pieces of serious journalism, as does the Guardian. The fact that these papers approach issues from different standpoints should be a matter for rejoicing in a free society. Surely that's what my grandfather fought for in WW1 ( at the cost of a leg) and my father fought for in WW2, at the cost of wounds to his body and his mind.
Gove's greatest sin in my mind is his jingoistic anti-German attitude. 1914 should be a time when we commemorate the dead of all sides and try to remember what happens when we resort to armed conflict to settle disputes which, at the end of the day, are all about commercial interests and which seem to require the sacrifices of the many for the sake of a few.

The following article ( from the Guardian) by author Michael Mopurgo is worth far more than Gove's ramblings.

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Nicely said steamingdave47.

"Unfeeling, probably not, but blinkered and too rigidly fixed to outmoded concepts of warfare and the purpose and duties of a high command to see that it was THEY and not their subordinates who were causing the problems."

This is part of the "Lions led by Donkeys" meme. The question is, Was the high command really 'too rigidly fixed to outmoded concepts of warfare'?

I would posit that they were not. They adopted the aircraft, machinegun, trench, and tank just to name a couple of new concepts. The problem was that breaking through the enemy trenches just wasn't possible with the technology of 1914-18. A few years prior to the war the Brits French and Germans were fighting various natives in stand up fights in open fields. The last major European war was fought with breechloaders in 1870 and saw the use of large attack columns and few skirmishers. No one tried that in 1914.

I don't think the European powers had assimilated the lesson that a modern war could not be won by a single knockout battle or campaign. The Americans struggled with the same problem in the ACW, but the war of 1870 probably perpetuated the belief in Europe that it could be done quickly.
I doubt anyone had the experience knowledge or technology to crack it by anything other than attrition. The German breakthough in 1918 was alarming but limited, and cost them their Eastern Front collapse dividend.
Unfortunately there was inevitable political pressure for Britain and France to be seen to try to achieve something and not merely to stand still, with parts of France and Belgium occupied.
There are always nuances, and it is a pity that given that the marking of the anniversary was intended to be reflective and educational, the opening shots of 2014 seem to have caused battle lines to be drawn up already.

If you look at the war as it was in 1917-18 then you see the innovations of air power, tanks and the beginnings of enhanced small unit mobility, firepower and independance. If you look at the war up until the end of 1916 you will see that each of those innovations was either ignored or denegrated by the high command.

Even when field operations proved their detractors correct the generals failed to understand WHY their tactical methods were not working and continued to adhere to concepts learned before the reality of modern warfare became obvious to many other officers. Add to that the fact that many of them simply did not know what conditions were like at the front and vastly underestimated the difficulties involved in any attack.

There is plenty of written evidence that, right from the start, Staff officers ignored intelligence that was counter to the way they thought the battles should develop and only took notice of that which confirmed their own ideas.

It is reasonable to accept that few generals could have entered the war with a clear understanding of how it would be fought. There were those who had the foresight to predict the reality but, to be fair to the generals, they were no more than a (fairly vocal) minority.

What IS a reasonable criticism of them is that they completely failed to learn by early experience, blustered and bullied their way through criticism and failed to make the polititians aware of the consequences.

What IS a reasonable criticism of them is that they completely failed to learn by early experience, blustered and bullied their way through criticism and failed to make the polititians aware of the consequences.

On the contrary – in 1915, Robertson and the IGS went to Lloyd George and predicted the future course of the war, positing that it would end in the summer of 1919, with the UK losing around a million dead. They foresaw both the Russian revolution and the entry of the USA; the only prediction they got wrong, was underestimating the effect of the blockade on the German economy and the home front. According to Terraine ("The Smoke & The Fire"), that night Lloyd George wrote in his diary that the General Staff were all idiots who knew nothing.

The one real failing of the British Army in WW1 was that, never having previously reached such a size, it had no method of disseminating "best practice" beyond divisional level – hence it took a year or more for successful tactics to be replicated through the various corps and army commands.

It should also be remembered that the British Army expanded from eight divisions to over 80 (plus training formations) in about 18 months. As a result, more generals commanded formations of 10,000 men or more in combat between 1914 and 1918, than in the entire history of the British Army from the Restoration to the outbreak of WW1. Given that it takes 20-25 weeks to make an infantryman, and 20-25 years to make a general, clearly the potential pool of appropriate (never mind competent) candidates was pretty limited. I would suggest that, in the circumstances, the British high command actually made a pretty good fist of winning a war against an enemy that had a massive head start on them at senior command levels. And this despite losing so many of the highly trained Regulars they started with, during the first year of the war that veterans of Victorian wars had to be brought out of retirement to train recruits.

It was Jack Pershing, not noticeably Anglophile and who had first-hand experience of working with both the British and French high commands, who stated that Melchett – I'm sorry, I mean Haig – was "the man who won the war". I wonder if "Sir Tony" (funny how many Lefties accept knighthoods, isn't it) is aware of that? Gove is undoubtedly a peculiar man, but a lot of clever people are;

It's easy to criticize the WW1 generals in hindsight but they had to shrug off a Victorian mindset to learn how to fight the new warfare ; for instance using aeroplanes and the more sophisticated use of artillery ( the word ' barrage ' in English dates to 1915 ). There had been no major European war since the Napoleonic Period and the technology needed to break the deadlock in trench warfare had to be developed on the spot.

Even today the US took 3 years to get the strategy right in Iraq , see Thomas E. Rick's ' Fiasco '.

Here is an article on what Gove said from the Independent that sums it up quite nicely: link

It's easy to criticize the WW1 generals in hindsight but they had to shrug off a Victorian mindset to learn how to fight the new warfare ; for instance using aeroplanes and the more sophisticated use of artillery ( the word ' barrage ' in English dates to 1915 ). There had been no major European war since the Napoleonic Period and the technology needed to break the deadlock in trench warfare had to be developed on the spot.

Unfortunately, this too is no more than partly correct; quite a few British generals had fought in South Africa, where eventual emphasis on the principles of concealement, individual marksmanship, and small unit fire-and-movement tactics, actually put the British Army way ahead of its European contemporaries (especially in the use of cavalry on the modern battlefield). British observers had watched the various wars of German unification in the 1860 and 1870s, as well as the ACW – and in fact many developments attributed to the latter were in fact pioneered in the Crimea. The reality was that the British high command was way too small for a conflict of the magnitude of WW1 – yet, surprisingly, the mobilization and expansions of 1914 and 1915 were masterpieces of staff work and well directed by the senior generals involved.

Funny you should mention the Napoleonic Wars – the 1918 version of the "100 Days" is probably one of the most brilliant offensives ever conducted by the British Army, employing what was essentially "blitzkrieg" in all but name.

I agree absolutely , but I was trying to refer to the High Commands of the Great Powers in general not just the British. Even the Russians were capable of improvement e.g. the Brusilov offensive.

" Professor Gary Sheffield of the University of Wolverhampton, who was praised by Mr Gove for his recent study of Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force whose Western Front offensives cost nearly one million British lives, said it was not a question of ideology.

"Mr Gove's politics and mine are pretty different but the view he has put forward is right. What he was wrong about however is that there is a left-right split – there isn't," he said.

"The publicity that has been kicking off around the centenary has reflected the Black Adder point of view although he (Mr Gove) is wrong to single it out – it is satire not documentary."

Professor Sheffield said mainstream historians had been revising their opinions of the conflict over the past three decades overturning the "bad war" theory which had taken hold in the 1930s.

"The war was fought for defensive reasons and Europe would have been a very dark place if Germany had not been defeated. Imperial Germany wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany but it was bad enough," he said. "We don't want this year to be a jingoistic carnival of celebration but rather a sober understanding that what Britain was fighting for was important. It was a war against aggression," he added. "

From HERE : link

And that quote from Sheffield, and the point raised by 20th Maine are the key concerns with what is happening around the historiography of the Great War.
There seems little dissenting opinion around historians that the 'Lions led by Donkeys' myth needs to be exploded. But what you are then left with is the need to find a reason (as opposed to someone to blame) for the hideous losses of the Great War. Enter the growing interpretation of Germany as something more than an Imperial adversary:

"The war was fought for defensive reasons and Europe would have been a very dark place if Germany had not been defeated. Imperial Germany wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany but it was bad enough," he said. "We don't want this year to be a jingoistic carnival of celebration but rather a sober understanding that what Britain was fighting for was important. It was a war against aggression," he added. "

This is a disturbing development because it is starting to replace one myth with another. Imperial Germany as the precursor of Nazi Germany is a flawed reading of history. Germany was not evil, nor was it against democracy anymore than any of the other great powers. As for aggression, it had been under a sense of siege mentality due to the Franco-Russian alliance, and its war plan made sense in light of that fact.
The fact is that all of the soldiers that died in the Great War died for the same thing that their ancestors did – power politics. There was no greater ideal at work here. It is sheer hypocrisy to claim anything else when Britain and France were allied to the most repressive and autocratic regime in the world.
Those that portray Germany as some uncivilised aggressive proto-Nazi monster that had to be stopped are warping history as badly as Alan Clark did.

"Lieutenant George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire-building.
Captain Blackadder: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.
Lieutenant George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not.
[Aside, to Baldrick]
Lieutenant George: Mad as a bicycle!
"
Blackadder Goes Forth – 1989

Fav

Those that portray Germany as some uncivilised aggressive proto-Nazi monster that had to be stopped are warping history as badly as Alan Clark did.

In no way is Sheffield saying Imperial Germany was as bad as Nazi Germany , he makes that pretty clear. But the Imperial Army was pretty brutal and a Europe under autocratic Prussian rule probably wouldn't have been that nice a place to live in.

The German army committed numerous atrocities against civilians in Belgium : widespread looting , destruction of property , raping of women , and also numerous executions of civilians took place. The town of Dinant and much of the town of Leuven was destroyed ; also over 100,000 Belgian workers were forcibly deported to Germany to work in the war industry. Over 250,000 Polish workers in the Reich in 1914 were refused permission to return home and forced to work against their will. French citizens in German-occupied France were subject to ' requistion ' – basically the Germans could take any of their property if they wanted it , a form of glorified looting.
This is above and beyond any French and British propaganda which in some ways has obscured the seriousness of the atrocities that the Germans committed : German accounts confirm that these atrocities did actually happen. See ' Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914 ' by Jeff Lipkes.