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On Remembrance Day, we commemorate the memories of those Canadians who've died in war, and the sacrifices they've made for our freedom.

This meshes with what happened in World War II, wherein Hitler and/or the Japanese would have conquered the world if they weren't stopped. However, I've always been kind of leery about World War I, which I've always considered to be a glorified pissing match between the European empires to see which of them was the most badass, sending millions of people to their deaths for no real reason. I also think that Great Britain, France, Russia and the other Allied Powers were just as responsible for that slaughter, a slaughter that killed a generation of Canadians and nearly tore the country apart.

The problem I have, though, is with voicing these opinions, which I'm afraid might disrespect the memory of those Canadians who died in World War I. This is the absolute last thing I want to do-I think that their memory should be honoured as a reminder that peoples' lives are precious, and they shouldn't be casually thrown away the way they were in World War I. That would be the point I'd be trying to make in criticizing World War I and Great Britain's conduct in it, but I'm afraid it could be misstated.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

   

Just be sure to clarify between the behaviour of the British general staff officers and Lloyd-George's government from the efforts of the British rank-and-file. The British troops were just as much victims of the ineptitude and malice of their own staff officers as any of the Dominion soldiers were. There's few, if any, historians left these days who engage in apologetics for the thinking and actions of the British military upper ranks of the time.

   

Oh, by all means. I never meant to intimate that the British troops were any less a victim than we were. Everybody fighting for the British Empire in those days-and let's face it, many of the troops fighting for other countries such as Russia and Austria-Hungary-were lions led by donkeys.

Funny how often that occurs in history, doesn't it?

   

Staffs of Germany, France, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Turkey werent any better.

Everyone played the same game.

   

I have a book called Butchers, Bunglers and ......" I forget the last word. It is about the morons that led the British army in WWI. Most of the basterds should have been tried for war crimes against their own troops

   

Even though they knew there was to be an armistice in 5 hours many senior officers sent troops into battle for nothing. No ground to be gained just generals wanting glory and medals. Bodies were found with the 1914 Star, a medal awarded to those that served at the beginning of hostilities, only to be slaughtered in the final hours, even minutes of the war. The telling of the last few hours is indicitive of the mentality of the entire war.

   

Throw the American generals in that group as well. We had armories full of Browning M1918s but our soldiers were given the POS Chauchat instead.

   

Reminds me of how the Canadians were sent into battle with the Ross Rifle, a gun that looked nice on the paradegrounds but tended to jam in the mud of the trenches. It got so bad that Canadian soldiers were reduced to stealing the Lee-Enfield rifles off the corpses of dead British troops.

   

We're back to the old Blackadder version of WWI here.

This'll set the record straight...

Viewpoint: 10 big myths about World War One debunked


5. 'Lions led by donkeys'


George V and his generals, Buckingham Palace 1918

This saying was supposed to have come from senior German commanders describing brave British soldiers led by incompetent old toffs from their chateaux. In fact the incident was made up by historian Alan Clark.

During the war more than 200 generals were killed, wounded or captured. Most visited the front lines every day. In battle they were considerably closer to the action than generals are today.

Naturally, some generals were not up to the job, but others were brilliant, such as Arthur Currie, a middle-class Canadian failed insurance broker and property developer.

Rarely in history have commanders had to adapt to a more radically different technological environment.

British commanders had been trained to fight small colonial wars; now they were thrust into a massive industrial struggle unlike anything the British army had ever seen.

Despite this, within three years the British had effectively invented a method of warfare still recognisable today. By the summer of 1918 the British army was probably at its best ever and it inflicted crushing defeats on the Germans.


Some other WWI myths debunked:

4. The upper class got off lightly

Although the great majority of casualties in WW1 were from the working class, the social and political elite were hit disproportionately hard by WW1. Their sons provided the junior officers whose job it was to lead the way over the top and expose themselves to the greatest danger as an example to their men.

Some 12% of the British army's ordinary soldiers were killed during the war, compared with 17% of its officers. Eton alone lost more than 1,000 former pupils - 20% of those who served. UK wartime Prime Minister Herbert Asquith lost a son, while future Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law lost two. Anthony Eden lost two brothers, another brother of his was terribly wounded, and an uncle was captured.


9. The Treaty of Versailles was extremely harsh

The Treaty of Versailles confiscated 10% of Germany's territory but left it the largest, richest nation in central Europe.

It was largely unoccupied and financial reparations were linked to its ability to pay, which mostly went unenforced anyway.

The treaty was notably less harsh than treaties that ended the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War and World War Two. The German victors in the former annexed large chunks of two rich French provinces, part of France for between 200 and 300 years, and home to most of French iron ore production, as well as presenting France with a massive bill for immediate payment.


Treaty of Versailles Treaty of Versailles, 1919

After WW2 Germany was occupied, split up, its factory machinery smashed or stolen and millions of prisoners forced to stay with their captors and work as slave labourers. Germany lost all the territory it had gained after WW1 and another giant slice on top of that.

Versailles was not harsh but was portrayed as such by Hitler, who sought to create a tidal wave of anti-Versailles sentiment on which he could then ride into power.


Viewpoint: 10 big myths about World War One debunked - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25776836

   

   

This is irrelevant drivel.
Being close to the front gives no indication that any General had his eyes open enough
to understand what he was looking at.

Anyway, those low ranking Generals were not responsible for conducting the War; Staff was.

Let's start with Rawlinson, the architect of the Battle of the Somme.

July 1, 1916 Over the top lads, off you go....... 20,000 dead.

What we do tomorrow, Henry ?

Oh, the same thing will be fine.

What we do in August, Henry ?

Same tactics, always the same tactics.

It's getting close to November, Henry, shall we keep doing the same thing ?

Why yes, yes let's attack every day the same way, for 5 months now.




Western Front Casualties
(British monthly)
July–December 1916
Month Casualties
July 196,081
August 75,249
September 115,056
October 66,852
November 46,238
December 13,803
Total British 513,289

All that, for about 10km of front.


Fucking brilliant, that Henry Rawlinson. There is your donkey, boys.


It took men like a failed insurance broker to show the High Command to fight
and not destroy yourself doing it.

   

Notice Douglas Haig was prominently missing from that drivel.

   

I'm starting with the easy stuff. Haig was the one who gave Rawlinson the job of the Somme.

   

I'm thankful that General Pershing refused to have American troops become backfill for French and British units where they would have been no more than cannon fodder.

   

I'm hoping more that this exercise in neo-apologetics for British politics and policy during that time period is just a few outliers being disingenuous and not symptomatic of a general British attitude that's taken root. They lost the most life at the hands and plans of their own general staff and politicians so it'd be kind of morally hideous to discover that some nonsensical version of British 'exceptionalism' (i.e. we are NEVER wrong, EVER) is now in vogue and gaining strength.

   

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