Populist view of the war

jpm4

Do you ever get irritated at the laymans view of the war? The endless obsession with the Somme, the mud at Passchendeale, lions led by donkeys, Blackadder qoutes and so on, while events like the allied victory of 1918 are rarely mentioned. In fact, the fact that the allies won at all seems almost an embarressment to bleeding heart documentary makers.

Don't get me wrong all the above are important and worthy of discussion, but am always fascinated by how WW1 is generally seen as this horrendous, indefendable bloodbath while WW2 is rarely seen as such, despite it being carnage on an unimaginable scale that completely dwarves the first war.

It seems no other war has been so (mis)understood by the art it has inspired.

Fratton Fred

There was a documentary on the BBC (It may even have been an article on the website) about this. To an extent, WWI has been the victim of the socialist movement within the UK and the left has demonised WWI for its own means. Lions lead by Donkeys is a great example, the donkeys being the upper ruling classes and the lions the working class man.

one example was the instruction of "get out of the trench and walk, don't run, towards the enemy", this tactic has always been considered as a stupid thing to do, but the vast majority of those killed were killed in hand to hand combat once the enemy trench had been reached, therefore, if you ran, not only did you get there before your comrades and make yourslef an easy target, you were also too knackered to fight.

Interesting subject, it will be interesting to see what others have to say.

Morlar

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Lions lead by Donkeys is a great example, the donkeys being the upper ruling classes and the lions the working class man.

I know that phrase came about during WWI but you could of course also apply it to other wars wherever a heroic sacrifice was made where it was not necessary or prudent due to a leadership error (Crimea - charge of the light brigade etc). However I think the difference in WWI was the scale of events like the Somme & Gallipoli etc. The fact that in many cases the sides were so entrenched that whenever they would sacrifice large numbers of men for a few miles of open ground they would often give it up again shortly afterwards. The public perception of the value of this was bound to be questioned more on this basis, also due to the vast numbers of families who had men over there (in a way which did not apply to other wars).

Perhaps progress in terms of the media involvement compared to earlier wars and the relative speed in which news made it that short distance home from france could have been a factor. I believe the people at home would have been better informed and more drawn in to the events (for reasons including the above) during that war than probably in any war previous to that, so the level of criticism and debate etc would probably have increased as a result.

The class distinction between officers and men was not a socialist invention, the officers were indeed drawn from public schools while the men were almost entirely working class/lower middle class, and it was of course not just that the men died in greater numbers but that it was often at least percieved to be due to mistakes made by their superiors.

This is one of the areas where in later years the nazis and particularly the SS reversed this fashion and drew their leaders intentionally from the working or rural class and leadership was assigned on merit not on which school the man had been through or how far he had progressed academically. They also ensured that the men led from the front which had a massive effect on turnover but the men were arguably a more cohesive unit when working in this way.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

one example was the instruction of "get out of the trench and walk, don't run, towards the enemy", this tactic has always been considered as a stupid thing to do, but the vast majority of those killed were killed in hand to hand combat once the enemy trench had been reached,

I always thought it was to 'keep the line' which probably would have been more relevant in earlier wars. I think the merits of this would depend on the specifics ie if they were marching at a walking pace into lines of machine guns the logic of arriving at the enemy lines all at the same time (or as a result of the walking advance - not arriving at all) would be questionable.

I can see your overall point however I think the merits of this depend on the specifics of the day. This was also one development of WWII over WWI where hitler's blitzkreig method was designed (based on his experience) to prevent such a stalemate by smashing everything through at the same time in one concentrated point then encircling rather than long drawn out battles of entrenched sides (in terms of offensive battles at least).

Fratton Fred

I realise nothing really changed during WWI in terms of the class distinction between officers and men, but socialism really only took hold in UK mainstram politics in the early 20s with the rise of labour, so rather than the class divide being the norm, it was highlighted and exploited for political purposes as much as anything.

Also, I believe WWI was the first war Britain was involved in where more men died as a direct result of the conflict than did from disease, so a lot more "Tommies" were being patched up and sent home. In the Boer war for example, if you were injured, you were most likely dead anyway from resultant disease, so not many injured people came home. In WWI the streets of England had people walking around blind from Mustard gas or crippled as a result of losing legs etc. No one had to read about the horrors of war, it was there staring them in the face.

Add to the fact that it was a pointless war that resulted from imperial chest beating, it really changed the way people viewed conflict and also viewed the political status quo.

R.Dub.Fusilier

Fratton Fred wrote: »

one example was the instruction of "get out of the trench and walk, don't run, towards the enemy",

this always seemed stupid to me , men walking to their deaths which of course is an incredably brave thing to do . but one of the reasons they walked was because the ground was so churned up and full of shell holes that a lot of the time it would have been impossible to run .

arnhem44

No man's land was not always right opposite you,as R.Dub just mentioned the ground was often churned up from shells and weather,for any soldier to run at distance was often exhausted before they even got to there objective.The Germans introduced the use of Stormtroops which bypassed the first line at speed to capture the lines behind creating an encirclement with the regular infantry who were also coming forward,this was extremely effective but misused by the Germans as they often went so far it became difficult to supply them and they themselves found themselves cut off.I think also in alot of cases the commanders and officers put thousands of men to there death in the belief that artillery had destroyed enemy lines ahead of an advance.

goldie fish

There were numerous myths that came about from the First World war, that these days are accepted as fact. Currently reading "Myths and Legends of the first world war" by James Hayward, which describes, and sets out to dispel many of these.
For instance, the common myth was that many deaths in Flanders and on the somme were caused by wounded soldiers drowning in flooded shell holes.
There is very little evidence of this. While their bodies may have been lost in these shell holes, they were well dead before the hole flooded.
The "Lions led by Donkeys" is another myth. The tactics employed were accepted military doctrine at the time, and the somme offensive actually achieved its objectives, with acceptable casualties, given the huge concentration of troops involved. Indeed during the Battle of Loos, 8 generals were among the dead, which takes from the notion that they were all leading from the rear, in a Chateaux 20 miles behind the front line.