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Figure 8.21 Gassed Australian soldiers lying out in the open at an overcrowded aid-post near Bois de L’Abbé in France, 1918. They were gassed in operations in front of Villers-Bretonneux. (Note by Sergeant A. Brooksbank, Gas NCO, 10th Australian Infantry Brigade. Examples of what should not be done: casualties should have removed contaminated garments; lying on the ground with contaminated clothes and not wearing respirators means that they are inhaling quantities of vapour and adding to their injuries.) (AWM/E04851)

DOCUMENT STUDY

Source 8.6

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime. –Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams, you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: *Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

(*It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.)

Wilfred Owen, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’.

DOCUMENT S TUDY QUEST IONS

1 What gas is referred to in the poem?

2 Why has the man been injured?

3 What are the effects of the gas as described in the poem?

4 Contrast the views about gas warfare shown by Owen in Source 8.6 and General Sibert in the text. How would you account for the differences?

5 Would you regard the view of Owen or Sibert as the more reliable picture of gas warfare? Explain your reasons.

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Figure 8.22 A British Mark IV tank doing what it did well—crushing barbed wire

of its slowness, nor punch such a hole in the enemy line to open the way for a major advance. From 1916–18 tanks were never more than an auxiliary to the infantry, with only slightly greater speed than a foot soldier and a !ghting time of only eight hours. The tank’s most notable success was at the battle of Cambrai in 1917; when used over ground that did not have craters the tanks achieved their objectives in breaking through the German lines. Unfortunately, the gains were not exploited and the opportunity to consolidate the breakthrough was lost.

The tank’s main uses were to "atten barbed wire obstacles, to o#er the advancing troops a sense of ‘moral support’ and a degree of shelter, and to knock out enemy machine-gun nests. However, tank crews faced an ever-increasing risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning, over-heating or general ‘sea-sickness’. Tanks were noisy, which was deafening for the crew inside, and ‘blind’. At Cambrai, even extreme care in choosing forward routes failed to prevent the tanks from tearing up most of the signallers’ delicately laid telephone cables. Tanks could not operate safely in built-up areas or woods, which excluded a good proportion of the areas where infantry needed it most, or over badly cratered or muddy ground.

A great deal is often made about the role of the tank in the successful Allied o#ensives of 1918, late in the war. These claims exaggerate the signi!cance of the tank as an actual rather than a potential weapon in the war. By the time the tank was reliable enough to consistently be a factor on the battle!elds of the Western Front, the war had been lost by Germany. It is true that in 1918 many German positions were surrendered quickly once tanks arrived on the scene; however, by October 1918 tanks were more often an excuse to give up rather than a cause of surrender. By 1918 the war of attrition had taken its toll and this, not the tank, ended the stalemate.

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VERDUN 1916Situated on the eastern border of France, the town of Verdun was surrounded by thirteen massive concrete forts. Most of their structure was below ground and the guns had been removed by the French earlier in the war for use elsewhere. Falkenhayn originally hoped to break the French army by forcing it to defend Verdun. The German general was correct in his assessment that the French would !ght to the death to defend Verdun because of its strategic position and its historical status as a great French fortress. He began a massive bombardment of the French defences in February 1916, using 1400 heavy guns in the hope of drawing French defenders into the Verdun sector, then using artillery to in"ict huge numbers of casualties and ‘bleed the French army to death’.

General Petain was given the job of defending Verdun. Its resistance became symbolic in the eyes of the French; Petain declared, ‘They shall not pass’, and coordinated the movement of soldiers and supplies along La Voie Sacrée (The Sacred Way), the only road into and out of Verdun. At the height of activity, 6000 vehicles a day used the road, and despite intensive German shelling the road was never closed. The forts were the scene of !erce hand-to-hand !ghting in the underground passageways. The Germans called o# their main attack in July 1916, although !ghting went on around Verdun until November.

The results of Verdun

REV I EW QUEST IONS

1 What was the purpose of the artillery bombardment preceding an attack?

2 Why did the bombardments often fail to meet the objective?

3 What was shrapnel?

4 When and where was gas first used on the Western Front?

5 Why was gas ineffective as a breakthrough weapon?

6 List the strengths and weaknesses of the tank as a weapon.

THE SOMME 1916The battle of the Somme in 1916 has become symbolic of much that was the Great War. The !rst day of the Somme was, in terms of casualties, perhaps the worst ever in the history of the British army. The Somme resulted in Britain’s new armies of volunteers being thrown into the war at an enormous cost in lives, which caused comments to be made about the destruction of the ‘!nest "ower of Britain’s young generation’.

Before the German threat to Verdun, Haig and Jo#re had agreed that the British would stage an attack on the Somme River with French support. The desperate defence of Verdun changed all that. The Somme was largely a British battle, with reduced French support. Several reasons for the battle of the Somme have been proposed:

DID YOU KNOW?Troops had their own language or slang. For example, ‘short arm inspections’ were conducted by the medical officer for signs of venereal disease. Groups of men would be lined up in a hut and told to drop their trousers; a ‘Blighty one’ was a wound that required a much sought after return to England; and ‘cold meat tickets’ were identity discs, worn around the neck.

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KEYGround gained by 10 July

Ground gained by 1 September

Ground gained by 1 October

Ground gained in October and November

Front line on 1 July

Front line on 18 November

German occupied France

0 8 km

N

British Sector

French Sector

Beaucourt Le Sars

Thiepval

Albert

PozieresBazentin

Longueval

MametzCombles

Sailly

PeronneBiaches

Estrees

Curlu

MaricourtMain Road

Chaulnes

Bapaume

BeaumontHamel

Figure 8.23 The battle of the Somme

The battle began on 1 July and lasted until 18 November. The attack was preceded by a week-long bombardment of the German trenches in which one and a half million shells were !red. This was designed to destroy the German barbed wire and wipe out the front-line trenches. These aims were not achieved because the Germans were aware of the impending attack and made preparations for it by digging huge underground chambers, 12 metres below the ground, to enable them to shelter from the bombardment.

What happened on the morning of 1 July, when the British went ‘over the top’ has long been a source of grim fascination for historians, but has recently become the subject of a revisionist view outlined by Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson

in their book The Somme (2005). Traditionally, historians have emphasised the overcon!dence and poor tactics employed by the high command which led to the !gure of 57 000 British casualties on the !rst day. This viewpoint, told in histories from Basil Liddell Hart in A History of the World War, 1930), through Martin Middlebrook (The First Day on the Somme, 1971) to Paul Kennedy (In A. H. Millett & Williamson Murray (eds), Military E!ectiveness, 1988) speaks of the instruction to the British soldiers that they could walk across no man’s land, smoking their cigarettes and pipes, to take possession of the empty trenches as no Germans would have survived the barrage. Another anecdote which illustrates this overcon!dent naivety is the story of Captain W. P. Nevill of the 8th East Surreys who bought four footballs, one for each platoon, and o"ered a prize to the platoon which, at the jump-o", !rst kicked its football up to the German front line. The !rst football was kicked in a high arc towards the Germans; Captain Nevill was killed instantly. The greatest criticism of the generals, however, is that the troops were ordered to advance slowly, in line abreast as on a parade ground, allowing the German machine-gunners time to emerge from their dugouts to mow down the easy targets.

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DOCUMENT STUDY: THE SLAUGHTER ON THE SOMME

Source 8.7

French infantry … were preceded to within sixty yards of the enemy’s front line by a creeping barrage which beat the ground ahead. At that point, so the French had bloodily discovered in 1915, the value of shells was cancelled out by the weight of small-arms fire through the shell curtain. The French artillery barrage therefore jumped forward to isolate the enemy’s front line and the infantry changed from lines into small, flexible formations which could manoeuvre independently over the last few yards. These half-section units were naturally well provided with light machine-guns, rifle grenades, hand grenades and rifles in a preplanned ensemble whose effectiveness was as much the result of training as of fire-power … The British were absolutely unable to reproduce this tactical sophistication … the whole philosophy of British preparation assumed war in the eighteenth century style … The men must learn to obey by instinct without thinking. The whole advance must be carried out as a drill.

D. Winter, Haig’s Command: A Reassessment, 1991, p. 61.

Source 8.8

The determinant of victory in industrial war is the prevalence and effectiveness of killing machines—in this case predominantly machine-guns and artillery. It is not the specific tactics or attack formations adopted by the infantry … What must be deemed surprising is that for over 80 years historians have turned this story on its head. They have argued as if the skill, or lack of it, evident in the tactics supposedly imposed from above on the infantry really did, on the first day, make all the difference between winning and losing …

It is fairly clear that the established portrait of the battle was derived from Buchan [The Battle of the Somme, 1917]and other early writers on the Somme. The portrait seemed to them particularly appropriate because it resonated with their view of the virtues possessed by the British infantry—steadiness under fire and unflinching bravery in the face of disaster … This picture also resonated with that later group of historians characterised by Liddell Hart. For them, however, the conventional image was not associated with the bravery of the infantry. It centred on the stupidity of the high command and on the needless slaughter of an innocent rank and file by those whose duty it was to safeguard them … So for all these groups … the first day of the Somme became the necessary image of the war …

The mystery of all this is the devotion of military historians to the notion that the outcome of even the largest conflicts is determined by the skill and heroism of the rank and file infantry. Whatever truth this notion may have had in earlier wars, it was clearly inappropriate for the large episodes of industrial war in 1914–18 …

Let it be stressed that there were command errors aplenty on the first day of the Somme. But the most profound misjudgements lay elsewhere. Only an abundance of guns and shells on the Western Front could create the conditions whereby rank and file infantry might operate on a battlefield with any chance of success … None of this may seem glamorous or heroic, but it more nearly represents the reality of 1 July 1916 than any obsessive focus on infantry tactics.

Prior and Wilson, The Somme, 2005, pp. 116–18.

DOCUMENT S TUDY QUEST IONS

1 Refer to Source 8.7. What were the main differences between French and British tactics at the Somme?

2 What was the advantage of the creeping barrage, as shown in Figure 8.24?

3 According to Winter, why didn’t the British employ the more successful French methods?

4 How do the conclusions of Prior and Wilson in Source 8.8 conflict with those of Winter in 8.7?

5 Why, according to Source 8.8, did the traditional accounts of the first day on the Somme persist over the years?

6 What, according to Source 8.8, is the major explanation for the enormous losses on 1 July 1916?

Figure 8.24 The creeping barrage—an artillery tactic that required a level of accuracy the British were unable to command until September 1916

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Prior and Wilson argue that the vast majority of the British casualties on 1 July did not meet their fate by advancing shoulder to shoulder at a steady walk, nor did the high command order them to do so. They refer to General Rawlinson’s instruction that ‘there can be no general rule as regards the best formations for advance’. Decisions on how to proceed were left to the battalion commanders on the spot. From their research they show that, of the eighty battalions involved on the !rst day:

Prior and Wilson also point out, as has not previously been su"ciently acknowledged, that the killing zone was not simply no man’s land. Enemy bullets did not stop when they reached a trench line! Thirty per cent of all British casualties on 1 July were sustained as they moved up behind their own front line.

They disagree with those historians who have argued that it was the #awed infantry tactics of the high command which caused the massive casualties on the !rst day of the Somme. No matter where the British soldiers started from, or how they progressed, tactics did not matter. As long as the Germans survived the artillery barrage, a hail of bullets—6000 per minute by their reckoning—will kill or wound all before it. ‘If the [British] artillery had done their job it mattered little if the infantry walked or ran or executed the Highland #ing across no man’s land’ (Prior and Wilson 2005, p. 115).

Figure 8.25 The Lochnager crater at La Boisselle. A mine was exploded under the German lines a few moments before 7.30 a.m. on 1 July —the start of the Somme offensive. Its size can be judged from the figures standing on the far side. The hole is now owned by an Englishman and preserved as a site of remembrance—some wreaths can be seen at the bottom of the crater.

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An example of the traditional approach towards the battle can be found in Denis Winter’s book Haig’s Command: A Reassessment, where he points out that 1 July was a day of two battles. The French in the south met all their objectives at a cost of 7000 casualties, whereas the British to the north failed to make any signi!cant impression and lost 57 000 men in their failure. Winter explains that this was a result of the superior tactics and training of the French.

The British did not achieve any of Haig’s targets for the !rst two days. Nevertheless, the British commander persisted and the o"ensive continued. Haig’s critics, including Denis Winter, have charged that Haig was too in#exible and failed to note the lessons that both the French and Germans had learned about attacks and artillery support. In his own defence Haig wrote that he had hoped for a breakthrough at !rst, but then accepted that the attack must go on anyway because it drew German troops away from Verdun. The optimistic ‘breakthrough’ battle had become part of the war of attrition.

The results of the Somme

Figure 8.26 The preserved battlefield at Beaumont Hamel in 1998. The Canadian government bought the site in remembrance of the men from Newfoundland who died there. The Canadian second line of trenches is in the foreground, with the front-line trench running across the centre of the picture. The German front line was curved along the base of the trees. Notice the small war cemetery to the right and the surviving shell craters. The Newfoundlanders suffered 80 per cent casualties as they crossed this ground on 1 July 1916.

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DOCUMENT STUDY: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE SOMME BY VARIOUS HISTORIANS

Source 8.9

By the end of July, responding to every British or French advance or attempt to advance, the German infantry had made not less than sixty-seven counter attacks, large or small, that I can identify. Probably they had made a great many more, now lost in time’s obscurity—possibly twice as many. This was the texture of the battle: attack, counter-attack; attack again, counter-attack again … That is why it is so utterly pernicious to dwell constantly on the freak of 1 July, and to associate the whole battle with the image of that day … The Somme was the turning point.

John Terraine, The Smoke and the Fire: Myths and Anti-myths of War 1861–1945, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980.

The Somme offensive was a necessary if painful stage in the process of weakening a skilful, courageous and highly professional enemy.

Peter Simkins, foreword to Chris McCarthy, ‘The Somme: The Day-By-Day Account’, Arms & Armour, 1993.

The battle of the Somme was not a victory in itself, but without it the entente would not have emerged victorious in 1918.

Gary Sheffield, The Somme, Cassell, 2003.

We may perhaps question whether the four-and-a-half month slog of the Somme was the unmitigated disaster it is usually painted. One voice worth hearing in this context is that of the German supreme commander Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who was sufficiently chastened by the sufferings of his troops during the campaign to state at a conference in January 1917, ‘We must save the men from a second Somme battle.’ Another notable viewpoint is that of the distinguished soldier–writer Charles Carrington, who would later claim that ‘The Somme battle raised the morale of the British Army. Although we did not win a decisive victory there was what matters most, a definite and growing sense of superiority, man to man … We were quite sure we had got the Germans beat.’

M. Brown, ‘Sommewhere in France’, History Today, July 2006, Vol. 56, Issue 7, pp. 22–4.

DOCUMENT S TUDY TASKS

1 Using information provided in the document study and the text, reinforced by internet research, show how the historiography about the Somme has changed over time.

2 For written task or debate: Assess the battle of the Somme. Was it a ‘monstrous waste of human life resulting from incompetent generalship’ or was it a ‘turning point which mortally wounded the German army’?

THE FRENCH MUTINIES AND PASSCHENDAELE 1917The year 1917 began positively for the Allies. The British naval blockade continued to deprive Germany of vital raw materials, the British and French gained control in the air and Allied industrial production was up.

Jo!re had been replaced as French commander by a highly articulate and optimistic general, Robert Nivelle. Jo!re had spoken of 1917 as a year of continued attrition. Nivelle suggested ‘breakthrough’. Nivelle’s great o!ensive gained less than 8 kilometres at great cost. General Philippe Petain replaced Nivelle in May and disillusionment led to mutinies in some French units. Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that from this point on, the French army ceased to be a potent o!ensive force. This view may be extreme, but the fact still remains that for the rest of 1917 the British army had to carry the weight of the o!ensive.

The third battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele, lasted from the end of July until December. There were many frightening parallels between the circumstances surrounding the Somme in 1916 and Passchendaele in 1917. On both occasions the British were requested to launch an attack to take pressure o! the French army and in both battles the point of attack gave every advantage to the German defenders.

Haig’s decisions about this battle, once again, have produced debate and criticism. A huge bombardment of four and a half million shells combined with the worst rains in thirty years turned the

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battle!eld into a quagmire. Movement became almost impossible as men, horses and equipment stuck fast in the mud. Men who had fallen into craters had their backs broken as comrades tried to pull them out of the mud. Most of the familiar photographs of soldiers struggling knee deep and more in the mud were taken during the Passchendaele campaign.

Even without a breakthrough Haig claimed that because of their losses the Germans were su"ering a fearful defeat. Passchendaele was the ultimate example of the rationale of attrition. Even though the Allies su"ered heavy losses, as long as the Germans lost more men than the British and French, Haig argued, the Allies would win in the end. Clearly, this kind of thinking worried the politicians, who were dependent on the support of the public—a public weary of the long casualty lists in their daily newspapers. Haig’s view of attrition also gave little comfort to the troops, who joked grimly about who would be left to take food and ammunition up to the last man. Passchendaele cost the British 245 000 casualties and the Germans a few less for a gain of just over 10 kilometres.

Figure 8.27 Canadian machine-gunners manning shell holes in the mud at Passchendaele.

REV I EW QUEST IONS

1 When were the following battles fought: Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele?

2 In each case, what factors brought about the battle?

3 Assess each of the three battles. Were they German victories, Allied victories, or neither? Explain your answer carefully in each case.

4 What was the significance for the French army of the Nivelle offensive?

5 What criticism of Haig may be made after reading the account of Passchendaele?

Figure 8.28 Then and now: the medieval cloth hall at Ypres in 1917 and as it looks today, lovingly restored from the original plans which survived the war

CASE STUDY:

HAIG AND THE GENERALS

At the time, almost all the leaders, Jo!re, Haig and Hindenburg, were considered great men. Between the wars their reputations crumbled, largely because of the diaries and memoirs published by ex-soldiers such as Sassoon and Remarque, whose descriptions of the realities of trench life contrasted with the ‘easy life’ of the high command far back behind the lines. The war produced the phrase ‘chateau generalship’ to re"ect the idea of commanders living comfortably behind the lines in large houses, unsympathetic towards their men and unrealistic in their view of the #ghting.

Overall, the reputation of the generals of the Great War has not recovered, despite books such as Bloody Red Tabs by F. Davies and G. Maddocks (1995), which argues against the view that the high command were out of touch with the front line. Davies and Maddocks point out that at the battle of Loos in 1915 eight British generals were killed in nine days—they clearly did not stay in their chateaus behind the lines. As a result,

an order was issued in October 1915 that forbade senior British o$cers from taking up forward positions. It would therefore seem unfair to criticise senior o$cers for not being with their men, when to do so would have constituted a military o!ence. They also point out that far more senior o$cers were killed in action during the First World War than in the Second World War. Of the seventy-eight people documented in the book who were killed (not all on the Western Front) twenty-two generals, approximately 28 per cent of the total, were killed by small arms #re or snipers—a clear indication that they were in the thick of the #ghting.

HAIG AND THE PENDULUM OF HISTORIOGRAPHYAs mentioned above, Haig’s post-war standing as a war hero was diminished in the inter-war years, not least by the publication of Lloyd George’s memoirs in 1933. The politician, who had clashed with the Field-Marshal over the conduct of the war, took the

opportunity to set down his criticisms for posterity. In more recent times, Alan Clark’s The Donkeys (1962) and Denis Winter’s Haig’s Command (1991) continued this tradition of criticism of the high command in general and Haig in particular. Modern ‘popular opinion’ has also been moulded by other means to take a critical view of Haig. In 1998, at the ceremonies surrounding the eightieth anniversary of the armistice, the English Daily Express launched a campaign to have Haig’s statue removed from Whitehall in London, under a headline proclaiming: ‘He led a million men to their deaths’.

Amid this torrent of criticism it should be remembered that the critical view of Haig is not the only view, and, revisionist historians would assert, not the most appropriate. Critical historiography may itself be criticised. Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, in a scathing review of Haig’s Command, accused Winter of ignoring the major issues of command, such as how battles were devised, organised,

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waged, and supplied, in favour of attention to trivialities of Haig’s character: ‘A book like Haig’s Command … helps to preserve historical writing about the Great War in its ridiculously protracted adolescence’ (Prior and Wilson, Australian War Memorial Journal, October 1993, p. 13, quoted in Bond and Cave, 1999, pp. 2–3).

The revisionist defence of Haig, to be found in books such as Haig: A Reappraisal 70 Years On (1999), edited by Brian Bond and Nigel Cave, follows two main directions. First, to refute speci!c allegations, such as that characterising Haig as the cavalryman who knew nothing of modern warfare; second, to shift the popular gaze from the !rst day of the Somme to the last year of the war, and thereby to come to appreciate the enormous di"culties associated with expanding an initial force of 120 000 men into a vast army of two million soldiers, organised, equipped, and led in such a way that they achieved victory. If the commander is to be blamed for defeats, is he not to be given credit for the successes?

Criticism: Haig was at heart a cavalryman, and therefore unaware of the demands of modern warfare.

Revisionist response: Just because Haig had a background in cavalry does not necessarily mean that he was incapable of understanding new technology. During the war, the cavalry grew by 80 per cent (remember their e#ective use in Palestine) but the infantry grew by 469 per cent, artillery by 520 per cent, and engineers by 1429 per cent. The BEF also acquired the world’s !rst tank corps and the world’s !rst independent air force, a service arm encouraged by Haig. By the end of the war ‘the BEF was not only awash with horses and mules but also with lorries, motorcars, armoured cars, tanks and motorbikes. It was the most

mechanised army in the world. Haig’s “cavalry obsession” therefore seems to have had little practical e#ect’ (Bond and Cave 1999, p. 5).

Criticism: Haig was a ‘chateau general’.

Revisionist response: Modern warfare requires a lot of administrative work, and it is the commander’s role to ensure that this is done. This cannot be done in a trench! Hussey describes Haig as ‘the principal director of Britain’s newest and greatest corporate enterprise’ and adds that ‘to make the BEF run as smoothly as it did is an achievement as remarkable as it is underpraised’ (Bond and Cave 1999, p. 19). Despite these demands on his time, Haig was not bound to his desk. A sample fortnight in April 1917 shows that he visited several battalions and a sniping school, held a commander’s conference, and inspected base camps, hospital wards, recreation facilities and a military prison.

Criticism: Haig was out of touch with the needs of his men.

Revisionist response: Michael Cranshaw praises Haig’s ‘insatiable

curiosity and enthusiasm for new ideas’ and concludes, ‘Haig’s listening and information gathering service was excellent; his body of liaison o"cers visiting forward formations kept him abreast of happenings in the real world … His personal intervention at critical junctures was instru mental in the development of the RFC, of the gas weapon, … of mortars … and of tanks … And his tireless persistence in pressing for quantity in both new and existing equipment was proved correct … The spring of 1918 did not bring defeat for the BEF, but defeat twice came too close for comfort. That the same BEF, despite its depleted ranks, came back to play the principal role in running the German Army out of France … is a tribute to those who equipped it and those who identi!ed and pressed for the equipment it needed. Douglas Haig did not fail in that duty of a commander—the duty of ensuring that his troops had the right tools for the job, and, in the end, enough of them’ (Bond and Cave 1999 p. 169).

Figure 8.29 ‘The concerned Field-Marshal visits his troops’ or ‘Aloof and surrounded by his favourite cavalry, the Field-Marshal looks down upon his foot soldiers’. It’s all a matter of perspective! (Verelst, John/National Archives of Canada/C-092414)

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DOCUMENT STUDY: MIL ITARY LEADERSHIP IN THE GREAT WAR

Source 8.8

Siegfried Sassoon was a courageous junior o!cer, winning the Military Cross in 1916. He was the "rst to consistently write poetry that was critical of the conduct of the war. This poem was written during the war.

If I were fierce and bald, and short of breath,I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,And speed glum heroes up the line to death.You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap’,I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’And when the war is done and youth stone dead,I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.

Siegfried Sassoon, ‘Base Details’.

Source 8.9

The impassive expressions that stare back at us from contemporary photographs do not speak of consciences or feelings troubled by the slaughter over which these men presided, nor do the circumstances in which they chose to live: the distant chateau … the glittering motor cars, the cavalry escorts, the regular routine, the heavy dinners, the uninterrupted hours of sleep. Joffre’s two-hour lunch, Hindenburg’s ten-hour night, Haig’s therapeutic daily equitation [horse ride] along roads sanded lest his horse slip … were a world away from the cold rations, wet boots, sodden uniforms, flooded trenches … in … which … their subordinates lived.

J. Keegan, The First World War, 1998, p. 338.

Source 8.10

Though the practice of establishing headquarters well behind the lines was indeed a novelty in warfare … it was one justified, indeed necessitated by the vast widening and deepening of fronts, which put the scene of the action in its entirety far beyond the field of vision of any commander; indeed, the nearer a general was to the battle, the worse placed was he to gather information and to issue orders. Only at the point of junction of telephone lines, necessarily located behind the front, could he hope to gather intelligence of events and transmit a considered response to them.

[Telephone lines were often the first thing to be destroyed in a battle.]

Most of the accusations laid against the generals in the Great War—incompetence and incomprehension foremost among them—may therefore be seen to be misplaced … While battle-altering resources—reliable armoured, cross-country vehicles, portable two way radio—lay beyond their grasp … the generals were trapped within the iron fetters of a technology all too adequate for mass destruction of life but quite inadequate to restore to them the flexibilities of control that would have kept destruction of life within bearable limits.

J. Keegan, The First World War, 1998, pp. 338–42.

DOCUMENT S TUDY QUEST IONS

1 What is Sassoon’s view of the senior officers?

2 Compare Source 8.8 with Source 8.10. In what way do they differ in their views of the senior commanders? Discuss how reliable and useful each source is.

3 What image of the First World War senior officers would be gained by considering only Source 8.9 and Figure 8.30? To what extent is this view limited? Are these sources, therefore, of little use to the historian studying military leadership in the First World War?

Figure 8.30 General Haig’s headquarters at Château de Beaurepaire from 1916 to 1919

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CHANGING ATTITUDES OF SOLDIERS TO THE WARThe outbreak of the war was generally greeted with enthusiasm. It was an opportunity for adventure and excitement while also earning honour in a righteous cause—both sides felt this way. Of course, there were those who feared the darker side of war, but the widely held belief that it would be over by Christmas reassured worried civilians that their husbands and sons would soon be home again.

The First World War was unique among con!icts in the amount of poetry that was produced about it, often by serving soldiers. Through this poetry we can trace the evolution of attitudes towards the war, the high command, the enemy, and the civilian population at home. A large proportion of the war poets from the First World War died in that con!ict. Perhaps the most famous of all was Wilfred Owen, who was killed only days before the armistice in November 1918. Among the famous survivors were Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. The writings of the poets mirrored the mood of the men among whom they had served. Most of the early poets were in!uenced by the work of Rupert Brooke, whose poems were "lled with fervent patriotism and idealism. Brooke himself died during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 from an infection arising from a mosquito bite.

There are many reasons why soldiers welcomed the war and even continued to regard it as a positive experience overall, even after it had settled down into a war of attrition. For some young men from the upper classes, the war was a release from the sti!ing con"nement and regulation of the

boarding school, while for the working class it provided an option to the grinding monotony of the factory, or worse, the uncertainties of unemployment. Even in the worst times, soldiers recorded feeling a unique bond of comradeship with those around them, and some took to the discipline and order of a soldier’s life.

The historian Denis Winter’s conclusion is that some soldiers liked the war, more hated it, but most exhibited a passive acceptance—it was something that had to be done.

THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE 1914By Christmas 1914 the "ghting on the Western Front had settled into trench routine. Christmas Eve was a clear and frosty night. At some points in the German trenches Christmas trees had been erected and there was singing of ‘Silent Night’. On Christmas morning, along much of the Anglo-German front, soldiers got out of their trenches to meet in no man’s land. This fraternisation was almost always initiated by the Germans.

Photographs, gifts and addresses were exchanged, and one German, who had been working in England when the war broke out, wrote out a postcard for his girlfriend in Brighton and gave it to a British o#cer to post! Sing-songs, ranging from Christmas carols to bawdy trench songs, took place. Soldiers played games of football, and in one place the English sent Christmas puddings over to the German trenches—they were much appreciated!

DOCUMENT STUDY: EARLY ATTITUDES TO WAR

Source 8.11

Hodgson was born in 1893, the son of a bishop. He was killed on the "rst day of the Somme, 1 July 1916.

Free in service, wise in justice,Fearing but dishonour’s breath;Steeled to suffer uncomplainingLoss and failure, pain and death;Strong in faith that sees the issue and in hope that triumpheth.Go, and may the God of battlesYou in his good guidance keep:And if He in wisdom givethUnto his beloved sleep,I accept it nothing asking, save a little space to weep.

W. N. Hodgson, from ‘England to Her Sons’, 1914.

DOCUMENT S TUDY QUEST IONS

1 How is death referred to in the poem in Source 8.11? What is the poet’s attitude towards the possibility of being killed? How does this indicate that the writer has not yet experienced the full realities of trench life?

2 What does the poet fear most?

3 Comment on the tone and language of the poem. What aspects of it would enable a historian of the war to date this poem to the early days of the war if the date had not been given?