"WW1 Revisionism/Haig Apologists is it legitimate?" Topic

So, I am still staggered that this trope continues to get trotted out. Initisally I understood it would generate controversy for some academic and sell books, but it seems to not go away.

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What say you?

A) The Somme was senseless slaughter and the "donkeys" were indeed donkeys

B) You silly, excitable plebe, the generals had a very difficult task and should be extended a very long learning curve. This was all for the good. "We" won after all right? That justifies it!

C) Some other more nuanced view

Well, it is hardly fresh news that people no longer accept the "Oh What a Lovey War" view of Lions led by Donkeys. That was a product of the 1960s peace movements which emerged as a specific protest against Vietnam and was projected backwards onto WWI in an attempt to show that all wars were fruitless and evil.

In academic circles it has been effectively demonstrated and understood now for decades that the truth was far more complex. Rather than being a sausage machine into which men were thoughtlessly shoved, the Great War was a period of immense innovation and learning. Modern infantry tactics have their grounding in that conflict, as does the way we use almost every weapon. At the start if the war artillery were a direct fire weapon, but midway through we were using complex bombardment patterns, aerial reconnaissance, identification of gun positions by use of sound location and so on. We had developed a whole range of weapons to allow our forces to become more efficient and the development of tactics was continuous.

To my mind the key piece which was missing in the Great War was the means to communicate between the men at the sharp end and the supporting units, artillery in particular.

Anyway, the attack on the Somme was demanded by the British Government in response to calls from the French who believed that they were losing at Verdun. It was a way to drag German troops away from that sector. Haig was against the attack as he felt that the army was not ready. As it was, the offensive DID relieve the French at Verdun, the Germans felt that it was a battle of attrition which was possibly more costly to them than to the Entente powers (in terms of what they could afford to lose) and the British Army did learn its lessons and go on to develop and improve its tactics. If you want to blame anyone for the 'massacre' on the Somme, you would be better off pointing your finger at the politicians who insisted it went ahead.

I think people tend to get emotional reactions at this sort of thing and thus we tend to lean towards simple answers.

And simple answers are typically wrong.

When discussing ww1, we tend to come upon both a military analysis and a political one.
It is entirely possible to consider the war a massive crime against humanity or a failing of global politics AND also consider that it was fought to the greatest extent of skill that those fighting it could muster*

Those are not, in any way, mutually exclusive positions.

Good-morning, good-morning!" the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

Not written by a 1960's hippie :-)

*just like we can lament the series of events that led to the war breaking out, but can honour the defense of Belgium from aggression, for example.

C)

I take it that the OP disagrees with the article? (although it is hard to say).

The article seems fairly sensible and quotes Gary Sheffield and Paddy Griffiths (although not Jack Sheldon) which indicates that he has done at least some reading around the subject.

I rather thought the whole lions and donkeys things had been put to bed a long time ago, which is not to say that WW1 was not deeply unpleasant for everyone involved.

As John Keegan noted, attacking heavily fortified positions with no flanks equipped with modern weapons and manned at a greater troop density than at Waterloo was bound to be a bloody affair. The only reason WW2 _seemed_ less bloody to us was because Verdun, the Somme and Third Ypres were fought at Stalingrad, Kursk and Kharkov.

As Weasel says, it is possible to hold mutually contradictory positions on this.

Put me down as a B.

Put me down as an 'a'. The casualty rate at the battle of the Somme cannot be justified. The leaders, both political and military – and on both sides – were just not up to the job. It was clear early on that the war was not turning out the way any of them expected and it seems to me that, for most of the conflict, they were at a loss as to know what to do to achieve victory. The other ranks fought magnificently and, for the most part, willingly. Their faith in their leaders, however, was badly misplaced.

The other ranks did indeed fight magnificently. However, so did the junior officers who died in disproportionately high numbers.

I would agree that the armies of all sides found themselves fighting a war which was far more horrific than any had envisaged. Yet that does not mean you can simply pack up and go home. You must struggle constantly to come to terms with the issues and problems you are faced with and attempt to overcome them. That is precisely what the senior leaders on all sides attempted to do. This is where I cannot understand the criticism.

Had Haig and other leaders done nothing but stuck to old dogma then it would be correct to criticise. They did not. The British Army was constantly changing its tactics and techniques to try to improve. By 1918 they had largely achieved that and in the 100 days campaign they utterly routed the German Army. It is simply impossible to compare the Army of 1916 with the Army of 1918.

Just consider the introduction of tanks, light machine guns at section level, rifle grenades, aerial spotting, indirect bombardment, machine gun barrages. These are just the most obvious of technological advances which were called for, and achieved, by the senior leaders in the Army. They didn't just appear by magic.

Yes, of course it was a terrible war and the consequences at a human level were terrible. My own grandfather left hospital in 1919 after spending two years recovering from a would he received on the first day of Third Ypres two years earlier. However, war being horrible is not something one normally blames on the military. Politicians start the damned things and soldiers, of all ranks, are left to try to clear up the mess.

It seems hardly credible that everyone in charge suddenly became stupid in 1915. Were there mistakes made? Of course, some of them BIG ones.

Did a great deal of very smart and determined people on both sides do their best to make reasoned decisions in a new and deadly environment? I believe so.

Very interesting YouTube video about why the war didn't end much earlier:

YouTube link

B)- He absolutely did not 'do the same thing every time' and his final campaign was innovative and decisive.

Dreadful as the Somme was – and it was – something had to be done to avoid the collapse of the French at Verdun.

The politicians blundered into the war in 1914 (see Sleepwalkers) but in many cases they were egged on by generals who saw a quick victory. Generals on both sides were convinced that waiting for a later war would give the advantage to their enemies. Obviously, some had to be wrong. Certainly the cult of the offensive at the start of the war was strong on all sides. It was a cult and can only be considered delusional when some officers continued in this belief into 1915 after the evidence of 1914. Conrad had amazing powers of self-deception.

By mid to late 1917 the major powers had developed ways to break trench lines, often at high cost. But they were unable to exploit these breaks. The attacking troops were exhausted, communications with the front units broken down, artillery unable to move up in a timely fashion across the wrecked no-mans-land. All the technological advances in killing had not produced portable, dependable radios or tracked self-propelled artillery. Those alone would have enabled lunges through the enemy lines.

A mix of A and C for me.

That was a product of the 1960s peace movements which emerged as a specific protest against Vietnam and was projected backwards onto WWI in an attempt to show that all wars were fruitless and evil

Rubbish ! It was the view of many writers during the 1920's who had served in the battles and knew damn well what they were talking about. 'Oh what a lovely war' picked up on those writings and used them to satirise WW1 – admittedly, condemnation of all wars was a byline too.

It continues to amaze me that people spout about the development of artillery tactics and then quote aerial spotting and indirect fire from hidden positions as examples of 'new' ideas during the war. Both these were demonstrated successfully during the 1912 exercises on Salisbury plains but dismissed as 'irrelevant' by the very generals that led the army in 1914-16.

I don't agree with the 'inhuman' labelling applied to the generals but they were certainly incompetent in 1914 and out of their depth until late 1916.

A few commanders showed some initiative and/or tried to stop the senseless casualties but were often labelled as cowards or even traitors and dismissed. Accurate reports of conditions at the front were routinely ignored because they didn't fit what the generals wanted to believe – you can hardly call the 'doing the best they could' !!!

My dislike towards the British and French generals doesn't so much come from the Somme etc, as I can intellectually buy in to what Rich and the academics are discussing.

My dislike comes from August and September 1914. Maybe I'm coloured too much by Tuchman, but that was a clown show to end all clown shows. Millennials get a bad rap for being drama queens, but they have nothing on the Allied senior ranks during the opening of the war.

The "lions led by donkeys" nonsense and especially the vilification of Haig were products of the 'tween the wars Left, largely to protect the reputation of one David Lloyd George. The much quoted War Poets were NOT expressing their deeply held convictions, they were writing what paid.

There seems to be some misunderstanding that the British generals were acting independently. They were not. The French were running the show on the Western Front and any objections to that policy from the military (or the Admiralty) were swiftly suppressed by the Government.

I'm not prepared to cut the generals a lot of slack. The first day on the Somme was a disaster, and if in fact there was a learning curve, why reinforce failure with four and a half months of additional failure. Why not pause and assess what did and didn't work without bleeding the army white in the process.

It's amazing the number of innovations and successes the British did have at Cambrai and Messines Ridge on the one hand countered by the wretched failures of the Somme and Passchendale.

So are we discussing the Somme specifically, the English army broadly or the war as seen by every combatant and perspective ?

I imagine a rifleman serving under Samsonov or Conrad might agree that being led by a donkey would have been preferable ;-)

But surely without the first day of the Somme we would not have had the success that was Messines Ridge? Isn't that the point?
I'm with toofatlardies on this but it isn't a binary decision – there were bad generals – there were good generals – by 1918 most bad generals had been rooted out – and the army was a professional mean lean force fighting a modern war

D) It will happen again.
I tried to put nmy thoughts on this 3 times and realised its actually distasteful to try appropriate reason or blame to tragic history, the intellectuals who rake over the dead embers to write another book are looking to their own pocket.

Least we forget.

C, pretty much. I don't think the British military leadership was up to the challenge, but it's a horrendous period for warfare generally. It's a gap in my wargaming, actually: I stop with the Franco-Prussian War and resume in 1940. There are too many people and too much firepower and not enough reliable mechanization and communications to get past it. Yes, some of the commanders should have been sacked, but the overall slaughter would have been much the same regardless. No Austerlitz or Sedan was possible.

As for WWI and Vietnam, we're getting close to leaving wargaming for politics, But I think it's fair to say that just as we have people who can only view diplomacy in terms of appeasement and especially Munich, we have people who can only see warfare as pointless slaughter and see futility and incompetence regardless of the facts in any particular case.

In fact, not every diplomatic agreement is Munich, and not every battle or war is futile or stupidly conducted. But to appreciate that, you have to study diplomacy and warfare, which is much harder than striking a pose.

'The much quoted War Poets were NOT expressing their deeply held convictions, they were writing what paid.'
That is certainly an interesting point of view…

'The much quoted War Poets were NOT expressing their deeply held convictions, they were writing what paid.'

Yes, paid a great deal, if I recall correctly. Wilfred Owen received a bullet. Siegfried Sassoon spent an entire life fighting PTSD and trying to forget his experiences in the Great War.

Only a 21st century cynic could write this.

After the first day and failure ensued, why continue the excessive slaughter? The political and strategic reasons of trying the relieve the French at Verdun would have been accomplished. The Germans are not stupid, they would shift reserves as necessary to contain a major push. Continue the battle with massive artillery bombardment, which was always a precursor to an assault. Keep this up for a number of days, and you've achieved your objective. Small tactical assaults would reinforce the idea that a big assault was imminent. The Canadians at Vimy practiced for many days, knew the ground, pulverized trenches and took their objectives.
Sorry but every time I think of Haig, I see General Sir Hogmanay Melchit from Black Adder.

John McCrae (In Flanders Field) died of pneumonia in 1918.
Yeah, he made a fortune.
Alan Seeger (I Have a Rendezvous with Death) died in 1916 at the Somme.

Which poets made a fortune post war? Any that anybody ever heard of?

I think Keegan had an excellent analysis of how difficult Haig's task was during the Somme. Hundreds of thousands of troops across a huge front moving at once, communications to the front from his HQ constantly being cut by German artillery, runners dying before they could get messages to or from HQ, and all the chaos and confusion inherent in a battle. By the time 20,000 men lay dead in no man's land, Haig was still trying to get a clear picture of which units were where and what their status was.

The Canadians knew to do those tactics at Vimy because of the lessons learnt at the Somme.
The first day of the Somme was a success in some sectors – the follow up days sought to push this success – and this is where it became a slogging match in the mud. If the british had not continued the Germans would have been able to move troops back to Verdun – so the battle continued, 1 day of assault would not have relieved the stress on the French.

The point is each action was studied and tactics and assumptions developed and refined. it doesn't excuse the slaughter – but its wrong to see it as lions led by donkeys

Actually anyone who had sent observers to watch the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 knew what was coming.

Huge amounts of ammo were going to be needed, Germans caught that but were still short.

Artillery would be doing a lot of firing blind with someone calling in fire, Germans really caught that and was why they had howitzers formations down to the lowest levels.

Machine guns were the new tool for infantry formations, everyone caught this, but not all spent enough money to equip the units at even a poor rate.

Cavalry was pretty useless during the war, hard to give up those pretty uniforms though.

Modern war uses up men and equipment like nothing else, by the end of the Russo-Japanese war the Japanese were broke and out of men, while the Russians were busy putting down a revolt. So when Roosevelt came along with a peace plan both sides jumped on it like drowning men.

Too bad Wilson didn't do the same, instead of supplying material and money to Britain and France for a profit to US companies and banks, and 200,000 or so young American bodies to grease the wheels of war.

This link is to the plan (digitised)for the Somme assault by the VIII Corps – you can see that everything has been thought of to the smallest detail

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this is the report made by the corps on the first day

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For those that don't know VIII Corps was literally slaughtered as it left its trenches and failed with 80-90% casualties.

In the plan you see them trying to come to terms with modern war – but the carrying out of these plans and the assumptions behind some of the orders were faulty (murderous even) – its a stage in the development of the british army in WW1. This isn't lions and donkeys (although Hunter Weston was a killing general)its a system struggling to deal with a new situation

Sorry but every time I think of Haig, I see General Sir Hogmanay Melchit from Black Adder.

And therein lies much of the problem – people who cannot understand that comedy is NOT history. Leaving aside the problem of confirmation bias, frankly, if you maligned any other ethnic/sexual/social group than upper class British men in this way on British TV, you would (a) never work again, and (b) spend time in prison.

The British Army grew from 8 divisions to 80 in around two years. Whereas the rank-and-file could be filled from the streets, and junior officers from Public Schools, it took 20+ years' service to make a junior general. Each division needed anything up to a dozen, plus more for Corps, Army, and Army Group commands, and then all the training formations. So where do you get them from, especially in almost the only nation in Europe with no peacetime military service to draw upon? It's hardly a surprise in such circumstances that Victorian vets were recalled (C/Sgt Bourne of Rorke's Drift fame became CO of one training establishment) and officers occasionally got promoted to beyond their competence (it's called the Peter Principle).

As regards the War Poets, unfortunately, they are almost the only WW1 "history" that most British schoolchildren have ever been taught (it has certainly never been taught as a history subject in State schools in my lifetime). They are almost uniquely a British phenomenon – but why? Well, quite simply the British middle classes were not used to war and its horrors; suddenly they found themselves up to their arses in mud, surrounded by hoi polloi. Bit of a culture shock do we think? There's a reason none of them were regular soldiers, who would have been much more aware of the realities of war. We focus far too much on them and far too little on generalship, and what British generals had to achieve with much, much rawer raw material than anyone else other than the Americans (who lost more dead in 6 months than they did in the whole of the Vietnam War, despite having three years of British and French experience to draw upon).

Richard was a little off the mark in one area: the "lions led by donkeys" meme was abducted by the "historian" Alan Clarke, not one of whose "histories" has not been thoroughly trashed by real historians AND who later admitted he had invented the quote (supposedly from a German staff officer). It was originally applied to the Austro-Hungarian army of the 1850s (and possibly even Napoleonic times). It was never said by anyone about the British Army, but was seized on by the "intellectual" left in the 1960s (which is actually when the nickname "Butcher" Haig starts appearing). And "Oh What A Lovely War" was written by a former secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain – obviously no bias there!

However, the biggest thief of history is David Lloyd George. This is a man who claimed to have single-handedly introduced more machine guns into the British Army, despite (a) having opposed them pre-war when he was at the Treasury, and (b) masking the efforts of generals who did "insignificant" things such as transferring and re-training manpower, creating the Machine Gun Corps, re-writing tactical manuals etc. When DLG wrote his memoirs in the 1930s, he – and the rest of the political class – had failed to build the "home fit for heroes" that had been promised to veterans; so he had to find a scapegoat and the British officer corps was the perfect target, not least because many of the older generals had died.

DLG hated Haig, and was constantly going behind his back to the French and agreeing to do more of the fighting and take over more of the line without even so much as consulting him. The final insult, of many, was when DLG refused – and even lied about it (twice) in the House of Commons – to reinforce Haig with any of the 600,000 (yes SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND) trained men in the UK when the Spring 1918 offensives came – as everyone knew they would. He then sacked Gough – a friend of Haig's (and admittedly the worst of the five army commanders) – for losing so much ground, even though the French sector of the line his army had been forced to take over was weakened (as well as being under-manned) to the point that French farmers were dismantling the trenches for building materials.

So yes, British generals get a very, very, VERY raw deal. The Germans called Haig "Der Bulle" which literally means "the bull" but also means "the tough guy" or "the hard man" in colloquial German of the period. Pershing, no Anglophile, described him as "the man who won the war" and even the French C-in-C went straight over to Haig's quarters and presented him with copies of all the French newspapers celebrating the Hundred Days victory. It got two pages in DLG's memoirs; Passchendaele, which lasted barely a month (but which seems to epitomise WW1 in the public mind), got over 100 pages. It was DLG who relegated Haig to the fifth carriage in the London victory procession; it was Haig who refused a peerage until all of DLG's promises to veterans had been met.

"Politicians start the damned things and soldiers, of all ranks, are left to try to clear up the mess." Vincent talked about it but there were a lot of military men who wanted the war and pushed for it

Wilson in the UK
Conrand von Hotzendorf in Austria-Hungary
Motlke the Younger in Germany
Sukhomilov and Zhilinsky in Russia
Apis in Serbia
etc

Interesting, the apologists all seem to be UK based. I guess I can understand the difficulty of trying to deal with the criticism, but I think it shouldn't be taken personally. It is a criticism of a few in the leadership positions.
All of this talk about coming to grips with the "difficulty: of modern warfare would be reasonable in 1914 and even 1915, but for it to last for YEARS is unconscionable. How hard was it to come to grips with the fact that charging machine gun positions that were in strong defenisive positions wasn't going to work the second time let alone the 43rd time?
Face it, this was a case pure out and out where the allies had more men to expend then the germans could. After the trench lines were drawn, it WAS just a meat grinder. The Allies had more meat. They didn't "figure it out". Of course by 1918 they HAD learned a lot, but that really had nothing to do with the end result. The allies just had more men and stuff. The generals WERE donkeys and for us to sit here in hindsight and NOT call it as such would be the real disservice to the memory of those who died and to our future. Sugar coating history with delusions robs it of it's utility. Sometimes things aren't "complicated", they just really were effed up and stupid.

Interesting, the apologists all seem to be UK based.

How dare we disagree, eh? Maybe it's because we've read up about the subject, rather than just listening to propaganda. Nice (ie patronising) of you to "understand" us though. The fact is that the generals were criticised initially because of who they were ("toffs") not because of what they did. The British actually lost fewer men in WW1, both numerically AND as a percentage of those in uniform, than EVERY other major combatant nation, and most of the minor ones as well.

How hard was it to come to grips with the fact that charging machine gun positions that were in strong defenisive positions wasn't going to work the second time let alone the 43rd time?

When, oh when, oh when, are people like you going to understand that that is NOT what happened? As Richard has said, British tactics developed in WW1 were so good that they have remained virtually unchanged ever since and were still being used to storm compounds in Afghanistan a year or two ago. Over 2/3 of all casualties in WW1 have been found to have been caused by artillery fire (source: "The Smoke And The Fire" by John Terrain), so your basic premise is wrong to start with. Less than two weeks after Day 1 of The Somme, British and Empire troops used modified tactics successfully at Bazentin Ridge.

Pretty much every criticism of WW1 British generals is either based on false logic, ignorance of military procedures, or just plain ignorance. Let's take just one example (which I imagine you will simply ignore like all my other examples): the "sitting safely in their chateau sipping chablis" myth. Where else would you put a major HQ, if not in a large building with plenty of big rooms, easy to find, good road (and often rail) links and existing telephone lines, typically situated in a location that gave a good view over the surrounding countryside? Apparently, though, this is tantamount to a "war crime" in the eyes of the critics. Over 200 British generals were killed or seriously wounded by direct enemy action, so hardly a "safe" job.

The reality that people like you fail to understand is that the UK did in WW1 what the Soviet Union did in WW2: it took on the main army of the main enemy for most of the war. And it did it without sending men into battle without a weapon and orders to "pick one up from the first corpse you find". British infantry battalions in NW Europe between June '44 and May '45 suffered 100% attrition among the rank-and-file and 110% among regimental officers. Maybe war is just a dangerous business?

Oh, and by the way, your basic premise is wrong: it was David Lloyd George who began the revisionism; all the modern historians did was correct his lies and half-truths.

David Lloyd George was certainly one of the main proponents of the attacks on the intelligence and competence of British generals. Winston Churchill was another, having failed with the Dardanelles Campaign and with his short period of command on the Western Front. DLG undermined Haig during the lead up to Arras in 1917 by supporting General Nivelle and his proposed war-winning offensive that year. The Nivelle offensive was a catastrophic failure, by Nivelle's definition of success. Subsequently DLG went on to stop the transfer of the latest tranche of conscripts to the Western Front prior to the German Spring offensives in 1918. As a result, 100s of thousands of British and Dominion soldiers were killed or wounded because the defences were too thinly stretched and the conscripts had to be sent over anyway. By then, however, it was too late and they were thrown into some of the toughest battles, for example on the Lys, without the necessary lead up training in the 'quiet' trenches as usual.

The situation was so bad that one of the British generals, General Maurice, took the career-ending step of publicly exposing the misinformation that DLG had put about. Maurice wrote a letter to the Times in May 1918, after the German offensives had started and the problems compounded by DLG had surfaced. General Maurice was a man of great integrity and he then resigned his commission, knowing ahead of his publishing the letter that this would be the outcome.

Immediately post-war, a number of disaffected British generals weighed in too. The most vociferous was General Gough, former commander of the British Fifth Army that lost so heavily in Operation Michael and its aftermath. Gough lost his command and was very bitter about this.

My grandfather fought in WW1 and, unlike most veterans, he talked freely about his experiences. He was very clear. The war dragged on and was associated with significant casualties because the Germans were so good and so determined. My grandfather had enormous respect for Haig because Haig was so determined as well. Haig's appearance exuded this. My grandfather had seen him ride past in an inspection and Haig's upright stature and square jaw gave confidence that, come what may in the bloody fighting ahead, the Allies would prevail.

The problem with the generals on all sides is that they were so good. No side could get achieve a bloodless coup de grace as the opponents knew how to counter. Contrast this with Romania's entry into the war, after their generals had missed two years of experience and evolution of command & control. They were no match for the likes of Mackensen, who had these two years of experience on the Eastern Front along with his staff and his subordinate officers at all levels.

It is hard to take in the enormity of what took place on the Western Front. Drive from Nieupoort in Belgium to Mulhouse near Switzerland and you get some impression of the geographic scale. And this is nothing compared to the Eastern Front. I put on a reproduction of the First Battle of the Marne:

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where each infantry stand represented 200 men in a company, and there were 10,000 stands in total. This was a tiny fraction of the Western Front but the sheer numbers involved became evident. It is a wonder that non-military economies had been able to spend enough to arm these numbers with any MGs at all, let alone produce the vast quantities of artillery ammunition that were still not enough.

The fundamental question was whether the war should have been fought at all. Once that decision was taken, there was no easy way to opt out of the attritional battle that followed. My grandfather was clear, for what it is worth. Northern France and Belgium had to be liberated. The occupation was dreadful and the evidence for this is only just emerging. The occupied territories on the Eastern Front were even worse.

War is terrible. Do not be duped into thinking that a smart general can avoid all of this. Everyone marvelled at the smart bombs and seemingly bloodless sweeping victory over Saddam Hussain's forces in Kuwait. Look at what has happened since then, mirroring the seemingly bloodless and easy victory of von Moltke's German armies over the French Royalist forces in 1870 that deteriorated into a long 'Volkskrieg' against the French Republican forces subsequently. The fear of a second People's War in WW1 led to the draconian measures taken to suppress the Belgian 'resistance'. When the German armies failed to achieve a sweeping and complete victory in 1914, von Moltke's nephew of the same surname realised that a long and protracted war would follow. The realisation made him physically ill and he died prematurely as a result, almost certainly.

Robert

PS: I have published 'revisionist' material and I don't give a toss about any revenue. I don't need the money at all but I do want us to grapple with the realities of what happened in order that we don't make the same mistakes again.

Robert

I will agree that the politicians (and those military men who played at politics like Hotzendorf and Moltke the Younger, or Wilson in the UK) should had bitten the bullet and ended the war once the initial plans went awry and failed, with return to the status-quo ante.

Careers would had been ruined (Poincare,everyone in the Asquith ministry, Bentham-Hollweg, Sazonov, Bretchold) and some people would had committed suicide (Hotzendrof), the Irish Home Rule issue would had gone down to violence anyway, but earlier than 1916 and probably to a much larger degree, in France and Germany the socialists and social democrats would probably had won massive electoral victories (indeed MacDonanlds Labor goverment could had become real much earlier) . Wilhelm II would probably be forced to abdicate, though the monarchy would survive, but with massive constitutional change in Prussia (And thus the German Empire). Witte and Kokovtsov would probably force themselves back into the Council of Ministers in Russia and purge it of the old war hawks (Kirovshein), and probably force Nicholas II to surrender more power to the Duma, and centralize the Prime Ministry finally. No idea how an early peace would play out in the deadly game between Pasich and Apis in Serbia. No idea how it would play out in the KuK, though I can se Tisza pushing for a larger Hungurian veto to the KuK foreign policy, and of course socialist and federalist electoral victories in the Austro-Bohemian part of the Empire.

In all probability neither the German-KuK alliance, nor the UK-Russian entente would survive an early peace, and one could see a massive re-alignment of alliances in Europe.

Once the dreadnoughts that had been held by the UK and Germany with the beginning of the war were released The Third Balkan War would erupt starting with the Greek-Ottoman naval war that had been coming in 1914 and was essentially overtaken by the World War, and expanding with the entry of Buglaria, Serbia,Romania, and potentially Italy. I do not think the chastened goverment of Russia and KuK would be able to do much this time.

I mean none of the above are equal to the millions of lives expended in the war as social costs, but probably the kind of person who would be willing to accept these costs for peace, is not the kind of person who would reach decision making power in Europe before 1914. But still the Emperors and King's could had taken the bullet above all and forced peace on decision makers by resigning or threatening to resign, or forcing the ardent war-hawks to resign. In many systems they still could do it.Alas, the concept of honor back then did not count human life for much.

Well, that is an interesting perspective. Surely "biting the bullet" and ending the war is a euphemism for surrendering?

Which side do you think should have surrendered?

Surrendering? Did the UK surrender in 1748? Nope, and yes it accepted and negotiated the Treaty of Paris. There is no surrendering. There is negotiation. Specific individual leaders would lose, but the states could negotiate on the basis of status-quo ante. It would not be the first or last time a war ends in such a way (who surrendered in Korea?). It would probably have to follow goverment changes, but you would not need to much, if Germany and France decided the war is over, then the KuK and Russians would probably follow. A European Congress ala Berlin 1878, with the new governments participating.

Terms would include the usual, evacuation of occupied territories, potential de-militarization clauses or areas etc, some reparation payments, etc. There were multiple bargains that could be made by people willing to make them after the the war-hawks were out of power. I am not saying it would be easy (negotiations are never easy), but it would not be impossible. Things might be harder in the Balkans, but as I said a Third Balkan War is probably inevitable, whether WW1 happens ( in which case it gets subsumed into it), does not happen , or ends in 1915.

The new parliamentary left-wing governments in France and Germany (people, especially those who are politically anti-Left, underestimate how close to parliamentary goverment the Left was in 1914, something the decision makers dreaded. The 1st and 2nd World War deferred the triumph of Social Democracy for 30 years), and a Kokovovtsov-Witte Ministry in Russia would be spoiling for peace (and also using it as a bludgeon to purge internal opponents from positions of influence). A UK embroiled in the Irish Issue (remember that the war Tories, like Wilson, supported the war liberals in the Asquith ministry because they thought the War would put an end to Irish Home Rule), would probably want to end the war as well, especially if Labor controls or dominates any post-Asquith goverment. Again if two or three key powers go pacifist, the whole thing unravels. Again I am not saying it would be easy, or would lead to peace everywhere, but it was not impossible, if people were willing to sacrifice their careers and conceptions of honor.

At the end I do blame the Social Democrats. I am not sure if Hollweg would had dared go to war in 1914 if the SPD had openly told him forget it. And in 1915 I would argue that the Left in France, Labor in the UK, and the SPD in Germany could had still brought the war to a halt. They decided to avoid being called national traitors, or to bargain their support in the war for the implementation of their policies. And thus they betrayed millions of working class and peasent men and boys, who died or were mangled from 1915 to 1918.

guess it all comes down to a cost/benefit analysis:

Between July 1 and mid-November 1916 the British sustained 432,000 casualties, approximately 3,060 for every day of the battle.

If you are saying this was critical to winning the war, then you may have a case, but it is hard to say that and I think it is logically specious to just say "since the war was won and this happened before the end ergo, it led to the winning of the war."

When, oh when, oh when, are people like you going to understand that that is NOT what happened?

dude, there is even film showing it happening. Just because someone optimistically threw an artillery barrage before it, didn't mean they had stopped doing it. I think if the generals had admitted that this is what they were doing and just saying this was the only way, then I would have some more respect for them (even if disagreeing with them). But to merely tweak some aspect of the attack and thinking they were going to have a breakthrough- which is what indeed they said in their plans- shows a serious sense of delusion.

"Interesting, the apologists all seem to be UK based. I guess I can understand the difficulty of trying to deal with the criticism, but I think it shouldn't be taken personally. It is a criticism of a few in the leadership positions. "

WW1, and the Somme in particular, is part of our national culture in all sorts of complex ways. It isn't some sort of moronic national pride. At its most simplistic, a response to the shock of continental warfare and its associated level of casualties which had been outside the British experience for 100 years.

It is not surprising that we have picked it apart minutely ever since to look for reasons and answers as to what took place. At a very minimum, the experience of WW1 informed foreign policy in the interwar years and the strategic approach to WW2 – which wasn't a cakewalk either. 450,000+ dead is still quite a lot out of our population, but fewer than the 800,000+ of WW1.

The world is complex and just to assert that all the WW1 Generals were stupid is an oversimplification. Sadly, mass industrialised warfare is essentially attritional, which is why humans have only done it on a global scale twice.

WW1 was characterised by military slaughter, but I fail to see why the Somme offensive was any more reprehensible than, say, Verdun, Brusilov, the 99th Battle of the Isonzo etc – or even the Kaiserschlacht and the 100 Days. They both resulted in a million casualties each, but are presumably not stupid as the armies moved tens of miles rather than just a few.

The Germans, French and Russians don't seem to prone to such introspection over WW1, but given what came after, that is perhaps not surprising.

All good points Martin. I think the Somme sticks out in most people's (English speakers anyway) mind is because it just seemed that the points that Rich made about communication and co-ordination had seemed to be acknowledged yet had not been solved at all, so it seems particularly piteous that it occurred. I admit most of my knowledge obviously comes from UK sources. I just watched a remarkable 3 piece series on the BBC about it (Both Sides of the Wire). Clearly many UK historians agree with the traditional view of it being a catastrophe still, so I do not at all mean to impugn the entire island as having it's head in the sand. Looking at other TMP polls (worst military decisions ever) shows many have voted the Somme as one of them. I think why "the myth" maintains is that just after this you then have something as horrific as Paaschendaele in which the generals don't even seem to know what is going on. I guess utlimately the criticism falls so hard in my eyes is because of the old saying "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". After a few years of the slaughter for a few kilometers of land with no strategic effect (except the mentioned attrition of troops and materiel) it seems clearly unimagiinitive (for the Allies) to have attempted anything other than defense in depth until a real solution came up, not just the idea of . "well THIS time we'll REALLY give them a good bombardment before we attack!!". How hard would it have been for someone to atually test whether artillery could cut barbed wire before just assuming it would happen on the battlefield.

After a few years of the slaughter for a few kilometers of land with no strategic effect (except the mentioned attrition of troops and materiel) it seems clearly unimagiinitive (for the Allies) to have attempted anything other than defense in depth until a real solution came up…

The problem with this is that means the other side is also getting stronger at the same time. If you are the stronger side, then not going for attrition weakens your relative position (so you are going to end up incurring more casualties in the end), Plus you cede the possibility of achieving surprise, which is really worth it if you can do it.

dude, there is even film showing it happening.

Probably worth pointing out here that a lot of front-line combat footage that exists from WWI was to some extent staged for the camera and in reality shot some distance behind the lines. Cameras, though they were man portable were rather cumbersome and anybody trying to shoot in the front line was a prime target for a sniper!
Some real footage exists but tends not to be seen as often as the staged shots.

Just recently a documentary about the Somme was re-released and its interesting to watch if only to get an idea as to how the media of the time were presenting things.
youtube.com/watch?v=xQ_OZfaiUlc&t=1067s
(Note that in the often reused "over the top" scene the "Trench" looks nothing like the proper trenches seen elsewhere and one of the `dead` casualties is clearly faking it!)

and a documentary about the making of that film:

link

all fascinating to me.

Was, say Pershing any better than Haig?

Pershing seemed solid but then, when he got into the fray, a lot of these things had been sorted out and the war was about to "open up" in any event.

I imagine if he'd been there in 1915, he'd have had to learn hard lessons just the same.

Just speculating though.

It seems Pershing made some similar mistakes too, but he did have the benefits that the lessons of the previous 2 1/2 years should have taught anyone firsthand. As stated above, luckily for his reputation the AEF showed up rather late to the game when things were starting to open up.

oops to edit above, I meant Pershing did NOT have the 2 1/2 years experience personally that the British and French did (though he CERTAINLY should have learned from their experiences.)

Was, say Pershing any better than Haig?

Well, he described Haig as "the man who won the war", so I guess to some on here, he must be "equally stupid". But then, hey, he only actually met the guy and worked with him for about a year, so what would he know?

I am not a Haig fan. By the time he takes over the Marne and Race for the Sea are over. When the British start moving the front forward in 1917 and 1918 the credit for the tactics is frequently given to the army or lower level commanders.

You can probably never convince me that Haig was one of the great commanders of the 20th century. However the more I read about him, the more I feel he may get a bum rap. He takes over just as the armies on the western fron are confronted with a new kind of warfare. He gets blamed for everything that goes wrong over the next couple of years. Then when things start going right the credit gets spread to others as well. It also doesn't help that for those of us in the U.S., books in circulation here tend to concentrate on U.S. involvement in mid-1918, so we don't read much about what Haig's command accomplished in the last few months.

Haig was generally competent, but no military genius. Among the problems he faced that are frequently overlooked is that he had to command five armies, each the size of the one that Montgomery commanded in NW Europe in 1944-45, and ten times the size of the one the latter commanded at El Alamein.

Haig is also the victim of "misunderstandings" by the public (ie non-soldiers) which quickly morph into "hate myths". Here are some of them:-

- He withdrew helmets from his men when he took over command on the Western Front as they "spoiled offensive spirit".

Whilst the withdrawal of helmets is accurate, it was due to manufacturing problems that made the Brodie helmet very thin on top (the one place it needed to be thickest), which took time to sort out – the Germans did it from the start; hence, numbers were initially limited. So he instructed his staff to issue (or re-issue) helmets to sections of the front line trench rather than individual units, so that all men in contact with the enemy had access to a helmet. Thus, a very sensible solution to a problem not of his making becomes a(nother) stick with which to beat him.

- He was so behind the times and out of touch with modern warfare that he claimed heavy machine guns "spoiled offensive spirit".

He did, and he was quite right. The Vickers HMG required a crew of several men (none of whom could carry rifles as well) who were vulnerable on the move, as well as needing to find and prepare a solid firing platform wherever they went. Haig was one of the proponents of the introduction of the Lewis gun, much better able to keep up with the advance; instead of two HMGs per infantry battalion, the British ended up with an LMG per section, massively increasing firepower (to the point that the Germans often executed Lewis gunners).

- As late as 1925, Haig was still advocating the use of the horse in warfare; how out-of-date and hidebound was this idiot?

What is seldom, if ever, mentioned alongside this famous quote is that he was addressing the annual dinner of the Army Veterinary Corps and essentially telling them that their jobs were safe for a while, at least. In WW2, the only fully mechanised armies were those of the UK and US, although even these two were still using mounted troops in the first half of the war. The French had mounted recce units in 1939-40; the Soviet Army had over 50 cavalry divisions; the Germans and their allies had ten (I think), whilst a typical Wehrmacht infantry division had 2,300 horses and a battalion of 400+ men to look after them at optimum TOE. As late as 1979, elite units of the Rhodesian army were mounted, riding both to, and sometimes into, battle. This is on top of the thousands of pack mules still used by many armies around the world until at least the third quarter of the 20th Century. Given the limitations of motor vehicles in the 1920s, hardly a "luddite" view.

- Haig failed to see the potential of the tank.

Well, the one he was presented with could only advance half as fast as a fully laden infantryman, had massive rates of mechanical failure, and needed to stop frequently for the crew to get fresh air and regain full consciousness. Given these shortcomings and the disruption to British manufacturing that was required to build sufficient numbers of them, I'd say he showed considerable optimism and foresight.

How would you define 'military genius'?

Robert

Do not discount the role of popular opinion. World War One was the first war where this was more than an ephemeral factor. It was impossible in most countries for the leaders to admit that the war was either lost, OR not worth the cost of winning it. They would have been voted out of power (or tossed out by revolution) by the masses who had first been whipped up to a war frenzy by those very governments themselves, and then carried off and hammered against a hard place should they suggest anything but a total victory should be attempted, which would be a betrayal of the lives already sacrificed-- the "died in vain" paroxysm.

In a real sense then "the people" got everything they deserved.