Godfrey Bloom
I have been a student of the Great War since my school History Society days. I read Churchill’s “World Crisis” at fourteen, and no I did not treat it as gospel,indeed there is no gospel on this crime against humanity, nor was I a school swot. I was chucked out of classics to make wooden fruit bowls the same year. Mind you the woodwork shop was a great place for the thickos to get a smoke.
However after 50 years of study and the accumulation of over 1000 antiquarian books on the subject I feel qualified to proffer some observations, perhaps more so than the host of celebrities jumping on the centenary anniversary band wagon, many of whom appear embarrassingly ignorant of their subject. Until 20 years ago I restricted most of my interest to the prosecution of the war militarily, sometimes leading battlefield tours and sometimes following, particularly enjoying field lectures by friend and erstwhile military colleague the irreplaceable Richard Holmes.
The last one I organised was for 20 landowners and their wives on the Somme. I lectured on strategy and another erstwhile colleague Nigel Farage delivered a string of excellent anecdotes on deeds of daring do to bring that dreadful battle alive. The television is crammed with such anecdotes now and very good TV it makes. It is also time the story was told, WWI formed no part of the formal history curriculum for my generation, I suspect it was too awful and recent to dredge up, few participants would talk of it in the autumn of their years; who could blame them?
Yet that very avoidance has led to gaps in our knowledge, or at least an ambivalent attitude to the outbreak. Modern politicians most of whom have no understanding of history even if they have an interest, you can almost hear Cameron or Milliband asking a flunkey before a speech on the Great War to remind them of the dates. A particular vein of weakness comes from an unusual source. Mises Institute essays are usually the most informed and original of anything one can find to read today on matters economic, but they continually fall short on Great War political history. I have read long essays about missed peace opportunities from 1917 to1918 with no mention of Ludendorff; this is akin to writing an essay on WWII without mentioning Hitler, one offering suggested naval blockade was a new Great War phenomenon yet referred only to Royal Navy blockade with absolutely no mention of unrestricted submarine warfare, one could be forgiven for imagining the Germany of 1914 consisted entirely of men in holy orders brutally invaded by a militaristic Belgium.
I suspect as they are mainly written by Americans often with German ancestry with Anglophobic leanings deprived of access to anecdotal assessment of its cause, they are bound to fall back on the library for that scourge of the historical essay, an academic opinion of yesteryear.
I would like to touch on one or two things of which I have heard little, if any thing at all. Why did everyone rush off to war so eagerly? In no way was it a reluctant war as was WWII when the musket was so reluctantly picked up. Everyone it seemed was spoiling for a fight. The mood of the antagonists was not something drummed up overnight; it had been brewing for years. I do not intend to cover here the implications of treaty responsibility, particularly the Belgian guarantee, this has been covered recently by Anthony Scholefield of Futurus and is the best essay of its kind I have ever read on the subject.,
What therefore brought the world’s greatest empire to some one else’s war? Moreover a democratically governed empire with a free press, albeit a press dominated by Lord Northcliffe. Likewise a democratic republican France, socialist in its inclination, Germany and Italy, an original axis member, who changed sides in1916 (no more jokes please) were new countries about 100 years younger than the United States, a fact usually missed by today’s politicians and school-children alike. Germany was akin to a strapping teenage youth and since the dismissal of Bismarck a youth with no parental guiding hand. A growing country economically and militarily. Prussian leadership arrogant, bullying and militaristic was akin to Zululand, or the Japan of the Samurai, with technologically advanced ordnance. France was, underneath the artistic, gay enlightened Belle-Epoche, still fearful and resentful post-Franco-Prussian war. Yet detailed research finds no craving for the return of Alsace Lorraine, not to the extent of risking war, France a rural economy not industrial or militaristic. The American war of Northern Aggression had proved beyond doubt wars are won on the industrial front. The British Empire on which the sun was setting was recovering from a stupid and expensive South African war, unpopular at home as well as abroad.
I venture to suggest the Great War came through an accumulation of the most extraordinary fateful circumstances. I offer them for consideration by LA readers who as ever will already have an informed opinion.
The volatile explosive mix therefore consists of five main players. A tired but prosperous laissez-faire British Empire, guilty of some ill-advised military adventures the Boer war being the most appalling example; the empire was based on trade and ideology. Those that doubt it would do well to check the numbers of British soldiers and civil servants in service throughout the empire. Interesting numbers compared with the military powers of the day and dare I say it current US military personnel and infrastructure. No, not an empire on a war footing.
Russia on the eastern front, politically unstable, ramshackle, victim of a disastrous war against Japan, a relatively recently assassinated Tsar and revolution. A warning of things to come, hardly a war machine poised to pounce.
The Austro Hungarian Empire, a complete anachronism, detached from the real world and an army reflective of it. Let me say though if I had a time capsule Edwardian Vienna would be one of my first ports of call, then as now a great city for the bon-vivant and lover of art and music. Arguably all these protagonists were dysfunctional in their own way.
Who then were the key personalities in this deadly European danse-macabre, who cast the die in the ten years before? Foremost was King Edward VII, tri-lingual Francophile and brilliant natural diplomat. The Europe of 1903, the year of that fateful European tour, the effusive visit to London of French president Loubet, the birth of the entente-cordiale was in fact against expectation. The Boer war was deeply unpopular with Europeans and coupled with colonial friction intensified by the Fashoda incident France was not at all well-disposed to the British nor indeed have they ever been. The personal popularity of King Edward which began with his visit as a young Prince of Wales where his charm and faultless command of the French language, the quickest route to the French heart was re-enforced. This visit is probably the most successful diplomatic disaster on record, amazingly feted as a triumph today with all we now know. If only the king had been less brilliant, had his French been weak, had his astonishing command of the common touch so beloved of Kipling been less sure and finally would that he had felt a stronger tie to Palm and Pine than a fascination for European intrigue, perhaps then an unlikely relationship strong enough to to suck the British Empire into the worst conflagration up to that point in global history might have been avoided.
I am as weak as the next man, sit me down in front of a Baron d’agneau de Pauillac aux morilles and an 1877 Haut Brion in the company of Saint-Saens and Massenet add the sexy Countess Wolkenstein-Trostburg perhaps with a little ‘mains baladeuses sous la table’ and I would have been bawling “vive la France” with everyone else. Surprisingly the tour of of 1903 was not inspired by the Balfour administration. It was supposedly a private initiative vaguely ratified at various stages by London after the event, not untypical of Arthur Balfour and his nervous political colleagues. Fascinatingly in Balfour’s authorised biography almost no mention was made of the Entente save it was official government policy, yet a whole chapter was devoted to the Anglo Japanese treaty, this was written in the late 1920’s.
So the entente was born. What is an entente-cordiale? A sort of woolly commitment, as has been said many times before, all the disadvantages of a treaty with none of the advantages. This disastrous turn of events was compounded by another less well known figure to the public the arch Francophile Sir Henry Wilson. A soldier who conducted military negotiations with the French high command on an unofficial basis; imagine a whole European strategy with millions of lives at risk based on a nod and a wink. By 1914 no one in the Asquith government knew who had committed what to whom. The Liberals were appalled by the idea of war and hostile to it to just weeks before outbreak. The British Empire was doomed to make the same mistake they made in South Africa a useless, unnecessary, expensive war to no end. The whole thing was amateur night on an epic scale. Worse, the Germans had no idea ( neither did the French ) if we were in or out until the expeditionary force actually landed. In short there was no deterrent effect on the axis powers. The major card, the British fleet, played no part in the potential prevention of a war from which no one could benefit, yet the cry was ‘ hang the Kaiser ‘ in 1918, not hang the entire 1914 cabinet and HM Opposition as it should have been. Lord Ponsonby, Edward’s secretary commented at the time that any Foreign Office clerk could have drafted a treaty, but the king produced a rapprochement. Well, yes but not something understood by the Prussian mind, Chancellor Von Bulow thought it absurd and of no consequence and told his emperor as much. Any possible deterrence was still born.
It is not the point here to discuss the triggers for war, but the systematic preparation of the electorate for it, two serious diplomatic incidents in Morocco, Tangier 1905 and Agadir 1911, permanent crises in the Balkans, colonial squabbles with France culminating in an Anglo French convention started to line up public opinion with the fake choice of being in the French or German camp, the neutral option was never mooted. The French presidential visit and French naval visit of 1905, were part of the softening up process, completely over the top almost hysterical by British standards, whilst the Kaiser did his best to shoot himself in the diplomatic foot on every occasion. To mobilise the civilian population in a democratic society it is essential to bring the people with you. They bring the press, which usually but not always follows public opinion.The rather ephemeral treaty obligations on Belgian neutrality were something of a party political afterthought ‘plucky little Belgium ‘ the advertising sound bite of the day was designed to appeal to the British innate sympathy with the under dog. But take it up with Anthony Scholefield when you have read his piece. There were strong pro German political figures in Britain in those fateful years, Lord Haldane German speaking government minister and influential aristocrat Lord Landsdown were not alone in suggesting a rapprochement did not have to be exclusive to France. Bear in mind those who still claim the war was inevitable must remember Holland, Denmark,Scandinavia, Spain all stayed neutral, I have never accepted any war is inevitable for the UK unless foreign soldiers land on the beach.
Let us pause awhile and look at the Kaiser, the man. Grandson of Queen Victoria, English wife, nephew of King Edward, an Anglophobic Anglophile, obsessed with uniforms and things military, and leader of a country second in the world pecking order, unstable, he probably suffered an inferiority complex arguably not based on a withered arm but on not being British.
Let me quote here from his speech on the eve of the Boxer rebellion.’ There will be no quarter, no prisoners will be taken as a thousand years ago, the Huns under Attila gained for themselves a name that still stands in tradition and fable, so you may imprint the name of a German for a thousand years on China, and so deeply that never again shall a Chinese dare so much as look askance at a German’.
Admittedly even his senior advisors were shocked, but it might explain the wilful destruction of the mediaeval library at Louvain in 1914, the invention and use of poison gas in 1915, the flame thrower, and the execution of Edith Cavell, the Hun was never far from the surface. I know the war dragged us all down eventually to the same bestial level. As Clausewitz would have it total war, there is no other kind, incidentally for better or worse a lesson very quickly learned in the second part of the Great War by Winston Churchill, too quickly? An appreciation of the misplaced brilliance of Edward’s is his complete understanding of his wayward nephew. Quote 1906 ‘but he is even more cowardly than vain, and because of this, he will tremble before all these sycophants when, urged on by the General staff that will call on him to draw his sword in earnest. He won’t have the courage to talk some sense into them, but will obey them cravenly instead. It is not by his will that he will unleash a war, but by his weakness.’
There was of course, an additional dynamic to add to mix of flawed personalities, the new logistics of modern war. Railways and great ordnance in the field, the military doctrine that first strike is essential. History paradoxically would indicate this is not true, Germany and Japan in WWII, or Korea a few years later, but it was the prevailing view of militaristic autocracies at the time. If I may wear my military strategist hat for just a moment, factors other than a combination of deeply flawed personalities and military doctrine are also culprits. There were at the time no modern communication techniques available, there was no ‘hot line’. In golfing parlance there was no way to play out of the bunker. Nor were there personal relationships, no one knew each other, Grey had never left Great Britain, nor the Tsar Russia, nor were there any Franco-Austrian relationships or lasting pacification of the Balkans, indeed can there ever be? The great monarchies were linked by blood and marriage but the death of Edward VII lost any personal warmth or fellow feeling which history shows even Wilhelm to be susceptible.
Finally to put a few pseudo naval and military arguments to bed, the command of the channel ports by Germany would not have proved a disaster. This was demonstrated by the outcome of WWII when the axis powers held them for 4 years. I believe there was a genuine offer to limit the war to mainland Europe by Germany which could have left Great Britain and America to broker a peace in 1916 when a stalemate would have been apparent to all concerned. Without any dispute about the British expeditionary force’s contribution it was not critical, the men and ordnance at that point was in no way pivotal, the Miracle of the Marne’ would still have saved Paris. A mobilised British fleet would have ensured the axis stuck to their word on the channel ports and had massive sway in peace brokerage. Even a bad peace would have preserved the British Empire, millions of lives, there would have been no WWII. For dissenters a walk of the battle fields and contemplation of the world today one must argue, admittedly with the benefit of hindsight, how could it have worked out worse for the UK? We did not even secure the gratitude or respect those earlier Francophiles so inexplicably craved. The free world was left to the leadership of the USA, patently not ready then, nor is it today. The victory speech to the French Parliament by Clemenceau in 1919 mentioned the British Empire not at all, nor did they fly many British or Dominion flags, although the Stars and Stripes were in much evidence. Yet Australia suffered more casualties in 1918 than the Americans who still to this day are convinced they won the Great War although no tank or artillery piece was manufactured in America during the war. President Poincare was even furious English was an official language of the peace conference.
Extraordinarily when the whole repeat performance came around again we found ourselves fighting the French in North Africa, Syria and the Levant having been abandoned by rescued French soldiers from Dunkirk who demanded repatriation, all this of course is carefully edited out of the modern school history books both sides of “la Manche”.
For those, like advocates at the time argue that it was a matter of national honour, which was in the end the argument that carried the day, let me offer some further options. The alliance of France and Russia put millions of soldiers under arms, quite enough to meet a deterrent requirement under normal circumstances. It could never have been possible to engineer a treaty to allow for the bizarre events of 1914. The German alliance with Austria was suicidal as was the Franco-Russian. The British should have made their position unequivocal very publicly in 1903, under no circumstances would the Empire go to war unless it was directly threatened. The French, Germans, Austrians and Russians must go to the devil in their own way. By 1914 the dreadnought race was over won by the British, it was a non-issue. There was no British Army by the standards of mainland Europe, it was an Empire police force at most. Winston Churchill mobilised the fleet, rightly so, but totally unlike a military mobilisation in could be stopped dead in its tracks. The unspoken pragmatism of earlier years, basically British navy Franco-Russian soldiery was the game play. Even if the Germans eventually won on land they would have been stretched to breaking point by a Pyrrhic victory, indeed such a victory enjoyed by the Allies in 1918. A casual glance at modern history shows with one or two exceptions shows war victories are usually so, in point of fact my dissertation at The Royal College of Defence Studies was based on this thesis. There were those who favoured war under any circumstances, there always will be, it is sadly the nature of man. The Prussian high command whose whole raison-d’etre was war, elements of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, professional soldiers and sailors in England, Fisher, Roberts, Wilson all this coupled with a complete misunderstanding of modern total war by political leaders of the day.
A flawed theory of the left is that it was a war of capitalism, absurd of course, the one thing feared by the capitalist is any expensive, hopeless, meaningless war. The Bank of England begged the government almost on blended knee to keep out under any circumstances; their view was it would finish London as the only serious centre of world finance, which it did. Returning to the ‘ honour ‘ argument in spite of some bellicosity over Schleswig Holstein from Lord Palmerston, real-politic is the only option, as indeed it was when the UK abandoned Poland in 1945, and Hong Kong a generation later.
Nor do I take the view that those brave soldiers and seamen died to no purpose. Once the politicians had created the cataclysmic disaster, they were personally bound by honour to play out the game to the end, that Edwardian generation were a great generation perhaps matched only once in the history of Great Britain by their children in the second. To suggest they died for nothing is to denigrate their memory; they died honourably yet again to rescue political failure. A total commitment to the ideal of a Christian Empire was held across all classes, death in pursuance of a noble ideal is never wasted, an unnecessary, badly prosecuted war in no way diminishes brave men’s sacrifices.
So what is all this to the libertarian? Excuse me for being parochial but war is always the arch enemy of personal freedom. The pre-Great-War British and American societies by today’s standards were enormously liberal. Rules, regulations, identification documents, that abomination conscription, the inevitable rise in power of the petty officialdom, the abandonment of principles of law. All these are claimed as vital for the common good, moreover deceitfully claimed as temporary, it started in all its ghastly evil in August 1914.
I am uneasy about the bellicosity shown today by the west to Russia, the blustering nonsense from those with no military experience or indeed sons in the army, something at least that could never be said of the Edwardian political potentates. Great Britain and the EU are paper tigers, no armies or navies, and the Americans are led by a man capable of this sentence quote ‘Sanctions are beginning to bite plenty good’. He clearly could not construct an attack order understandable to the largely English speaking NATO command structure. It is less likely we will experience a shooting war 100 years on, more probable an energy or financial war, perhaps a mutation of one. The sanctions of which Obama and Cameron boast do not hurt them. The prime-ministerial and presidential salaries arrive every month, and they do not depend on exports to Russia or energy supply but many of us do. International posturing and swaggering eventually leads to trouble, I would make the study of modern history compulsory for world leaders it might stop it repeating itself.
I do not disagree with this per se, but I think these things were going to happen anyway. The war allowed them to happen faster than they may have done otherwise, but Britain was already sinking in the morass of the expanding State, powered by a driving force of campaigners and opinion formers whose nature we all enjoy arguing about. Bureaucratic “Progressivism” was in Britain, like America, surging forward under the slogan of “modernity” and, more generally, that terrible word “reform”.
When a process is moving forwards, there is always less of it behind you. There was certainly less State in Britain in 1914 than 1918. But there was also less of it in 1974 than 1978, or in 2004 than 2008, or any other pair of years spaced similarly. The “Great War” allowed the statists to do things that they would have had to wait longer to do more slowly, but I think the monstrous carbuncle of the 20th century big government was happening anyway, and had been happening since well before 1914, one creep at a time.
Of course, it allowed one creep in particular- David Lloyd George- to have far too much of his way, and that is a cause for regret in itself.
Ian B is right. War is a tool used to give legitimacy to tyrannical actions. Hence “war on drugs” et al.
The Forever War, the war against “terrorism”, is perfect since it will never end and new enemies can be created and forgotten at will.
Imagine the future and it is endless war.
That looks remarkably like nearly 100% of all Hominid species’ pasts: specially the hunter-gather periods, which is again most of this time. I see the supposed “Golden Age” of ghastly neo-pastoralism as one of the GramscoFabiaNazis’ devices for booting Man back into that foul condition. War therefore is necessary, to do a lot of pre-culling, and then the survivors (the saved Elites excepted, in their fortified compounds attached to prison-camps of slaves) will encourage inter-tribal barbarism among the “outsiders” scraping a gatherer-living in the wilds.
Of course Ludwig Von Mises should not be blamed for the output of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute – he died a decade before it was created.
However, Mr Bloom is correct its output of history (although not its output on economics) is essentially worthless – sadly many libertarians write ideological history (what they wish was the case) rather than what actually happened.
The early death of the Emperor Frederick in 1888 (only a few months after the previous Emperor) was tragic – as it removed the only major figure in the German elite opposed to the Bismarkian policy of Blood and Iron, of dominating Europe and so on by military force. Indeed by his dismissal in 1890 Bismark, was relatively, speaking a moderate – he had never really been interested in dominating the world (just Europe) so things like the new Navy and Imperial expansion found in him only a half hearted supporter (it was obvious to the new Emperor William II, that Bismark did not really favour the policy – hence Bismark had to go).
Even in Europe Bismark was satisfied. Germany already had as much as Bismark wanted – indeed he sometimes wondered if Germany had taken too much (areas populated by non Germans – indeed by people hostile to Germany), yes it was very impressive on a map – but was it really worth all the trouble? As for taking over the coastline of northern Europe and working towards the destruction of Britain and well as continental Europe (the German war aims in 1914) would have left Bismark.
Even the “scientific” racism, accepted by the new generation of leaders, was not really Bismark’s position. He might, and did, whip hatred of the Jews to win an election – but he did really believe all this stuff. For example the “inevitable” war between Germans and Slavs (assumed by the younger generation of German leaders – political and academic) was confusing for someone like Bismark – after all not just the royal families were intermarried, the land owning noble families were intermarried also. Who exactly was a German and who a Slav? Was it not just a matter of language and history rather than biological “race”? And did not all gentlemen speak English and French (not German and Russian) anyway?
Even the Emperor William II had his good days (as his defenders eagerly point out) when he doubted all of – the war aims, the destruction of the other European powers and the domination of the world, the racism, everything. But he was an unstable man (he had even been an unstable child) and for every good day there were many bad days – when he believed it all and was easy for the academic and military elite to manipulate. His behaviour on the death of his father in 1888 – the studied contempt for his English mother, and his ordering of a search of his father’s papers for evidence of (totally mythical) Liberal plots against Germany was all too typical of the man. William on a good day, or when he was charmed (Queen Victoria made a special point of treating him very well – see the insecurity and mental instability in him) was fine – but there were too few such good days.
German philosophy (and even German theology) was not helpful – indeed it was incredibly harmful and (alas) the German elite was the best “educated” in the world. Statism was on the rise everywhere – but most of all in the German speaking lands. Had Frederick II lived (had he not died of cancer) would even he have been able to stand against the tide?
The Hapsburg position was somewhat different – as that loyal artillery officer of the army of Franz Joseph (Ludwig Von Mises) was at pains to point out. “Papa Franz” had no dreams of ruling the world, and did not believe in racism (“scientific” or other – he despised the proto Nazi Mayor Vienna and made no secret of the fact) and did not make deranged mystics (such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain – the renegade Englishman who became “more German than the Germans”) his advisers.
Had the 1903 coup in Serbia gone the other way (and it came very close to going other way – the pro Hapsburg King and Queen almost survived, had the secret door not been left a crack open or the light put out……) Serbia and the Empire of the Hapsburgs might have remained friends – there would have been no hatred for the German elite (or the Pan Slav people in Russia) to exploit. The same person in charge of that murder was in charge of Serbian intelligence in 1914 – and had direct links to the “Black Hand” terrorists who murdered Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia – again a close run thing. If Franz Ferdinand had not insisted on going to see the victims of the bomb attack in hospital, of if the driver of the car not got confused on the way back, or if the guard had been on the other side of the car (he flung himself in the direction of the sound of the bullets – but that meant they had already been fired)…..
The last words of Franz Ferdinand “Sophie, Sophie do not die – stay alive for the children” stung people who had not always treated her very well when she was alive (after all she was, relatively “low born”) and had a bad conscience now she was dead – it was not a matter of German style “scientific” geopolitics for the Hapsburg officers (most of whom were dead or wounded by the end of 1914 – partly because of the silly bright sashes they wore, that made them a perfect target for snipers). As for the absurd General Conrad – he believed everything the Germans told him, after all gentlemen do not lie – certainly not to an ally, and was astonished when the Hapsburg army ended up fighting the Serbians and Russians essentially unsupported in 1914.
As Grey (the British F.O. chief) made clear – Britain would not to go war over the Balkans – there had already been two Balkan wars. Grey wanted an international conference – and strongly hinted he would take the Hapsburg side, But then came the German Declaration of war on Russia (the Pan German dream of destroying the Slavs) and, much worse, the German Declaration of France (a tissue of lies – that had the French bombing Bavaria and other nonsense) and the invasion of Belgium, made it clear that the Germans did not have the slightest interest in the Hapsburg matter (it was just a pretext) – the German objective was that of the academic “geo politics” people of the universities, total domination of continental Europe in other to control its resources in order to destroy Britain and become the dominant power in the whole world.
Weeping, Grey and others came to understand that there was no alternative to war – truly the lights had gone out all over Europe, but the Liberal government had no choice (contrary to what Dr Gabb has sometimes indicated – the Conservative opposition was mostly more in favour of war than the Liberals were).
So war was unavoidable – but the terrible nature of the war was NOT unavoidable.
The tactical performance of the British armed forces during the First World War was not generally good although there were some inspired moments – and the performance of Plumer on the Western Front and Allenby in the Middle East was good. There has been in recent decades an effort to defend Haig and others, but I am unconvinced. Indeed I believe that casualties were far higher than they need have been. Tactics of frontal attack against prepared enemy defences had not worked at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 – but they were still used (again and again) in the First World War. Men sent in lines are walking pace, into barbed wire, machine guns, modern artillery and repeating rifles.
True the French were worse in 1914 – their mass attacks (in brightly coloured uniforms, behind their open banners, and with the regimental band playing – no I am not making this up) made the professional killers of the German army (the German conscripts were much better trained than the French ones – and were not dressed up like people from a circus) laugh, but not laugh so much as to forget to kill the French. I am reminded of the despairing complaint of a French general during the war of 1870 that he had been sent no soldiers.
What do you mean, the high command replied, we have sent you plenty of soldiers – no wailed the General “you have sent me lots of brave men who are going to get themselves killed – but you have sent me no soldiers”.
However, the French did learn over time in the First World War (those that lived). And even in 1914 poorly trained Frenchmen, sometimes coming in taxis from the streets of Paris, did fling back the finest army the world had ever known – if only just. Although had the Germans not panicked and sent back divisions to face the Russians, 1914 might have been like 1940 – with the French being taught that courage is no substitute for professionalism. As it was the Germans need not have worried about the Russians – General Samsonov’s Second Russian army marched straight into a German trap, even though Samsonov’s Cossack scouts warned him of it – when Samsonov sent back a message (in clear of course – this was the Russian Army in 1914, the Germans got every word of what they were doing), General Jilinsky just replied that Samsonov was not to “play the coward” and that the advance was to continue.
General Samsonov obeyed his orders – marched his army into the German trap and then (a very Imperial Russian touch) killed himself, which meant that command and control (trying to fight one’s way out of the trap) rather fell apart. Meanwhile General Rennenkampf of the First Russian army made no real effort to help – perhaps because he was a personal enemy of Samsonov (German intelligence knew all about this), but most likely because he was confused – General Rennenkampf was normally confused. The Imperial Russian Army was generally confused – after all its military reorganisation was not planned to be finished till 1918 and the Germans had declared war in 1914 (which was naughty of them – from the Russian point of view).
Such things as the Battle of Kovel in 1916 spring to mind – when the Russian Imperial Guard were sent up a narrow causeway with Germans on both sides and in front.
The Germans, not unsurprisingly, shot and shelled them – some 30 thousand of the Guards Army fell. So the school boy question “why did the Imperial Guard not save the Czar?” is answered by “because most of them were dead”.
The British army?
The ordinary soldiers were good (professionals) in 1914 – 1915, but the two leading officers the “friends” Sir John French and Douglas Haig (both of whom were cavalry officers with no real knowledge of this infantry war) spent a lot of time plotting against each other (writing reports each alleging the other was useless – and THEY WERE BOTH CORRECT) when they were not plotting against other British officers – such General Smith-Dorrien a man with perhaps more combat experience than any other British soldier (even fighting his way out of Isandhlwana) – French and Haig hated him (for reasons that should be obvious). Even Plumer – perhaps the best British general on the Western Front (oh yes – there were some who knew what they were doing), only managed to survive working with Haig by playing the harmless old duffer (so that he would not attract hatred). After all Plumer had committed the terrible offence of failing the young Haig in his examinations (it did not matter, Haig just pulled strings so he got a commission any way), and so had to be very careful – Douglas Haig being a brilliant desk warrior.
Perhaps one battle sums it up – the Battle of Loos in 1915. On the first day Haig managed to gas his own men – his gas shells just made a fog of poison gas in the middle of the battlefield, Haig then had his men charge into it.
On the second day Haig had told General Haking that he would only commit the reserve divisions against a fleeing enemy (the reserve divisions were basically fresh off the boat – and were new volunteers who did have a clue).
Instead Haig decided to throw them against prepared German defences – nineteen feet thick barbed wire, and entrenchments.
Ten lines – a thousand men each, officers to the front on horseback (in case you are wondering Haig was not there – he never led an attack in person in his entire military life, even when he was a junior officer it was always NOT HIM) – by the end of the day eight thousand of those ten thousand men were dead or wounded (the officers died first – so the could not order a retreat) – there were no German casualties at all in the sector of the line on that day, it was the most lop sided engagement in military history.
However, Haig did well out of it – he blamed the mess on Sir John French and got his job.
Perhaps people can now see why I am very intolerant of Haig defenders – and I have even got on to the Somme and Passchendale – and I will not in this comment (I am sorry, but just now I can not give an account of those battles – I am little bit annoyed).
When I was young, military history was written by combat soldiers (such as Colonel Barker) – these days it is written by academics keen to show that the “common people” do not know the “truth” about the First World War, we just see the “shadows on the cave wall” they, the academics, see the “Educated Soldier” “truth”. Actually I think such academics are as wrong headed as Plato was himself.
The Royal Navy was large (vastly bigger than any other navy), but it had lived on its reputation of a century, and was guilty of some tactical failings. Such things as gunnery and the use of lights at night were inferior to the Germans. Also weird practices had crept in – such as moving power about in silk bags rather than sealed containers.
That had been banned (strictly banned) even in Nelson’s day, but had become common by 1914 – on the basis that modern ships were made of steel (not wood) so one did not need to worry about leaking bags causing fires…. in reality ships could still blow up (and did). Battle conditions are chaotic – there is no time to check to see if stuff is leaking out of silk bags, and so on. There were many other little tactical failings – the product of certain lack of professionalism that had crept in over a century of relative naval peace.
Still, overall, the Royal Navy did its job – the outnumbered Germans were eventually hunted down and destroyed (apart from their deadly fleet of submarines) or confined to port. Also the army was got to Europe and kept supplied – these were not easy tasks. Also the Royal Navy had to learn the new anti submarine warfare.
A century before Britain could feed itself – but the expansion of population (some 40 million people by 1914) meant that Britain was dependent on food imports – the Germans planned to starve Britain to defeat, the Royal Navy managed to prevent that, and (in the end) did the very thing to the Germans than the Germans had tried to do to Britain.
Perhaps the worst failing of the Royal Navy was the failure to knock the Turks out of the war and link up with the Russians. Constantinople was the only enemy capital on the sea – the only one Naval guns could reach, but they did not reach it.
Where the Navy had failed the army was sent in – and failed worse, much worse. Sulva Bay in 1915 made even Haig look competent.
General Stopford (and his equally useless fellow commanders) were given the task of clearing one thousand five hundred Turkish troops – with 22 thousand British soldiers.
Stopford did nothing – apart from stay aboard ship claiming his leg was hurting him, General Hammersley claimed to be ill (the physical signs of this “illness” were running into his tent as soon as he heard gunfire and then crouching on the floor with his hands over his head, making odd blubbing noises). General Sitwell said he was too tired to do anything. General Mahon declared that he was far too senior to command only a division – and so did not do anything either.
The German “observer” Major Willmer could hardly contain his glee at British incompetence – describing what the British solders did (as they wandered about aimlessly – without a plan or orders) as like a load of ants when an ant heap is disturbed.
The overall commander of the Gallipoli operation, Sir Ian Hamilton did not do anything about Sulva Bay – at least not till the Turks had rushed thousands of troops there and the chance to end the war in 1915 (by knocking out Constantinople and linking up with the Russians) was lost.
On paper the Allies vastly outnumbered the German War Machine and yes some allied Generals, such as Plumer, killed vast numbers of Germans when they were allowed to do so – but the German War Machine was just that, a WAR MACHINE (designed for war – for domination). It was not a social club – and it was not commanded by clowns.
That is why the war took four years and vast numbers of lives to win – and that is why I am very intolerant of apologists for our performance. Even though, contrary to what is often said, our cause was just and the war was unavoidable.
I must make clear that I am not suggesting that Mr Bloom is an apologist for British military performance. But I have had some unpleasant experiences with the wretched tribe of apologists for terrible commanders.
Not “only” did incompetence mean that the war lasted four years and cost millions of lives, a long (bankrupting) war led indeed to the collapse of much of civilisation – for example the Marxist coup in Russia, which led to the deaths of tens of millions. And led to similar horrors in China and elsewhere.
Also had Germany been quickly and fully defeated (as it should have been), the legend that Germany had not been defeated at all (“after all the Allies did not march down the streets of Berlin – we were still on the frontiers when the deal was made to end the war…… we were stabbed in the back”) would not have grown, and the Nazi movement would not have grown with it.
Perhaps they should just send you next time. You’ll bore them into submission if nothing else.
Aynuk – now that is not very nice of you.
Just because your side lost in 1945 (just as Houston Stewart Chamberlain and co lost in 1918) does not mean you should a bear grudge my dear.
Yes, you are correct, my side did lose in 1945 – and the British people have been losing ever since.
Yes Ian – government, as proportion of the economy, started to grow in Britain from the 1870s – in America it was later (no real growth in taxation till 1913) still much smaller than the German state – but still growing.
In the 1930s the German government was still a vastly greater proportion of the economy (and vastly more regulating) than the British state.
However, this changed after World War II – for the first time in peacetime history Germany became, in some ways, less statist than Britain.
This was due to the massive increase in influence of statist ideas (many of them of German origin – like the American Progressive movement was, in origin, Germanic) in Britain – the British elite had become (almost like Houston Stewart Chamberlain) “more German than the Germans” – with vastly more faith in the state than the Germans had (after all the Germans could see the utter failure of the National Socialist state all around them – in heaps of rubble).
This can be seen in the four sectors of Germany – before the reunification of the Western zones in 1848-9 (at least economically).
The worst zone was the Soviet one – a nightmare of rape and plunder (the present Mayor of New York City would have loved it).
But of the remaining ones….
The least statist zone was the American one.
The next best was the French zone,
And then there was the British zone – not the nightmare of evil that the Soviet zone was, but….
Utterly strangled by Red Tape – endless efforts to “plan” every aspect of life.
In terms of the economics of the State, for me the watershed moment (in Britain) was the nationalisation of the telegraph system. It set an appalling number of precedents- the arbitrary confiscation of a highly innovative new “growth industry sector”, the depressing acquiescence of all parties, the rise of the “proactive bureaucrat” (it was basically the creature of an almost forgotten bureaucrat called Frank Ives Scudamore, who was Chief Poobah at the GPO), the justification of public expansionist policy using junk statistics (it was going to make a glorious profit for the State, yes, really), the first deployment of arguments we now recognise as sadly commonplace (where different companies’ telegraph offices were in competition it was “wasteful duplication of resources”, where they were not it was “an anti-consumer monopoly”, rural regions “served badly by private profiteers”, and perhaps worst, it set the precedent for the nationalisation/control of all future communications technologies- the telephone (“also a telegraph of a kind so we must nationalise that too”), radio (“a wireless telegraph”), television (“a wireless telegraph that transmits pictures”) and on and on.
There are many steps towards the perdition of the Big British Government, but for me (and I think, only me), the telegraph nationalisation was one of the worst. It was 1868- less than 40 years after the Great Reform Act fired the starting gun for the “new modern progressive proactive [insert more buzzwords here] Parliament”.
Having mentioned nationalisation of the telegraph system above, it made me think of a curious effect in the Victorian era, which seems to have been a belief among “progressives” of our ruling class that the Continentals were much more admirable than ourselves- in that case, the fact that on the Continent the governments had taken control over the new telegraph technology, and it was “backward” of Britain to leave it to the private sector. This reminded me of GK Chesterton in Eugenics And Other Evils describing the fascination and admiration for Prussia which he hoped the Great War at least would have put an end to, only to his horror realising that it hadn’t.
Considering that in the period under discussion, Britain was the world superpower, with an Empire on which the sun never set, ruling the oceans, and driving the industrial revolution with innovation and manufacturing might, it seems paradoxical that (some of, at least) our opinion formers had this strange oikophobic fascination with Prussianist Germany and other Continental nations. This being with his area of expertise historically, perhaps Paul can offer some enlightenment on the matter.
By the way, I believe Chesterton’s essay “Eugenics And Other Evils” is essential reading.
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Eugenics.html
My analysis of the causes of WW1 can be found at http://thevoiceofreason-ann.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/poppy-mania-day-prevents-any-rational.html
Your example is a good one Ian.
In America the telegraph companies would have bribed politicians (if they had to) to defend themselves. But in Britain politics was far more honest – and that is not always a good thing.
As for the British elite’s love of Prussia – it goes back all the way to the 1700s the cult of Frederick the Great and so on (Edmund Burke with his anti Prussian stance in the Annual Register is an exception) – one can still find plenty of “liberal” defenders of Frederick the Great and the honest and efficient Prussian state, bring enlightened happiness to the people (as the elite viewed what was happening – not as I view it).
Perhaps if the Empress Elizabeth (a wild blond indeed – although the Empress had taken an oath never to execute anyone, and kept that oath, that did not mean she was soft in relation to war) lived a few months longer and her Cossacks taken Berlin, this cult might have been killed off – but alas…..
By the early 19th century even liberal philosophers such as Sir William Hamilton and J.S. Mill were using the term “the state” as if was a positive term (a term to be used with awe – very German, specifically very Prussian). The British Raj in India is not as free market as people think, far from it, and I suspect that the enlightened “experts” would have liked to rule Britain in the same way.
I remember reading a philosophy book by Hamilton and he defines, in passing, a university as an institution set up BY THE STATE.
Historically most universities had been set up by the Church (not the state) and there were plenty of independent universities in the United States even when Hamilton was writing – yet his default definition had to include the holy words “the state”.
“The British should have made their position unequivocal very publicly in 1903, under no circumstances would the Empire go to war unless it was directly threatened.”
Very well said, Godfrey. Security alliances cause more wars than prevent them. They suffer from the evils of socialism–all nations can claim security resources from all others–, the “tragedy of the commons”–whereby commonly held resources, in this case security, are plundered to extinction–, and moral hazard-alliance members engage in more risky ventures, because they believe that others will pay all or a goodly part of the cost of failure.
NATO is emblematic of all the evils mentioned above. Since the fall of the Soviet Union it has added twelve new members, ten of which were former members of the Warsaw Pact and the other two former provinces of communist Yugoslavia. Today NATO threatens to add Ukraine and Finland…for no good reason. Why were any of these nations added to the alliance? In fact, why wasn’t NATO disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union? Silly question. No military empire ever disbands itself; it continues to expand until defeated. No one really believes that Russia will attack Western Europe, weak as it is.
The fact is that Eastern Europe will suffer at least another generation of turmoil, possibly longer, from the breakup of the Soviet Union, which colonized its neighbors and causes all the problems there today. NATO cannot solve these problems, but it can make them very much worse by defining the problem as one of an aggressive and expansionist Russia.
Let them sort it out themselves.