The Gray Ghost | 18 Jul 2014 5:29 p.m. PST |
Found this by accident but is well worth watching YouTube link Our perceptions of the First World War today are dominated by the idea it was a futile conflict, a colossal waste of life, and an immense tragedy for Britain and all of Europe. It is a view that has been fostered by the war poets who wrote vividly about the experience of trench warfare, and by countless novels, films and television programmes in the years since. Many even go as far as suggesting that the First World War led directly to the rise of Hitler and the outbreak of the Second World War. In a single documentary to mark the 100-year anniversary of the outbreak of war, Sir Max Hastings presents the argument that although it was a great tragedy, far from being futile, the First World War was completely unavoidable. |
Yellow Admiral | 18 Jul 2014 7:54 p.m. PST |
To be clear: this historian's argument is that Britain's participation in WWI was necessary. He doesn't say that the war itself was necessary. I frankly agree with him – once the Central Powers were fully mobilized and upsetting Britain's painstakingly maintained balance of power in Europe, there was no good way for the UK to stay out. Lord knows they tried… I am unswayed from my liberally-informed modern North American attitude that WWI was the worst European tragedy in history and the contemporary military and political leaders of Europe (especially central Europe) deserve all the vilification that we lavish upon them in hindsight, and more. Collectively they turned an entire generation of young European men into fertilizer, and at the end had nothing to show for it. - Ix |
Mark Plant | 18 Jul 2014 8:50 p.m. PST |
and at the end had nothing to show for Three empires fell and some other autocratic countries lost their autocracy. In the more democratic countries the war sped up the uptake of the Social Democrat vote by many decades. The modern map of Europe looks strikingly like the 1920 map of Europe. It looks nothing like the 1914 map of Europe. (Admittedly the Soviet and Nazi regimes tried hard to reset it from the 1920 position back to closer to the 1914 one, but they failed in the long run.) Now that's not what the leaders of the countries who entered set out to do. But lots of other people achieved their aims. |
Great War Ace | 18 Jul 2014 9:18 p.m. PST |
Something like the "Great War" was inevitable, sooner rather than later. When you view the rest of the world as inferior to your culture and you know that they don't fight as well as you do, and they are "encircling" you and cutting off your opportunities to expand where you believe you have a right to expand, and they intend to cut you down to size by economically and militarily enforcing their "encirclement" through political means, then you will strike first and even manipulate the conditions "justifying" your decision to go into total war. When you further believe that you can win within less then two months, the attempt is inevitable. Such was Germany's mindset for years before August 1914…. |
Costanzo1 | 18 Jul 2014 11:10 p.m. PST |
GWA Bravo! 'Ve learned the poem by heart! |
Yellow Admiral | 18 Jul 2014 11:26 p.m. PST |
As a wargamer, the biggest disappointment of WWI is all the missed opportunities for maneuvers, strategies, tactics, and "what if" battles that never happened. Instead, we have a long, droll tale of suffering in the mud. Booooo-ring…. - Ix |
Patrice | 19 Jul 2014 3:44 a.m. PST |
A world economical crisis was threatening in 1913. The previous one, in the late 19th century, had been solved by colonialism: gaining colonies to open new markets. In 1913 the only way to open new markets was to fight with other countries; or, in fact, destroy everything to build it again …but this was not fully achieved before 1945. |
Big Red | 19 Jul 2014 7:25 a.m. PST |
Great War boring? Hardly. |
The Virtual Armchair General | 19 Jul 2014 12:58 p.m. PST |
"My experience is that boring games have a lot more to do with rules and GM's than the period." Hear! Hear! TVAG |
tuscaloosa | 19 Jul 2014 1:27 p.m. PST |
I find the cliche version of the Great War to be very boring, especially games frequently run at conventions. Two parallel trench lines, soldiers head on over the top and charge forward and may or may not make a two foot advance on the table to the next trench line. The more I read about the lesser-known campaigns of the Great War, the more impressed I am with the potential. Mesopotamia, riverboats, Rolls Royce armored cars, biplanes and the Siege of Kut. The Battle of Tanga, Feldkompanien and naval landing parties. The Italian Front, with desperate pushes so close to the green fields of northern Italy… The Intervention, Canadian infantry battalions with doughboy artillery, fighting off Reds with armored trains. The 1920 Russo-Polish War, with arguably the biggest cavalry battle in history. |
Legion 4 | 20 Jul 2014 8:03 a.m. PST |
I agree … I like the lesser known battles and campaigns … The Bundu, Tsingtao China, etc. … |
Weasel | 20 Jul 2014 10:55 a.m. PST |
Plenty of trench attacks captured the front trenches. Maybe the rules are wrong? |
Legion 4 | 21 Jul 2014 7:14 a.m. PST |
Very true … but usually the cost was high … |
OSchmidt | 21 Jul 2014 7:45 a.m. PST |
A rather dubious article. Please explain to me how Whilhelmine Germany was a greater evil than Nazi Germany?
The rabble of contentious grubby little states that succeeded the Austrian Empire were better off than under Franz Joseph and were more stable and secure than under the Austrian Empire. The Tzarist Empire was a greater evil than the Soviet Regime which destroyed it. |
Supercilius Maximus | 21 Jul 2014 11:51 a.m. PST |
Very true … but usually the cost was high … One of the abiding myths of WW1 is that actual infantry combat was more costly than WW2 – which it most certainly wasn't. Compare losses in British infantry units in Italy (particularly the winter of '43-'44) and N W Europe and you'll see losses – and sometimes also conditions – as bad as anything on the Western Front. |
Lion in the Stars | 21 Jul 2014 7:15 p.m. PST |
Compare losses in British infantry units in Italy (particularly the winter of '43-'44) and N W Europe and you'll see losses – and sometimes also conditions – as bad as anything on the Western Front. Don't you mean, "compare tactical situations in Italy (particularly the winter of '43-'44) and parts of NW Europe and they will look just as bad as the stereotypical battles of WW1"? Assaults head-on into massive trench lines are hideously bloody, no matter what decade you're in. There's a reason that the USMC doesn't try to do opposed landings like Normandy or any of the island-hopping campaigns anymore! |
Legion 4 | 22 Jul 2014 9:53 a.m. PST |
My comment about the cost being high when assaulting a trench line/fixed defense in either war … is accurate … No real abiding myth or surprise there either. In Inf Officer Basic they had us assault a mock up of a USSR defensive line with trenches, bunkers, etc. … The lesson we learned … don't do it unless you have no other option. And as Lion said there are a lot reasons/lessons learned why we don't do forced entry ops today like at Normandy or a dozen other landings in both theaters … As was Lion's accurate restatement of Max's, about losses in WWI vs. those in WWII … Lots of guys die in those situations (remember Hamburger Hill !?) … very bad business from an Infantryman's perspective. |
Johny Boy | 23 Jul 2014 4:37 p.m. PST |
Anyone have a link to Niall Fergusons opposing documentary stating reasons why we should'nt have got involved? Cheers |
Chouan | 08 Aug 2014 2:54 a.m. PST |
Max Hastings's view is fairly well known, as his political agenda. It could be argued, not that he did, that the War happened because we, the British, wanted it. We, more than any other country, could have prevented it, only we didn't want to. It was a serious crisis, of course, but it could have stayed a crisis rather than become a war if Britain had told Germany that they would go to war over Belgium when Germany asked what our response would be. We didn't, but were vague, and gave Germany the impression that we wouldn't go to war. If, however, Germany had known that we would declare war over Belgium there would have been a very good chance that Germany would have stopped short of mobilisation, and not gone to war with France, hence no War. It could, therefore, be argued that the War was Sir Edward Grey's fault as much as anybody's. We wanted war, partly because of our economic rivalry with Germany, partly because of our Naval rivalry with Germany and partly as a distraction from the constitutional crisis in Britain in the summer of 1914, and partly because of the potential civil war in Ireland and the army's attitude towards that issue. War solved all of those problems, so we let it happen. we didn't cause it, the crisis wasn't our doing, but we could have stopped the crisis from becoming a war, but chose not to. Once the war started the Entente had to win, as Germany showed with their harsh treatment of civilians in France, Belgium, Russia and Poland, their harsh treatment of Russian POWs, and the harsh terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Wilhelmine Germany, once at war, may not have been as bad as Nazi Germany, in some respects, but the racist and militarist attitudes that Nazism brought out were already being displayed from the very start of the war. |
Lewisgunner | 09 Aug 2014 4:50 a.m. PST |
The British could not have prevented the war. it was started by the Austrians and Germans to achieve limited aims. Austria wanted to dominate Serbia and show the subject nations in their empire that there was no hope of change. The kaiser wanted to preempt the Russians planned expansion of military forces and railroad network. There was no way that Britain could have stopped this, the Austrians were going to invade Serbia, the Russians were going to protect the Serbs and the Germans protect the kundk empire. That meant the French were going to have to support Russia because otherwise Germany would win and become completely dominant. The choice the British had was war now, once the Germans had violated Belgium, or war without allies when the Germans had beaten France and Russia. This was a war manufactured by the kaiser's stupidity because without support from Germany the Austrians would have accepted Serbia's response to their ultimatum. Should Britain have acquiesced in German domination? Maybe, but could they have lived with the Germans taking over French colonies and then building a bigger fleet than Britain…probably not. |
Chouan | 12 Aug 2014 7:08 a.m. PST |
Except that the interlocking alliances can't be ignored, neither can the individual actions of the various "Great Powers". Even though the Germans may have supported A-H in their stance against Serbia, and was prepared to fight France and Russia, it could be argued that they were not prepared to go to war with France Russia and Britain, hence their request of Britain of their position on Belgium. If Germany wasn't concerned about Britain's view they wouldn't have needed to ask. Germany was also very surprised by Britain's response to their violation of Belgian territory. The Serbs weren't going to be invaded by A-H without German support. Germany wasn't going to risk war with Britain as well as the others, so would have withdrawn support for a military response from A-H. The war, once started could be argued to have been necessary from Britain's viewpoint, but hostilities wouldn't have started in the first place had Germany known that the Schleiffen Plan meant war with Britain, and we didn't make that clear. If Britain hadn't wanted war with Germany Britain's stance of Belgium would have been made clear. |