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andy at handiwork wrote:

> I have to agree. There is so much said that is
> well-intentioned, but misinformed, about WW1. I can recomend
> Gordon Corrigan's book 'Mud, Blood and Poppycock'
> ()
> as a good place to start to demolish many of the myths
> surrounding the conflict. I'm not going to rehash his many
> arguments here, but as he makes clear, it was not the war but
> the peace that caused people to look back on it as a futile
> waste. At the time and for some years after, it was regarded
> as a struggle that had to be fought to prevent an autocratic
> and militarist Germany from controlling Europe. And if it had
> been seen at the time as so terrible, with the rank and file
> being forced at gun-point to fight against their will, how was
> it that the British army in 1918, alone amongst the combatants
> not to suffer mutinies, was able by force of arms and
> professionalism, (with increasing help from the US, and an
> exhausted France), to finally advance and defeat the German
> army in a series of stunning victories?


Too true, I've read that book with great interest. "Oh What a Lovely War" was a musical, not a work of historical fact. Remember that even at the Battle of the Somme, when 20,000 were killed on 1st July 1916, there was a one week artillery barrage before the attack, which was meant to destroy the German defences. Obviously it didn't work, but it is wrong to suggest the General Staff didn't care about casualities, and just sent men over the top to be chewed up by machine guns without caring what happened to them.

Spot on Beestonboy.
The Lions and Donkeys shyte was thought up to explain the tremendous losses, but, at the time all sides lost a tremendous amount of lives. It was a completely new form of warfare and the rules were being made as the war progressed.
As a matter of fact the British top brass were a fucking sight better than any of the fucking French and the fucking gung fucking ho fucking Yanks who came in after 3 years to save Europe. Useless gobshyte bastards, well, their top brass were.
The best senior officers of WW2 learned their trade in the trenches. Monty was severely wounded and when he was later placed in charge of the Army he determined that there would be no losses a la WW1 with his soldiers.
The 8th Army idolised him and they were a fucking fearsome bunch and that is a fact. The 14th Army under Bill Slim were also a fearsome bunch who fought the fucking Japs to a standstill in Burma and defeated the bastards. Slim was idolised as Montgomery was, and quite right too.
Twatts like Patton and Clark were always slagging Montgomery off because he would not commit his soldiers the way that fucking pair of twatts Patton and Clark did. The British Army was no where near the size of the Yanks who when they lost men just demanded some more. We couldn't do that.

As one of the few pornographers with a degree in military history let me add my five pennies to the debate:

1. The 1st WW along the Western Front and at Gallipoli was a horriible,
ghastly, terrifying and sad waste of millions of precious young lives.
2. Only in East Africa did it move away from stalemate into the kind of
elan and dashing clashes we associate with some other wars.
3. But death is still death....and Britain saw more of its sons
killed and wounded on the FIRST DAY of the Battle of the Somme than
all the Americans in the Vietnam War ! When you tell Yanks that fact
it usually shuts them up !
4. And, little Englanders reading this, remember that when the old
regular army of "contemptibles" was being re-formed into a mighty
war machine in 1914-15 the trenches were filled with thousands of
Indians, Pakistanis and Gurkhas who gave their lives valiantly for
the King Emperor and went on fight in other places too.
5. In 1920 one in three British women 20-40 years had a chance of
finding a husband, so many young men were dead or maimed.
6. Those guys joined up to fight because they believed in something
unknown to lads today - love of country, pride in the Empire.
7. In percentage terms far more officers died than enlisted men. They
might have been toffs but they were toffs with guts ! The first
over the top. And they had a sang-froid we cannot even understand
unless we laugh at it - like the famous officer who kicked a football
across No Mans Land saying, "Come on lads, anyone for footers!"
8. I have a great respect for British fighting men.....but British officers,
for all their faults, can knock the shit out of our foes and have done
so in countless fights !!!
9. To all who died in that bloody foul war, especially in the mud of the
Western Front, Briton, colonial or German, they deserve our
lasting respect.

They have our lasting respect.

I can agree with all of that.I have a couple of friends who did Modern History at KCL,and they are very good to listen to,on the subject.I shall be at Remembrance Sunday shortly at Palace Barracks ,near Belfast,in The Garden of Remembrance there.